According to this NPR story there are a bunch of government financial managers in Florida who invested money in securities backed by subprime mortgages and… well, you can guess.  Now in addition to asking for a state bailout they are demanding that their principle is preserved no matter what transpires in the market in the future.

Now I try to read periodicals such as Business Week regularly, so I’m at least faintly aware of what has been happening in the government financial management sector the last few years.  Returns have been astonishing - high enough to make reasonable people say, “Gee, they must be taking some huge risks with money earmarked for pensioners and other government dependents.”  Now those risks that enabled the heady times have begun to wreak havoc.

To those fund managers who want 100% certainty, they can pretty much get it with certain safe investments, but they better plan on kissing those great returns goodbye.

Related content:

• The government always thinks the answer is more government
• Why should government be immune?
• Politicians have no ability to define what is reasonable
• Councils avoid hot potato
• Madison County schools resorting to threats

This entry was posted by Brian on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 8:36 pm and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.