Oops

They have the rest of their money riding on global warming.

Guess we'll be bailing our Harvard next.

It couldn't happen to a finer institution.

Obama socking to the wealthy - hurray!

Be Well.

It figures that this is the school that gave Chimpy his MBA.

Keep up those scholarships for the minority and/or the people in need. Wow. Come on Harvard! LOL!

#6 | Posted by reinheitsgebot at 2009-10-17 10:17 PM | Reply | Flag:dumbsh*t

Would you say the people listed here also received bogus degrees?:

Rein - if you negate "chimpy", you must also negate the other chump's - correct?

10 | Posted by nanc at 2009-10-17 10:39 PM | Reply | Flag: Gaping asshole

Face it hag, Chimpy W. Hoover shock and awed the economy to its lowest point since Grandpa Prescott was cozying up to Hitler.

oh puhleeze - give credit where credit is due! You apparently have not seen what your leader's lying tax cheat has to say to you:

Harvard founded and initially operated by conservative christians.

when other "more important" institutions make these bad bets, they get bailed out, at our expense.

Wonder who was on the other side of the trades.

It figures that this is the school that gave Chimpy his MBA.

#6 | Posted by reinheitsgebot

No idiot, it's typical of the dr left to hide behind blame GW tactics. You were right placing the blame high up, as high up as it goes on a DEMOCRAT.

Blame is clearly placed on Larry Summers. A fat cat know it all who oversaw and APPROVED of these contracts. They "sold libor" for 1.5 BILLION dollars?? THAT was no 'hedge'. Don't believe the explanation of 'why' they needed to lock rates. If it really were true, they just would have floated new bonds and locked in low rates.

THAT WAS A GAMBLE.

They lost, larry summers is to blame. How refreshing that he's the zero's chief financial man, and the pathetic dr left can't see the problems with that cause they are so myopically focused on gw, rush, hannity, beck, and fox!

Liberals suck at business. It's not their money, all they have to do is raise taxes. Give them the health care system? What could go wrong?

And they probably made $4 billion in profit buying up stock and debt at the bottom of the market.

Face it folks, these are the same alumni that wrecked the rest of the countries economy. The good ol' boys from the know-it-all right. The one who brought us all the countries finest lawyers and business managers. look at all of them now. Bushy was just another victim of their over rated educational institution.

BTW...Isn't Obama a Harvard grad too? Now we know why he can't balance a budget either.

Hard to decide which is more interesting, this:

Wonder who was on the other side of the trades. -- #15 | Posted by rightisright

or this:

Blame is clearly placed on Larry Summers. A fat cat know it all who oversaw and APPROVED of these contracts. -- #16 | Posted by DavetheWave

I wonder how involved Summers really was. Most university presidents wouldn't have been -- most couldn't spell "LIBOR" if you spotted them the L-I-B-O.

Not leaping at the conspiracy angle (although someone should do the due diligence). But Summers' involvement could certainly raise enough questions about his judgment to wonder whether he's fit for the office he holds.

If derivatives are a zero sum game then someone else pocketed the loot. Our schools are losing bigtime on multiple fronts.

No nutcase they were so anamored with their own investing ability they put on larger and larger bets.

Harvard and Yale were they 'examples' of successful investors (using alt assets) that everyone aspired to become. Pensions, endowments, states, etc...inst. investors across the board raced to hedge funds and alt investing. Those two were often quoted as the model to be.

So they grew their endowments so large, they waived tuition for a couple of years there. Now they have to eat humble pie for their stupidity!!!

btw I don't know who you are blaming there, but plain old investor greed, overseen BY THE BLUE BLOOD LEFT, was responsible here CLEARLY

Problem is Larry Summers is in charge of the WH's financial affairs. Another case of the left's "do as we say, not as we did/do!!"

...they were so anamored with their own investing ability they put on larger and larger bets.

Harvard always had "need-blind admission" policies, meaning that if you got in, they would find a way for you to go. Freshman year, both my roommates were from low income families and worked as part of their education. They both did quite well and are making good money in the real world. I'm sure they've also donated quite a bit to the school. Strange that people who call the school elitist would disparage that policy.

Also, the gamble to go to fixed rate rather than floating LIBOR was, at the time, a seemingly prudent decision. Nobody, outside of Roubini, saw that the economy was going to tank and that the only apparent option would be to drive rates to historic lows. That's what happens sometimes in the leverage game, and plenty of smart people were caught in these contracts. It's the nature of investing to lose at times.

What's really delicious though, is the fact that in order to do biz with the Harvard Endowment, you have to be from Harvard yourself. Good luck trying to crack that nut as a money manager if you hail from outside the Ivy's.

So a bunch of former Harvard kids sold Harvard billions of dollars worth of interest rate swaps that had to be unwound--again for a large commission--for a net $500 million loss. The end result is a massive wealth transfer from Harvard's tax-exempt endowment, to a small handful of Harvard grads, which is a taxable exchange that benefits the rest of us.

