Why so silent on the huge elephant in the room?

[divideandconquer]

For instance, take the state of New Jersey. How many people know that in 1989 (when the CAFR was much easier to read) the state had $70 billion in common stock ownership.

Is that direct ownership or indirect "ownership" through pension funds? Bingo.

Here's the thing. The financial reports of corporations and banks are out there for everyone to see.

So are the CAFRs. I'm looking at one from the City of Wilmington, N.C. for 2013 now. I've Googled it. Some of the nefarious assets the city owns, over 40% of assets is roads - page 162. The CAFR considers these assets as an investment.

Where is the meat and potatoes here? Page 187? Total assets of all taxable property? $14billion Looks about right considering all taxable property includes the property that isn't government owned.

Where's the smoking gun in this document? Honest question.

Your first post of this thread you stated that CAFRs are meant to extract wealth. Extract it and put it where, to whom and for who's benefit? If it is just to extract so as not to be used, then that's money that politicians are aware of and consent to allow to sit idle. I've never seen a group of politicians just sit on public money without spending it. I've also never seen evidence of a group of politicians conspire every 2 to 4 years, from one elected body to the next, to hide this same exact pot of money. Thousands of elected officials and so few whistleblowers?... I've seen politicians conspire to steal public money. Is that what the CAFR business is about? If so, I guess banks would be a swell source to launder through.

Grabbing one or two pages from one CAFR out of 230,000 CAFRs, each one, hundreds of pages long, and then acting as if you understand the issue is silly. At the very least, watch Corporation Nation, or if you're good with numbers, or you are an accountant, grab a few CAFRs and go through each and every page in order to get a general understanding, because I can't continue to argue with someone who won't take the time it takes to fully comprehend such a complex issue.

Once again, the issue is not theft in the legal sense. Everything they're doing is "legal". The issue is the intentional misdirection by selective presentation and the cooperative effort for non-disclosure that includes the syndicated media, controlled education and both political parties regarding the true wealth of government, which was/is created off of the backs of the people. The intentional void in the population's cognitive understanding of budgetary basics.

[Occult Means Hidden]

Since you understand it and I don't, explain it to me with proof. Link to a .gov or a .edu please or legitimate journalism from a .com. I provided an explanation for the New Jersey example you presented. Although your example was without any link. My counter was a very public acknowledgement and understanding from journalists and New Jersey politicians recognizing the state's investment activity. Even having directors and councils dedicated to the activity. Your claim that government investment activity is occluded in secrecy, what about this?

You state that New Jersey had some $70 billion in common stock in 1989. Then you state, "Just imagine what that total is today!". Ok. Let's imagine. Let's guestimate to 2008 per my prior article. 19 years compound interest at 4% based on this: http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/doinvest/cash3.shtml

Total is about $147 billion? Say inflationary loss of 2%? Say pension payout of 25%? $120* Billion ballpark maybe? Probably much less as the article makes clear can happen, in 2015 dollars. In fact, they haven't seemed to bounce back much from the 2008 crash. Their website lists the pension's current market value: http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/doinvest/

*pretty damn close to the 2008 article amount for total liabilities, coincidently.

You claim that people don't hear about CAFRs much, but indeed people don't hear about Statements of Shareholder Equity either. I want to learn. Educate me.

[Occult Means Hidden]

I'll check out the Corporation Nation video you posted D&C. In the meantime, can you please link to one .gov link and page within the last 3 years on a CAFR that supports the premise contended in this OP? The level of support here doesn't have to be earth-shaking, just to land further credence to the premise. I'm clearly expending the most resource in this endeavor by doing this since the video is 3 hours long. Deal?

[divideandconquer]

I've spent years trying to understand the CAFR issue and you want me to prove it to you with one link? I told you how to search for CAFRs and I told you that they do everything in their power to obfuscate the report. In other words, they're certainly not going to spell it out for you on the .gov site. And, as I've said before, the CAFR is an OPEN secret It's not taught in schools. It's not talked about on TV. It's not explained in the newspapers. We’re conditioned to believe government survives on tax income alone. But once you learn of its existence, yeah, it's easy to find and its easy to identify the people and agencies connected to it,

The video does a great job of explaining it in detail, but it sounds like you've already made up your mind. As it is 3 hours, and that's just part 1, watching it is probably a waste of your time.

