Filed under: Authoritarian, Civil Liberties, Depression, Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Stupidity, wingnuts
Things are moving incredibly quickly in the economic sector. I wish I had more time to blog.
Wish I had time to locate a heap of linkage to show that the Tax Day Tea Parties are a GOP project to sink the Obama Presidency and revive the old “tax and spend” zombie meme. Instead I’ll just label this entire post opinion, and point out that this website is so transparent that a six-year old should be able to see through the ruse.
Some other thoughts I am having right now.
1. Government spending is neither good nor bad, in and of itself. It is necessary.
2. Just because you label something you don’t like “pork” doesn’t make it so.
3. People who talk about socialism without understanding what socialism is look very ignorant to the rest of us.
4. Free market fundamentalism in the service of elitist kleptocracy is one of the things that got us into this mess. No amount of pedantery aimed at explaining how the excesses of our current political economy have moved us away from “true capitalism” is going to fix the problems we’re dealing with. I don’t think Obama’s done a very good job with the economy up to this point. But the problem isn’t his “interventionism.” His problem is that, in order to stabilize the economy and get back to a sustainable model, we are going to eventually have to temporarily nationalize some finanical institutions fix them, and then put them under responsible ownership, whether anyone likes it or not. If this had been done already and best practices for dealing with failed banks applied, we would be much closer to seeing a real recovery.
5. “Silent Majority” was once a very popular catchphrase among the KKK and their allies. I think it is still something of a racist dogwhistle, even though a lot of young people don’t get that, because they certainly didn’t learn it in history.
6. I don’t like paying taxes. But the people who are saying that taxes are out of control are so out of touch with reality I don’t know how to get through to them. The Bush administration cut a lot of taxes and they didn’t exactly decrease spending. If you want to object to paying taxes, that’s fine. But don’t pretend you’re making a political argument that people ought to take seriously. Just admit you have a personal thing about paying taxes, then move on and try to say something intelligent.
7. Making common cause with people like the Wingnut Daily and Newt Gingrich and Michelle Malkin (who wrote a book defending the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII) doesn’t make you “bipartisan” or independent-minded. It makes you a sucker. You’re never going to get good government this way. These are the same people who were marching in lockstep with the torturers, the war profiteers, the lawyers who eviscerated the Fourth Amendment, and the corporatists less than a year ago.
8. If you think all this talk of “revolution” is harmless, think again. And again.
I think Davenoon’s response to the Tea Party “Manifesto” is entirely appropriate.
The Teabaggers want you to waste your time worrying about “collectivism” and conspiracy theories so you won’t notice that it was their masters and political allies who looted the treasury, broke the economy, shredded the Constitution, and embroiled us in two foreign wars that are bleeding our military to death. But, you know, we’re all free to say and think whatever we want. Lap it right up, if that’s your thing. Don’t forget to stimulate the economy by purchasing some gear before you go.
Just be prepared to accept responsibility for the consequences when they come back to power and keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing for the last 30 years. And if you say one word about “populism” or “groupthink” after this, don’t expect any response other than than the ridicule hypocrites deserve.
We are so screwed by the stupidity of our political discourse. It makes my head hurt.
I am going back to my work on the Alabama PACT now.
Filed under: Blogs, Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama PACT, PACT
PACT was marketed as a way to pay for a contract. Intentionally and systematically. There are still official descriptions out there that say it’s a way to prepay college tuition. Exhibit A. I ‘m proud of that one. Normally, I would cross-post it, but I’m out of steam.
I have enough additional evidence for at least two more posts on the marketing. It just piled up on me while I was trying to get a grip on the organization and finance and politics. Important to get all this evidence where we can see it, and it’s something to do while I am working on pulling the timeline together.
Hoping I’ll be able to catch up with e-mail and Facebook and pay a visit to Save Alabama PACT soon.
Also hoping to get to the point that I can pay more attention to what friends and bloggers who are on my regular reading list are up to.
Noticed a hit tonight from Mississippiwiki. They have a blog list.
I don’t remember adding myself or sending a request. Thanks to whoever thought of doing that for me.
Added MSwiki to Mississippi Links category, and the blog list to the Hubroll.
Working on part two of “Everything I Know About the Alabama PACT.” Just wasn’t able to get it done last night, but I did update the PACT Project page.
SaveAlabamaPACT is now live, and they have forums.
How about some Dr. Hook?
Filed under: Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama, Alabama PACT, Alabama Prepaid Affordable Tuition Fund, PACT
This list includes every organization I have been able to locate that is directly connected to the Alabama Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Fund. I’m not attempting to list all the responsibilities of each organization here. Just explaining the relationships between them.
