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tv   [untitled]    December 8, 2014 2:00am-2:31am PST

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lot online about hedge funds and a lot of negative stuff and we can't check or the board can't check where those investments go. we want positive investments. i never realized until i started looking online as to how much investments or how investment could be used to change the world. as you are investing in destructive weaponry or for the sake of investing in making money. this is the point, it shouldn't be just to make profit. it has to be something real, something that supports this community. i support herb in the mix too. i think you have to see how this works and i will be back too to look at the individual
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investments, but i just have to say there is a principal in the charter that it's called the precautionary principal and it mandates that we have investments that environmentally safe and positive and also in terms of health. we don't know what happens with these investments and where are they going and what the ethics are and after reading that business about $16 million being lost because someone was behaving and i have to say it didn't look very ethical. i wonder who you have as investors. thank you. [ applause ] >> good afternoon, commissioners. i have prepared a statement of
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149 words in total that i would like to be entered into minutes so i will hand my statement over to the secretary. deja vu. i will say it again, deja vu. i i do not mean the song recorded by dion warwick. what i mean is bu fu. are you crazy? despite the fact this city made millions from the.com boom. there is two grand jury reports. city hall remains very silent on this very important issue. in my opinion to invest in hedge funds is one of the most dangerous solutions that exist and should not ever be an option. hedge funds have ruined
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millions of lives throughout the world. you need not look far to see what has happened to our neighbors. we can take bart to richmond or we can read about stockton, vallejo, southern california and the nation regarding on wall street. you are morally charged to invest wisely safer. are you crazy? there have been two civil grand jury reports. two. the last one was the tsunami. here we are again deja vu. we are talking about people's lives and that matters, that really matters. even though youth they have investments as well. given what has happened in 2008, it has been a
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spectacular fallout. i'm old enough to have seen this twice in my lifetime. i have to think about the future of my own children, but i came here in support that you not consider investing in hedge funds because i think it would be a very disastrous solution because these people have worked too hard and they need their investments. thank you very much. [ applause ] good afternoon,
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commissioners. my name is dr. stan. i work for the department of public health for 34 years. now, it should be overwhelmly obvious that retirees are against investing in hedge funds. i'm not going to repeat all the reasons that were said here. they are good reasons. the retirees feel very strongly that hedge funds are too dangerous to put our money in. now, the markets are eventually going to take a down turn return. to make a better decision is more prudent. to perhaps get a lower rate of return
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that invest in hedge funds which by the very nature are risky. if the board had investing in index funds during the last calendar year it would have gotten a return of 10-11 percent which $20 million in assets would have gotten a return of $2 billion in this year. that would have been a nice cushion. the hedge funds, it's the biggest fund in the country. has there been any communication with them to find out why they made this decision. if there hasn't been, i would suggest you do so. i'm sure they have a very large staff. lastly, among the various investment
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mixes offered by the board, i would support mix no. 2. while including no hedge funds it has the highest return of all mixes will provide inflation protection and will in -- crease the income component of our portfolio. no doubt the board is trying to make the most prudent decision as possible. what everybody is saying, we do not want you to invest in hedge funds. let's find another investment. thank you for your time. >> thank you, doctor. [ applause ] >> i'm bernard shoelden. retiree and significant background in investment.
