A Plan to Stop the Pension Plan Rip-Off

Via Huff Po.
A Plan to Stop the Pension Plan Rip-Off


Quote:
There's big money to be made from "advising" these plans. A study from The Maryland Public Policy Institute looked at data from 33 state pension funds. In last fiscal year they examined, researchers found these pension funds paid collective fees of $6 billion!The Wall Street firms that collected these fees touted their ability to pick stocks and bonds that would "outperform a given section of the stock or bond market." They were handsomely rewarded for this alleged prowess. Unfortunately, it was a myth.The study found an inverse relationship between high fees and returns. The median five-year return for the pension funds in the study was 12.83 percent. If plans had fired their high-priced Wall Street investment bankers and instead invested in low-management-fee index funds, the annualized five-year return would have increased to 14.45 percent.The study found no evidence that alternative investments, such as hedge funds and private equity, beat the market.

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