Logos Radio Network

Tonight’s guest is Walter Burien (www.cafr1.com). Walter Burien has studied government accounting for years and says that the federal, state and local governments run on two sets of books. One of them based on operating expenses and revenue that comes in via taxation, fees and penalties etc. The other set of books is that of the incredible amount of government investment via pension funds etc. are funded by taxes and payroll deductions and the reinvestment of revenue from the investments themselves. In some cases the return on investment for a given fund is much greater than the contributions the government continues to collect through taxes and payroll deductions yet they continue collect contributions every year over and above the profits generated from these investments. The New York State Common Retirement Fund, as of March 31st 2011, lists $67.5 billion in domestic and international equities, $12.3 billion in “comingled stock funds”, $31 billion in corporate and government bonds, $851 million in mortgage holdings, $7.6 billion in real estate holdings, $8.36 billion in “short term investments”, $31.1 billion in “alternative investments”. Friends, that is $158.7 billion in one of many funds of just the state of New York. For instance, within the state of New York is the New York City THE NEW YORK CITY EMPLOYEES’ RETIREMENT SYSTEM AND NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC EMPLOYEES’ GROUP LIFE INSURANCE PLAN which, as of June 2011, lists total net assets as $48.7 billion (up $7.6 billion from 2010). In 2011 this fund paid out $3.6 billion in benefits and obligations and took in $413 million from its members as contributions (out of their paychecks), another $2.38 billion from employer contributions (taxes where the employer is New York City) and $7.8 billion in net investment income? Hello! Why do employers and workers have to contribute $2.8 billion to a fund that took in $7.8 billion from investments and only had to pay out 36 billion? This is going on all over the federal, state and local governments and government corporations across the country. We will be discussing these issues with our guest Walter Burien.

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