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this is unsufficient given the broad liabilities the city bears in the broad content of our economy and has been proven not diligent regarding management. the only means that you have to protect the cap on our hedge funds is through performance bonds which the city must finance. without that there is no protection. a word about hedge funds. it's a word of economic capitalism. it fights against the economy in a self destructive manner which you must recognize. the long-term in which investment must be under taken is not covered by the use of hedge funds and other cannibalism. it is im
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prudent and proves to this board a class action suit which maybe necessary. thank you. [ applause ] >> sylvia lynch followed by -- larry bradshaw. >> for the record i'm submitting 75 more signatures to add to the thousands. i read an article which the retirement board failed for a recent loss of $61.3 million on the san francisco pension fund on one of it's transaction involving a hedge fund. in the last board meetings that i have attended and the one meeting
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with jay hillish acting in retirement funds and hedge funds, not once was the $61.3 million loss was discussed. i ask why. in response to aciu's concerns and suggestions which was 140 pages again there's no mention of the san francisco pension fund losing $1.3 million. thereby substantiating the concerns regarding hedge fund investments. these verify to me the grand jury report of 2012 report regarding the lack of transparency on the part of the sf retirement board staff and it's board in it's manner of doing business is correct and as to the board whether it's fully made aware of what's going on with the transparency information
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given on a regular basis. these types of information with investment lose of millions of dollars on the hedge funds also goes to the charter which stipulates that the board will discharge it's duty with skill, care and due diligence. you have a responsibility to protect our funds. the options seriously need to be considered by alternative to hedge funds by the board and staff. should the board vote to invest our retirement funds into any percentage into hedge funds despite the advice not to invest in hedge funds, despite calpers withdrawal of the retirement funds into hedge funds, despite the lack of integrity of the anger -- angels group. i urge the
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retirement participants to start making inquiries into state and federal investigations as to who benefits from these hedge funds because the loss from $63.1 million, hedge funds are very high risk and not the way to go. the only ones that profit from our loses are the hedge fund managers. i'm also submitting 5 pages of these signatures advocating no hedge fund investments. thank you. >> larry bradshaw? >> good afternoon, commissioners, thank you for your time on this. i'm here basically because i have a few reservations about the process under way here. i am not convinced
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that hedge funds are the best way to go in terms of putting our assets in any sort of risk in a non-transparent manner which is usually the modus operandi of these folks and i have concerns about the size of the fee these folks want. i want a clear explanation as to the benefits and positives we are going to get in terms of handing over so much of our money to these folks. i have really not seen that. my final reservation has to do with the process itself. there is an organization making a recommendation that we get into hedge funds and the organization of getting involved into hedge funds and the money is going outside of america. i do not like that. until this is resolved i really cannot support this
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and i would urge, since apparently a delay is in the discussion, i would urge that you consider this more carefully. thank you very much for your time on this issue. [ applause ] >> hi, terry. >> good afternoon, commissioners, jonathan mead, retired city worker. i had to rewrite my comments because it appears the lay of the land has changed on top of the delay. i want to speak to the motion on the floor to consider the allocation and give the staff the time they need to do their research. i am no expert, but it appears to me that that is generally supported on the board. so i would like to thank you all for listening to us, the city workers and retirees that you are duty bound to
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represent. but i would really like to thank everybody who showed up today in the room behind me. everybody that came out in september and november for the other sro meeting and everybody who signed petitions because if we hadn't made the effort here in the last few months to really make our voices here, this would have been a done deal. i think having everybody here in the room, thanking you for being here and thank you for listening to us. >> thank you very much for your consideration. my name is denise and i have been very active in the city for many years and literally
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saved million of dollars in the city with my program that i established with the department of human services 20 years ago. at any rate, i find this board very disrespectful. the fact is that this city issues have been going on and on and it's very stressful that we have continually come back here and argue the same point over and over again. i think you should just forget it. stop it now. there is no sense in going back and reconsidering anything. we know it's terrible, it's a gamble and you want to gamble, go to vegas. use your money, not mine. and i'm getting old, i'm disabled, i have enough stress in my life without having to worry about am i going to have enough money to survive while you guys fiddle around with this
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hedge fund stuff. the hedge, the term itself, hedge, like hedge your bets. i mean, why even both discussing this at all? there is so many things to invest in out there, useful things in the community which we need which is quick, relying on wall street and relying on ourselves. take the money that we have and use it for community betterment, period. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> hello, my name is richard rothman and i support the motion to postpone and look at more options. i'm more concerned about the fees. i
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mean, when are they last year in the budget, the retirement system asked for more staff and one of the reasons for asking for more staff was to do their own investment. so, why, you know, i think we should have more of our own advisors, their loyalty to us and not to have consultants who work for who else they are loyal to and i would like to hear a report from the president or the executive director when the president found out that angels had a hedge fund in the cayman islands and if there was a conflict and if not, why wasn't there
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a conflict. if they are going to make 9 percent after net, how much will we make if we didn't have consultants and we just in vested the money directly without having to pay the hedge fund their fees and they get their fee before they give us their fee. i would rather have people on our staff and maybe pay them more at least we know they are looking after our best interest and beneficiaries. thank you. [ applause ] >> martha? >> hi. i'm martha hawthorne, recently retired from the city of san francisco and member of fossil free san francisco. i'm wearing
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two hats today. first of all i support the delay on the vote. however if you are kwo -- going to come back with a plan, come back with a plan with zero investment in hedge fund and zero return on investment. the people are saying that to you, once more again today. it's not easy for us to come here whether we are active workers or retirees. as denise said it very stressful to go through this time after time after time. now, thanks to herb, we want an objective of whatever mixes come out here but we want and independent consultant and all your staff is telling us to do is
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get with the program and go with hedge funds because that's the way to make a buck. i support slowly increasing safe investing. if you wanted to do something else, if you have any money, you can do it. you can go into hedge funds. city workers, we don't have extra money. retirement is is on a very tight budget. issue of liquidity, it's not there, your board has been directed by the board of supervisors to divest from fog -- fossil fuels. it's not happening. we want our money to do good things for us, good things for our future. if not, fossil fuels are going to wreck our lives. why is this taking so long. we are very frustrated.
