by: Diane Benjamin
As reported in the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-government-entities-lost-tens-of-millions-imet-investment-20150410-htmlstory.html
The Illinois Metropolitan Investment Fund — which invests public money on behalf of municipalities, pension funds and local government boards — revealed in October that it had lost more than $50 million after investing in loans now at the center of a federal criminal investigation. A Tribune analysis has uncovered 238 public entities throughout the Chicago area that participate in the municipal fund, called IMET for short.
Bloomington lost: $210,843
Normal lost: $1,148,377
Normal Police Pension lost: $65,584
Normal Fire pension fund lost: $38,723
See this longer Chicago Tribune story too: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-imet-0412-biz-20150410-story.html?fb_action_ids=10203993412015394&fb_action_types=og.shares&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B612417765525851%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.shares%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D#page=1
It looks like Bloomington had $7,606,401 invested
Normal had $41,429,003 invested. That leads to the question: Why does Normal have $41,429,003 to invest?
Normal had $2,366,026 in Police pension funds invested and $1,396,922 in Fire pension funds invested.
Reminds me of when I was on a school board and the district was investing money stolen from the taxpayers so to speak. They shouldn’t even be allowed to do this. I went round and round with the superintendent where the money was being invested.
Seeing the dollar numbers in this article doesn’t surprise me and the taxpayers don’t even realize this goes on.
The curious thing about this article is that it is not all that uncommon (especially in this day and age) for investments to take losses. And for the record, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Yes overall some investment choice will be losers, some will be winners, which is why investments should diversify. However just as social security has been stolen from by borrowing, soon enough these pension funds will disappear completely due to the coming bail ins.
This one isn’t investments – it’s theft! Read the second link.
It’s like that South Park clip when Stan puts his $100 in the bank and within 2 seconds the banker says, “it’s gone Next!” Investing in hard assets is advisable at this point, along with food, water, land, and ammo.