Orr Jumps on Story of $1 Million Check laying uncashed in City Hall Drawer

[Vic01]

...The existing process of bidding has to remove the preference for city-headquartered vendors, and open it up to where the city can get savings...

Sacrilege!

[DetroitPlanner]

This isn't about the money at all -- although the interest the city lost here was about $1,500 [[2% simple interest for 30 days). This is about a city where they haven't modernized their procedures. There should be no $1m checks.

2%, where do you bank????

[Wesley Mouch]

2%, where do you bank????

Certainly you can invest this with along with the Detroit Pension fund and get 8%. Give that a try.

[mwilbert]

Certainly you can invest this with along with the Detroit Pension fund and get 8%. Give that a try.

This is a silly comparison. A pension fund is not a bank.

[Wesley Mouch]

This is a silly comparison. A pension fund is not a bank.

MW, it was just a joke. Sorry for sideshow.

[Honky Tonk]

This is a silly comparison. A pension fund is not a bank.

That's right. In Detroit , it's a cookie jar.

[Locke09]

Certainly you can invest this with along with the Detroit Pension fund and get 8%. Give that a try.

I know you're just joking, but have you looked at the Pension Fund annual reports posted on the website? Other than the disastrous 2 - 3 years of the Great Recession, the General Retirement fund has mostly exceeded 8% returns annually. Because of the difference between fiscal years and calendar years, I assume the recession losses actually get spread out over about 3 years.

When I got down to the 2004 report, it noted that the 15-year average leading up to that report was 8.2%. Haven't looked at the Police and Fire Fund yet, but since it's better off than the GRS it might have an even better track record.

[Wesley Mouch]

I know you're just joking, but have you looked at the Pension Fund annual reports posted on the website? Other than the disastrous 2 - 3 years of the Great Recession, the General Retirement fund has mostly exceeded 8% returns annually. Because of the difference between fiscal years and calendar years, I assume the recession losses actually get spread out over about 3 years.

When I got down to the 2004 report, it noted that the 15-year average leading up to that report was 8.2%. Haven't looked at the Police and Fire Fund yet, but since it's better off than the GRS it might have an even better track record.

Oh, that we could exclude bad years from our 401k accounts. Are you at all suspicious of their valuation methods? Or were they all invested in liquid, widely traded assets?

What was the overall return including bad years?

[Locke09]

Oh, that we could exclude bad years from our 401k accounts. Are you at all suspicious of their valuation methods? Or were they all invested in liquid, widely traded assets?

What was the overall return including bad years?

For the 14 years listed, which includes 1998 - 2011, the average is 6.58%. 1998 - 2007 [[excluding the Great Recession years) gives an average of 9.55%. Looking at the entire track record, and knowing that the markets have been recovering since 2011, and knowing that these are long-term funds, not short term, I would think that even with bad years, 7.9% average rate of return is not quite as ridiculous as people try to make it seem.

I don't have enough expertise and haven't done enough research to comment on the validity of their valuation methods. I looked at the investment section and see that publicly traded stock is about 52% of assets, real/personal equity 10%, debt obligations [[bonds, notes, mortgage-backed securities, etc.) 6%, mortgages 5%, small business 2%, managed fund accounts 12% [[looked like energy funds, equity funds and some other stuff), foreign securities 8%, and then some miscellaneous stuff for the other 5%.

[Wesley Mouch]

For the 14 years listed, which includes 1998 - 2011, the average is 6.58%. 1998 - 2007 [[excluding the Great Recession years) gives an average of 9.55%. Looking at the entire track record, and knowing that the markets have been recovering since 2011, and knowing that these are long-term funds, not short term, I would think that even with bad years, 7.9% average rate of return is not quite as ridiculous as people try to make it seem.

I don't have enough expertise and haven't done enough research to comment on the validity of their valuation methods. I looked at the investment section and see that publicly traded stock is about 52% of assets, real/personal equity 10%, debt obligations [[bonds, notes, mortgage-backed securities, etc.) 6%, mortgages 5%, small business 2%, managed fund accounts 12% [[looked like energy funds, equity funds and some other stuff), foreign securities 8%, and then some miscellaneous stuff for the other 5%.

Thanks. I'm actually pretty impressed that they've managed to get that level of return.