Questions for the Investigators of the Indiana Pension Funds

Here's a few things that I feel should be looked into as you investigate the activities of the three Indiana State pension funds.

1. Was it greed that caused them to gamble by investing in high interest bonds from a company clearly headed for bankruptcy? It was pretty clear to most, including the owners of Chrysler last year that they couldn't make it and were headed for bankruptcy. Thus any money invested in the failing company had to be backed by high interest bonds to offset the high risk.

2. Are the three state funds managed by the same group? It is interesting that the three vocal holdouts of the Chrysler settle are all state funds from Indiana.

3. What would an audit of those pension funds reveal? Would it show that their investment in Chrysler bonds last year was a "Hail Mary" move to try and replace missing or mismanaged funds?

When Pensions Get Stupid - Must Be the Water in Indiana

Ok... On one hand, we have the former #3 auto maker in the United States. One that is privately held but is deep in debt and losing billions a year.

On the other hand, we have a few pension funds who own a very tiny sliver of Chrysler's debt. So tiny, that any less and it'd be less than 1%!!!

Now... Chrysler can go under, leaving the pension funds able to collect a few pennies on the dollar if they are lucky.

Or, Chrysler can be sold to Fiat and the pension funds and other secured debt holders given majority ownership, thus if not outright saving the investments, at least giving them time to sell off the new stock to recover more of the money than they would with a full bankruptcy.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

And therein lies the rub... it seems that the pension funds are managed by people with no brains.

Instead of looking out for the interests of the pensioners who would benefit from the funds, those mighty mental midgets instead chose turn down the stock in the new company.

They then turned down the 29 cents on the dollar that the rest of the bondholders accepted.

Now remember... those three funds only have $42.5 million invested in Chrysler bonds. The holders of the other $6.8575 BILLION in bonds were OK with the deal.

Instead, the three pension funds' greed caused them to file suit in Federal Court to STOP the saving of Chrysler! They kept losing but appealed all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court. The same court which today, stopped the sale of Chrysler to Fiat.

If Chrysler doesn't find some way to appease those paragons of fiduciary responsibility in Indiana this week, Fiat can and will likely give us all the finger and back out.

When that happens and the pension funds tank due to the actions of their managers, I sincerely hope that the investors/employees whose futures were in those funds and bonds do the same to the managers of the funds and sue the crap out of them.

The Political Party Credit/Blame Decision Maker

We're in a mess. No one can dispute that. Fingers are pointing in a lot of directions. Politicians and commentators from the far left and the far right are battling and as usual, the "common" person is caught at the bottom of this pile of bovine processed grains.

After too many years of listening to Democrat and Republican politicians, AND the rabidly devout of both parties, I've come to notice a lot of similarities in their attitudes. This is not a GOOD thing.

There are SOME though who are new to this political "game" of finger pointing. So to help you banish your newbie status, I've prepared the following chart to help you determine where to place the blame or credit for anything that happens.

You may click the image for a larger version.