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fine, come back in february, but come back with something that means something. thank you. >> hi, i'm lynn acres. i worked for the city for 36 years. i will boil this down to 10 words. risk, lack of transparency, high fees. no to hedge funds. i hope you do reconsider and come back with some options that don't have hedge funds. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. welcome, eloise. >> good afternoon, board members. my name is lois scott, immediate
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past president of iep 21 professional and technical engineers and member of a group called protect our benefits, but i'm speaking just for myself as a retiree. i served for many years in the city planning department. i'm going to speak to the issue of obscenity, obscenity of the amount of management fees involved with this hedge fund proposal and the 20 percent of the profits with nothing to protect us in the down side. i think that's obscene and given a 15 percent of allocation of a $20 billion fund. i also support the motion of getting more information, but i do so with the knowledge that it is very hard except to see the front end cost of
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the hedge fund to get the real answers because there is no regulation. there is, what is that word? black pool. it is non-transparent i would say devious form of investment that you can't get the real information for because they don't have to disclose it. so while it's good to study it more, i don't think you can get the real answers except the intuitive knowledge that you get too much and you get cheated. i hope you don't do it. thank you. [ applause ] >> howard wong, retired architect from the city of san francisco. i think when calpers and was inverted in the same vote not to invest into
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hedge funds because too much cost, too much risk. it wasn't worth it. that seemed to make the case for me. in our own personal investments we are always told the motto is when you are young you invest in aggressive growth stocks, when you are older you start to move towards stable bond funds. we buy mutual funds. the same motto is sold to us. when you are young you invest in aggressive stock and when you are older you move towards a stable value portfolio. in that case the city managers select the fund for the managers and select the funds and there is a little bit measure of
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accountability and equality to ensure your investments do well. in a retirement fund we have a little bit of a difference. most of the money is from people who have retired, about to retire or will retire. the standard of prudence is much higher, caution is much higher. in this case you manage this. caution, prudence, conservatism, this is any motto of investment. i urge you not to invest in hedge funds. thank you. [ applause ] >> molly followed by steve
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feltzer. >> good afternoon, my name is is molly and my last name is gahe. i'm a registered nurse in public health and i work for san francisco department of public health. when i heard i investigate and i realized this is really risky investment. i really not agree a penny of my retirement which i work hard in san francisco general, the laguna honda hospital go to hedge funds with the high expenses and high risk. i don't agree with that. thank you very much. [ applause ]
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>> steve altser. some people say the staff has been blamed for pushing hedge funds for the retirees. that's really not the truth. the staff have been hounded and bullied by managers representing the hedge funds to change the rules. the same is with the developers in san francisco. they bully and the planning department employees to pass on, ignore the code and go ahead and build more developments working $3 million condos, people can't afford it in san francisco. who does this board represent? who are you talking to? do you represent the employees or do you represent the hedge fund. have you learned from 2008? apparently
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not. some unions say we should have money in hedge funds. i say bull. i say bull. we don't need any money in hedge funds and in fact those unions telling us to invest in hedge funds are not doing us a service. in fact they tell us to invest more and we need to put more money of our pension. i say no. will -- let the billionaires in san francisco. they have not. they have tax deductions. they are not paying their share. they are saying that public employees have to pay more in health care benefits, have to pay more in pension benefits. that's what's going to on and this board is pushing that. so-called reform pushed by billionaires and i say we, the public employees are fed up. we are fed up with taking pay cuts to pay for the
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billionaires and pay for the hedge fund speculators. as has been said by the people here, the hedge fund people are interested in profits, they are interested in driving speculative profits, they are not concerned about the city employees and the poor workers of san francisco. we need our money and research to go to public housing for working people. instead we are getting privatization. instead we are getting an attack on public workers that can't afford to live here. service workers have to spend 2-3 hours driving to san francisco. why is that? >> do we only have space for millionaires in san francisco, only have space for developers in san francisco. this board, driscoll who is a union member, says