Dispatch:
Ohio's five public pension systems capitulated yesterday to demands from lawmakers that they give up investments in companies that do business with Iran and Sudan.
After resisting calls to divest as an affront to their ability to make money for government employees, the executives of the five pension funds told House Speaker Jon A. Husted that they would work to pull most of their money out of companies with ties to the two Islamic nations.....
....Some retired public employees have said they're angry that their pensions are being dragged into a foreign-policy debate. An analysis done for the largest Ohio pension fund, the Public Employees Retirement System, estimated that it could lose nearly $250 million a year by moving investments to companies with no ties to Iran.
"This seems to me like an abdication of their fiduciary responsibilities," said Jeff Glasgow, a retired assistant Franklin County prosecutor who lives in Westerville. "To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement. With any compromise, they're playing with my money and other retirees' money."
In their letter to Husted, the five pension executives said they were trying to balance their opposition to terrorism and genocide with their responsibility to fund pension and health benefits for their members....
Husted has stuck his nose where it had no business. For a long, long time Republicans have tried to get control of the public employees' retirement funds in Ohio. Now, with this politically motivated divestiture, Republicans have started to get some control over how and where pensions get their money. This is only a beginning. Husted and his bullying right wing posse will push for more control in the future.
I wonder which financial advisory group will benefit by these changes in investment? Will they be friends/contributors/political supporters of Husted's brand of right wing politics? Just asking. It might be worth it to have Ohio's Attorney General, Marc Dann, follow the resulting business deals/transactions.