KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Friday September 9 20916 Housing and Economic stories

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The government is trying to figure out how to stop people from cheating Obamacare - (www.businessinsider.com) The government is trying to make some changes to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, to try to weed out those gaming the system. In a release Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it plans to roll out a pilot program to assess the effect of more stringent requirements for people signing up for insurance through the ACA's public exchanges outside of the open enrollment period. In theory, only those in special situations — such as people losing employer-based coverage or leaving their parents' insurance when they turn 26 years old — are supposed to enroll in the exchanges outside of the designated time period. (For example, the open enrollment period for 2017 runs from November 1, 2016, to January 31, 2017.)

For The First Time, Two European Non-Financial Companies Will Be Paid To Issue Debt - (www.zerohedge.com) Today was another historic day in the monetary twilight zone that is Europe, when two large European, non-financial companies were the first in history to be paid by investors to borrow, courtesy of the ECB's corporate debt monetization program, which has unleashed an unprecedented scramble for frontrunning the central bank's purchases of corporate debt and a historic collapse in bond spreads. As the WSJ reported earlier, German multinational Henkel AG and French drugmaker Sanofi SA are set to pay, pardon collect, a yield of minus 0.05% on new issues of short-dated bonds on Tuesday. The German household products is set to sell €500 million of two-year bonds that yield negative 0.05 percent, while Sanofi will be paid to issue three-year debt. As the WSJ conveniently adds, in case someone was still unaware, "the fund raising is another sign of how unprecedented monetary policy has turned conventional investment theory on its head." Roughly €717 billion of eurozone investment-grade bonds traded at a negative yield as of the end of August, or over 30% of the entire market.

China's pension funds under pressure with rising payments: Xinhua – (www.bloomberg.com) Many Chinese pension funds are under renewed pressure to break even as local governments race to increase pension payments to meet central government requirements, state news agency Xinhua said in a commentary on Tuesday.The central government has ordered pension payments for corporate retirees to be increased by around 6.5 percent in all provinces, Xinhua said. China's northeastern region of Liaoning has implemented a 6.75 percent rise in pension payments, which is estimated to cost the fund around 11 billion yuan ($1.65 billion).

Pension Cuts On Deck In Latest Shock To California Workers - (www.zerohedge.com) Ma- ny public employees utilize a tool, known as "salary spiking," to boost their annual pensions payment in retirement and we taxpayers get to foot the bill. So what is "salary spiking?" Typically, a public employee's pension benefit in retirement is equal to some percentage of their highest annual pay which is often their final year on the job. Fortunately for public employees who plan ahead, there are all sorts of fun games that can be played to "spike" your final year salary so that you actually earn more in retirement than you did on the job. In fact, a recent report by the Los Angeles Times found that there are 60 ways to "spike" your final year salary in California including taking cash payouts for accrued vacation time, special 1x bonuses related to graduate degrees (though we're sure you really needed that extra degree as you head off into retirement), "longevity" bonuses, etc. One example of salary spiking comes from former Ventura County CEO, Marty Robinson, who offered up a textbook example of how to stick it to taxpayers by planning ahead. Robinson's official salary heading into her final year on the job was $228,000. That said, Robinson "spiked" her final year salary by cashing out $34,000 in unused vacation pay, taking an $11,000 bonus for a graduate degree and collecting more than $24,000 in extra pension benefits the county owed her. Adding all the 1x payments, Robinson earned nearly $300,000 in her final year which entitled her to an annual pension payment of $272,000 or the rest of her life...nearly 20% higher than the salary she received for actually working.

The way Theranos reportedly reacted to the suicide of its chief scientist is unbelievably cold – (www.businessinsider.com) While dealing with the death of an employee is likely an incredibly difficult task, Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes' reported reaction to the suicide of one of her first hires was particularly unusual. That's according to a story by Vanity Fair's Nick Bilton, who details the rise and fall of the blood-testing company. In the piece, Bilton describes what happened to Ian Gibbons, one of Holmes' first hires at Theranos. Gibbons, who was named chief scientist by Holmes in 2005, had grown increasingly vocal about the inaccuracies of Theranos' technology, according to Vanity Fair. In May 2013, Gibbons received a phone call and was told Holmes wanted to meet with him the next day. Fearing he was about to be fired, Gibbons attempted to kill himself, according to Vanity Fair.

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