True News was First Before the Daily News Again Mayor Michael Bloomberg tears into rival Bill Thompson on pensions In this article the Daily News took credit for
Bloomberg atacking Thompson on the pension funds because the paper said the mayor was responding to
DN article that was written the day before that showed Thompson taking $158,000 from pension fund middlemen who won more than $2.2 billion in business with the city. On
April 21, 2009 True News wrote
The Wolf at Thompson's Door which exposed how
Thompson was getting campaign contributions from former managers of his pension who after leaving his office became money man and received tens of millions from his office the same pension funds that they reorganized Thompson Pensions funds to make it more available to money manager type deals. Since that April story True News has written over a dozen stories about how Thompson has abused the pension funds offering many important leads that have not been follow up by the other papers or the campaigns.
From True News "It was reported yesterday in the Times that it was under former top Thompson aide Josh Wolf-Powers’ advisement that Steven
Rattner’s private investment firm Quadrangle Group hired the now-indicted Hank Morris as its placement agent.
Rattner badly wanted to gain access to investment from the State’s pension fund and according to the Times, “Wolf-Powers told Mr.
Rattner that he could not think of any investment firm that had persuaded the city’s pension fund to invest without using a placement agent.” Josh Wolf-Powers was his aid who left Thompson office and formed his own company and recieved pensions funds from the comprtoller.
On August 18 the NYT reported that one quarter of the money Thompson raised came from people who do business with his office.
On June 3 the Village Voice Robbins wrote how campaign consultants closed to Thompson not only acted as money managers with the city's pension funds but gave campaign contributions to the City Comptroller. The journalist culture which thinks they are the center of the world until your paper prints the story is elitist and in this new emerging
Internet world factually wrong
Pension middlemen gave $158K to Bill Thompson's campaigns and got $2.2B in city business 
The Hidden Pension BlameInvestors Like Steve RattnerThe mayor and the NYP take after the FDNY First Deputy Commissioner Frank Cruthers for obtaining a 242,000 yearly pension. Both Bloomberg and the NYP blame the workers
Mike: Stop these runaway pensions Why we're broke (NYP Ed) The mayor said "The issue that we have is that the whole pension system is something that we cannot afford."
Blaming the workers for the pen ions mess is a little like blaming the home owners for the sub prime mortgage melt down. Blame on that scandal rightly fell on the Wall Street investors who pay off the congress to allow the system to be set up where crooks like AIG made billions. The pension game works the same way. Billions were made by money managers, developers and investors who got their hands on the pension funds. Not a word in the NYP or by the mayor on pension fund investors. Could it be that many of those investors who gain from unlimited pension fund investments were developers and other power plays in the city.
Look at the Stuy Town mess. Friends of the mayor. Even the mayor's own investor
Michael Bloomberg Defends Steve Rattner: “A Great Public Servant ... ***
Steve Ratner Pension MessThe damage done to the city by the pension funds is the same as sub prime mortgages done to the nations economy. It just that the blame is selective and controlled. Manhattanites are leaving. In 2009, a net 2,545 residents decamped. Manhattan hadn't lost population since 1992. This year, New York will spend nearly $25 billion on pensions, health benefits and Medicaid alone -- plus the debt we need to pay it all and still have some infrastructure. That's more than half of city tax revenues -- and twice what these categories cost us (also after inflation) eight years ago.
The payments to the state's more than 600 school districts were scheduled
March 31, and will be made before they are legally due on June 1, "assuming sufficient cash is available," Paterson said in a statement.
No comments:
Post a Comment