The placement agent would be powerless if not for the pension board's incompetence and corruption, otherwise it wouldn't matter if the pension was being pitched by the marketer or the fund manager itself. Don't get me wrong, it's a game that hedge funds are playing and I despise it, but the disease is what goes on in the board room of the pension.

All of this is a sideshow to the egregious overpromising of benefits and underfunding mechanisms.

This sounds like the same debate we have about security. But sir, said the fox. I am innocent! For the hen coop was left unlocked!