[brainpanhandler]

[BrandonD]

Respectfully, improved human communications sounds good but in the wrong direction, more rather than less human-centric. One could argue improved communication reduces the ecological vigor of humanity by less variation to respond to stressors. If humanity gets another chance, the nadir may be back to the caves or trees without technology, grand ideas, or robust language.

Obviously, I am not a purist because I am interested in politics and economics and so on; but there is a deeper level of understanding to be found in ecology of the natural world.

If humanity destroys their own habitat, nature abides.

Thank you for the comments. My subject was not related to communication but rather to what we consider the foundations of our knowledge and understanding, by which we judge and act in the world. But I can understand the misreading, I think these subjects might be a bit too "meta" and out of place in an economics thread.

[PufPuf93]

Respectfully, improved human communications sounds good but in the wrong direction, more rather than less human-centric. One could argue improved communication reduces the ecological vigor of humanity by less variation to respond to stressors. If humanity gets another chance, the nadir may be back to the caves or trees without technology, grand ideas, or robust language.

Obviously, I am not a purist because I am interested in politics and economics and so on; but there is a deeper level of understanding to be found in ecology of the natural world.

If humanity destroys their own habitat, nature abides.

Thank you for the comments. My subject was not related to communication but rather to what we consider the foundations of our knowledge and understanding, by which we judge and act in the world. But I can understand the misreading, I think these subjects might be a bit too "meta" and out of place in an economics thread.

Thank you for noticing my posts. WR pricked my attention with ecological concepts. Back in my 40s / mid 1990s I was a lecturer / researcher at Oregon State and a PhD was part of the package. My research interests and program were forest ecology and natural resource economics; assigned research was specifically how to manage for old-growth habitat and old-growth dependent wildlife species on land allocated for timber harvest. This work was interrupted by factors out of my control in 1998 but the research and my prior work in industry and at Cal made an impact. While at Cal in 1986, I began applying variants of the Black-Scholes option pricing model to timber valuation and decision-making. The option pricing model gave different answers in many instances than traditional methods used in forestry.

The mathematics and forms of the models used in ecology and economics are the same and may be merged with covariates and controlling variables of interest. The Capital Asset Pricing Model, option pricing, and dynamic optimization are the guts of the algorithms used in automated trading programs by the investment banks. One can apply these models to forests. One can separate timber markets risk and biological risk as separate phenomena and treat the processes as fractal. By applying the financial models to forests and adding a biological component, the result is forests that are grown to larger size, higher stand volumes, and older age.

My Masters was at Cal in 1980s and the research topic was securitization of timber lands. Janet Yellen was on my Committee at Cal (but I do not hold her in high regard). Prior to leaving industry for OSU, I testified as a forest economist before several Congress Sub-Committees regards the Northern Spotted Owl as a consultant (working for a Portland, OR Management Consulting firm) for the CA Governor's Office on Planning and Research. Most people would not notice this but since 1990 many timber companies have divested their timberlands to various timber securities marketed by institutional investors and western corporate forests in particular are grown to larger size, higher stand volumes, and older age. The securitization allows the forests to be rolled over to new increasingly longer term investors rather than face the inventory holding costs and harvest pressure if still "owned" the mid sized corporate forest products firm.

I realize my posts were out of step with the general tone of the thread but maybe did consider "the foundations of our knowledge and understanding, by which we judge and act in the world". WR mentioned ecological concepts dealing with limits and my response pointed out that they are subject to primary productivity from the Sun via photosynthesis. Maybe too economics and ecology are one and the same, the models are. I am very gloomy about the midterm prospects for humanity alas. Please understand my out of phase riff. I spent about 1/3 of my life rephrasing ecology to people interested in economics or rephrasing economics to ecologists to give them strength.

[Occult Means Hidden]

I've spent years trying to understand the CAFR issue and you want me to prove it to you with one link? .

