2 NY Dems Propose Wall St. Reform

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The two Democratic candidates for governor want to use the clout of New York state's $112 billion pension fund to reform Wall Street.

He also said the comptroller, who makes the fund's investments, should not make decisions on firms that contribute funds to the comptroller's campaign.

Cuomo, the eldest son of former Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo, said many of the Wall Street executives and firms now embroiled in ethics scandals have padded the campaign war chests of the fund's sole trustee and haven't been scrutinized enough by the state.

The fund is managed by his opponent for the Democratic nomination, Comptroller H. Carl McCall ( news, bio, voting record).

"It is far time to end the Wall Street excesses and Albany abuses that have endangered the hard-earned savings and pensions of New Yorkers," Cuomo said.

McCall plans to announce his own rules for the pension fund on Monday to bolster accountability and disclosure from corporations in which the pension fund is a major stockholder, said McCall spokesman Steven Greenberg. He would not give details.

"For Andrew, who doesn't have a clue, clearly, about how pension funds operate and the investment world works, to make baseless allegations is just wrong," Greenberg said of Cuomo.

As the sole investor of the pension fund, the comptroller has considerable clout on Wall Street.

McCall infused the troubled stock market after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with a $1 billion reinvestment in a move many analysts said helped stabilize the plummeting market. However, the fund has also lost millions of dollars from the Enron collapse and other scandals.

Greenberg said McCall's campaign contributions are public record and don't influence his investment decisions.

The winner of September's Democratic primary will face incumbent Republican Gov. George Pataki in November. Pataki didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former federal Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo proposed on Sunday that firms in which the fund invests must disclose any conflict of interest.

He lost millions while at HUD and is in tight with the Kennedy mob. That's a real authority on ethics there.

Oh boy! The government is going to ride in and save us from all of the greedheads who have defrauded investors out of trillions of dollars! Goody!

Now, just who exactly is supposed to save us from the government hacks who have given us "agencies not designed to be auditable" like the IRS. (Imagine telling the IRS during an audit that your bookkeeping system "wasn't designed to be auditable". Ha ha! Then you can write us all and tell us what life is like in the federal pokey!)

And how many hundreds of billions have been wasted by individual federal agencies? HUD comes to mind. I could think of dozens of others but my blood pressure is high enough.

Let's face it, nobody is looking out for the little guy anymore. The government wants to shaft you, the corporations want to shaft you, everybody else that wants a shot has to line up and take their turn.

I'm convinced the one thing that brought down the Soviet Union, more than anything else, was when a majority of its people just quit believing in the system, and they all threw their hands up in the air and quit trying. I wonder if that could ever happen here?

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