Public pension managers give in
The public pension managers have agreed to the Ohio House leaders’ offer in lieu of facing the passage of HB 151, the Iran and Sudan divestment bill:
The state’s five public employee pension systems will adopt policies aimed at dropping shares of companies that do business in Iran and Sudan, the systems said Thursday.
That was the deadline for the systems to respond to House Speaker Jon Husted’s offer to kill legislation that would make such divestment mandatory if the systems agreed to give up half of their investments in such companies.
The systems said they would divest themselves of half of those investments by the end of the year and ultimately end the rest.
Husted, who had said he was optimistic that operators of the pension funds for police, firefighters, schoolteachers and other public employees would comply voluntarily, was reviewing the letter Thursday and had no comment, spokeswoman Karen Tabor said.
This outcome feels wrong to me. More at Ohio 15th and at Writes Like She Talks, who finds:
And an aside: so, the divestment drive is officially called Netanyahu’s Iran Divestment Campaign? Gee, how local to Ohio can a state rep’s time be spent? The post is on a website called Information Regarding Israel’s Security.
Now I favor Israel more than most Americans, I would guess. But the idea that our policy on Ohio retirees’ pensions is coming out of Israel is not one I’m happy with. Here’s an article from Haaretz from March:
Various Israeli sources and the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), are also contributing to the efforts, particularly through specific legislation in various American states where pension funds hold stock in firms invested in Iran. ….
At an AIPAC conference held yesterday in Washington, Executive Director Howard Core announced that the pro-Israel lobby will begin working with specific states in order to explore different ways of chocking investments necessary for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Official Israeli figures have briefed legislators in a number of states on this issue and the head of the opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu, is visiting Washington in an effort to convince the governors of various states to rally behind the economic boycott effort….
At the AIPAC conference, Levitt said that taking into consideration the limited diplomatic pressure that can be brought to bear on Iran, as well as the dangers and complexities of a potential military operation, the economic efforts of the administration are now the most efficient tool….
In recent months, Netanyahu has held talks with some of the presidential candidates in the U.S., including Republican Rudi Giuliani and John McCain, in order to rally their support for the divestment efforts.
Yesterday Netanyahu met with Democratic candidate Barack Obama to discuss this issue.
The Ohio MSM and the blogs, including this one, really dropped the ball by not reporting this context.
I reported that context on 3/13/07 here, with a link to Ha’aretz and mention of the AIPAC conference.
http://writeslikeshetalks.blogspot.com/2007/03/mandel-proposed-house-bill-is.html
You might want to change the hyperlink on that red text in the last line there.
I stand corrected. The last link is to your round-up, not to “you” you!
Fair enough. I certainly agree with the Ohio MSM part though, not keeping up on this. IMO? They’re either thinking it’s not news OR they are treating these frosh extra special nice. Either way, again, IMO - neither approach is in the best interest of Ohioans.
Neo-cons also have their fingers in the public employee retirement pie. Their purpose, it seems, is fomenting a military rather than diplomatic solution in Iran. Check out the article at (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/4053).
The same is true for some of the taxpayer’s rights groups who may be using Darfur and Iran divestment to further weaken defined denefit plans and force privatization. Check out one of California Assembleyman Joel Anderson’s supporters, Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association (http://www.hjta.org/index.php) Forgive me, but I have to wonder about the motives of those with ties to these groups and their timely pension fund reports that synch with the introduction of divestment legislation.
There are those who are sincere in their attempts to end genocide in Darfur, but there are others who see this tragedy as an opportunity to forward other agendas. It is not difficult to sway the public or legislators using the highly charged, dual emotional issues of genocide and patriotism. Unfortunately, our pension funds are easy, if inappropriate, targets.
Stay alert! Don’t allow your pension funds to become political pawns.
As a retiree who has worked tirelessly for the past four years to get STRS straightened out of their misuse of OUR money, I am outraged that the legislature is telling the system where to invest our money. The state has absolutely no authority to tell board members to ignore their fiduviary responsibilities to use the money we send them for the best benefit of the members and their beneficiaries. I wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House and he replied with his thoughts. I shall write to him again. We must fight this to the finish.
[…] he targets states to force their public pension systems to divest from Iran. More on that in this previous post, which also concerns a media […]
Want to separate fact from fiction regarding Darfur? Visit www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070628_can_drag_queens_and_hired_guns_save_darfur/
Yes, you read that right. The title of the article is Can Drag Queens and Hired Guns Save Darfur?
Article sample: …if your nation’s conflict isn’t accessible to Oprah or lucrative for Dyncorp, God help you. Consider the orphan cause of the Congo. As Darfur gets adopted as “the worst humanitarian crisis of the century,” three times as many people die daily in the conflict next door…
And not once is Sudan divestment mentioned as a solution to any of these calamaties. And there are solutions!
[…] fickle nature of the Ohio news media in what they choose to cover and what they choose to ignore has come up before. Bookmark | Trackback URI Posted by Brian | Jul 27, 2007 1:11 pm | Categories: Media, Ohio, […]
[…] “voluntary” deal for Ohio’s public pension managers to divest from companies doing business in Iran and Sudan appears to be on “shaky […]