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Broke Detroit's Pension Fund "Trustees" Use Public Funds To Fund Hawaii Trip
"When you have city employees, police, and firefighters have taken pay cuts, it doesn't look good," is the somewhat understated response from Detroit's emergency manager to the city's latest debacle. Amid the deepening financial crisis the crumbling region faces, four trustees of its public pension funds spent $22,000 of retirement funds to attend a conference at Waikiki Beach, Honolulu. "It's one of these things we trustees must do to stay on top of the field," is how one of the trustees defended the decision, a second would not comment, and the other two could not be found according to Reuters (we can only imagine what they were up to). Conference representatives noted that "these are intelligent folks there to do a job, not there for vacation," yet many funds did decide to boycott the event as it sent the wrong message. But irony of ironies, Detroit decided it was appropriate - perhaps since one well attended session covered 'how to avoid front-page scandals.'
The city of Detroit may be facing a deepening financial crisis but that hasn't stopped four trustees of its public pension funds from spending $22,000 of retirement system funds to attend a conference in Hawaii this week.
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"It especially doesn't look good when you have city employees, police, firefighters having taken pay cuts," said Bill Nowling, spokesman for Orr.
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"It's one of these things we trustees must do to stay on top of the field," Riehl said. "It's important that we participate in these conferences. The stakes are too high."
Of the three other trustees from Detroit, one declined to comment and two others could not be reached for comment.
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"These are intelligent folks there to do a job, not there to vacation."
... attended because the knowledge gained "will assist them in prudently executing their fiduciary responsibilities/obligations," spokeswoman Andrea Kenski said in a statement.
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Some funds boycotted the event, saying it sent the wrong message, particularly at a time when many pension systems face funding shortfalls and the finances of the cities and states that sponsor them remain on shaky ground.
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Not everyone came on their fund's dime.
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"The appearance was just not good," Monroe County Administrator Michael Bosanac said of the decision not to send Grodi at the fund's expense. "It doesn't conjure up the image of a hard-working conference."
"These are not junkets," Grodi countered. "We are getting educated to make decisions and have huge responsibilities."
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One well-attended session covered how to avoid front-page scandals. According to presenter Lydia Lee, a pension attorney from Oklahoma, the session touched on a topic familiar back in Detroit: The indictment this spring of two former city pension officials for an alleged $200 million bribery and kickback scheme, in a case that will come to trial next March.
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Look around, it's not just detroit
Gee, what's a common denominator between Detroit and what's happening in DC right now ?
In a nutshell, this is the problem of putting a large pool of other people's money under the supervision of a few people with no skin in the game.
True whether it is a pension fund, an investment portfolio, a TBTF bank, an insurance company, taxes, or the stock markets themselves.
Why am I not surprised? Could it be because everyone knows that other people's money is for pissing away....
Party like it's [fill in blank]... let the goodtimes roll.
You never know when it's going to end.
</sarc/ for those who "didn't know">
Hold the conference in Detroit next year and none of them will show up.
Problem solved.
It's what happens when stupid negroes are given the reigns........just look at what is happeneing nationwide.
The truth is not racist.
Sometimes the truth is just the truth.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
Give a negro in Detroit fishing lessons and he will eat the bait!
Good ole Detroit - reminds me of a truism...
Old Version:
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
Updated Version:
Give a man a welfare check, a free Obama phone with unlimited minutes, free internet, cash for his clunker, a Chevy Volt, food stamps via EBT card, free housing, free contraceptives, free healthcare & medicaid, ninety-nine weeks of unemployment, free medicine, forgive his student loans and give him an honorary degree for just trying, buy his “art”, give him a living wage, and show him where to go so the nanny state can wipe his a$$ for him when it comes to any personal responsibility…
..and he will vote Democratic the rest of his life…
..even after he's dead in Detroit .
Comparitively speaking, not so bad, actually. Some government Hawaii vacationers get to go there on AF 1.
When you are on top of the Party, Comrade.. you can do anything. Forward!
For once, I'm glad this story did not have pictures of their big, fat monkeybutts on the beach.
But now instead you've created the image in my mind ya bastard ;)
oh, your mind just jumps to the image you
FAT JAMIE DIMON CROSS-DRESSING IMPERSONATOR
read about? My condolences. Hopefully
ROSIE O'DONNELL GETTING A BACK-ALLEY BJ FROM LLOYD BLANKFEIN
that won't happen anymore.
I guess the pension trustees are going to party like it's 1999. The music Chuck Prince of Citi Bank spoke about is about to stop.
Bureaucrats turning on RETIRED bureaucrats, this is where things could get interesting. Especially since bureaucrats are use to telling the public to eat crow.
For $22,000 the trustees could have flown in a world-class retirement fund expert for a week of intense training.
wtf? detroit is in the limelight. there are thousands, upon thousands of other municipalities in EXACTLY the same position. they get their initiative and traning from the feds. aka., they are worthless, non productive, corrupt pieces of shit.
No problem, Barry will bail you out.
Just keep buying those BMWs, Mercedes, McMansions and lavish vacations.
This type of crap is all to common unfortunately. Every level of gov't finds ways to use funds inappropriately and yet we never hear about it.
In addition to this waste, the fed gov't spends a lot of money just training new hires by flying them all over the country and putting them in hotels for up to 6 weeks attended by a few hundred employees!
Like I said before............a bunch of suits and ties living like kings in the fabulous remodeled courthouse right in the middle of a fucking slum. Anything to perpetuate their jobs.
There exists something called video conferencing , you dont actually have to be there in order to be there.