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| Jackie Robinson |
Last night every major league baseballl player wore # 42 paying fitting tribute to one of America's greatest citizens, Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. In watching the games we were reminded of an expereince shared with us by a New Mexico-based money management firm attending an "emerging manager" conference in Chicago last year. Upon arrival in the Windy City they soon learned they were legally barred from doing business with the State of Illinois. Believe it or not, Illinois actually has a law regarding emerging money managers that requires emerging money managers hired by the state to NOT be white men. Below is a portion of the applicable legal language: Goals for Utilization of Minority-Owned Businesses, Female-Owned Businesses, and Businesses Owned by Persons with a Disability - ........1 Effective April 3, 2009, Public Act 96-0006 revised the definition of “emerging investment manager.” As a result, the current definition applicable to ISBI is found in 40 ILCS 5/1-109(4) and is defined as “a qualified investment adviser that manages an investment portfolio of at least $10,000,000 but less than $10,000,000,000 and is a “minority owned business,” female owned business or business owned by a person with a disability as those terms are defined in the Business Enterprise for Minorities, Females, and Persons with Disabilities Act.”
Stunned, a firm representative tracked down a local expert and asked for an interpretation. The local consultant shrugged when questioned about the meaning of the language in the statute and said, it simply means so long as a firm is NOT majority owned by "white males" it can compete for state business in the emerging manager space.The good news for the New Mexico firm was its white male owners were not denied rooms, water, or food service at the hotel where the conference was being held. The bad news was it found itself paying a tidy sum to co-sponsor an event in a state where it was statutorily BARRED from winning contracts to manage public money due to the color of the skin and gender of the majority of owners. One of the principals mused after the return to New Mexico that the overt discrimination built into the Illinois statute had managed to make the subtle non-merit-based culture of corruption that has been part of New Mexico's pay-to-play system seem almost fair. But the big question remains, "What would Jackie Robinson say?"
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Consequently the people wonder WHY the state's pension funds have lost so much money? Why not make a law that says everyone MUST buy a GM manufactured vehicle because it was made by union workers, even if we KNOW the quality is inferior and their products last only half as long? Laws such as these are the precise reasons why America's future is doomed to the ideological whims of imbeciles making public policy decisions that put the public's welfare at risk in the name of political correctness or some kind of twisted logic that feebly attempts to correct a previous wrong policy with another wrong policy. In fact, perhaps labeling it as political correctness is a stretch. In this case, lets just call it what it is, state sponsored "Racism". What else is new in Chicago?
My wife and I have a second home here in New Mexico. We're originally from Illinois. I was quite surprised about this policy in Illinois. All this time we naturally assumed that someone was being bribed in our home state. At least in New Mexico the politicians have the decency to take bribes for things like money management contracts. At least then you'll know that the investment losses were caused by someone who wanted the business bad enough to pay a bribe. In Illinois they're just stupid. As a taxpayer, it's much less frustrating to know your politicians are corrupt than to realize they're deliberately making bad investment decisions because they lack the intellect to hire the best money managers available. We're really glad we moved to New Mexico where politicians respect tradition.
Richardson is a man FULL of "tradition", amongst other things.
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