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Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

Pensions could've been higher if they didn't take that much out? Not sure how OP meant it but that's what I feel; same when CEO's take obscene salaries; the employees could've been paid better if she/he didn't take that kind of money. It seems obscene anyway; I can see you want to secure your future by taking enough millions (depends on where you live how many) to do that even though you make enough per month to live comfortably. I cannot see, unless (like Griffin does by the way) you have a higher plan, how taking more is better than flowing it back to employees or the actual purpose of your company (which in this case is pensions)?

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> Pensions could've been higher if they didn't take that much out

Pensions would also be lower if they were invested in funds that made lower or negative returns. The theory (right or wrong) is that the high fees charged by the hedge funds are justified because they provide better risk-adjusted returns than other investment vehicles. Hedge funds may be bad and their CEOs may be overcompensated, but it is more complicated than just "every dollar paid to Kenneth Griffin is a dollar taken from a pension fund."

"every dollar paid to Kenneth Griffin is a dollar taken from a pension fund." => I know it's not that black and white, but they could take a smaller cut / lower fees etc which then, in a lot of ways, would be shared in a fairer way than this. I know it doesn't work like that and there is nothing to do about it at the moment, but that is what I would have against this.

You completely misunderstand how this works. They only make $1 billion if the fund makes $5 billion that year.

So they aren't taking anything from the fund. They are investing the money wisely, growing it, and sharing in the gains. It doesn't get more "fair" than that.

Sharing the gains... If one guy makes $1 billion that is called sharing? I don't misunderstand how it works; I find it obscene, that's all.

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