The Alabama Legislature
Creates the PACT program by passing Alabama Code Section 16-33C (pdf) into law into 1989. The law has been amended several times since then, notably in 2001.
The PACT Board of Trustees
Established by the statute to oversee PACT. Chaired by the State Treasurer, who has responsibility for the day-to-day administration of the fund. The board selects the custodian, records administrator, advisor, and managers listed below by advertising requests for proposals and following the state process bid/proposal process.
The Custodian
Bank of New York Mellon. Holds the fund’s assets and maintains transaction records of trades.
The Records Administrator
HDI Solutions of Auburn, AL. Maintains account information records of transactions between contract holders and the fund.
The Investment Advisor
Callan Associates. Assists the Board of Trustees in the selection of investment managers and provides investment guidance.
The Investment Managers (Investment Policy pdf, appendix B, beginning on p. 13.)
Rhumbline – Russell 1000
CS McKee – Large Cap Value Equity
Intech – Large Cap Growth Equity
Earnest Partners – Small Cap Value Equity
Turner Investment Partners – Small Cap Growth Equity
Acadian Asset Management – International Equity
Principal Global – International Equity
Western Asset Management – Core Plus Fixed Income
Sterne Agee – Passive Fixed Income ( listed in the Q&A pdf on the Official PACT web site, but not listed in the investment policy. This was first noted by Havealittletalk).
Tenth manager? I’ve seen at least one reference to ten managers other than the one Havealittletalk notes, and I will note it when I locate it again. I am not sure whether this is an error, or whether we should be asking about a tenth manager.
There are also:
State Treasury staff who work on PACT
An Actuary
An Auditing Firm
Board of Examiners’ Reports
Next
This is only a skeleton. I have a lot of information that I’ve picked up from public documents — pages and pages of links — to organize.
My next step is to put together a timeline from 1995-present. Things you will see on that timeline:
1. Amendments to the law that created PACT, and the passage of other laws that might be relevant.
2. Hirings/Firings, including the ones havealittletalk notes, and more that I have located.
3. Activities of the managers and custodian, to the extent they can be ascertained, during that time, that might have some bearing on the situation.
4. Documented statements from public officials.
5. Any relevant information I can glean from these documents (all pdfs), which I suggest you archive by using the File/Save Page As command.
2006 Financial Statements and Actuarial Report
2007 Financial Statements and Actuarial Report
2008 Financial Statements and Actuarial Report
I have a few other odds and ends, too. I have piled up quite a bit of information from fragments here and there. Organizing, archiving, and getting it into readable format it is slow going.
I believe I can add quite a bit to our knowledge of some of the issues Havealittletalk is continuing to bring to light, and to our knowledge of some of these private firms.
I am following the coverage of other news and the development of Save Alabama PACT with great interest. I am pressed for time this week, but I will continue to blog this at Correntewire, to update my PACT Project page, and to offer comments as I am able to do so.
Cross-Posted at Left in Alabama
Filed under: Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama, Alabama PACT, Alabama Prepaid Affordable Tuition Fund, PACT
Havealittletalk demonstrates why it’s a good idea to educate yourself about people you’ve never heard of when you’re looking into a situation like this:
A former member of the PACT board was appointed despite the fact that he had been convicted of a felony involving the theft of public funds.
I wasn’t able to get much writing done this weekend, but I did have a chance to do a lot of thinking. My next step is to provide the best list I can of all the public and private organziations who have some role in managing the PACT fund.
Once I am done with that, my plans for this week are to provide an easy-to-read chart that will allow us to see how many times each section of the enabling law has been amendend, and when the amendments were passed.
After that, my plan is to put together a timeline that will show us, in chronological order, when each of the following took place:
1. Changes to the law.
2. Changes to official PACT documents.
3. Hiring of private firms contracted to manage the money.
4. Changes to the way the fund’s assets were allocated. I have at least one financial document for each year going back to 2004, and a few earlier documents as well.
5. What various public officials were saying while all these changes were being made.
I’ll also do what I can to help with efforts to communicate with the Legislature, and write about the efforts that others are making on that front.
Ben Harper. I love that drum in this particular performance.
Hadn’t thought of this song in a long time until I read this excellent post.
Part I of The Corporation. A great documentary. You can find the other 22 chapters here.
I’m working on a list of the prinicipal organizations that have been involved with PACT that will explain the role of each, at least to the extend that references to them in the documents I am working with allow. I am hoping to finish it up and get it posted tomorrow.
I have more to say about the financial documents I have been looking at for the last few days, too. I am still looking to identify and understand those four types of changes:
- Changes to the law
- Changes to PACT documents
- Chanes to people/firms handling the money
- Changes to the investment strategy.
