Comments on: Dvorak – Horowitz Unplugged #22 — What is Going on in the Stock Market!

By: jamboree

jamboree — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:47:02 +0000

The itunes feed is mis-spelled. it DHUunplugged

By: Ron Larson

Ron Larson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:51:19 +0000

Thanks for talking about the underfunded pension funds. But it is not the fault of the companies. They were allowed to choose the rosy projections by regulators. So of course they selected the numbers that saved them the most money.

The blame lies with the PBGC and the DOL.

The PBGC is the quasi-gov’t insurance agency of pensions. Their insurance premiums that they charged pensions should have reflected the risk of failure of lack of funding. If a company chose the most optimistic projections to compute their contribution amount, then the PBGC should have raised the premiums charged to the company to cover the increased risk that the projections would be wrong.

However, like the FCIC, the PBGC has limits on what they insure. If someone has a pension paying them $80k a year, the PBGC only covers up to $45k of that (or somewhere around that figure).

The DOL is in charge of enforcing laws regulating pensions. They should have sued companies to cover the liabilities beyond the PBGC insured amount. The DOL just went to sleep at the wheel and allowed the companies to do what they wanted. For example, health care promises should have watched by the DOL.

I suspect that the DOL and PBGC were under-minded by congressional pressure to back off and leave companies alone.

By: John C Dvorak

John C Dvorak — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:15:40 +0000

#8 — this is news to me. Let me research it.

I do not know why the iTunes doesn’t have this.

By: Ike7780

Ike7780 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:57:39 +0000

I’ld pay for the show. You guys could do it more often. Love listening to your point of view.
Keep up the great work.

By: animo47

animo47 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:43:47 +0000

I just wanted to let John know that suicide notes are actually pretty rare.

By: stopher2475

stopher2475 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:43:07 +0000

BTW. Pretty depressing podcast.=) Apparently we should all just give up and break out the Road Warrior armor.

By: stopher2475

stopher2475 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:42:23 +0000

I think the senior citizen discount probably gets people in the doors who otherwise wouldn’t go. It’s a profit maximization technique, not a charity. Same as airline pricing discounts and college tuition, you get as much from everyone as they will pay.

By: TThor

TThor — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:31:46 +0000

Yeah – what happened to DH Unplugged on iTunes? That is may auto download function… You ditch it? And why???

By: TThor

TThor — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:17:10 +0000

Wish you guys could do this on a more regular basis, and more often. This is really a podcast worth paying for. More sober reality can’t be found anywhere else on the net. I ache for each episode… Horowitz is the alter ego of Dvorak…. the perfect match!

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:14:07 +0000

http://drop.io/dailysourcecode/asset/a-podcast

By: Paulrb02

Paulrb02 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:10:58 +0000

Where is the RSS for this? the RSS on itunes doesn’t have the latest show

By: dbennoch

dbennoch — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:36:31 +0000

“unpluged” ?