I don't know how much this matters. Harvard has the richest endowment but still has less money then nine individuals. I am just waiting for say the Carlyle Group to go public like KKR or Blackstone to make HH funds boring and mainstream.
Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
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Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#12Sidenote, and I may get down-voted heavily for saying this, because he's got plenty of "cred" on so many different fronts, but Noam Chomsky always struck me as a hypocrite when it came to his economic and political thinking for taking a pension supported by the $13 billion MIT endowment, which is surely generating money through many of the practices disparaged both in this article and Chomsky's own beliefs.
Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#13Is it just me or does the article fail to mention/estimate/discuss how much money the universities received _from_ hedge funds? It repeats over and over again how much the schools _paid_ in managers' fees, but if the return was several times that amount, then I guess I don't see the problem.
If they did show that data, it would look worse. On average, universities don't outperform (far lower-cost) index funds with similar objectives, per the recent HN story:
Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#14I don't know how much this matters. Harvard has the richest endowment but still has less money then nine individuals. I am just waiting for say the Carlyle Group to go public like KKR or Blackstone to make HH funds boring and mainstream.
How would that make HH's less boring?
Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#15Sidenote, and I may get down-voted heavily for saying this, because he's got plenty of "cred" on so many different fronts, but Noam Chomsky always struck me as a hypocrite when it came to his economic and political thinking for taking a pension supported by the $13 billion MIT endowment, which is surely generating money through many of the practices disparaged both in this article and Chomsky's own beliefs.
So does that mean no one's allowed to criticize their employer? Or to encourage them to do better?
Besides, I doubt his pension is much more (if any) than is typical in his profession...
Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#16Sidenote, and I may get down-voted heavily for saying this, because he's got plenty of "cred" on so many different fronts, but Noam Chomsky always struck me as a hypocrite when it came to his economic and political thinking for taking a pension supported by the $13 billion MIT endowment, which is surely generating money through many of the practices disparaged both in this article and Chomsky's own beliefs.
>"Divestment is likely to have negligible financial impact on the affected companies. And such a strategy would diminish the influence or voice we might have with this industry."
http://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2013/fossil-fuel-dives...
Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#17Sidenote, and I may get down-voted heavily for saying this, because he's got plenty of "cred" on so many different fronts, but Noam Chomsky always struck me as a hypocrite when it came to his economic and political thinking for taking a pension supported by the $13 billion MIT endowment, which is surely generating money through many of the practices disparaged both in this article and Chomsky's own beliefs.
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Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is incredibly shortsighted. The point of an endowment is not to pay it off, the point is that the endowment persists indefinitely, and the interest / returns fund operations. If people wanted to contribute directly to a university, they can. Instead they're contributing to the endowment. Respect that choice. It's pathetic that universities have actually set up a sustainable source for funding scholarships etc in…
What if university endowments were used to fund research and implementation into ways to drive down the cost of education to zero?
Because whatever the idea is, it probably won't work and then there wont be free education or any money.
Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#19Sidenote, and I may get down-voted heavily for saying this, because he's got plenty of "cred" on so many different fronts, but Noam Chomsky always struck me as a hypocrite when it came to his economic and political thinking for taking a pension supported by the $13 billion MIT endowment, which is surely generating money through many of the practices disparaged both in this article and Chomsky's own beliefs.
It's perfectly rational for Chomsky to stay on board because the expected benefit to his goals from divesting from the system is much less than the expected benefit from staying within the system and criticizing it.
Doing things on principle can be irrational.
Re: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
#20Sidenote, and I may get down-voted heavily for saying this, because he's got plenty of "cred" on so many different fronts, but Noam Chomsky always struck me as a hypocrite when it came to his economic and political thinking for taking a pension supported by the $13 billion MIT endowment, which is surely generating money through many of the practices disparaged both in this article and Chomsky's own beliefs.
So does that mean no one's allowed to criticize their employer? Or to encourage them to do better? Besides, I doubt his pension is much more (if any) than is typical in his profession...
That's my point: I hear him criticizing the military industrial complex, but I haven't heard of him penning a letter to the MIT Board of Trustees, soliciting the support of current and emeritus faculty to join him as the undersigned, to divest from Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and the like.
If I've missed it, do point me to it and I'll recant.