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Showing Original Post only (View all)David Sirota: Leaked Docs Show How Wall Street Extracting Massive Fees from Public Pension Systems [View all]
@davidsirota: BREAKING: Leaked documents show how Wall Street is extracting massive fees from public pension systems http://t.co/qqVxLMz80l
http://pando.com/2014/05/05/leaked-docs-obtained-by-pando-show-how-a-wall-street-giant-is-guaranteed-huge-fees-from-taxpayers-on-risky-pension-investments
LEAKED: Docs obtained by Pando show how a Wall Street giant is guaranteed huge fees from taxpayers on risky pension investments
BY DAVID SIROTA
ON MAY 5, 2014
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Thanks to confidential documents exclusively obtained by Pando, we can now see some of the language and fee structures in the agreements between the alternative investment industry and major public pension funds. Taken together, the documents raise serious questions about whether the government employees, trustees and politicians overseeing major public pension funds are shirking their fiduciary responsibilities under the law when they are cementing alternative investment deals.
The documents, which were involved in a recent SEC inquiry into the $14.5 billion Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS), were handed to us by SEC whistleblower Chris Tobe, an investment consultant and former trustee of the KRS. Tobe has also written a book Kentucky Fried Pensions about the scandalous state of the Kentucky public pensions system.
The documents provided by Tobe (embedded below) specifically detail Kentuckys dealings with Blackstone a giant Wall Street investment firm which has deployed a platoon of registered lobbyists in Kentucky and whose employees are major financial backers of Kentucky U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R).
The Blackstone-related documents, though, dont just tell a story about public pensions in Kentucky. The firm, which just reported record earnings, does business with states and localities across the country. The Wall Street Journal reports that about $37 of every $100 of Blackstones $111 billion investment pool comes from state and local pension plans.
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