Here is another good one from Naked Capitalism, US Corporate Executives to Workers: Drop Dead.

Unfortunately, Porter appears to have characterized the problem accurately when he depicts the attitude of these self-serving executives as a looting of the commons of labor, meaning much of America. And the precursor of the early industrial period show that this can be a sustainable strategy until workers finally rebel. The Bolshevik revolution, which was actually a peasant revolt, was more than a century after the enclosure movement began its successful program to turn independent yeoman farmers into desperate factory wage-slaves. So while history suggests that capitalists will push workers beyond their breaking point, that rupture can be a very long time in coming.

Maybe that means that I can continue to profit from the looting for rest of my life.  That’s a load off my mind.

Naked Capitalism has the story Investment Bombshell: CalPERS Exiting Hedge Funds by Yves Smith.

CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the US, is widely seen as an industry leader and its practices are emulated by other public pension funds. CalPERS has just announced that it is withdrawing from hedge fund investing entirely.

This is a major development in investing-land. Having the giant California investor repudiate the premise that hedge funds are an asset class and therefore a prudent investor is obligated to invest in them will legitimate other investors, including endowments and foundations, questioning the logic of putting funds with hedge fund managers.

I just hope that the Massachusetts state pension funds can get out while the getting is good.  Our state funds have a 20% holding in Hedge Funds and Private Equity.  From what I was able to glean from the article and my previous post, Mass. pension fund posts 15.2% gain for ’13, this may be as much as 10 times larger proportion than CalPERS.