Fat chance. Remember Michael Francke.

I'd give the odds as 75% that Wheeler goes to the dark side. If he doesn't, he'll quit politics and leave the state, I'd bet.

That's quite a piece. Glad you called attention to it. When taxpayers are called upon to pay for the revenue shortfalls,will the last person leaving Oregon please close the door behind him/her?

I don't understand why public employees want to leave a few wheeler dealer types make big investment decisions for them. I'd much rather be responsible for investing my retirement dollars than letting a few wheeler dealers risk them as they see fit. With the huge surplus of capital sloshing around the world, an 8% long term guaranteed rate of return is highly dubious, especially when the 10 year treasury is only returning just over 3% per year (That makes 8% look like junk bonds). In fact, Huffman (running against Wyden) says the only way out of PERS' underfunding may be bankruptcy.

Jack, thanks for piecing together (adjacent to each other) some quotes from Sickinger'sarticle. When this is done the real story develops. After reading the article on OregonLive last night I wondered what, deep down, was intended.

What I have a hard time deciphering from many O articles and writers are the real stories. It's almost like they try to avoid the obvious. It's not like the O doesn't editorialize in many of its articles or features-that's their newer operandi. But when it comes to stepping on someone's toes in government or "special friends", then they obfuscate the obvious.

Today's O article in Opinion, "Oregon's done with the days of rosy revenue forecast" -"reset spending priorities" by Tim Duy begins to connect the dots. But he isn't an O writer, maybe that explains the disconnect. The O also needs a "Reset".

Bob Clark -

Please understand that the public employees (state, county, city, school district, other district) have zero, da nada, none, zippo influence over the PERS investment advisors or the PERS board.

The public employees, like the rest of the taxpayers and the jurisdictions, are going to be left holding the bag when this particuar bubble collapses.

And unlike the PGE employees screwed with their 4-01ks when the Enron bubble burst, the public employees - especially the already retired - are going to be lucky to see $ 0.02 on the dollar.

Sounds like a good rationale for unloading a big piece of industrial land to the city for $10 million.

Speaking of investment advisors, isn't it funny how the staunch capitalists who always advocate "pay for performance" for teachers never think of paying the investment advisors that way?

There are sophisticated ways to score the total risk profiles of portfolios, so it's easy to gauge the performance of an advisor-created portfolio by comparing it to the market as a whole (return being the reward for risk). If the return obtained is less than that of a T-bill, why should anyone who had anything to do with making the investments make a damn dime?

Indeed, why not get rid of salaried investment advisors entirely and invest in an index for the whole market and, presto! No more travel scams, no more paying for worthless advice, no more graft opportunities ...

And unlike the PGE employees screwed with their 4-01ks when the Enron bubble burst, the public employees - especially the already retired - are going to be lucky to see $ 0.02 on the dollar.

The Oregon Supreme Court has shown that it's determined to let the pension system bankrupt the state if it comes to that. Following that shakeout, who do you think will be worse off -- the average government retiree or your regular Joe or Jane in the private (or unemployed) sector? I'll bet the PERS wards will still come out way ahead.

The Oregon Supreme Court has shown that it's determined to let the pension system bankrupt the state if it comes to that.

Pitchfork sales should see an uptick.

By George (GAS), I think he's got it. The rain would fall mainly on the plain old average investor, if advisors' pay was tied to our returns.

Nonny, you are right that PERS employees don't directly have anything to say about investments or the board. But, they can elect reps who will have a lot to say about those decisions.b

Indeed, why not get rid of salaried investment advisors entirely and invest in an index for the whole market and, presto! No more travel scams, no more paying for worthless advice, no more graft opportunities ...

George, I think you already answered your own question here.

Sort of interesting seeing as how this morning's Wall Street Journal has a story about GE Capital cutting way back on commercial property loans. When big players like GE want to leave that market, you KNOW it's getting bad. Anyone want to make a bet these PERS private equity deals don't work out well?

We'll get played both ways on this one - it was clear from the article that any kind of decent returns (if there are any) are ten or more years down the road. So our trusted State investment advisors will bail out in 3-5 years, telling us "see, we cut our losses," then in ten years, if anyone is still around and checking, it will turn out that we would have had decent returns had we waiting. Meanwhile, our money will be in someone else's pockets, er, investment, losing another big bundle.