The great $660 billion public pension rip-off

Edward Siedle is president of Benchmark Financial Services and is a former investigator with the Security and Exchange Commission's Division of Investment Management. He writes in Sunday's New York Times:

Nearly a quarter of all state and local public pension assets have disappeared -- $660 billion in state workers’ retirement savings taken off the radar and swept into high-cost hedge, private equity, venture and real estate funds with little or no public oversight.

Kickbacks, bribery, self-dealing, fraud, tax evasion and outright theft have been protected as confidential “trade secrets” or “proprietary business information” exempt from disclosure to the public under various state freedom of information laws. Not surprising, the parties complicit in this secrecy strategy neglected to tell workers and other stakeholders about it. The policy itself was crafted and set in place in secrecy.

Read Siedle's entire account here.