Filed under: Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama, Alabama PACT, Alabama Prepaid Affordable Tuition Fund, Kay Ivey, PACT
A very good question from Countrycat:
Alabama Treasurer, Kay Ivey, says she wants to save the PACT program. Why then, is she proposing legislation that gives the board the authority to dissolve it?
Read the whole thing and watch the video. At the very least, it seems that Ivey is talking out of both sides of her mouth.
When you call your legislators today, be sure and tell them that it is not acceptable for for the board to have authority to dissolve PACT. Only the Legislature should have that authority. Why? Because the Legislature set the program up to begin with.
If the board is given the authority to dissolve the program, I have no doubt that it will only be a short time before you start hearing Ivey saying that there is just no way to save the program. And you should be aware that having her make such statements would be a good way to start a run on the PACT fund, and then blame the participants for its failure.
I agree with Countrycat that this is likely an attempt to deprive PACT contract holders of leverage:
It appears that Ivey’s preferred scenario is the “worst case” option. Or maybe she just wants to be able to use dissolution as a bargaining chip to force her real preferred option down the throats of the parents: “Oh, you don’t like what we’re planning? Guess we’ll have to dissolve the PACT!”
So keep your head in the game and communicate clearly with your representatives in Mongomery.
Filed under: Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama, Alabama PACT, Alabama Prepaid College Tuition Program, PACT
State Representatives and state Senators. Use this zip code finder if you are not sure who represents you in Montgomery. Numbers for some Senators.
Tell them the state must honor all PACT contracts.
Tell them that political football with the college educations of 50,000 Alabamians is not acceptable.
I’ve had a bit of success diggining for some documents over the past couple of days, and hope to have a bit more today. I plan to do some serious writing late in the weekend and early next week.
Filed under: Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama, Alabama PACT, Alabama Prepaid Affordable Tuition Fund, Alabama Prepaid College Tuition Program, PACT
From Patti Lambert, via Facebook:
Event: SAVE Alabama PACT! CALL YOUR LEGISLATOR RALLY!
“Call you legislator Friday – LETS show our VOICE to Montgomery!”
What: Rally
Host: SAVE Alabama PACT!
Start Time: Friday, March 27 at 8:00am
End Time: Friday, March 27 at 5:00pm
Where: Phone
This might help:
State Representatives and state Senators. Use this zip code finder if you are not sure who represents you in Montgomery. Numbers for some Senators.
Tell them the state must honor all PACT contracts.
And do call Rep. Holmes Alvin Holmes of Montgomery. Tell him filibusters are unacceptable on this issue.
And stay tuned for Left in Alabama for more on the board meeting.
Stay tuned!
Today I located some documents I’ve not seen before. Trying to make sense of it and finish up this line of research I’m working on.
Havealittletalk has an excellent new post. Please go read. I will have more to say about it tomorrow, if I am able to get finished with the research I am doing now.
But Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, vowed to filibuster any attempt to bail out people who signed on with the program after 1995, when the state dropped a guarantee of payment from the contract.
I have an official Public Service Commission document in my possession from 2003 that refers to PACT as a way to guarantee prepayment of college tuition.
It’s true that the word “guarantee” was removed from one of the program documents in ’95. But, it was simply replaced by the word “provides” at that point. The wording that PACT is not backed by the state (section 11.03) was not added to the document in question until 2004.
I have these documents in my possession, and will write it up with links as soon as I have time to do so. In the meantime:
You might want to let the Birmingham News know that they are missing some important details.
Contact your state Representative and state Senator immediately, and by phone if possible. Use this zip code finder if you are not sure who represents you in Montgomery. Tell them the start must honor all PACT contracts.
It wouldn’t hurt to look up Rep. Holmes and give him a piece of your mind about this.
I have a post over at Corrente you might want to look at.
Mooncat is not impressed by what she saw in Montgomery yesterday.
The outcome of the 3/24 PACT Board meeting wasn’t exactly awful, but it wasn’t good either. The process was eminently predictable and went something like this:
- Put several dry, lengthy, financial reports up early and spend a lot of time on them.
- Put forward only two options for dealing with the current financial situation, the first of which is so obviously impossible it is voted down immediately.
- Resolve to pursue the remaining, less bad, option without significant discussion of anything else.
It’s quite a coincidence that the three-member committee Kay Ivey appointed to work with the Legislature just happens to be the three prospective gubernatorial candidates on the board, huh?
We need to keep a close eye on this situation and be ready to make a LOT of noise if we see any indications that the Legislature is considering granting the power to dissolve the program to the board. Mooncat notes, quite rightly, that if the board gets that authority, PACT participants will have to choose between whatever they are offered or dissolution.
