KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Monday October 24 20916 Housing and Economic stories

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Monday October 24 20916 Housing and Economic stories

Nearly half of city 911 call takers on leave, sparking OT problem - (chicago.suntimes.com) Chicago’s 911 emergency center is still struggling to get a handle on runaway overtime because 49 percent of call takers are on “some type of” absence tied to the Family and Medical Leave Act, aldermen were told Wednesday. Testifying at City Council budget hearings, Alicia Tate-Nadeau, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, said the hiring of 48 additional call takers has reduced overtime by 28,000 hours over the same period last year. That should reduce overtime spending to $9.9 million, down $1 million from a year ago, she said. But, rampant use of the leave act is still costing the city big-time. “We have approximately 44 people every single day that call off. That’s about 49 percent of all of the 911 operators we have [who] are on some type of intermittent FMLA. Clearly, this number is much larger than it should be,” Tate-Nadeau said.

Hedge Fund Managers Expect ‘Massive’ 34% Pay Cut, Survey Says - (www.bloomberg.com) Portfolio managers at hedge funds, facing an exodus of investors frustrated with high fees, are about to feel the pain from an estimated 34 percent reduction in their compensation. While fund managers may take the biggest pay cut in the industry, professionals with seven or more years of experience see their total compensation declining by 14 percent on average for 2016, recruiter Odyssey Search Partners said in a report this week following a September survey of 500 hedge fund professionals. “2016 should prove to be a belt-tightening year,” according to the report. “This pessimistic viewpoint is justified, given the poor industry performance.”

To Some, it “Feels More Like a Crash” - (www.wolfstreet.com) “There’s enormous risk in public markets because that’s the one that central banks have distorted to the greatest extent,” El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz SE, told Bloomberg TV, in reference to stock and bond markets. He confessed to the heresy of holding 30% of his portfolio in cash. “It’s very hard to say I’m going to buy a basket of public equities and go to sleep for the next five to 10 years and feel good about the returns. Similarly with bonds,” he said. These “public markets” are not the only markets that central banks have totally distorted and larded with “enormous risks.” Practically everything that is an asset has been inflated, including residential and commercial real estate in much of the country, and assets that are the objects of admiration of the wealthy: collector cars and art.

Hedge Fund Investors Withdrew $28.2 Billion in Third Quarter - (www.bloomberg.com) Hedge fund investors pulled $28.2 billion from the industry in the third quarter, the most since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, according to Hedge Fund Research Inc. The net outflows, which amount to 0.9 percent of the industry, are the largest since the second quarter of 2009, the firm said Thursday. Investors redeemed $51.5 billion in the first nine months of the year, even as industry assets rose to a record $2.97 trillion, it said. Hedge funds have been under pressure from investors critical of high fees and uninspired performance.

When retirement savings goals seem hopelessly unrealistic - (www.cnn.com) A recent Nerdwallet study said that if investment returns drop from their historical averages as many experts predict, Millennials may need to save 22% of pay a year to build a nest egg large enough to support them in retirement. That's right, 22%!... Throw in even a modest Social Security benefit that assumes payments will drop considerably from today's levels, and I estimate the savings target drops to about 15% a year (which, granted, many people may still consider a challenge).

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