how to manage personal finances

Some
U.S. states face so much pressure to fund pensions for public
employees that it could hurt their credit ratings, Moody's Investors
Service said on Thursday.

As concerns grow over the
financial health of many states after the 2007-2009 recession and how
they will cut spending to cope, the ratings agency combined pension and
debt data to rank the liabilities of each state.

 

In
the past, Moody's evaluated credit risks from pensions and debt levels
separately. Lower credit ratings could raise the costs to states of
borrowing money.

 

Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky,
Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey and Rhode Island, along with
Puerto Rico, have the largest debt-and-pension loads, Moody's found.

 

Nebraska and South Dakota have the lowest.

 

"Large
and growing debt and pension burdens have been, and will continue to
be, contributing factors in rating changes," Moody's said.

 

Problems
with pensions -- which states have underfunded by at least $700
billion -- include weak returns on investments, not enough money set
aside, impending retirements of "Baby Boomers" born in the late 1940s
through mid-1960s, and Americans living longer, Moody's said.

 

New
York, Delaware and California are often cited for large debt burdens
but do not have the highest combined long-term liabilities, Moody's
analyst Ted Hampton said in a statement.

 

"In general, states'
rankings for debt and pension combined parallel their rankings for debt
alone," Hampton said but he added: "not all states with large debt
burdens also suffer from weak pension funding."

 

IN THE TRILLIONS?

 

The
$700 billion underfunded figure is a conservative estimate for how
much money states will need to cover the pension promises they have
made to their employees.

 

But $3 trillion could be nearer the
mark, one study warned last year. States expect too generous a return
on investments made by their pension funds, said the study by Joshua
Rauh of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

 

Regardless of the exact amount, states have to find a way to adequately fund pensions.

 

"More
and more, it's going to take up a larger share of their ... budgets,"
said Kil Huh, director of research at Pew Center on the States, which
has been closely following the pension issue.

 

Money
flows from three major sources into pension funds: employee
contributions, the employing governments and investment returns.

 

"Employee
contributions have gone down and, at the same time, employer
contributions because of the fiscal crisis haven't been there," Huh
said.

Moody's, too, says the problem is getting bigger.

 

"Unfunded
pension liabilities have grown more rapidly in recent years because of
weaker-than-expected investment results, previous benefit enhancements
and, in some states, failure to pay the full annual required
contribution," the report said.

 

"Moreover, pension liabilities may be understated because of current governmental accounting standards," it added.

 

The
Moody's report "will shed more light upon the states which have
eliminated or underfunded their yearly contributions for pension
liabilities simply as a way to manage their finances," said Thomson
Reuters Senior Market Strategist Daniel Berger.

 

One
dramatic solution to the pension problem would be allowing states to
declare bankruptcy, which some congressional Republicans want. Then,
they could renege on pension promises made to employees.

 

After
being criticized for missing risks in the housing boom, Moody's is
showing with this report it's "not asleep at the wheel" on the pension
threat, said Richard Larkin, senior vice president and director of
credit analysis at Herbert J Sims & Co. in New York.

 

But, the
report also showed the liabilities are manageable, he added. For
example, Moody's found Hawaii's pension-and-debt load is equal to 16.2
percent of its gross domestic product, the biggest proportion of all the
states.

 

Even though the liabilities are in the billions of dollars, "when you compare them to GDP it's still low numbers," Larkin said.

 

"And
it's still relatively much lower than these problem countries people
keep comparing them to," he said, referring to recent fears that
California or Illinois will soon be plunged into troubles similar to
those Greece or Ireland are facing.

In a separate article, Simone Baribeau of Bloomberg reports, Moody's Says Massachussetts Among States With Highest Debt, Pension Burden:

LaunchBox Digital, a VC firm specializing in angel, seed, and early stage investments, just wrapped up its third annual 12-week startup mentoring program. Similar to Y Combinator and TechStars, LaunchBox invests seed capital of $20,000 into startup teams and provides them with 12 weeks of education, mentorship, and access to advisers. The following 7 LaunchBox10 companies are graduating from this year’s program and will be going live as part of LaunchBox Demo Day, where the companies will present their businesses to potential investors and strategic partners.

Without further ado, here are the graduates:

CityPockets (Crunchbase profile): Today, we live in the world of the Groupon clone, and thanks to the Google-shunning colossus, “daily deal” websites now litter the Web. These sites have been a big hit among mom and pop shops and small businesses because they can be such an effective way to attract new, local customers. The problem for these merchants, however, has been converting new customers into loyal, repeat visitors. According to LaunchBox, less than 15% of “deal jumpers” return to the same merchant again without another deal offer. On the whole, these merchants struggle to retain the influx of new customers, failing to take the steps to establish that critical, lasting relationship with the consumer.

