Elliott Broidy’s admission of guilt in the unfolding public employee pension fund scandal opens a window into the depth and nature of political corruption in Los Angeles, California and beyond.
This isn’t any simple old-fashioned quid pro quo, pay-to-play, bribery type of corruption — though all those things go on as the guilty pleas New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has rung out of high-flying capitalists like Broidy and fixers like Hank Morris show.
This is a pernicious form of corruption, the kind where one hand strokes another in vast circles of greedy jerks who have lost all semblance of ethics and common decency while keeping their social respectability with the flattery of the well-greased palms of politicians and the selective blindness of civic and business leaders.
It is a cancer that is eating at the heart of our city, state and nation.
It is why we wind up in wars that make no sense, why Wall Street and bankers can get rich destroying our economy, why our pension funds invest our money in ways that eliminate our jobs, why we’d rather talk about abortion than fix our health care system, why we pontificate about global warming and go on destroying our neighborhoods, why our city and state teeter on the brink of bankruptcy and our problems go unsolved.
When reputable people like Elliott Broidy – a man honored by Presidents and mayors, foreign dignitaries and religious leaders — can engage in systematic bribery to enrich themselves at the public expense, we are seeing corruption in the first degree.
His is not an isolated case. Others already have pleaded guilty and the noose of local, state and federal investigations is tightening around many others.
Many others besides those guilty of actual criminal conduct were complicit in the pension fund scandal by peddling their influence, providing the access, having knowledge of what was going on, yet standing by silently. Are they, too, not corrupt, at least in the second degree?
It shouldn’t be a mystery why the pension fund scandal is limited to public employee funds and not private sector funds.
There is no accountability in the pubic sector. If public employee funds are looted or fortunes lost in investments, taxpayers are on the hook to make them good. In LA alone, taxpayers soon will be paying 70 to 80 cents into the Fire and Police Pension Fund — the fund on which Broidy was a board member for six years — for every dollar of payroll for firefighters and cops.
Taxpayer money is like play dough to the insiders and politically-connected people like Broidy who serve on the boards overseeing public employee pension funds.
What we are learning about what has gone on in public pension funds is
no different than what goes on throughout government at all levels –
appointments, development projects, legislative favors, contracts of
all types are for sale through a similar system of inter-connected
relationships greased by campaign contributions, fees, payoffs of one
sort or another.
We have lost even the pretense of democracy as
our institutions and technologies of political discourse have been
taken over by schemers and manipulators.
To one degree or another, we all bear responsibility for the state of our nation. No one is exempt, not those infected
with apathy, ignorance, cynicism or any other defense mechanism. Nor
are those of us exempt who howl in the wind at injustice and pat ourselves
on the back for our piety while achieving little or nothing.
These are the sins of ordinary people. They are nothing compared to
what is going on in high places where people with money and influence
like Broidy commit crimes or look the other way as if that
insulates them from the wrongdoing going on around them.
It is the counterpart to the six degrees of separation — the six
degrees of corruption that connect us all up to one extent or another
as both the cause and effect of our woes.
We
will go on like this with our heads in the clouds pretending all is
well, taking our share of the spoils until one day the bills come due
and then we will point our fingers and look for somebody to blame as if
we didn’t know what was going on.
To be blind is bad, but worse is to have eyes and not see.” – Helen Keller…..Mr. Kaye, Thank you, for shedding some light on these very important subjects.
Naive me, always wondered why anyone wanted to be on these “boring” commissions. Now I know, whether it is the retirment commissions or planning commissions, they are all there for their own benefit. and to hell with the city.
Good article about AEG and their contributions to the City Council’s and Mayor’s favorite ballot initiatives: Measure B, Measure R (term extension), $1 Billion affordable housing bonds, etc.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/la-me-jackson6-2009dec06,0,6278908.story
This isn’t the first Commissioner problem. Under Hahn, we had a Commissioner involved in fund raising at LAWA who overrule a staff recommendation for a contract award to a vendor of the Commissioner’s preference.
Elliott Broidy is a cooperating witness. The Securities & Exchange Commission has issued subpoenas to individuals and pension plans. The FBI is interested.
So the question is who is “lawyering up” at City Hall?
