They "lost" $10B as a result of their investment strategy when the global financial crisis hit. They are far from the only people to lose money then. In any case that value was unrealized assets, so it's not like they actually had $36B in cash - as I hope you realize if they ever had to liquidate their assets quickly they'd get less than that - especially given they it liquidating that much would probably move the market.
They didn't spend the money wastefully, which is what the NYT seems to have done.
Your trite comparison is so far from useful it's not even wrong.
"In any case that value was unrealized assets, so it's not like they actually had $36B in cash"
I could equally say that if they liquidated that $26B quickly they would get less than that. I would hope the $36B and $26B were fair estimations of the asset value at the time.
Yes, exactly. Both are fair, market valuations, but (as in any case when you have illiquid assets) a valuation and what you get if you were to liquidate (quickly) are very different things. Cash is King for a good reason!
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a... http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2009_NCSE_Public_Ta...