Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Tuesday Odds and Ends

Keith Murray - Who is on the run after cutting off his electronic monitoring device may have bigger issue in that he has apparently taken his 15 year old son who has been living in foster care. Nothing firm on this so stay tuned.

CMPD Retirees Lose Big On Facebook - You wouldn't expect a group of retired cops to buy a bunch of Facebook stock. But that is just what North Carolina's State Employees Retirement Plan did. In the big picture the four million dollar paper loss might sound be but compared to the fund as a whole it isn't. Except that North Carolina taxpayers will ultimately end up taking the loss. The plan has been underfunded for years, and at some point the benefits offered will have to be scaled back. But the upside down plan will still have to fund for current employees who have been promised benefits that the plan will some day in the future be unable to provide. So taking a 4 million dollar hit doesn't help.

But not to worry ^ Janet Cowell's North Carolina's state treasurer say she will sue the firms who put together the Facebook deal to get back the loss. Janet Cowell said in a statement. "Our goal is to recover our pension fund's financial damages."

Then this is were it all gets interesting, former Clinton administration member Erskin Bowles' investment firm Carousel Capital manages millions of dollars in the state pension fund and Bowles wife, Crandall, was a fundraiser for Janet Cowell's recent election campaign. Bowles is also a board member of Morgan Stanley, one of the lead underwriters in the Facebook deal.

The state bought 685,737 shares of Facebook stock May 17 at the initial price of $38 a share. It sold a small portion the next day to make about $215,000. The state still holds about 618,000 shares. Facebook's stock closed Friday at $19.05.

CMPD Officer Formally Cleared in Shooting - In what was a good shoot to begin with yesterday Mecklenburg District Attorney Andrew Murray made formal in a letter.

"There is no evidence that Officer Holzhauer acted unlawfully” Murray’s letter to Police Chief Rodney Monroe said.

CP Take: It is troubling that it took nearly a month for this determination to be made.



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