I didn't ask you to prove it with one link. I asked, " can you please link to one .gov link and page within the last 3 years on a CAFR that supports the premise contended in this OP? The level of support here doesn't have to be earth-shaking, just to land further credence to the premise." Since this is so complex, then I understand one link wouldn't prove anything out-right. Since all CAFRs are similar, each should have an element within it that obfuscates from the public the wealth extracting mechanism. You suggested the City of Wilmington CAFR on an earlier page and a gleaming of its contents should provide some level of intrigue, somewhere. I pulled up that city's CAFR and analyzed it to my best but with no solid reply by you. Also I've been aware of CAFRs for some time long before you posted and I do have some accounting experience.

I'm not arguing with you, i'm debating you. This means i'm challenging your assumptions and statements in order to probe for weakness in the premise. I'm trying to do this with rigor, here.

Also there are probably thousands of post graduate or graduate accounting research thesis projects, professors and students across the country. Accounting is an academic discipline with many peer reviewed publications, afterall. I would think one could distinguish itself by basing its study into the revelation of the method. I would be interested in one academic source. Just one.

[chump]

https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-3 ... the-money/

https://youtu.be/n3xgjxJwedA

Leo Wanta?

[divideandconquer]

I've spent years trying to understand the CAFR issue and you want me to prove it to you with one link? .

I didn't ask you to prove it with one link. I asked, " can you please link to one .gov link and page within the last 3 years on a CAFR that supports the premise contended in this OP? The level of support here doesn't have to be earth-shaking, just to land further credence to the premise." Since this is so complex, then I understand one link wouldn't prove anything out-right. Since all CAFRs are similar, each should have an element within it that obfuscates from the public the wealth extracting mechanism. You suggested the City of Wilmington CAFR on an earlier page and a gleaming of its contents should provide some level of intrigue, somewhere. I pulled up that city's CAFR and analyzed it to my best but with no solid reply by you. Also I've been aware of CAFRs for some time long before you posted and I do have some accounting experience.

I'm not arguing with you, i'm debating you. This means i'm challenging your assumptions and statements in order to probe for weakness in the premise. I'm trying to do this with rigor, here.

Also there are probably thousands of post graduate or graduate accounting research thesis projects, professors and students across the country. Accounting is an academic discipline with many peer reviewed publications, afterall. I would think one could distinguish itself by basing its study into the revelation of the method. I would be interested in one academic source. Just one.

Do you believe CAFRs exist? If so, why doesn't anyone outside those who work in government accounting offices and those who research beyond the surface, even educated people, know of the CAFR's existence? That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

There are no "peer reviewed" publications on the CAFR for all of the reasons I stated in my previous posts. You are on your own if and when you should decide to research it for yourself. That, in and of itself, should present one with suspicion and questions because we have a right to know the true wealth of our nation considering it's our money. It should NOT take the average person and/or an intelligent person months and/or years to comprehend its basic components.

However, I can tell you what I (no accounting and/or actuarial background) did. CAFRs from the last 20 years are sent to libraries, so, I looked at CAFRS before they were deliberately obfuscated to give me a general idea of how it should appear, and some knowledge of the substantial information it includes. From there I looked at future CAFRs and tried to decipher the contents with lots of help from Clint Richardson's video. Still, I am far from an expert on the CAFR, but I now have a general idea of what its reporting and that is massive growth and massive wealth, beyond what the common person can even imagine.

In 2000, the US government consisted of 54,000 incorporated entities each with their own CAFR.
In 2007, the US government consisted of 184,000 incorporated entities each with their own CAFR.
In 2015, the US government consisted of 230,000 incorporated entities each with their own CAFR.

I mean, before I learned about the CAFR, when I trusted the government and mainstream media for the most part, when I thought that taxes were the only source of government revenue, despite my fear of numbers and math in general, I had no problem comprehending the public budget. Because they do everything in their power to present the incomplete public budget clear as day and they don't let you forget it.

