At least two states, Kentucky and Illinois have recently denied state employees access to the information of who is handling their pension money and where it is being invested. Does anyone out there see the idiocy of this stance? It is the workers money and by agreement with the unions that represent those workers the state is responsible for the investment of that pension money that had been set aside through collective bargaining for their retirement.
It’s the workers money but the states tell them it’s none of their business what they are doing with it. That’s criminal. Of course it’s the workers business. It’s their money. This is the kind of decision, made by state officials that enrage citizens against government. Especially so when the reason for making it is so obvious.
The state officials running the pension programs claim that the information as to who is managing the money and how much they are charging as fees to do it, represent “trade secrets”. Bullshit! What it really represents is complicity between those same state officials and the Wall Street firms who manage the money, charge exorbitant fees and kick back some of them to the state officials who gave them the job. What the state officials are doing is hiding their complicity in a criminal activity
Anyone who is too stupid to recognize this fact doesn’t deserve to have a retirement plan.
This same problem surfaced recently in Rhode Island where the new, governor elect Gina Raimondo rejected a newspaper’s request for information about state pension investments. As state treasurer she argued that financial firms had a right to “Minimize attention” around their compensation. Minimize attention? What a steaming pile. The only rights that financial companies who handle state workers funds have is to be completely transparent with how they are handling those funds and if they aren’t they should be instantly indicted for conspiracy to commit fraud.
The argument that forcing a financial firm to reveal its information is like forcing Coke to reveal the ingredients of its secret formula is an even bigger pile of crap than the withholding of them itself. The one thing is nothing like the other and only a scurrilous lawyer could come up with such a corrupt concept. Coke is dealing with its own product and its own invention, only. The Wall Street sleazebags who don’t want their complicity in the fraud revealed are dealing with the workers money and as such the workers have every right to know what they are doing with it and how much they are charging to do it.
The real analogy here is if your investment counselor refused to reveal to you what he was charging you to manage your money. Now, I don’t know about you, but if he was mine, he’d be out the door before he finished the sentence. This is as it should be. The only possible reason to withhold any information about how their money is being invested and what the fees charged are, is because someone is stealing the workers pension and since they are state organizations involved, that calls for an investigation by the State Attorney General or if that is not forthcoming by Federal authorities, not only into the investment firms but also into the State Treasurers and AG’s who are blocking that information from reaching the people whose pension money is involved.
But these are brassy thieves. Look at Iowa where a private equity firm, KKR warned the state pension officials that if the State informed the taxpayers of the fees that Wall Street was charging for pension plan investment, investment banks and hedge funds would pull out of Iowa and effectively prohibit the state from participating in future private investments. Talk about the Godfather! It’s obvious that KKR and their associates on Wall Street have sunk to the level of Mafia moneylenders. I wonder if they actually threatened to kneecap the Governor?
Of course Iowa may just be lucky. Major investors are in agreement that these hedge funds are failing to deliver returns that match up to low-fee stock returns so maybe Iowa should accept the offer as, too good to refuse and just walk away. If the combination of low returns and high fees is the best that Wall Street can offer, maybe the states should just invest in government bonds or find new investment counseling away from the mainstream, that will guide them into secure investments like those of the major investors.
Despite all the clouding, of information, lying and double dealing, this is a very easily dealt with situation. The solution lies in each state’s governor’s and DA’s offices, not with the State Treasurer, who is probably already complicit with the Wall Street thieves and in it up to his eyeballs.. Of course the problem won’t be solved, because voters can’t be bothered to pay attention until they find out that they’ve had all their pensions or savings stolen by these nefarious bastards.
If the guy who’s investing your pension money doesn’t want to tell you every fact about the investment, then he’s stealing from you. That’s a given. The same goes for your union president in spades. Anyone who doesn’t want to tell you every detail about every investment they are handling for you is, guaranteed, a thief. Act on that.