Orin Kramer

Rob Tornoe's cartoon from PolitickerNJ.com's Hold Me Accountable Week in September 2007

Today, as Governor Jon Corzine addressed the New Jersey League of Municipalities convention in Atlantic City and proposed allowing local and county governments to defer 50% of next April's required pension payments, there was word from the New Jersey State Investment Council that the pension fund has lost $25 billion since July, including $9 billion in October.  When he gets back to Trenton, he'll have to decide whether to hold his close friend, Orin Kramer, accountable for the massive losses.  

Kramer, a 63-year-old hedge fund millionaire and according to U.S. News and World Report, the #3 bundler for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, originally came up with the idea of Corzine running for an open U.S. Senate seat in 1999.  It won't be easy for Corzine to fire him.  And while Kramer isn't the only financial whiz to mess up during difficult economic times, Corzine's biggest problem is how easy it will be for Republicans to come up with a 30-second TV ad holding the former Wall Streeter accountable for massive losses in a fund that provides benefits for more than 700,000 current and future retirees.

Senator Joseph Pennacchio says it's vital to open government and the fiscal health of the state that members of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee ask hard questions on Monday about the state's misguided investment in now-bankrupt Lehman Bros.

Hedge Fund millionaire Orin Kramer and Obama national finance director Julianna Smoot. A state pension fund headed by Kramer says they have lost $25 billion since July

A New Jersey pension fund run by one of Barack Obama’s earliest and biggest campaign fundraisers/bundlers has lost $25 billion -- including $9 billion in October, according to a report issued today by a state panel.  The New Jersey Investment Council, chaired by hedge fund manager Orin Kramer, says that the value of the state pension fund has shrunk from $82 billion in July to $57 billion.

Kramer, 63, a former White House aide in the Carter administration and a partner at Boston Provident, was named to head the state retirement benefits panel by then-Gov. James E. McGreevey in 2003.  The state Division of Investment is one of the ten largest public fund managers in the U.S., with a market value at of $70.7 billion as of the end of September, according to the Treasury Department website.  The fund provides retirement benefits for more than 700,000 current and future retirees.

U.S. News and World Report ranked Kramer as Obama's #3 bundler last August, just behind Lehman Brothers' Christine Forester.

CLICK HERE TO READ KRAMER'S SIDE

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has picked up the support of a major New Jersey fundraiser: financier Orin Kramer. A former White House aide in the Carter administration, Kramer is viewed as a key player in the move to recruit Jon Corzine to run for the United States Senate in 2000.