Public watchdog over private pension plans fails audit of its own records

Last November, the federal corporation charged with protecting Americans’ retirement funds issued an ominous public warning: the amount of pensions at risk inside failing companies had more than tripled during the recession.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s announcement signaled it might need tens of billions of new dollars to rescue traditional pensions paid by U.S. firms whose economic collapse left them unable to meet their retirement obligations to workers.

At the same time, however, the federally chartered corporation was receiving some bad news of its own: for the first time it was going to flunk an independent audit of the way it manages its finances.

On Nov. 12, 2009, PBGC’s outside audit firm and the corporation’s own internal watchdog jointly informed the federal body it was being cited for a “material weakness” in its internal financial controls, the accounting equivalent of an F grade.

“PBGC did not have effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with laws and regulations and its operations,” Inspector General Rebecca Anne Batts wrote in a letter that has escaped public attention despite their potential importance to taxpayers.

The Obama audition proceeds; downgrade U.S., then move on to the next gig - master of the world

The US has maintained a policy of isolating the military junta of Burma for decades, refusing to use the junta’s name for the country (Myanmar) as a symbolic rejection of their authority. Earlier this year, however, the Obama administration announced that they had undertaken a review of that policy, and was widely expected to broaden diplomatic contacts with the regime. Sen. James Webb met with the junta leaders in a widely-criticized trip earlier this year that possibly intended to lend a little legitimacy to that effort. Now the Washington Times reports that Barack Obama himself will meet with junta leaders in Singapore just four months after the US stopped a shipment of North Korean weapons from reaching the dictators: