Operating Engineers Pension Fund Status

You have seen many stories about the problems in the finance industry: the sub-prime mortgage disaster, the mergers and bankruptcies of large institutions like Bear Stearns and Lehman, the likelihood that the US is in a recession, and significant economic problems throughout the world.

All of this has led to a stock market that has seen the Dow Jones Index drop over 40% from January 1 through October 30, 2008.

What does this mean for the Operating Engineers Pension Fund, its pensioners and working participants? We have some good news:

Your Board of Trustees has diversified the investments made by the Pension Fund. The portfolio includes 20% Fixed Income investments such as U.S. Treasury Bonds, corporate bonds and cash, and 40% Real Estate investments. These investments have performed far better than the equity markets.

If you compare your Pension Fund’s investment results to other pension funds like ours, we are doing relatively well. This year, your Pension Fund investment results are better than 94 out of 100 similar pension funds (in the top 6% of all pension funds out there).

Recently, the Pension Plan’s overall health was measured against Federal Government standards set in the Pension Protection Act.  For the plan year ended June 30, 2008, your Pension Plan is in the “Green Zone,” the best result possible. Your Pension Plan will be measured again on June 30, 2009.

We won’t pretend that everything is perfect. Our portfolio of stocks has losses just as everyone’s stock portfolio does because of the severe economic downturn.

However, because your Board of Trustees did not put all, or even most of our eggs, in the “stocks basket,” your Pension Fund is in a position to manage a downturn in stock values.

Professional advisors to the Board of Trustees believe that the downturn will end eventually, and stocks will again become an important contributor to your Pension Plan’s long term health and success. 

If you have questions, please feel free to write the Fund Manager at 100 E. Corson St., Pasadena, CA 91103.

Events for February, March & April 2009

American Heart Month. Feb. 1-28. This month the American Heart Association’s theme is “Go Red For Women.” Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women—claiming the lives of nearly 500,000 each year. Visit www.americanheart.org for more information.

Library Lovers’ Month. Feb. 1–28. Celebrate and support the value of libraries. The American Library Association reports that there are an estimated 123,921 private and public libraries in the United States, more than 1,600 of which were funded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

Groundhog Day. Feb. 2. According to legend, it is the day that the Groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, comes out of his hole after a long winter sleep to look for his shadow. If he sees it, he regards it as an omen of six more weeks of bad weather and returns to his hole. If the day is cloudy and, hence, shadowless, he takes it as a sign of spring and stays above ground.

Valentine’s Day. Feb. 14. Celebrates the feast of two Christian martyrs of this name. Now it is one of the most widely observed unofficial holidays. It is an occasion for the exchange of gifts, usually flowers or sweets, and greeting cards.

Presidents Day. Feb. 16. Observes the birthdays of George Washington (Feb. 22) and Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12).

Fat Tuesday. Feb. 24. Fat Tuesday is otherwise known as Mardi Gras, the festival New Orleans, Louisiana, is famous for. "Gras" is French for fat and "Mardi" is French for Tuesday. It is a day when people eat all they want of everything and anything they want because the following day is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of a long fasting period for Christians.

Ash Wednesday. Feb. 25. First day of Lent for Christians. Begins the season of preparation for the celebration of Easter.

National Kidney Month. March 1–31. To generate awareness about kidney disease and to encourage people to learn more about preventing the disease. One in nine Americans suffers from chronic kidney disease. For more information browse: http://www.kidney.org/kidneydisease/
kidneymonth/index.cfm.

Daylight Savings Time Begins. March 8. Congress passed an energy bill in August 2005 that extended Daylight Saving Time by a month. Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time will start the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November. Congress retains the right to resume the 2005 Daylight Saving Time schedule once a Department of Energy study as to the impact of this change is complete.

Saint Patrick’s Day. March 17. Commemorates the patron saint of Ireland, Bishop Patrick who, in and around A.D. 432, introduced Christianity into Ireland.

First Day of Spring. March 20. The dates have changed for the first day of Spring. In some years it occurs on March 20^th and in others on March 21.. For an explanation, browse: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/
050318_equinox.html

21^st Annual Diabetes Alert Day. Mar. 24. A one-day, “wake-up” call to inform the American public about the seriousness of diabetes. The American Diabetes Association encourages people to take the Diabetes Risk Test and find out if they, or their loved ones,
are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. For information, browse: http://www.diabetes.org
and look under Community Programs & Local Events.

Alcohol Awareness Month. April 1–30. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) fights the stigma and the disease of alcoholism and other drug addictions. NCADD provides education, information, help and hope to the public. It advocates prevention, intervention and treatment. For further information, browse: http://www.ncadd.org/

April Fools’ Day. April 1. A tradition that began in France in 1564. April 1 used to be New Year’s Day, but it was changed to Jan. 1 that year. People who insisted on celebrating the old New Year date became known as April fools, and it became common to play jokes and tricks on them.

