Category Archives: Longevity

DETROIT (AP)—Dave Dombrowski is showing no sign of buyer’s remorse.

The Tigers’ general manager spoke Tuesday as part of a Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association luncheon, expressing confidence new first baseman Prince Fielder can stay productive through most if not all of his expensive nine-year contract.

Detroit signed the hefty slugger to a $214 million deal last month. Dombrowski acknowledges the risk but points out that the hefty slugger is only 27.

“The prime of your career is what, through 32, 33?” Dombrowski said. “That’s seven of the nine years already, and my gut reaction is that this guy will continue to swing the bat. How his body will look in nine years or seven years, I really don’t know. He is a heavy-set guy but he’s also become more aware of trying to keep himself in the best shape he possibly can.”

The Tigers acquired Fielder to help them try to defend their AL Central title after designated hitter Victor Martinez went down with a severe left knee injury. Fielder and Miguel Cabrera should form a potent middle of the batting order, but the move did create some complications. Detroit is set to shift Cabrera from first base to third to make room for Fielder.

“There’s very few guys that are Gold Glovers and are batting champions and All-Stars from an offensive perspective. They’re called Hall of Famers—and even some Hall of Famers have had some shortcomings of one area or another,” Dombrowski said. “We think Miguel will be adequate at third base from a defensive perspective. I don’t mean to say he’s going to be a Gold Glover. … He’s got good hands, he’s got a strong arm, he wants to play there and he’ll work very hard at it.”

With the two power hitters both slated to play the field, the Tigers don’t have anyone lined up to be an everyday DH. For now, they’re not inclined to put Cabrera or Fielder there with too much regularity.

Martinez made the transition to DH last season, but not everyone is comfortable in such a specialized role.

“Usually when players are younger, they want to play. They want to be out there,” Dombrowski said. “They want their juices flowing.”

With spring training a couple weeks away, perhaps the biggest unanswered question for Detroit is who will be the No. 5 starter. Dombrowski mentioned a half-dozen in-house candidates to replace Brad Penny—including Jacob Turner, Drew Smyly, Andy Oliver, Casey Crosby, Duane Below and Adam Wilk.

Dombrowski acknowledged that the 20-year-old Turner appears to have impressive potential, but none of the pitchers he listed have proven they can perform consistently well at the big league level.

“I’m not really sure if he’s ready or not, and I don’t know that we’ll know that until we get down there and see him perform and see some of those other guys perform,” Dombrowski said.

Turner allowed 12 earned runs in 12 2-3 innings with the Tigers last year, although his performance wasn’t much different from what another Detroit pitching prospect went through back in 2005.

Justin Verlander allowed nine earned runs in 11 1-3 innings that year. In 2006, he won AL Rookie of the Year honors in his first full season.

“When they get a cup of coffee here and they’re not quite ready at that time, it’s going so fast,” Dombrowski said. “All of a sudden in the wintertime, they digest that, they come back, and they pitch very well.”

Link:
Dombrowski confident in Fielder's longevity

Chuck Blake and his Kewanee Boiler Girls closed the regular season with a milestone victory Saturday.
The Boiler Girls rolled to a 45-24 win at Morrison, giving Blake his 500th career coaching triumph.
“You can’t do anything in coaching if you don’t have the kids,” said Blake.
“It’s about longevity,” he added, “and being around a number of years and having the number of quality athletes I’ve had in all three stops.”
Blake started coaching girls basketball at Neponset High School in 1982 and compiled a record of 261-77 in 13 seasons. His next stop was Wethersfield with a record of 153-97 from 1996 to 2003, and he’s currently 86-73 since taking the Kewanee job in 2006.
He’s won 12 regional and four sectional titles — three at Neponset and one at Wethersfield — in his career.
“I’ve been fortunate to have pretty good assistants,” said Blake. “I don’t know what I would’ve done at Kewanee without Frank (Tocha).”
Not many benches at any level of basketball can boast 956 wins — 500 from Blake and 456 from his current KHS?assistant Tocha in his 28 years as head coach of the Boiler Girls.
“Sometimes we still look at each other with blank stares when things are going wrong,” laughed Blake.
Blake’s time on the bench has created many friendships — several of which make him return to the subject of his longevity in the game. Three of his closest friends in the game — Mick Shinkevich, Gary Johnson and Jim Frankenreider —?have passed away.
“It hit me when Frank and I were talking about longevity on the bus one night,” said Blake. “The time came too soon for those guys.”
And there are plenty of family ties to the game. His wife Sue helps with stats and films games, as does Tocha’s wife Betsy.
“We’re both empty-nesters, so it keeps us in touch with that age,” said Blake.?
“Also the opportunity to coach my daughter (Courtney) was special, even though she may not think so,”?he added.

