Here's something you might be interested in.
Former San Diego securities plaintiff lawyer Bill Lerach has a powerful piece in Saturday's (Feb. 26) Huffington Post. Title: "Blame Wall Street, Not Hard Working Americans, for the Pension Funds Fiasco." He touches on several key matters: 1. The dismantling of the securities regulatory apparatus that had been set up in the 1930s; 2. Deregulation; 3. Wall Street charging pension funds enormous fees, then putting them too heavily in risky stocks; 4. The "pay to play" scams in which placement agents get kickbacks to persuade pension funds to place their money with particular money managers; 5. The pension funds' absurd assumed rates of return. Says Lerach: "These ridiculous 7.5% to 9.0% assumed rates of return are not 'little white lies' -- they are Everest-sized whoppers. If the three big California public funds used a 4.5% to 5% rate of return instead of the 7.5%-8% they now use, these funds would be $500 billion under-funded -- 10 times the $50 billion shortfall they admit to."
Lerach recently emerged from prison for offenses he committed when he was an aggressive plaintiff lawyer. He can no longer practice law.
Former San Diego securities plaintiff lawyer Bill Lerach has a powerful piece in Saturday's (Feb. 26) Huffington Post. Title: "Blame Wall Street, Not Hard Working Americans, for the Pension Funds Fiasco." He touches on several key matters: 1. The dismantling of the securities regulatory apparatus that had been set up in the 1930s; 2. Deregulation; 3. Wall Street charging pension funds enormous fees, then putting them too heavily in risky stocks; 4. The "pay to play" scams in which placement agents get kickbacks to persuade pension funds to place their money with particular money managers; 5. The pension funds' absurd assumed rates of return. Says Lerach: "These ridiculous 7.5% to 9.0% assumed rates of return are not 'little white lies' -- they are Everest-sized whoppers. If the three big California public funds used a 4.5% to 5% rate of return instead of the 7.5%-8% they now use, these funds would be $500 billion under-funded -- 10 times the $50 billion shortfall they admit to."
Lerach recently emerged from prison for offenses he committed when he was an aggressive plaintiff lawyer. He can no longer practice law.