Passover. April 9-16. Commemorates the time in history when the Jewish people were freed from slavery in Egypt.

Easter Sunday. April 12. A Christian festival that commemorates the resurrection of Christ.

National Arbor Day.  April 24. A day to honor plants and trees. Usually the last Friday in April but many states observe it on different dates based on their best tree-planting times.  For more information, browse www.arborday.org.

Radium: What a Difference a Century Makes

Most of us know of Marie Curie's groundbreaking work with radiation--her discovery of radium and polonium, her two Nobel Prized, and her contribution of the work radioactivity to our dictionary.  But it may come as a surprise to some that her experiments opened the door to a health craze in the early 20th century.  radiation was believed to be good for one's health--a kind of cure-all that could rejuvenate people and prolong their lives.  In fact, Curie argued that radiation could cure cancers, though that's exactly what killed her at the age of 67.  Here are some of the items the American public clamored for:

• Radioactive drinking water, known as "liquid sunshine"

• The Cosmos Bag, which contained cotton and radioactive ore used to treat arthritis and other pains

• Radithor, a tonic often prescribed by doctors

• The Revigator, a crock lined with radioactive ore and used to produce radioactive drinking water at home

• Suppositories

• Batch salts

• Lotions and face creams

• Cigarette holder

• Comforters and "Oradium" wool for babies

• Heating pads

• Refrigerator deodorizers

• Bread

• Chocolate bars

According to Dr. Paul J. Rosch, president of the The American Institute of Stress and clinical professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York Medical College, many double-blind studies support the belief that radiation has curative powers.  However, what we know today--and what eluded the great minds of the previous century--is that the amount of radiation is key to receiving any benefits from the exposure:  The dosage must be low-level.

Marie Curie left behind not only a legacy to scientific research, but also some personal effects (including lab books, calculations, and a cookbook) that remain so radioactive a century later that they're kept in lead-lined boxes or other protective storage.

Some Surprising reading Statistics
Here are some statistics gathered by The Literacy Company and Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics.

• Over 50 percent of NASA employees are dyslexic.  they are actually sought after by the organization because they have superb problem-solving skills.

• More than 20 percent of adults read at or below the fifth-grade level--this is well below what they need to earn a living wage.

• Nearly three out of five of prison inmates are illiterate.

• Eighty-five percent of all juvenile offenders have reading problems.

• More than 75 percent of those on welfare are illiterate.

• Over 1 million children drop out of school every year.

• About 50 percent of America's unemployed youths are functionally illiterate, meaning they can't carry out simple tasks like balancing checkbooks or reading drug labels.

• Forty-four million American adults are poor readers or "functionally illiterate."

• Twenty-one million Americans can't read at all; one-fifth of high school graduates can't read their diplomas.

INFORMATION CENTER
LATE HOURS

Every Wednesday beginning February 4th, 2009, the Fund Office Information Center will be open late for PARTICIPANT ONLY calls from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.

Call for assistance at (888) 512-5279 or (626) 356-1004

Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1998
Annual Reminder

Did you know that the Health & Wlefare Plan, as required by the Women's Health and Cancer rights Act of 1998, provides benefits for mastectomy-related services including reconstruction and surgery to achieve symmetry between the breasts, prostheses, and complications resulting from a mastectomy (including lymphedema)?  Call the fund Office at 1-888-5125279 for more information

Board of Trustees
Operating Engineers Health & Welfare

MEDICATION REFILL PROBLEMS?

If you're experiencing difficulties obtaining prescription refills on medications that you've been taking for more than tree (3) months, the Fund Office can assist you in resolving the problem.

Call the Fund's Information Center at 626-356-1014 (8:30 am to 4:30 pm Mon - Fri) to speak with a representative.

The curry cure

The next time you have a craving for curry, you might be doing your health a favor to give in to it. A recent study by researchers at the Medical College of Georgia has found that turmeric, the Indian spice commonly used in curry, can reduce the size of a hemorrhagic stroke. Other studies have found that turmeric’s active ingredient, curcumin, can lower your risk for Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, bone loss, and cancer.

A virtual watchdog for your laptop—and it’s free

An open-source tool that monitors the whereabouts of laptops has been developed from the collaborative efforts of two students and two professors from the University of Washington and the University of California–San Diego. The tool’s name is Adeona, after the Roman goddess of safe returns.

