.....and if their salaries are in the bottom quartile (compared with the private market), why in heaven's name do they STAY with STRS?

From Duane Tron, November 10, 2008
Subject: STRS Investment Staff Replacement!

****,

I listened to one Wall Street watchdog tonight on TV who informed us that Wall Street CEOs received performance bonuses of nearly 82 billion dollars this past year. 82 billion??? And this in the face of the markets tanking?

Do you know what he said about the reasons Wall Street provided for the bonuses and why they are necessary? "Because they have to provide these bonuses in order to attract and keep the brightest and best running the companies."

Where in the hell have we heard this line before? Then he sarcastically stated "If these are our brightest and best, the people who ran Wall Street into the ground, why are they receiving performance bonuses of 82 billion dollars?" If they represent "our brightest and best," he'd hate to see our worst!

****, this line proffered by some at STRS is pure bullshit! With the number of investment people currently unemployed in this country, we could go out tomorrow and find more competent investment personnel, who would probably work without any bonus in order to get a job. That line might have worked two years ago but there are so many investment people looking for work right now we could probably hire replacements the same day, and maybe get even better results, and for less money.

These people who supposedly work for us have been creating the myth that they're indispensable, for a lot of years. I used to tell my students "If you tell a lie enough times you'll eventually start believing it yourself." And they fully believe it at STRS! They truly believe they are indispensable!

I worked for an old principal years ago and he used to say, "If you and I die tonight they'll have someone in here to replace us tomorrow!" How utterly true! Our investment staff aren't indispensable, they aren't infallible, and they, like any of us, can be replaced. These people have spent a lot of time and energy creating a myth and selling it to everyone who will listen. In essence, they've expended a lot of time and energy creating job security at the expense of the rest of us. My take for what it's worth!

I sent my e-mail to STRS but it will fall on deaf ears. In the movie, Forest Gump, Forest used to say, "Stupid is as stupid does!" And we've been dealing with a lot of stupid, and that lot of stupid assumes that everyone else is as stupid as they are! They become combative when brighter and more intelligent people call them out on it, the myth of being so valuable that they have become indispensable.

Duane Tron