Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.

I just received my quarterly pension PR letter from Comptroller Liu. Liu couldn't resist the temptation to claim credit along with the trustees for the pension funds' good investment performance during FY-2011 (June 30, 2011).

Number one, this is like taking credit for the sunshine. The S&P 500 index went from 1030 (6/30/2010) to 1320 (6/30/2011) during FY-2011, a 28% increase.

Number two, this also means the trustees and the Comptroller are responsible for losses when they occur, like the $3.5B that NYCERS lost in the last 3 months.

The best we can hope for from the trustees is not to screw things up too much. They are the last people in the world that anyone would willing trust money to. Of course, Bloomberg has managed to raise his own personal net worth to $19.5B from $4.5B since coming to office.

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