How did Broidy, who was a Republican National Finance Chairman, end up as a Villaraigosa appointee.
Are things so bad in both parties, that a person who actively works to defeat Democrats, gets appointed by a national Democratic figure, like the Mayor, to the position he got appointed to?
Who did he pay off? Not bribe with contributions, but actually pay off?
Ron Kaye is intelligent, astute, observant, and nobody’s fool. His insight into the corruption in our government is surpassed only by his willingness to call it what it is. This makes him society’s conscience.
Unfortunately, we seem to have missed the point of his article. We’re on the slippery slope to our own societal meltdown. In our headlong rush to secure individual freedoms and “the good life”, we’ve turned our backs on ethics, morals, decency and values and replaced those virtues with selfish greed.
We don’t need terrorists, communists, or anyone else out there trying to destroy us–we’re doing a damn fine job of that ourselves.
Every great civilization has its day in the sun. Then it self-destructs, the sun sets on it, and rises on another one. Take a look at the picture at the top of the page. Guess what? It’s not sunrise.
And as the sun starts going down, guess what starts coming out of the woodwork? Opportunists, parasites, looters, and scavengers. Sometimes they are seen for the vermin they are, and sometimes they wear nice suits and have offices in City Hall or on Wall St. or sit on Commissions.
For 53 years I’ve lived in and around L.A. I’ve worked for the City of L.A. for more than 28 years. I’ve seen what goes on from the inside as well as the outside.
Ron Kaye is doing his best to stop the corruption and decay that is destroying L.A. by pointing it out to us. For that he should be thanked.
But in reality, he may as well try to stop the sun from setting.
Thank you, Ron, for letting me know about Elliott Broidy’s admission of guilt. Unfortunately, the link goes nowhere. What are the W’s of his story? I agree that corruption is at the root of a lot of our ills, but I don’t see how it makes us want to talk about abortion rather than healthcare reform. Corruption may motivate some who are corrupt to steer our attention to abortion rather than healthcare reform, but we don’t have to follow the lead. Thank you, Ron, for pointing that out.
I’d like to know who else is implicated; these things never involve just one or two folks. More likely, Elliott is singing like a bird to save his ass from a longer sentence.
Al Villalobos’name has been prominently mentioned and I think I recall some link to another Latino.
Could it be Julio Ramirez? Just guessing.
There are rumors, Broidy is singing and as a result a few within and a few connected with City Hall will be indicted. CIM is at the center of all this.
And what a glorious day that will be.
6:53AM. You omitted the corrupt Greuel, that surprisingly the LA Slimes singled her out. They must also by now smell the stench of corruption.
Elliott Broidy, Board Director of Los Angeles Police Foundation, should persuade all directors to donate 2 or 4 million to cover the costs incurred for the Michael Jackson’s funeral service in July 7, 2009.
Council File 09-2616
http://cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkconnect/index.cfm?fa=ccfi.viewrecord&cfnumber=09-2616
A donation in the amount of $900,000 from the Los Angeles Police Foundation to help cover costs incurred for the Los Angeles Lakers Celebration Parade in June 23, 2009.
Council File 09-2566
http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-2566_rpt_bpc_9-28-09.pdf
Okay, this particular post was an inspiration for me. I am thinking of my personal weblog
Hands down, Apple’s app store wins by a mile. It’s a huge selection of all sorts of apps vs a rather sad selection of a handful for Zune. Microsoft has plans, especially in the realm of games, but I’m not sure I’d want to bet on the future if this aspect is important to you. The iPod is a much better choice in that case.
Hi There! I’ve gone ahead and bookmarked http://ronkayela.com/2009/12/elliott-broidys-admission-of-g.html on Digg so my friends can see it too. I just used Elliott Broidy and the Six Degrees of Corruption – Ron Kaye L.A. as the entry in my bookmark, as I figured if it’s good enough for you to title your blog post that, then you probably would like to see it bookmarked the same way.
It has been well over two years since Mr. Broidy entered his guilty plea — for this particular crime. I keep waiting to see him sentenced and begin to serve his jail term. He does not appear to be a “bad person” by normal standards, but he should serve his time just like all other criminals.