Wall Street Looting the Pension Funds

[Skwmom]

Soon she was being talked about as a probable candidate for Rhode Island's 2014 gubernatorial race. By 2013, Raimondo had raised more than $2 million, a staggering sum for a still-undeclared candidate in a thimble-size state. Donors from Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital and JPMorgan Chase showered her with money, with more than $247,000 coming from New York contributors alone. A shadowy organization called EngageRI, a public-advocacy group of the 501(c)4 type whose donors were shielded from public scrutiny by the infamous Citizens United decision, spent $740,000 promoting Raimondo's ideas.


What few people knew at the time was that Raimondo's "tool kit" wasn't just meant for local consumption. The dynamic young Rhodes scholar was allowing her state to be used as a test case for the rest of the country, at the behest of powerful out-of-state financiers with dreams of pushing pension reform down the throats of taxpayers and public workers from coast to coast. One of her key supporters was billionaire former Enron executive John Arnold – a dickishly ubiquitous young right-wing kingmaker with clear designs on becoming the next generation's Koch brothers, and who for years had been funding a nationwide campaign to slash benefits for public workers.

Nor did anyone know that part of Raimondo's strategy for saving money involved handing more than $1 billion – 14 percent of the state fund – to hedge funds, including a trio of well-known New York-based funds: Dan Loeb's Third Point Capital was given $66 million, Ken Garschina's Mason Capital got $64 million and $70 million went to Paul Singer's Elliott Management. The funds now stood collectively to be paid tens of millions in fees every single year by the already overburdened taxpayers of her ostensibly flat-broke state.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926#ixzz3zsVhoLAD

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926

[Kip Humphrey]

1. They've looted our pensions; they've looted our social security trust fund. Vote Bernie Sanders.

[TubbersUK]

2. Regarding the pensions management lobby:

Hillary Clinton Plans To Raise Money From Industries With Interests Before The Next President

<snip>

Next Tuesday, Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear at back-to-back fundraisers co-hosted by officials from Wall Street colossus BlackRock — including Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former State Department chief of staff and a current board member of the Clinton Foundation. According to Politico, a BlackRock fundraiser for Clinton had been scheduled for last week, but Clinton's campaign postponed it until after the New Hampshire primary following criticism of her Wall Street ties by her opponent, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

BlackRock has a major interest in federal policymaking: According to disclosure reports, the investment firm has recently lobbied Congress and government regulators on “retirement security and savings proposals,” as well as financial regulations.

IBT previously reported that BlackRock could gain from a Pentagon proposal to shift billions of dollars of military pension money into a federal thrift savings plan managed, in part, by the Wall Street firm. The president appoints the board that oversees the thrift savings plan — and the plan’s management contracts with financial firms like BlackRock.

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-plans-raise-money-industries-interests-next-president-2302757

[closeupready]

3. Pension funds are "dumb money".

http://fortune.com/2011/05/23/the-smart-money-loves-dumb-funds-too/