Koch brothers own Wisconsin's Pensions and protestors should root for the Koch brothers?

[midnight]

This might explain why the state employees pay such a high handling fee.... This article is written for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute which bills itself as a "free market think tank"



When the history books record l’affaire Wisconsin, public-employee unions will have plenty of villains. They will remember Republican governor Scott Walker, who proposed scaling back their ability to collectively bargain. They will revile Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, who cut off debate and “rushed” the bill to a vote after 61 hours of debate on the Assembly floor. But for the Left, the most enduring villain might be the billionaire Koch brothers.

When frequently vile Buffalobeast.com blogger Ian Murphy prank-called Walker, he pretended to be David Koch — thinking that would be the most embarrassing call Walker could take. (Or perhaps Murphy simply hadn’t perfected a Kim Jong-il impersonation yet. “Hey Scott, it’s your boy Kim!”)

The vitriol from protesting Wisconsin workers towards the Kochs emerged quickly and intensely. Signs ranging between lame and vulgar (often both) dot the public-union marches.

But what the protesters don’t realize is that they actually have a reason to root for the Koch brothers.

According to the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), the Wisconsin Retirement System owns $5.5 million in Georgia Pacific corporate bonds. (Georgia Pacific is owned by Koch Industries.) This is the retirement system in which the overwhelming majority of state and local employees participate. These are the pension benefits that public employees are trying so hard to protect.

So here’s the challenge: Explain to a Wisconsin state worker that they are the ones helping fund the Koch brothers. Then sit back and watch the fun.

Granted, $5.5 million out of a $18.5 billion fixed-income bond fund isn’t a whole lot. (The state also holds about $5 million worth of Colgate bonds, meaning it is in the pocket of Big Toothpaste.) But one imagines the public unions’ vitriol will soften a little bit when they realize their retirement payout is incumbent on the success of the Kochs. They’re all part of the same money-making ecosystem, despite many state employees believing all their retirement funds are invested exclusively in dreams and rainbows.

So in the end, public unions should recognize that the real Koch will do them a lot more good than the fake one ever did.

— Christian Schneider is a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/260979/wisconsin-state-employees-should-have-some-koch-and-smile-christian-schneider

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Oh, fer crapsake.

All retirement funds hold shares of all kinds of asshole corporations. There isn't a helluva lot of choice, is there?

[angstlessk]

3. Yes,..they could contribute to ONLY certain funds...like sustainable energy..or green technology

All democratically preferred, BTW

[midnight]

7. These are good suggestions...

[Lifelong Protester]

4. I agree, you can't hardly hold any mutual fund without some

WalMart in it.

And perchance when those bonds come due, they will be replaced with something else.

[midnight]

8. Maybe.... But it sure is a curious thought by this corporate think tank....

[angstlessk]

2. So Union dues go to support democrats and pension dues go to support republicans...

do I have that correct?

[midnight]

6. I would love for this to be explained....I find it curious that the state pensions

pay such a high handling fee....

[L0oniX]

5. Does Koch make douche?

[livingonearth]

9. Shouldn't the title of this post be turned around

to indicate the Wisconsin Retirement System owns part of the Koch brothers, instead of "Koch brothers own Wisconsin's pensions"? I realize they try to own everything, but how can they own their investor's bonds. The way I see it, the Koch's should be happy there is such a thing as public employee pension money to be invested in them. What am I missing here?

[Lifelong Protester]

10. Ah, yes, you are correct!

Also, if at some point the people who run the pension fund want to put a 'social filter' on their investments, they can, in other words, they could freeze out the Kochs. I'm guessing, without talking to the pension fund manager, that the idea was to hold bonds of WI companies, or subsidiaries like Georgia Pacific.