A CDO for Your Pension Fund?

It doesn’t have quite the punch of the market collapse and all the hullabaloo surrounding the big national banks. But largely under the radar there’s a major unfolding scandal tied to corruption of state pension funds. Basically cases in which hedge funds and other investment firms have buttered up state bureaucrats or elected officials to get their hand on public pension fund money for highly speculative or downright fraudulent investments. It got some high-profile attention when one part of the story ended Gov. Bill Richardson’s hopes of being Commerce Secretary. But there’s a lot more to the story.