CityPockets.com is a real-time, self-serve merchant CRM platform that aims to address customer retention issues by allowing merchants to more easily capture user contact info and to offer repeat discounts. In addition, the platform empowers merchants to manage gaps in supply and demand by sending out time-sensitive, limited-quantity offers whenever it makes sense for their businesses. Customers opt-in to follow their favorite merchants via CityPockets’ web and mobile apps.

Businesses interested in being part of the CityPockets Merchant Network can sign up here, and Daily Deal users can sign up at CityPockets.com to access and keep track of all voucher purchases from across popular Daily Deal sites on a single platform, and eventually receive more offers from relevant merchants of their choice.

FiscalPie (Crunchbase profile): FiscalPie breaks down the barrier between personal finance and social networks by providing users with Facebook applications that enable users to compare their finances with others and, in turn, learn how to make more educated financial decisions. One such FiscalPie application, “Retire Where?” shows you which cities you’ll be able to afford in retirement and allows you to compare your it with the future location of your friends.

FiscalPie works to make the myriad sources of financial information on the Web more reflective of your own specific circumstances—while keeping your information private —by creating an anonymous network of people that share similar financial profiles. Until the individual truly becomes part of the conversation, financial information has little significance. FiscalPie is hoping to start that dialog—socially.

HEALTHeME (Crunchbase profile): HEALTHeME delivers treatments that empower those struggling with weight, stress, and mood issues to better manage their health via the web and their mobile phone. The HEALTHeME platform combines clinical treatments and artificial intelligence to create customized behavior modification plans based on users’ lifestyles, health goals, and personality type. HEALTHeME then leverages real-time coaching, social networks and user’s healthcare providers to offer a truly personalized user experience. Would love to see an app for this, too.

Keona Health (Crunchbase profile): Keona Health is a company that optimizes admissions for primary care providers, increasing both productivity and cost savings. Keona’s Patient Decision Support system empowers patients with instant, personalized advice that aims to resolve up to 10% of patient cases at home. Triage nurses review each case, but with the goal of being 5 times faster and with more comprehensive safety checks than before. As a result of the greater emphasis on in-home consultation, when patients need to travel into the office to see a doctor, they should find reduced delays and wait times.

Keona has partnered with UNC and Duke to develop a decision engine that has already analyzed over 1,000 real medical records, and UNC Campus Health Services is acting as Keona’s first beta customer. During 2011, Keona Health plans to expand to several additional universities.

Leaguescape (Crunchbase profile): Leaguescape is a new platform for fantasy sports that combines social gaming and betting and allows you to collect all your fantasy sports leagues in one place. Like the Pokerstars or Full Tilt Poker of fantasy sports, Leaguescape allows fantasy sports enthusiasts to manage and bet on their season leagues and get their daily fix of fantasy sports with a variety of game offerings that enable users to draft, watch, and win on a daily basis.

Drawing on the online poker model, Leaguescape provides all things a fantasy sports bettor could need, including a variety of gaming types, rewards, and promotions.

Slipstream (Crunchbase profile): The likelihood is that your Twitter stream is an unfavorable mix of a few things you care about and a lot you don’t. You don’t want to miss out on important news and events, but you don’t have time to read everything. Slipstream wants to rid your stream of irrelevant Tweets.

Today, Slipstream launched its third prototype, a Chrome extension that lets you hide tweets on Twitter.com. It works seamlessly to help you get rid of things like Foursquare checkins, paper.li mentions, or when people you’re following start live-tweeting events. Gonezo. Simply click the “Hide” link that Slipstream adds to the end of every tweet and begin filtering your stream. It’s that easy.

Spring Metrics (Crunchbase profile): Spring Metrics helps you grow your online business by providing a deeper understanding of your customers and how they interact with your website. Spring Metrics seeks to make complex web analytics more friendly and digestible for marketers and e-commerce professionals who don’t want to wrestle with the complexity of traditional analytics products.

With an easy-to-use interface that requires no coding knowledge, Spring Metrics eliminates the hassle of creating conversion funnels and goals. The company’s real-time dashboard offers an array of conversion-oriented metrics, and the “Insight Engine” unearths actionable patterns in the data—patterns aimed at helping turn more visitors into paying customers.

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