Once again, the bottom line is that the public is being deceived. The public budget that they rant and rave over on TV, print above the fold in newspapers, and on the covers of magazines and teach to students even at the doctorate level, completely eliminates the nation's wealth, or any mention of the CAFR. You don't have to be a scholar or an academic to understand that.

[Wombaticus Rex]

There are no "peer reviewed" publications on the CAFR for all of the reasons I stated in my previous posts. You are on your own if and when you should decide to research it for yourself.

Actually there's quite a bit, surely something to celebrate. I certainly wouldn't know about it if not for my day job on the frontiers of neoliberalism, but there's at least one academic (peer reviewed, even!) journal dedicated to studying & documenting that intersection between accounting arcana and actual governance.

Research in Accounting Regulation
Editor: G. Previts

The scope of service provided by professional accountants is influenced by legislation and case law as well as the dictates of a variety of government and private sector agencies. These entities and self-regulatory organizations such as U.S. State Societies of CPAs and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and equivalent and emerging national bodies that exist in most developed and developing countries are among the emerging entities which attempt to coordinate the activities of professional accountants among sovereign nations. It is important for academics, students, practitioners, regulators and researchers to consider and study the role and relationship of such bodies with the practice and content of our discipline.

They're fairly new -- can't be older than the Bush Administration.

Now of course, the people who create the CAFR are neither Yetis nor a secret society. They are working Americans who get educated and trained, using a curriculum that is at least arguably in English, and have to keep current with policy changes. When I see people say stuff like "I'm an expert in so and so, and this just made no sense to me" I can only take that as a frank admission of stupidity, rather than a persuasive argument for the occult complexity of municipal and state accounting practices.

As ever, the search function is your friend. Operators and filters are always helpful ... for instance CAFR -"leo wanta" -"jordan maxwell" is a fertile start. Discrimination is a virtue.

Any sustained study of CAFR material will have the benefit of rendering Wall Street itself less opaque; the language bears no small resemblance and that's inevitable. Who else was government turning to for financial advice? Where else was the expertise? The inevitable, inexorable gravitational pull of capital is ostensibly the real point of this conversation. I don't think anyone here disputes that "THEY OWN IT ALL" -- if anything, kind of a given in this particular social circle.

What is being consistently critiqued is 1) the horseshit baggage that has to be washed from the subject, which is also a constant in RI conversations, and 2) the framing that this is some sort of secret key to everything, complete with a conspiracy to erase any discussion of the subject. There's definitely high level discussions about this subject going on every month in every state, participants in cheap metal chairs drinking bad coffee and bottled water under flourescent lights.

It's not covert. It's just boring.

[divideandconquer]

There are no "peer reviewed" publications on the CAFR for all of the reasons I stated in my previous posts. You are on your own if and when you should decide to research it for yourself.

Actually there's quite a bit, surely something to celebrate. I certainly wouldn't know about it if not for my day job on the frontiers of neoliberalism, but there's at least one academic (peer reviewed, even!) journal dedicated to studying & documenting that intersection between accounting arcana and actual governance.

Research in Accounting Regulation
Editor: G. Previts

The scope of service provided by professional accountants is influenced by legislation and case law as well as the dictates of a variety of government and private sector agencies. These entities and self-regulatory organizations such as U.S. State Societies of CPAs and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and equivalent and emerging national bodies that exist in most developed and developing countries are among the emerging entities which attempt to coordinate the activities of professional accountants among sovereign nations. It is important for academics, students, practitioners, regulators and researchers to consider and study the role and relationship of such bodies with the practice and content of our discipline.

They're fairly new -- can't be older than the Bush Administration.

Now of course, the people who create the CAFR are neither Yetis nor a secret society. They are working Americans who get educated and trained, using a curriculum that is at least arguably in English, and have to keep current with policy changes. When I see people say stuff like "I'm an expert in so and so, and this just made no sense to me" I can only take that as a frank admission of stupidity, rather than a persuasive argument for the occult complexity of municipal and state accounting practices.

As ever, the search function is your friend. Operators and filters are always helpful ... for instance CAFR -"leo wanta" -"jordan maxwell" is a fertile start. Discrimination is a virtue.

