Vast Corporate Conspiracy 2

As expected, yesterday union boss Sean Harrigan was ousted as president of CalPERS, the California state employee trust fund. Harrigan used his clout as head of the $177 billion gorilla to put corporate reform ahead of return for state workers' pensions. As CalPERS underperformed relative to similar funds, Harrigan fiddled with corporate governance. Now he's gone, and good riddance.

The LA Times ran not one, but two pieces on it today, both on "bad big business" themes. (here and here) The lead article, on page one, again made no mention of CalPERS performance -- it's all a poor worker/crooked company struggle. The business section article included but one fleeting paragraph on ... well, the business side of CalPERS, and it was not critical.

Harrigan's performance is typical of radical activists everywhere: They don't know a victory when they achieve one; they just whine and push, whine and push, whine and push. In this case, the victory was the 2002 passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which brought more reform to corporate governance than has been experienced since the Great Depression. Not content to enforce this victory, Harrigan pushed for more, putting his hatred and distrust of corporations ahead of the pensions he was supposed to grow.