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Blake closes regular season with 500th win

I've always been an unlucky investor. I chose Equitable Life to run my first ever personal pension, and you know what happened to them. I bought tech fund star Aberdeen Technology in March 2000, one week before the dot.com crash. I bought the banks just before the credit crunch and sold them at the end of December, just before January's rebound.

Every time I commit to a stock or sector, it falls 30% within a week. Unless it falls 40%. If I sell, it rebounds 30%, as the banks just have.

I am a one-man contrarian signal. If you were to short every stock or fund I bought, you would be rich.

Too quick off the mark

I can put most of my other big mistakes down to my own impatience and short-sightedness. I was too quick to snatch at the falling knife of BP after the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster, for example.

Similarly, I was too quick to load on banking stocks after the financial crisis. BP and Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) both still had a long way to drop. Both were instant 40% fallers.

Anti-Midas (NYSE: MDS - news) touch

I was too hasty to dive into AIM-quoted gold producer Vatukoula Gold Mines (Other OTC: VATKF.PK - news) last year, purely on the say-so of a smaller companies fund manager. My failure to spend time watching the stock was punished by an instant 40% drop.

High (Euronext: HCO.NX - news) -street betting company Ladbrokes (Other OTC: LDBKF.PK - news) was another big-time instant loser. As was last summer's attempt to play the rising oil price with the Junior Oils Trust.

And I can barely stand to think about what happened to Axa Property Trust . Another rash decision, another 30% slap in the face.

I have the opposite of the Midas touch. Every time I touch a stock, it turns to lead.

Absolutely Mullered

Yet when I look down my portfolio today, it's not that bad. As BP steadily recovers, my repeated attempts to catch that particular falling knife are beginning to look a little more elegant.

Ladbrokes is now close to breaking even. Vatukoula Gold Mines is heading in the right direction. RBS (LSE: RBS.L - news) (LSE: RBS), the one bank I held onto, is making good most of its rapid 50% loss.

And I've just accepted Muller Dairy's offer to buy my shares in milk producer Robert Wiseman Dairies at 390p, turning my one-time 25% loss into a 25% gain.

So has my luck finally turned? No, I don't think so.

No friend like an old friend

Looking through my portfolio, many of the best performers are my legacy unit trusts. Artemis UK Special Situations is up 122%. Invesco (NYSE: IVZ - news) -Perpetual Income is up 77%.

Two investment trusts, Baring Emerging Europe and Scottish Oriental Smaller Companies , have more than doubled in value. BlackRock Latin American has tripled.

What do all these funds have in common? I've held them for years.

And that's the only thing I've done that has produced consistently successful results since I started investing. Holding on for the long term should generally produce good results in the end, even if the beginning is a bit dodgy.

Time doesn't heal every wounding investment choice, but it does heal a lot of them. That's why I'll be holding onto BP, Vautukoula, RBS and Ladbrokes.

Living it long

Realising this has changed my attitude to future investments. From now on, I'm only buying long-term prospects. 

I'm lining up a balanced portfolio of low-cost trackers and investment trusts, supplemented by steady, dividend-yielding blue-chips, that I can tuck away for a couple of decades.

You see, I've discovered that over six months, I'm an investment disaster scenario on legs. But over five years, and especially over 10 years, I muddle through just fine.

The longer I invest, the luckier I get. So I reckon that over 20 years, at which point I turn 65, I should have a fair amount of good fortune.

Time is on my side. Even if everything else is against me.

> Harvey holds shares or units in BP, Vautukoula, RBS, Ladbrokes, Baring Emerging Europe, Scottish Oriental Smaller Companies, BlackRock Latin American, Artemis UK Special Situations and Invesco-Perpetual Income. The Motley Fool owns shares in Robert Wiseman Dairies.

Originally posted here:
The Link Between Luck And Longevity

A rather contentious issue at times and now up for discussion today by the Solano County Board of Supervisors is the elimination of longevity pay of Solano County employees -- but only for new hires.

At the request of Supervisor Barbara Kondylis, supervisors will consider elimination of longevity pay over a period of time for people who are not currently employed by the county.

"It didn't go very far when I brought it up before," Kondylis said. "It's based on people taking up space, not on performance."

After thinking about it for a long time, she said the board can be convinced to eliminate the longevity pay if it doesn't touch current employees.

In fiscal year 2009-10, the county paid more than $3.1 million in longevity pay. That number jumped to $3.2 million the next fiscal year.

"These costs are not sustainable given the current county structural deficit," staff said in a report.

Kondylis added that since longevity pay is tied into salaries, eliminating the benefit will also reduce retirement costs.

It would be difficult and probably illegal, according to staff, to eliminate longevity pay for those who are currently working for the county due to contracts and other employment agreements.

"Our goal should be to eliminate longevity for new hires in a way that is fair so that, over time, these costs will no longer occur," staff said in a report.

Staff also noted that none of the actions regarding longevity pay are intended to effect

those who are currently employed by Solano County, including elected officials.

