Agency's investing faulted (Ohio - BWC)

[salin]

salin's note - I am skipping around a bit in the excerpts - because this is the head's up that the story is about to get bigger - Anyone interested at following the corruption - and the view of the GOP of govt money as a big pot for them to dip into for personal gain - read this and start following this story. It should serve as a road map for what are likely hundreds of stories waiting to be uncovered around the country.

Note also - that the Cincinnati Enquirer was very slow to be critical of Taft as this story started to unfold. Their shift in position of tone of the stories carried signifies a recognition that something is far past "wrong", and far more than "business as usual" in Columbus.

Agency's investing faulted
Report: Worker's comp fund handled poorly

By Jon Craig
Enquirer Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - The state insurance fund for injured workers would be nearly $1 billion wealthier today had it invested more conservatively over the past decade, an outside consultant's report shows.

---snip---

Accountant Richard Ennis wrote that the $14 billion insurance fund is intact. But the firm could find no basis whatsoever to support last spring's announcement by former BWC administrators that the fund had an average annual return of more than 16 percent since 1995.

---snip

"It's got all the earmarks of a criminal conspiracy. Everything was so meticulously covered up," Sen. Marc Dann, a Youngstown attorney, said Friday. "I'll leave that to the prosecutors to make those determinations.

"Where in the world were the auditors?" Dann asked. "You don't cover things up unless you know they are wrong to begin with."

...more...

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050917/NEWS01/509170424

[blm]

1. Please post in GD so it gets more eyeballs. The headline isn't grabbing

the attention this story deserves.

It also deserves a recommended reading.

[salin]

2. perhaps in GD politics

as things move so quickly in GD - it would likely get missed there, as well.

I don't think people realize that this story - unfolding with a parallel set of stories unfolding around DeLay - really have the opportunity to reshape public opinion about the GOP - not just bushco but the standard operating procedures of the GOP.

Have to take off soon - so it may have to wait to be reposted elsewhere til later this weekend.

[mbperrin]

3. Headline should read (if we had a real media):

Billion Dollars Stolen from Injured Workers Fund by White Collar Thief Friends of Politicians!

See?

[OzarkDem]

4. "over the past decade"

That means Voinovich is involved. It was his set up to begin with. Once V was elected to the US senate and Taft won, it was basically a turn-key operation. Taft took over everything as V left it and did as he was told.

I still don't think its coincidence that the day V gave his crying speech on the floor of the senate, this scandal was beginning to hit the news.

[WhiteTara]

5. irony is not dead

and I believe you. No repuke has a heart about any of it. Damn they are so good at manipulating emotions.