By fitsnews – August 23, 2012
IT’S A GREAT DAY … FOR FLUSHING
MORE MONEY DOWN THE TOILET
South Carolina’s pension fund lost $1.3 billion during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, sources tell FITS – $300 million more than The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper is reporting.
On June 30, 2011, the fund’s portfolio was valued at $26.2 billion. A year later, it had sunk to $24.9 billion.
“It’s part of the normal fluctuation of the markets,” Reynolds Williams, the fund’s chairman, told his favorite reporter Adam Beam of The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper. “Obviously we’d rather make a lot of money every year. But that doesn’t happen in the real world.”
Really? Part of the “normal fluctuation of the markets?”
State Treasurer Curtis Loftis – an aggressive proponent of reform at this corrupt agency – has repeatedly exposed Williams’ statement as a lie.
Under Williams’ leadership South Carolina’s fund shelled out exorbitant fees on risky investments – with the result being subpar returns that have lagged behind the rest of the nation. Meanwhile Williams continues to evade responsibility for his flagrant pay-to-play scams – including one in which he flat out lied to his fellow members on the S.C. Retirement System Investment Commission (SCRSIC).
Seriously … this guy would have us believe that a $1.3 billion loss over the last year is “part of the normal fluctuation of the markets?”
The markets are up from last year, dude …
In 2000, this fund had liabilities of less than $200 million. Today? Its liabilities have soared to more than $14 billion.
Sadly, rather than joining Loftis’ reform efforts S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and members of South Carolina’s “Republican-controlled” General Assembly have been content to pump more money into our state’s failed pension fund bureaucracy (while cutting sweetheart deals with those responsible for its ongoing failure). They also attempted to put a hatchet in Loftis back … an effort which (fortunately) failed.
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