Once the software is installed, the laptop will occasionally send its Internet protocol address and related information to a free Web storage network. This information can be used to establish the computer’s general location. With commercial systems, where you pay for tracking, a forensics trail is created so that you can see the information—but so can other people. Adeona creates a private forensics trail: The information is scrambled and can be deciphered only with a password, which is known only by the person who set up the account. If the laptop is stolen, only the owner can access the information, but can then provide it to police to aid in tracking down the stolen machine. Even if the free storage network were to be hacked, the information would remain private, the developers say.

“Adeona is free and easy to install, so anyone who owns a laptop, or even a small company, can use it to track their assets,” says Gabriel Maganis, one of the authors of the software. So far more than 50,000 people have downloaded Adeona. The current version works on both laptops and desktops running Windows, Macintosh, or Linux, and is available for no charge at http://adeona.cs.washington.edu.

Gum is more than a tasty diversion

A Swinburne University researcher and the Wrigley Science Institute have found that gum chewing can lower stress levels and improve performance. The results were presented at the 2008 10th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine in Tokyo. For the study, participants performed a battery of multitasking activities while chewing gum. Among the findings? Gum chewing . . .

• Relieved anxiety. During mildly stressful activity, chewing gum was found to reduce anxiety in gum-chewers by 17 percent when compared to non-gum-chewers. During moderately stressful activities, the reduction rate was 10 percent.

• Increased alertness. During mild stress activities, gum-chewers were 19 percent more alert than non-gum-chewers. During moderate stress, gum-chewers were 8 percent more alert.

• Reduced stress. Salivary cortisol (a physiological stress marker) levels were 16 percent lower in gum-chewers during mildly stressful activities; during moderately stressful activities, the difference was 12 percent.

• Improved performance. Gum-chewers improved mean performance by 109 percent during mildly stressful activities, and 67 percent during moderately stressful activities, when compared to non-gum-chewers.

How failure and imagination kicked off a journey

When J. K. Rowling, author of the phenomenally successful Harry Potter series, had been out of college for seven years, she found herself at a dark point in her life. At that time, she says, she had failed in life on an epic scale. “An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded. I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless.”

In short, Rowling says she was the biggest failure she knew. And while she says there is nothing ennobling about being poor, she believes she reaped benefits from her failures. Failure, she says, stripped away all the inessential aspects of her life. She stopped pretending to be anything other than herself, and it was then that she began to earnestly pursue the only work that mattered to her. It was not, she says, the fairy-tale transformation to success so often written about her in the media.

Learning to imagine played an important role in Rowling’s life, yet surprisingly it has nothing to do with the colorful world of Harry Potter she created. Instead, she says, she learned to imagine when she worked for Amnesty International in her 20s. There, she was exposed to people and people’s stories from all over the world that were filled with terrible realities that she herself had never experienced; she looked at pictures of people who had disappeared without a trace, read testimonies from people who were tortured, and saw pictures of their injuries. She learned how evil human beings could be to their own kind.

Though seeing this dark side was anything but inspiring, Rowling says she also saw what was good about people while working for Amnesty. People who themselves had never suffered these atrocities organized to help people who had, because they could imagine what it was like to be surrounded by evil. Choosing to exercise your imagination for the good of others was a humbling experience, she said. Choosing to raise your voice for those who cannot do it for themselves can transform lives in ways we often cannot predict.

Inventors who have touched our lives

It’s National Black History Month and a good time to review the advances provided by four African-American inventors.

Thomas Stewart who received a patent in 1893:

Mr. Stewart’s modified mop offered new efficiency to cleaning a floor: With the addition of a clamp and lever, the mop was self-wringing.

John Lee Love who received a patent in 1897:

Most of us were introduced to Mr. Love’s invention at a tender age. He designed the first portable pencil sharpener.

Marie Brown who received a patent in 1969:

If you have a video home security system, you have Ms. Brown to thank. She created the first such system to use television surveillance.

Patricia Bath who received a patent in 1988:

This founder of the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness created the Cataract Laserphaco Probe, a method of removing cataracts that was painless and more accurate than previous surgical approaches.

Rosemary is good for your brain

The herb rosemary contains an ingredient that fights off damage to the brain. The active ingredient in rosemary can protect the brain from stroke and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s, and also from normal aging, a collaborative group of researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research say. The ingredient, carnosic acid, protects the brain cells from free radicals. The findings were originally reported in The Journal of Neurochemistry and Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Rosemary comes from a shrubby evergreen bush with needlelike leaves. It has trusses of flowers that can be white, pink, purple or blue. Rosemary derives its name from the Latin rosemarinus, which translates as “dew of the sea.” Rosemary has a long history as a memory aid. It was also used in the past at weddings to symbolize love and loyalty.  

HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR ADDRESS?

It is very important that you keep the Fund Office advised at all times of any change in your address.  Changes of address cannot be accepted unless the change is in writing and is signed by the eligible member.  To print an "Change of Address" form, click here.