I would be especially alert to what happens in conference once both houses have passed a bill. I would check the Secretary of State’s site and the PACT homepage every day and be on the lookout for “special called meetings.”
And how about that Rep. Artur Davis? He had a thing or two to say:
Left unaddressed was the question of whether the Board accepts a moral obligation to the parents and students who contributed to PACT, and whether any explanation can be provided for how a fund advertised as a prudent, conservative investment is apparently the only fund in the country in jeopardy of collapse.
Reps. Craig Ford and Johnny Mack Morrow have introduced bills to provide short-term funding ( HB 748) and a five-year appropriation (HB747) from the Alabama Trust fund to stabilize PACT until the stock market (hopefully) starts to recover.
Here’s what I would do:
- Take a look at those bills and make a decision about them as quickly as possible. If they are acceptable, support them, and if not, explain what needs to be done to fix them.
- Thank Reps. Ford and Morrow for moving quickly to offer a plan for public consideration, and for acknowledging that the state has an obligation to PACT contract-holders.
- Contact my state Representative and state Senator immediately, and by phone if possible. Use this zip code finder if you are not sure who represents you in Montgomery.
Tell them you expect all PACT contracts to be honored.
Filed under: Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama PACT, Alabama Prepaid College Tuition Program, PACT
I picked up these links this morning, and just didn’t have an opportunity to post them until now.
The Huntsville Times reports a very interesting statement from State Senate Majority Leader Zeb Little [emphasis added]:
State Senate Majority Leader Zeb Little of Cullman, also sitting in on the editorial board meeting, said while it is important for the Legislature to be aware of the problem, “the worst thing we could do would be to overreact and make a quick, bad law.”
Little said one solution may be to take the PACT program away from Ivey, who is a potential Republican candidate for governor in 2010, and give it to Retirement Systems of Alabama Chief Executive Dr. David Bronner.
a la Rob has some interesting thoughts on the PACT situation, along with discussion of other happenings in Mongomery today.
Forbes carried a story ahead of the board meeting by Phillip Rawls of the Associated Press. It mentions the lawsuit; but this snippet caught my eye:
But copies obtained by The Associated Press show that its assets fell from $899 million on Sept. 30, 2007, to $431 million on Feb. 28. Its future liabilities for tuition for all participants were estimated at $933 million as of Sept. 30, 2008.
Good idea to compare this information to the numbers reported at the board meeting today.
Filed under: Blogs, Economy, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama, Alabama PACT, Alabama Prepaid Affordable Tuition Fund
No way to know how many people will make it, but I’m staying tuned to Left in Alabama.
A few quick links to get you through the day. Included:
Talking accountability and AIG with Dean Baker at FDL
Tammy Bruce Calls the Obamas “trash.”
Even more things that are sure to enlighten and enrage you at The Sideshow.
Bonus Youtube – ends abruptly, but oh-so-sweet while it lasts:
Filed under: Economy, Personal, Politics, Progressive | Tags: Alabama, Alabama PACT, Alabama Prepaid College Tuition Program, PACT
I want to wish everyone who is going to Montgomery good luck and a safe trip. I am grateful for the hard work everyone has done up to this point to draw attention to the PACT issues and resolve them.
Many opinions have been offered on this. I am in agreement with those who have argued:
PACT participants are contract holders, and the only acceptable outcome is for those contracts to be honored.
If anyone is able to get a first-hand account, photos, or videos from the meeting, I will be thankful for the reports. I will do what I can to attract attention to them.
I do not think it is good for anyone to have a protracted debate or a political fight about whether or not the contracts will be honored. I hope the board will clear this issue up at the meeting, and that the Legislature will follow up quickly as appropriate.
Regardless of the outcome of the board meeting, I think there is still plenty of work to do on this issue for anyone who wants to do it. I am planning to continue devoting a significant amount of my research and writing time to PACT. I will also continue to reach out to other people who are working on it.
Once we see what happens tomorrow and do what we can to shine a spotlight on the meeting itself, I’ll post my next steps in a diary here. I will update the PACT page , or add additional pages to the sidebar, and post diaries with new information at Left in Alabama as necessary.
I’m back to my 8-5 life now. That means back to blogging mainly in the evenings. I won’t be able to respond to communication or turn out posts as quickly as I have been for the last 10 days or so, but I am still paying attention to this. Still willing to devote a large part of my blogging time to it. Still trying to answer many of the questions we’ve raised.
I am hoping for a large crowd and a good decision at the meeting.
Cross-Posted at Left in Alabama