Next year, may they lose much, much more. Here's hoping!

RG you are very correct. The whole idea made a lot of sense...BUT to be right they needed the insurance companies ratings to holdup. They didn't they tanked.

these were suppose to be a hedge against their cost of project fundings. However they went over board with SIZE. They got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

PROBLEM IS these were bought by almost all municipalities. Unlike harvard and yale which had very experienced fiduciaries who should have know better (remind you of the noble prize people at LTCM?)... these small institutions relied on advisors who told them to 'protect' themselves. With WS's help they bet trillions. On the other side of many of the deals was WS themselves, besides hedge funds.

When libor spiked to 8% last yr, those betting against higher rates lost. and then when it tanked, those betting against lower rates lost.

My public pension plan, at the time directed by republicans lost 9 BILLION in the Enron scam nearly a decade ago, which reduced our ability provide healthcare costs for retirees. You know, the company that speculated California's energy debts into bankruptcy for their own windfall profits, and whose ceo gave shrub half a million to get appointed potus.

Nice of them to gamble away the future of retirees like that, eh?

The institution who was the largest enron investor?

Vanguard

Where did Larry Summers come from?-- Harvard? Government sachs? Man, my heart bleeds for Harvard and all those individuals with their mighty degrees and lack of common sense. This was the same guy who in a Clintonese moment thought that derivatives were such fine instruments and weren't a threat to our economic system.

It wasn't just my isolated example, it was a pervading scam that lifted billions from many states public retirement plans for teacher, police, firemen and other public servants....

Other institutional investors acting as representative plaintiffs on behalf of Enron investors include Washington State Investment Board, the Amalgamated Bank and its Long View Funds, Illinois State Board of Investment, San Francisco City and County Employees' Retirement System, Employer-Teamsters Local Nos. 175 & 505 Pension Trust Fund, Hawaii Laborers Pension Plan, Greenville Plumbers Pension Plan, Archdiocese of Milwaukee and Staro Asset Management.

The robbery of pension funds by top management, who always claim they made honest mistakes, has been rampant for twenty years and continuing. The shear size of these targets is enticing. It helped them cover their incompetence at running their companies. Running a company is monotonous and difficult.

Labor Unions, with deep connections to organized crime have a better record of protecting their constituency.

Just out of curiosity Woke, how do you know the political persuasion of your pension managers?

Please provide a link. I manage pensions also, but have never been asked by anybody what my party registration is. So, share. Please. Because if they're run out of NY or CA or MA or CT--like 85-plus percent of all pensions are--guess what? They ain't Republicans.

As you know rir it's just typical left partisan hack hatred, trying to sound intelligent.

Now you can assume that when NJ's unions soaked 400++ million into fannie and freddie preferred shares right before they went bankrupt.....

THAT was done by democrats. With corzine as gov, he has all dem leadership throughout all state cronnie positions

it's just typical left partisan hack hatred, trying to sound intelligent.
#34 | Posted by DavetheWave | Flag: Ironic

So much for the myth of "Our Best and Our Brightest" ... Somehow they always f--- up big time, especially in government with BIG ideas and BIG, expensive programs, but then they escape all blame because they are the vaunted Haaaavaaaad grads. At least when they were previously in the private sector and they screwed up, we didn't have to bail them out with our tax money, ie, Goldman Sachs. Now we, the unwashed tax paying public, have to pick up the tab for everyone's so-called "mistakes", including our Best and Brightest. Not a brain in their heads. The world has turned upside down.

So much for the myth of "Our Best and Our Brightest"

How'd your 401(K) do during the Bush Crash?

#25-- "nobody, outside of Roubini, saw that the economy was going to tank' ---- I and others did and we don't have a degree from Harvard, an MBA-- all we have is common sense unlike most of the airheads that go to those schools. Sometimes I think we have those schools to assure that those that are good at taking tests are assured of jobs that pay well and don't have to be held accountable for their decisions. They then get their buddies on boards and it becomes a huge welfare system. I got out of this market in the fall of 2007-- one of the red lights was the exponential increase in derivatives over a short period of time and if anyone had looked at a log chart of the DOW over the last 100 years it was pretty obvious-- there were many other flashing red lights -- what a bunch of dolts we have in power positions in this country.

#31---"Apparently, Enron and its repubs-- Man, Woke, talk about leading with your chin--RIR is right about most of these funds being run out of the coasts and if memory serves me right, demographically, there's a heavy democratic influence in those money centers.

I don't know why this is a problem. Harvard and other universities losing money from their endowments or paying vast sums to athletics coaches can simply pass the costs on to students, and all is well.

Got a question, though, MarkH - why does the link take me to to Bloomberg's "Terms of Service," rather than an article about Harvard?