<p>To give you an idea of just how disingenous Lee Bollinger is being about Columbia’s endowment, realize that on June 30th, only 19% of Columbia’s endowment was invested in publicly traded stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. 81% was in private equity and hedge fund limited partnerships.</p>
<p>I scratch my head in bewilderment trying to think what he hopes to gain by being so dishonest about Columbia’s endowment losses. The only thing I can figure is that things must be disasterous.</p>
<p>At least when Harvard misled the press into reporting just a 22% loss, they clearly stated that the figure didn’t include losses on non-liquid investments. They correctly assumed the press would be too incompetent to report that part. Lee Bollinger didn’t even come close to Harvard’s level of disclosure. 999 out of 1000 people would read his statement and believe that Columbia only lost 15% in the market crash. Heck, even Bernie Maddoff didn’t do that well, did he?</p>