Assets in funds in this category reached $200.1 billion by mid-2013 after rising to $153.9 billion at year-end 2012 from $30.9 billion at year-end 2006, an annualized growth rate of 31%. About 64% of the assets, or $127.9 billion as of mid-year 2013, were in variable annuity separate accounts and the rest in mutual funds.

Two weeks ago we reported on new research by Jason Scott and John Watson of Financial Engines about a retirement income strategy that combines 85% safe assets with a 15% allocation to a triple-leveraged, daily-balanced ETF. One reader contested its value, and one of the authors has replied.

Voters apparently reacted negatively to a requirement in the proposal that would have required the city on the Ohio River to pay off the pension’s $862 million liability in 10 years while converting to the new defined contribution system.

Dutch insurance giant ING, with the biggest Romanian DC fund by assets and membership, recorded the highest profit so far this year, of RON146.7m (€33.1m). As of the end of June, total profits in the second pillar grew 43% y-o-y to RON440.4m (€99.3m).

“The funds have faced challenges in meeting their objectives, given a financial market environment marked by a prolonged period of historically low bond yields,” said a Vanguard release.

Brief or late-breaking items from Bankers Life and Casualty Company, New York Life, The American College, Vanguard, Mass Mutual, Jackson National Life, Jefferson National and Cerulli Associates.

"In an economic system in which a sovereign government operates through its own monetary system, spending (or lending) must occur before taxing. In addition, taxes are not a funding source in that logic. They are part of the destruction of government currency, i.e. they return currency to the issuing government"--Eric Tymoigne and L. Randall Wray, "Modern Monetary Theory 101: A Reply to Critics," p.5. Levy Economics Institute, November 2013.