what's the differece between mutual funds and pension funds?

Pension fund = a fund that provides retirement benefits to a company's employees (as opposed to mutual funds, in which employment is irrelevant). Defined benefit plans are a sort of pension fund, in which the size of an employer's contribution is determined by an actuarial formula to pay out retirement benefits, and are regulated (in the USA) under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"). Key is that one's membership in a pension fund derives from one's employment (i.e., a Microsoft employee can't join Time-Warner's pension plan, and vice-versa).

Really complicated pension- and tax-rules governing American mutual funds and pensions, which is probably of interest to almost anyone (and not applicable to Anthony since he's Canadian).

Hope that helps!

This belongs on I Love Baseball, but I didn't know where to put it; this is the only search result I got for "pension."

There's a good article in the Toronto Sun today about players from a very narrow window--1976 to 1979--who, because of a technicality, are without a pension. There are fewer than a thousand, and as they die off, the number drops every year. The article mentions a book that chronicles this in more detail.

http://www.torontosun.com/sports/baseball/2010/12/30/16714836.html

Financially, professional athletes are easy prey for their entourages and money advisors.

• By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.

• Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.

• Numerous retired MLB players have been similarly ruined, and the current economic crisis is taking a toll on some active players as well. Last month 10 current and former big leaguers ... discovered that at least some of their money is tied up in the $8 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated by Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford.

Date me, not Sam Malone