Any sustained study of CAFR material will have the benefit of rendering Wall Street itself less opaque; the language bears no small resemblance and that's inevitable. Who else was government turning to for financial advice? Where else was the expertise? The inevitable, inexorable gravitational pull of capital is ostensibly the real point of this conversation. I don't think anyone here disputes that "THEY OWN IT ALL" -- if anything, kind of a given in this particular social circle.

What is being consistently critiqued is 1) the horseshit baggage that has to be washed from the subject, which is also a constant in RI conversations, and 2) the framing that this is some sort of secret key to everything, complete with a conspiracy to erase any discussion of the subject. There's definitely high level discussions about this subject going on every month in every state, participants in cheap metal chairs drinking bad coffee and bottled water under flourescent lights.

It's not covert. It's just boring.

Once again, why isn't it reported on? When the incomplete budget is shoved down our throats at every opportunity. As I said, it's an open secret...hidden in PLAIN sight.

[Wombaticus Rex]

It is reported on. (Christ's Sake, we're talking about a report.) It is reported on to a specialist audience because they're the only ones who really give a fuck. Changes to VAR Ratios isn't local paper material, although I think portfolio composition would be. The only time I've seen mainstream reporting or activist messaging focus on portfolio holdings, it's in a divestment / shaming context.

Still, something like shifting a significant portion of a fund into tech stocks should be of interest to the average consumavoter type, especially if they're Jim Cramer fans & armchair investors. Or ZeroHedge's demographic.

After all, why can't these multibillion dollar funds pay for XYZ? Because then they're gone. You convert investments into expenses by selling them (presumably to other institutional investors!) -- these funds are being managed by Wall Street (or private actors in California or Boston or Chicago or...) and you get access by withdrawing your funds.

Do you agree that your argument could also be framed as "We should raid the pensions funds of public employees to provide better services for the public?"

Is your concern primarily with the private management of public money, or more with the social impact of austerity theater when all this money is available, by virtue of the fact that motivated private sector expertise generates a much better return on investment than government management does? Do you think JP Morgan administers the EBT card program purely because of corruption, or at least partly because they're one of the only businesses with the infrastructure and scale to actually make that system work?

[PufPuf93]

I've spent years trying to understand the CAFR issue and you want me to prove it to you with one link? .

I didn't ask you to prove it with one link. I asked, " can you please link to one .gov link and page within the last 3 years on a CAFR that supports the premise contended in this OP? The level of support here doesn't have to be earth-shaking, just to land further credence to the premise." Since this is so complex, then I understand one link wouldn't prove anything out-right. Since all CAFRs are similar, each should have an element within it that obfuscates from the public the wealth extracting mechanism. You suggested the City of Wilmington CAFR on an earlier page and a gleaming of its contents should provide some level of intrigue, somewhere. I pulled up that city's CAFR and analyzed it to my best but with no solid reply by you. Also I've been aware of CAFRs for some time long before you posted and I do have some accounting experience.

I'm not arguing with you, i'm debating you. This means i'm challenging your assumptions and statements in order to probe for weakness in the premise. I'm trying to do this with rigor, here.

Also there are probably thousands of post graduate or graduate accounting research thesis projects, professors and students across the country. Accounting is an academic discipline with many peer reviewed publications, afterall. I would think one could distinguish itself by basing its study into the revelation of the method. I would be interested in one academic source. Just one.

Do you believe CAFRs exist? If so, why doesn't anyone outside those who work in government accounting offices and those who research beyond the surface, even educated people, know of the CAFR's existence? That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

There are no "peer reviewed" publications on the CAFR for all of the reasons I stated in my previous posts. You are on your own if and when you should decide to research it for yourself. That, in and of itself, should present one with suspicion and questions because we have a right to know the true wealth of our nation considering it's our money. It should NOT take the average person and/or an intelligent person months and/or years to comprehend its basic components.

