FW: CREF Trustee Ballot, nominee from Goldman Sachs -- No thanks!

[Nick Thompson]

Dear Academic Friammers,

 

Would those of you who are academics and whose retirement is in TIAA/CREF please take note of my colleague’s appeal below. 

 

It does seem the least we can do.   TIAA/CREF has seemed more and more like an investment bank in my dealings with them since I retired.  All they think about is generating bonuses for management.

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Robert Ross [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 12:51 PM
To: Faculty Discussion ([hidden email])
Subject: CREF Trustee Ballot, nominee from Goldman Sachs -- No thanks!

 

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you received in the last few days, proxy materials from TIAA-CREF requesting your votes for the Board of Trustees. I am familiar with none of the firms with which most of the Trustees nominated are involved. But one of the nominees – Thomas J. Kenny – is a Goldman Sachs executive and was throughout the period of The Great Financial Crisis.

 

Notoriously, Goldman Sachs sold investments to clients that its executives knew were “crap”.

The SEC says Goldman Sachs defrauded investors in a CDO, one of those complicated bonds that lost huge amounts of value when the housing market went bust.

The problem isn't that this CDO lost value. It's that a hedge fund played a role in choosing what went into the CDO, then bet against it — and Goldman didn't tell people who invested in the CDO about the hedge fund's role, according to the SEC. [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/04/21/a-primer-on-the-goldman-sachs-scandal.html  ]

 

In another instance G/S sold a client CDO’s which one of its managers called a “shitty” deal. [ page 395: http://www.hsgac.senate.gov//imo/media/doc/Financial_Crisis/FinancialCrisisReport.pdf?attempt=2 ]

 

A principal of a firm with such contempt for its clients hardly merits our Trust as shepherd of our retirement investments.  

 

Also notoriously, no one has done a day of hard time as result of misbehavior that drove the lives of millions into the ditch of Recession. 

Well, let’s give the laureates of the market a taste of their own medicine. 

 

Vote “AGAINST” Kenny; vote against Goldman Sachs.

 

Of course self-righteous small acts of outrage are puny.  But I didn’t ask for the ballot, they sent it to me.  So I’m voting.  And you can too.

 

Solidarity

 

 

Robert J.S. Ross, PhD
Research Professor of Sociology and

The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise
Clark University
950 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610
508 481 7739

fax: [phone]

http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/facultybio/rross
http://wordpress.clarku.edu/rjsross/

See Slaves to Fashion the book about poverty and abuse in the new sweatshops.

 

 

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Steve Smith]

Note to pensioners... I LOVED it when Noam Chomsky answered a question from the audience at Tingley Coleseum 12 or more years ago:

Audience member:  Dr. Chomsky... can you say anything about "socially responsible investments"

Chomsky:  "Socially Responsible Investment" is a contradiction in terms!

50% of the audience were young students, the other 50% were retirees (or nearly so)... you can imagine the cognitive dissonance evident in that moment!

Dear Academic Friammers,

 

Would those of you who are academics and whose retirement is in TIAA/CREF please take note of my colleague’s appeal below. 

 

It does seem the least we can do.   TIAA/CREF has seemed more and more like an investment bank in my dealings with them since I retired.  All they think about is generating bonuses for management.

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Robert Ross [[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 12:51 PM
To: Faculty Discussion ([hidden email])
Subject: CREF Trustee Ballot, nominee from Goldman Sachs -- No thanks!

 

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you received in the last few days, proxy materials from TIAA-CREF requesting your votes for the Board of Trustees. I am familiar with none of the firms with which most of the Trustees nominated are involved. But one of the nominees – Thomas J. Kenny – is a Goldman Sachs executive and was throughout the period of The Great Financial Crisis.

 

Notoriously, Goldman Sachs sold investments to clients that its executives knew were “crap”.

The SEC says Goldman Sachs defrauded investors in a CDO, one of those complicated bonds that lost huge amounts of value when the housing market went bust.

The problem isn't that this CDO lost value. It's that a hedge fund played a role in choosing what went into the CDO, then bet against it — and Goldman didn't tell people who invested in the CDO about the hedge fund's role, according to the SEC. [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/04/21/a-primer-on-the-goldman-sachs-scandal.html  ]

 

In another instance G/S sold a client CDO’s which one of its managers called a “shitty” deal. [ page 395: http://www.hsgac.senate.gov//imo/media/doc/Financial_Crisis/FinancialCrisisReport.pdf?attempt=2 ]

 

A principal of a firm with such contempt for its clients hardly merits our Trust as shepherd of our retirement investments.  

 

Also notoriously, no one has done a day of hard time as result of misbehavior that drove the lives of millions into the ditch of Recession. 

Well, let’s give the laureates of the market a taste of their own medicine. 

 

Vote “AGAINST” Kenny; vote against Goldman Sachs.

 

Of course self-righteous small acts of outrage are puny.  But I didn’t ask for the ballot, they sent it to me.  So I’m voting.  And you can too.

 

Solidarity

 

 

Robert J.S. Ross, PhD
Research Professor of Sociology and

The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise
Clark University
950 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610
508 481 7739

fax: [phone]

http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/facultybio/rross
http://wordpress.clarku.edu/rjsross/

See Slaves to Fashion the book about poverty and abuse in the new sweatshops.

 

 

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com