Our posts on CAFR:
Posted on February 24, 2014 by Carl Herman
Guy Evans of Smells like Human Spirit has interviewed me to walk interested people through the documented objective facts that taxpayers have TRILLIONS of their dollars in surplus accounts held by various government agencies. These astounding funds are disclosed in official Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs).
Government and media “leaders” claiming no options but austerity while failing to honestly communicate surplus trillions is OBVIOUS criminal financial fraud. The 2014 Worldwide Wave of Action from April to July 4 will work to expose such game-changing crimes for public awakening, arrests of obvious criminals to end these crimes, and initiation of policies in good faith effort for all Earth’s inhabitants. In the single issue of CAFR trillions, those funds alone solve almost every single economic problem people face today; see the data below for your verification.
Three papers I reference in the interview:
My paper from the 2012 Claremont Colleges economic conference: Monetary and credit reform: full-employment, end of debt slavery
CAFR facts from my 2012 article (and copied below): CAFR summary: if $600B ‘fund’ can’t fund $27B pension, $16B budget deficit, why have it?
Let’s summarize what we’ve documented so far about the data of California’s 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and what it means for the state’s 12 million households (22-minute television interview to explain this data here):
- Officials and corporate media never remind taxpayers, but California holds $600 billion in taxpayer cash and investments ($50,000 non-disclosed assets per household).
- California’s ~14,000 various government entities’ CAFRs have a sampled-data total estimate of $8 trillion in surplus taxpayer assets ($650,000 non-disclosed assets per household). For examples, page 63 of L.A. County’s 2011 CAFR shows $66 billion in cash and investments; City of L.A.’s CAFR page 58 shows $38 billion.
- The state’s $600 billion cash and investment fund is explained as designated for funding state pensions. The CAFR data show the opposite: $27 billion in pension cost receives only $1 billion income from $600 billion in withheld taxpayer assets, fund “managers” receive over twice the net income as California pensions receive, and a massive $68 billion increase in “fair value of investments” doesn’t translate to actual funding of pensions.
- Californians are taxed $19 billion to pay for pensions (95% of the public cost) while also losing $50,000 in assets the state withholds in cash and investments.
- The $600 billion fund in cash and investments contributed 4% of the state’s $27 billion pension costs, but since 2008 has been “managed” to cost taxpayers more than the net income it produces.
- Governor Brown is silent about the $600 billion in surplus cash and investments, claiming the $16 billion budget deficit can only be addressed by austerity – massive funding cuts to our essential infrastructure. A 2.8% divestment of the fund would cover the $16 billion deficit.
So the natural question is if the state’s withholding of $600 billion in our cash and investments does not fund pensions, address a budget deficit, or prevent devastation to infrastructure, how can we best restructure the purpose and use of OUR MONEY for optimal public benefits?
I see three obvious solutions.
I asked this of my two state representatives, Senator Carol Liu and Assemblymember Anthony Portantino. Carol and her consultant, Robert
Oakes, has not yet answered this question. Anthony responded, but failed to address the question.
* The final official responses from my two representatives: “No comment.”
SOURCE Washingtonsblog
