Political pundits are a nickel a dozen now; especially with the advent of the internet, the expansion of the overall communication process, and the 24-7 media coverage of politics. But how many pundits are worth their salt? You readers have to make that determination. Those of you who listen to the pundits on radio and/or television ; or read blogs, newspapers, magazines or other periodicals; need to hold them accountable over time. You need to evaluate them based on their prognostications and their successes.  

I wrote the post "Hedge Funds Kiss Our Assets Goodbye" back in 2007. I was reacting in terror to the fact that then-NYC Comptroller William Thompson was shifting to "alternative" assets such as hedge funds and private equity. In an effort, I believe, to hide or deny the fact that the retroactive pension enhancements his union supporters got in deals up an Albany would wreck public services, by somehow getting the fantasy 8.0% rate of return.

Well now the New York Times has found those pension funds that shifted to alternative investments ended up paying higher fees to Wall Street while getting lower returns. Which is just what anyone who wasn't being paid to say otherwise would have predicted. I'm hardly a financial whiz, but the ripoff was clear to me. The Times article talks about what happened to public employee pension funds in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, California and Austin Texas — but not New York — over the past five years. So can someone tell me…how screwed are we?  The ongoing spiral of tax increases and service cuts to pay for those deals is bad enough as it is, without Wall Street ripping us off more.

President Obama and the Democrats thought they could mute opposition to health care reform by adopting the Heritage Foundation Romney plan, and imposing a regressive mandate instead of a progressive or proportional tax. It seems that may not turn out to be the case. Romney now claims it is fine for states to provide/require universal health insurance, but not the federal government.

But what about the Supreme Court case overturning a key part of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996? The Court ruled that states could not limit the benefits of those who move (or are sent) from less generous states to more generous states when they were in need, while benefitting from the lower taxes of the less generous states before and after. How does Massachusetts prevent South Carolina from sending its citizens north to that state when they fall ill? Why do they end up in New York, on our Medicaid plan, instead? New York had better find out, and take action.