July 11, 2010 01:14 AM UTC

Ament and Stapleton Want To Play With Your Money

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• by: harrydoby

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

In this week’s Denver Business Journal, Ed Sealover interviews both GOP candidates for the Treasurer’s race:  J.J. Ament and Walker Stapleton.

First, the good news:  Both candidates give very good reasons why they believe Amendments 60 and 61, and Proposition 101 would be disastrous for Colorado.

But the bad news is that both are unhappy Treasurer Cary Kennedy isn’t churning the state’s $6.5 billion portfolio fast enough, or taking enough risk.  Rather, they say she’s willing to settle for solid returns each year with only a staff of 2 or 3 fund managers.

J.J. Ament has experience working the industry side of the public finance world (Citigroup), so naturally his solution to the portfolio question is to pay private traders and fund managers to churn the ol’ portfolio rather than just let those lazy bureaucrats sit on tidy profits through a “buy and hold” strategy.

Walker Stapleton, of Bush family fame, touts a one-time $20 million payout on a single real estate transaction a couple of years ago as his “track record of success”.

He has a different outlook altogether on how to invest $6.5 billion.  He sees hyperinflation just around the corner, and worries that Kennedy is following the same conservative investment strategies as her Republican predecessors, Mark Hillman and Mike Coffman.

Stapleton’s prescription to keep ahead of hyperinflation (“double digit inflation” in his words) would be to make the portfolio highly liquid so “you can get in and out of investments that you make fairly quickly”.

Not sure what sort of investments he’s contemplating that could insure double-digit returns.  Might I suggest a Ponzi scheme followed by a relaxed retirement in the Caymans?

Note:  There are no links to the article referenced, not because they are on the forbidden list, but because it is in the Premium content section of the DBJ’s website.  But I recommend you pick up a copy of the print edition or subscribe to the online edition for the full story.

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