However, I can tell you what I (no accounting and/or actuarial background) did. CAFRs from the last 20 years are sent to libraries, so, I looked at CAFRS before they were deliberately obfuscated to give me a general idea of how it should appear, and some knowledge of the substantial information it includes. From there I looked at future CAFRs and tried to decipher the contents with lots of help from Clint Richardson's video. Still, I am far from an expert on the CAFR, but I now have a general idea of what its reporting and that is massive growth and massive wealth, beyond what the common person can even imagine.

In 2000, the US government consisted of 54,000 incorporated entities each with their own CAFR.
In 2007, the US government consisted of 184,000 incorporated entities each with their own CAFR.
In 2015, the US government consisted of 230,000 incorporated entities each with their own CAFR.

I mean, before I learned about the CAFR, when I trusted the government and mainstream media for the most part, when I thought that taxes were the only source of government revenue, despite my fear of numbers and math in general, I had no problem comprehending the public budget. Because they do everything in their power to present the incomplete public budget clear as day and they don't let you forget it.

Once again, the bottom line is that the public is being deceived. The public budget that they rant and rave over on TV, print above the fold in newspapers, and on the covers of magazines and teach to students even at the doctorate level, completely eliminates the nation's wealth, or any mention of the CAFR. You don't have to be a scholar or an academic to understand that.

CAFRs are Annual Reports for public entities and as such have financial reports such as balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and cash flow statements as well more subjective descriptive material. They are of kind of the Annual Reports and 10Ks prepared by publically traded companies or similar private reports prepared by private businesses.

CAFRs as noted are prepared to standards set by governing bodies. Like GAAP accounting standards for private entities, the CAFRs standards are subject to regulatory capture and professional and political turf so the standards are manipulated to some degree. CAFRs contain the data sets used for public financing for example. I think you are wrong in saying that CAFRs are not taught but in most part correct in that there is not much public discourse of a technical subject . If one is involved in public finance, one uses CAFR. CFAR determines whether your city can borrow money and the rates and terms for borrowing, for example.

CAFRs are not something to be paranoid about in themselves, but there are individuals and vested interests that are pros at slanting and hiding the events that CAFRs in theory record. A manager might have the goal at obtaining the lowest rate possible for a city's loan. A manager may be fogging the sale of "excess assets" to his bosses brother in law. A manager may use the CAFR for strategic or project planning and so on. CAFRs are part and parcel of public finance.

But yes, there are many good reasons to be paranoid of corporations, industries, and military and the MSM and politicians that are their chattel. One should be paranoid of the local businessman as well. We citizens are better off having CAFRs available, however flawed, than not.

Back to my ecologic aside, a financial balance sheet is analogous to a carbon balance. WR may have been tongue in cheek in mentioning "carrying capacity" but I at least see some useful insight in the perception that economics is a subroutine of ecology that humanity best heed; especially as the predators, militaries, and general greed head narcissists don't.

[PufPuf93]

It is reported on. (Christ's Sake, we're talking about a report.) It is reported on to a specialist audience because they're the only ones who really give a fuck. Changes to VAR Ratios isn't local paper material, although I think portfolio composition would be. The only time I've seen mainstream reporting or activist messaging focus on portfolio holdings, it's in a divestment / shaming context.

Still, something like shifting a significant portion of a fund into tech stocks should be of interest to the average consumavoter type, especially if they're Jim Cramer fans & armchair investors. Or ZeroHedge's demographic.

After all, why can't these multibillion dollar funds pay for XYZ? Because then they're gone. You convert investments into expenses by selling them (presumably to other institutional investors!) -- these funds are being managed by Wall Street (or private actors in California or Boston or Chicago or...) and you get access by withdrawing your funds.

Do you agree that your argument could also be framed as "We should raid the pensions funds of public employees to provide better services for the public?"

Is your concern primarily with the private management of public money, or more with the social impact of austerity theater when all this money is available, by virtue of the fact that motivated private sector expertise generates a much better return on investment than government management does? Do you think JP Morgan administers the EBT card program purely because of corruption, or at least partly because they're one of the only businesses with the infrastructure and scale to actually make that system work?

I read this after submitting the above post.

Yes Sir!

Good answer.