Gov. Mitt Romney picked up more supporters after the Supreme Court chose not to overturn President Obama’s healthcare law, according to our latest poll.

Cambridge Associates reports that limited partners received $93.6 billion from U.S. buyout funds in 2011, the largest annual amount it has recorded since it began tracking the data in 1986. Will the record distributions continue this year?

Most of the people (41%) who took our latest poll say they’re “a little worried,” about the second half of the year, 40% say they’re “very worried” and nearly 7% describe themselves as “freaking out.”

Asked to choose between the two leading candidates, 308 readers (or 55.9%) say Romney should be in charge, while 243 (44.1%) said President Barack Obama deserves a second term.

You’d think Gov. Mitt Romney could capture at least 90% of the vote on a website called “PE” Hub, but one day into our latest poll he’s captured less than 60% of the votes from peHUB readers.

Facebook begins trading Friday morning — and most analysts expect the stock to pop — but peHUB readers have no plans to get in on the action, according to our latest poll.

So, let’s say you want to make more money. What do you do?

Here’s some advice: Head for the firms with the greatest assets under management.

It’s simple arithmetic. The more assets under management, the more a firm rings up in management fees and, in the case of buyout firms, deal-related fees (those not handed over to LPs). Bigger transactions also translate to bigger profits when it comes time to doling out carried interest.

Firms managing more assets tend to have more mouths to feed, but rarely do firms ramp up their payrolls at the same pace they do their fund sizes. The disparities in compensation, as the infographics below show, are dramatic—and a source of ongoing angst for LPs, who worry that partners will be tempted to raise bigger funds than they can wisely invest.

Ronald Schmitz recently acknowledged to sister magazine Buyouts that the $900,000 in potential annual compensation offered by Virginia Retirement System factored in his decision to become its next chief investment officer this month. Schmitz had been CIO of Oregon Public Employees Retirement System since 2003.

Schmitz joins a parade of investment officers that have stepped down this year from positions at retirement funds in California, Massachusetts, New Mexico and New York. Some, like Schmitz, are staying in the public sector. Others, like Raudline Etienne, former chief executive of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, are heading into the private sector, in her case to join consulting firm Albright Stonebridge Group.

Just how big a role compensation plays in any individual departure is almost always impossible to say. Still, the latest edition of the 2011-2012 Holt-Thomson Reuters Private Equity and Venture Capital Compensation Report (North American edition) sheds light on what public pension funds are up against in competing with the private sector for talent–click through for infographic.

So, who earns more money, buyout professionals or venture capital professionals?

The numbers are closer than you might think, based on an analysis of statistics presented in the just-published study, 2011-2012 Holt-Thomson Reuters Private Equity and Venture Capital Compensation Report, North American edition.

Partners at the venture capital firms who participated in the study earned a median salary plus bonus of $445,000 in 2011; their counterparts at LBO/growth equity shops, by comparison, earned a fatter median salary plus bonus of $540,000. However, managing general partners at venture firms actually pulled in slightly more than their counterparts at LBO/growth equity firms in median salary plus bonus, $1.1 million to 1.0 million. Click through to see an infographic comparing compensation for these and six other common positions.

For the second straight summer, limited partners’ views on private equity as an asset class continued to brighten, according to a Coller Capital report released Monday. They’re looking to increase target allocation in greater numbers and LPs say debt markets are functioning well and that dividend recaps are a sign of strength. Nearly one quarter [...]