Photo: AP

The realization that the retirement money of middle-class workers should not be invested in crazy expensive hedge funds is now hardening into conventional wisdom.

Today, the people who manage the public pensions for New Jersey announced that they’re cutting back their hedge fund investments by 52%—a move that the activist group Hedge Clippers calculates is a divestment of about $4.5 billion from the hedge fund industry.

The expensive fees charged by hedge funds—and the fact that they generally fail to pay for those fees in improved performance—cost pension funds and retirees billions of dollars, both in New Jersey and across America. New Jersey’s pensions join public pensions in California and New York City in publicly cutting back on hedge fund investments.

Pensions are fucked enough as it is without donating zillions of dollars to hedge fund managers.

Every other public pension system in America should do this too!