RJ and Makay

Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company, has revealed the winners of its 2011 mutual fund awards. The awards are considered high honors because only funds that have delivered consistently strong risk-adjusted performance versus their peers are chosen as winners. The awards are announced each year at ceremonies in 23 countries in Asia, Europe, MENA, and the Americas.

Individual mutual funds can win a Lipper for outstanding performance in their asset class for the trailing three, five, and ten-year periods; one-year returns may be recognized in special cases. Fund families can also win a Lipper for strong overall results during the prior three years.

Fortunately for U.S. taxpayers, government purchases of "toxic assets" as part of the $700 billion bailout program haven't been the totally disastrous investments most people feared. The U.S. Treasury's toxic asset funds, for example, have risen 27% since their 2009 inception.

The Treasury initially bought $5.2 billion worth of toxic assets (illiquid securities of troubled banks and other financial institutions) to help prop up the mortgage-backed securities market. As a result of about $300 million in equity distributions and successful private money management by BlackRock, Invesco, and others, that initial investment grew by $1.4 billion to about $6.3 billion as of the end of 2010.