Monday, March 30, 2009
Another piece of evidence
That the entire Bushovik administration was organized along the lines of a classic Mafia bustout. The key elements of a bustout are simple. First you take over, second you drain the assets and last, using the good credit of your target, you run up borrowings to the max, knowing you will make no effort to repay the debt. All the assets thus drawn off are distributed to family and friends.
Just months before the start of last year's stock market collapse, the federal agency that insures the retirement funds of 44 million Americans departed from its conservative investment strategy and decided to put much of its $64 billion insurance fund into stocks.And the guiding hand behind this particular portion of the public trust.
Switching from a heavy reliance on bonds, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation decided to pour billions of dollars into speculative investments such as stocks in emerging foreign markets, real estate, and private equity funds.
The agency refused to say how much of the new investment strategy has been implemented or how the fund has fared during the downturn. The agency would only say that its fund was down 6.5 percent - and all of its stock-related investments were down 23 percent - as of last Sept. 30, the end of its fiscal year. But that was before most of the recent stock market decline and just before the investment switch was scheduled to begin in earnest.
No statistics on the fund's subsequent performance were released.
However, Charles E.F. Millard, the former agency director who implemented the strategy until the Bush administration departed on Jan. 20, dismissed such concerns. Millard, a former managing director of Lehman Brothers, said flatly that "the new investment policy is not riskier than the old one."A pity his former employer screwed the pooch and he was not able to wade back in and "share the wealth".
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