<story><title>Pension funds may be wrecked in a future recession</title><url>https://www.cassandracapital.net/post/pension-funds-are-going-to-be-destroyed-in-the-next-recession</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Cthulhu_</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m no expert but it seems the &amp;#x27;cause&amp;#x27; of a lot of problems right now - the one mentioned in this article, but also climbing housing prices - are caused by low and negative bond interest rates. Who sets these interest rates? Why are they being kept low? They seem to have such a big influence on the economy right now, driving it towards riskier investments - I mean my bank&amp;#x27;s savings account, which IIRC is tied to government bond interest rates and (also historically low interest) mortgages, is pretty much zero so I&amp;#x27;ve moved some of my funds into (riskier) investments.&lt;p&gt;I mean I don&amp;#x27;t really want to be doing that but right now, putting money in savings and keeping it is basically costing me 2-3% of its value a year due to inflation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>projektfu</author><text>While short term interest rates are strongly affected by the operation of the Federal Reserve, which can choose to buy or sell to achieve policy goals, long term interest rates are set by the market.  If the government offered bonds with a coupon at 3 times the going rate, it would sell at auction at a price that would cause it to yield the going rate.  Essentially, the market is not excited about the prospects for equities and has been bidding up the price (reducing yield) of bonds.&lt;p&gt;N.B., inflation (CPI-U) averaged 1.5% per year over the last 5 years, if my calculation is correct.</text></comment>
<story><title>Pension funds may be wrecked in a future recession</title><url>https://www.cassandracapital.net/post/pension-funds-are-going-to-be-destroyed-in-the-next-recession</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Cthulhu_</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m no expert but it seems the &amp;#x27;cause&amp;#x27; of a lot of problems right now - the one mentioned in this article, but also climbing housing prices - are caused by low and negative bond interest rates. Who sets these interest rates? Why are they being kept low? They seem to have such a big influence on the economy right now, driving it towards riskier investments - I mean my bank&amp;#x27;s savings account, which IIRC is tied to government bond interest rates and (also historically low interest) mortgages, is pretty much zero so I&amp;#x27;ve moved some of my funds into (riskier) investments.&lt;p&gt;I mean I don&amp;#x27;t really want to be doing that but right now, putting money in savings and keeping it is basically costing me 2-3% of its value a year due to inflation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pytester</author><text>The Fed set interest rates low in 2008 in order to provide a stealth bailout to the banks that had lent too much and were sitting on collateral that was less than the money which was owed.&lt;p&gt;The low interest rates raised asset values to the point where they weren&amp;#x27;t sitting on heavy losses any more.</text></comment>