A Prolonged Economic Crisis

Dear Congressman Burgess:

We could not have prevented the passage of a bailout plan and the market meltdown that followed.

People are losing their homes, and now their retirement funds and life’s savings are being gobbled up. (Have mercy on the man when it cost as much to drive back and forth to work as a man makes in a day). Who’s going to bail us out?

I inquired about the sanctity and solvency of our employee retirement funds, put at risk through no fault of the employee. Who eats this loss?

Do our employees understand that their retirement accounts are going up in smoke while they wait for their third quarter retirement earning statement? Everybody else is bailing out. (See “Legislators may be asked to address Texas pension fund losses” by Yamil Berard, Star-Telegram)

The stock portfolios of some of the state’s largest investments funds — supporting government employees’ retirements and public education — have taken quite a beating this year. By summer, the value of some of the funds had dropped by billions of dollars…

Many funds also had significant stakes in some of Wall Street’s highest rollers that went bust. Some even increased their exposure by buying more shares early this year as the stock of those companies was plunging.

None of the funds have yet to make public their third-quarter rates of return, which would give the most up-to-date look at losses. But by the end of the second quarter on June 30 — before the markets rapidly deteriorated, former Wall Street powerhouses like Lehman Bros. failed and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were taken over — all the funds saw significant erosion of their portfolios.