Tuesday, October 20, 2020

The Two Sides of Low Interest Rates

 In today's NYTimes Paul Krugman has an article arguing for big stimulus spending, partially justified by the very very low interest rates now being charged for the Federal government's borrowing.

In the business section is an article on CALPERS (the California employees pension fund) and its problems with trying to have its 7 percent return on investments.  It's taking on more risk to try to get its returns up.   CALPERS has, or used to have, a reputation for good investment strategies, so if they're having problems you can bet other smaller retirement funds across the country are having more problems.

I don't have any answers, just the observation. 

[Updated--ProPublica has a related piece, also on impact of Fed's actions on retirement savings.'

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