I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federal agency that insures private pension plans, is asking Congress to allow them to increase premiums on corporations in order to rebuild their reserves after years of increasing costs due to corporate bankruptcies.
The Detroit News reports:
The government agency that backstops the private pension plans of 44 million Americans is $23 billion in the hole and wants a $16 billion infusion from U.S. employers over the next decade.
“Premiums have to go up,” said Joshua Gotbaum, head of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a government-owned agency that insures defined benefit pension plans. “They are going to be raised. The question is, are they going to be raised in a way that actually encourages responsible behavior or penalizes it?”
The Obama administration has asked Congress to rework the way PBGC assesses pension insurance premiums, which it collects from employers, to avoid big premium spikes when pension investments fall short, and encourage companies to be responsible.
The PBGC also wants premiums to reflect the financial health of companies — meaning that companies with non-investment grade credit ratings, such as many in the auto sector, could be charged more.
Michigan is at particular risk from an underfunded PBGC. If GM and Chrysler had been allowed to go to bankruptcy liquidation two years ago, the PBGC would have been on the hook for the pensions of 1.3 million autoworkers.
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