Monday, August 25, 2014

Pension Outrage

Last year, my personal investments provided over a 19% return and I paid no investment or broker fees.

Under Chris Christie's dysfunctional fiscal management, the New Jersey Public Pension fund returned 15.9% (2014) but paid $398.7 million dollars in fees (fiscal 2013). Since his term in office began in 2009, the pension fund had paid billions in fees, has underperformed the market, and the governor has not made a full payment to the system.

There's fiscal management for you. Imagine what he'd do to the country as president. On second thought, let's not.

All of this economic tomfoolery, detailed in a new report in the International Business Times, tell you all you need to know about why Chris Christie is not only unsuited to be president, but why his tenure would be a disaster for the United States' economy. He is steeped in the old trickle down theory that brought us the Great Recession and the Billionaire's Recovery. He's warming up in New Jersey by soaking the middle and working classes with higher payments, property taxes and fees, while insulating the wealthy by refusing to even entertain the idea of more revenue for needed state services.

And his latest gambit, a state commission to look into how to reform the state pension program, is led by a Christie campaign contributor and former Reagan Administration economist, Thomas J. Healy, who says that the commission is not political.  Should I be skeptical?

Or outraged?

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest 

3 comments:

  1. Was the pension fund asset allocated like your personal investments? If yes you can compare but if not then comparison may not make sense. My guess is that the pension fund assets are not as risky as ones personal assets.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I did read more about the investments and compared to other pension funds it looks like nj did under perform but you would need to evaluate on a risk adjusted basis.

    ReplyDelete