By Christopher Briem, on October 31st, 2012
So BLS is reporting that the Pittsburgh regions seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked up to 7.4% in September, from 7.3% in August. It is a curious artifact of the new seasonal adjustment in that the seasonally unadjusted rate for the region was 6.7% in September of 2011, AND September of 2012.
I thought to be fair I should update my rust belt divergence chart of unemployment rates in Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit. See below. I will add in Charlotte gratuitously. Yes, to give credit where due, Cleveland has been coming in under our unemployment rate the last few months. Go Cleveburgh!
It is not quite a strict comparison of course. Pittsburgh looks to again be setting a new record in the size of the regional labor force.
But here is the graph. Lots of convergence. What I find surprising is that for 5 months earlier in the year Charlotte’s unemployment rate was higher than Detroit’s. Just a factoid to chomp on.
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By Christopher Briem, on February 24th, 2011
Many readers here know of the debate and dialogue over Chrysler’s long and expensive Super Bowl ad highlighting the auto industry and Detroit.
As cool as the Detroit version is to watch, when it comes to the core message it is trying to send, I just don’t see much different between these two industry sponsored video productions; separated by a half century they may be.
By Christopher Briem, on January 10th, 2011
Neither hagiography nor its opposite, but note the opening sentence of this story: Low education levels holding Nevada’s economy back, official says. goes like this:
Nevada’s higher education levels are holding the region back from diversifying its economy and the city has become a modern-day version of Pittsburgh or Detroit, which once relied on one sector for its growth to its detriment, the director of a UNLV-based think tank said today. (emphasis added)
…. of what Pittsburgh was maybe??? I guess they kind of sneak in the past tense, but still they need the memo. We have become iconic though, but we knew that already. The region as Warhol… or is it vice versa?
By Christopher Briem, on January 3rd, 2011
Really really wanted to end the year on a positive, maybe we will start the new year with something less negative. Anyway.. Trib follows up on the story of the Detroit pension system’s losing bet on our casino: Casino’s Struggles Felt in Detroit.
Here is the thing. the story that came from sounds horrible. Risky bets cost Detroit pension funds $480 million. Yet the Detoit pension system, which is made up of two big pension systems I presume for uniformed and nonuniformed employees were funded at 100% and 106% in their latest audits. Granted those are from last year, but that is at least as current as our information here.
Go read the numbers yourself: See page 23 (per the pdf) of their General Retirement System audit, or the similar document for their Police and Fire Retirement system (page 25 per the pdf numbering). I’d point you out to read the comparable documents for the pension system here… but, you know.
So even after its $480mil dollar loss (a big chunk of which coming from our casino) Detroit’s pension system is three times as well funded as Pittsburgh’s pension systems combined. Maybe 4-5+ times as well funded as the Police pension fund (the worst-funded of our 3 pension funds) is here. Detroit!? Paragon of sound fiscal governance and transparency.
Might be intersting to look at an end of year news piece out of Detroit today. For them, their pension issues have truly become all consuming:
Another federal grand jury is probing potential problems with the city’s two pension funds. Subpoenas were issued to a top pension official and to the pensions themselves seeking records about investments, including a residential real estate development in Florida.
They’re mad that their pension fund is at or above 100% funding? While we are so happy with how things are going here that we are doing anything conceivable (and the inconceivable) to make sure nothing changes here?
Still an interesting tale of how Detroit got caught up in it all. Below is the ownership schematic and financing behind the reoarganization of the River Casino operation as of when Bluhm took it over from Barden. I would suggest that whenever you are a bank and have dotted lineds connecting you in a diagram like this, you have things to worry about. The multiple colors just for the Detroit pension folks is probably a red flag in itself. I’m just guessing Bluhm is a financial genius that is befitting a billionaire. If the Detroit pension system, and I am presuming Key Bank along the way as well took such big hits in this… then I bet his controlling interest in the casino didn’t really cost him all that much in comparison.
fyi this must be all before the debt/equity was restructured. Anyone have a similar diagram of the current, post reorg ownership structure of the Rivers Casino? Must have a bigger like to the Detroit pension system I figure. I wonder if one of their pension board folks gets expense paid trips to the casino here?
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By Christopher Briem, on December 31st, 2010
Ha. you thought this was going to be about the doings downtown today. Not quite, but everything is related somehow.
Can’t believe I missed this. From the Detroit Free Press: Risky bets cost Detroit pension funds $480 million. and check out their side story: Where the Detroit pension funds went wrong. Note the picture they have there on the right. Look familiar? Their accounting.. a $97 million dollar investment in the casino here is now worth $100,000. That would be called a high risk and illiquid asset. Still wondering what specifically makes up our pension fund’s illiquid assets… and what return current (and past!) private equity investments have garnered in a final accounting. Wonks can dream.
Does make you want to give 200 million working captial to people who make those decision. Doesn’t it.
We all know what one of the ‘bets’ the Detroit pension system made is right? Would be a sure thing casino in Downtown Pittsburgh. That has turned out real well for them. Not. In fact, I really suspect that the bath (euphemistically the restructuring ) the Detoit pension system took on its investment here is why the debt rating of the casino here is considered a “selective default”.
Looks like they have a whole series on the problems the Detroit pension system has. The really really sad thing in all that is that the Detroit public pension system is in far far better financial shape than is the city of Pittsburgh’s pension fund. Really.. by far. Also much more transparent if you believe that even. That’s the thing that gets me about all the pension bruhaha here. Folks on all sides debating over things that are mostly unknown to the public, and even to the folks who are supposed to know what is going on.
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