Idiots or Liars?
Retirement investments suck; at least that’s the opinion of the Legislative Research Commission (LRC).
Seven months after this blog broke the story that Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS) and the Kentucky Teachers Retirement Systems (KTRS) combined over the last 3 years underperformed by $2 billion, the LRC came out with a report saying they underperformed by $2.9 billion. Slightly different time periods but the result is the same.
The excuses by the Executive Directors of both systems prove that they are either blatant liars or totally incompetent.
From Mark Hebert’s Blog:
The CEO's of both pension systems told lawmakers that they've been hamstrung by cash flow problems and a past ban on foreign investments.
From the Associated Press story:
Gary Harbin, executive secretary of the Kentucky Teacher's Retirement System, said the system has been limited by regulations that prevented international investments. That has since changed, and the retirement system is performing better, Harbin said.
There have never been any regulations preventing KRS or KTRS from investing internationally. This was confirmed in the 1998 review by Kentucky State Auditor that recommended both KRS and KTRS invest internationally.
This hallucination of a regulation was totally self-inflicted by their own incompetence.
From page 21 of “AN EXAMINATION OF INVESTMENTS AND INVESTMENT PRACTICES OF THE KENTUCKY RETIREMENT SYSTEMS AND THE KENTUCKY TEACHERS’ RETIREMENT SYSTEM”:
KRS and KTRS should further diversify their investment portfolios by including international holdings.
Cash flow issues have no influence whatsoever on pension investment return. This is unheard of as an excuse in other states,
So it’s your choice, are the Executive Directors of the Pension Funds idiots or liars?
Labels: General Assembly, krs
posted by Ralph Long @ 3:32 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Long: Your information may be helpful if it weren't for the fact that you are just another liberal political hack. Since you have an unethical past of saying anything for a political point, all of the info you give is suspect and unworthy of serious analysis.
Ralph is right about this.
If we put the investment portion of these accounts into index mutual funds and sent the underperformers packing, taxpayers would save a lot. And we are going to need every bit of it if we are going to continue ignoring the runaway costs our our gold-plated fringe benefits. The upcoming special session and Task Farce II are very unlikely to lead to the implementation of meaningful change.
Heh. Anon@1217 is right about the "liberal political hack" thing but a bit short sighted in the rest of the comment.
Mr. Long will, at times, poke the caged lion just to watch him twitch but on this point he's dead on.
When David Adams comes out agreeing with a leftwing moonbat there simply MUST be something to the argument too.
To answer your question Ralph...I'd say both idiots AND liars.
Thanks, Ground Sloth.
I'll have to go with idiots and liars, too.
The geniuses at the auditor's office suggested that KTRS should reinvest in tobacco. I think we can rename those folks over at the auditor's offices back in 1998 "dumbasses".
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