The board will consider several options:

* Eliminate the legislative, executive and senior management groups longevity tier and substitute longevity tier that is in place for all other groups of new hires.

* Eliminate the "credit service provision" for all future hires.

* Eliminate longevity pay for all newly elected officials who take office after Jan. 1, 2013.

* Adopt policy that it is the intention of the Solano County Board of Supervisors to eliminate longevity pay in its entirety for new hires.

The Solano County Board of Supervisors meets at 9 a.m. today in the County Administration Center, 675 Texas St., Fairfield.

Follow Staff Writer

Melissa Murphy at Twitter.com/ReporterMMurphy.

The rest is here:
Solano County leaders to discuss eliminating longevity pay

By Joe Schoenmann (contact)

Monday, Feb. 6, 2012 | 12:08 p.m.

By more than 80 percent, Clark County's union of service employees ratified last week a new two-year contract that preserves longevity pay but eliminates merit pay increases over the next two years.

The deal is seen as a win for both the county, which will save $20.4 million over two years, and for the union, which preserved longevity — something county administrators want to eliminate over the long term.

But it has caused dissension in the union, where even longtime supporter Joseph Campbell, a union steward who voted in favor of the contract, has decided to resign.

In emails forwarded to the Sun, Campbell said he didn't believe union members were getting enough information about the true effect of the contract. He wanted to give members more time to be "properly educated." Instead, he wrote, access to the union's email system was blocked.

So Saturday afternoon, Campbell turned in his resignation as a union steward to Al Martinez, president of Service Employees Union Local 1107. Campbell, who was a member of the union's bargaining team, also said he would now seek Martinez's seat during the next election for union president.

"Union Hall mentality is that membership are sheep to be herded to and fro and never to be given complete information," Campbell wrote. "We are subject, in my opinion, to the 'smart' Union bosses at the Hall and 'we' the membership, can never be trusted to make the right decisions based on the facts."

Union spokesman Nick Di Archangel said the union held informational meetings, put out fliers and made robo-calls, all with the intent of educating members about the terms of the contract.

"Our members knew what they were voting for," he said.

The Clark County Commission is expected to vote on the contract at its meeting Tuesday.

Continued here:
Service employees union OKs divisive contract

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwire -02/06/12)- Brandes Investment Partners today released a new study by the Brandes Institute suggesting ways for investors to improve their financial prospects in retirement, including reducing the risk of outliving their assets ("money death"). The baby boom generation is now moving towards retirement age while longevity estimates suggest that their retirement may last much longer than expected. The study suggests that many of America's baby boomers could increase their retirement assets at advanced ages by maintaining a larger portion of their portfolios in higher-potential investments such as equities (rather than re-allocating prematurely into fixed income) and managing the risk of money death by investing a modest portion of their portfolio in longevity insurance. The study comes on the heels of the U.S. Treasury's plan to make it easier for defined contribution plans and IRAs to offer annuity options.

"Retirees in good health have a risk of outliving their assets regardless of their investment strategy. Our study suggests they may do better by aiming for superior long-term returns in their investment portfolios and dealing with money death risk separately," said Barry Gillman, Research Director, Brandes Institute Advisory Board. "This contradicts the conventional wisdom, which tells people to play it safe when they retire by moving a large portion of their portfolio to bonds.

"One problem with the conventional approach is that about 60% of the money distributed from typical retirement accounts should come from investment returns earned after retirement. Today's historically low yields are just not providing the returns retirees will likely need to sustain them.

"Until now, this approach has not been widely understood or used even by the healthy and wealthy individual investors who stand to benefit from it most. With the Treasury's new initiative to tear down some of the barriers to investing retirement savings in annuities, this could also become a practical solution for many participants with 401(k) and IRA savings."

The study cites evidence generated by the Brandes Retirement Simulator, a proprietary online model that projects a range of long-term asset outcomes based on an individual's personal finances and expected lifespan, as well as portfolio allocations and investment assumptions, and the use of longevity insurance. The full study is available on the firm's website at http://www.brandes.com/institute. Access to the Brandes Retirement Simulator will soon be available on the firm's website at no cost to retirees and advisors who can customize the inputs and integrate it into their retirement planning.

About Brandes

Brandes Investment Partners is a global investment advisory firm based in San Diego and along with its affiliates, manages more than $32 billion of assets as of December 31, 2011, for institutional and private clients worldwide. Since its inception in 1974, Brandes has applied the value investing approach to security selection pioneered by Benjamin Graham. Among the first investment firms to bring a global perspective to value investing, Brandes manages a variety of investment strategies.

Brandes Investment Partners, L.P. is a U.S. registered investment adviser. Brandes does not sell or endorse any insurance policy. More information can be found at http://www.brandes.com.

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New Study Suggests an Unconventional Approach May Help Boomers Prolong Retirement Savings