Thursday, January 10, 2013

Now I Will Have Even Less Of A Retirement

It's not like the California State Teachers Retirement System, or CalSTRS, isn't in enough financial trouble already:
The nation's largest teacher pension fund took the first step Wednesday toward divesting from companies that make guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines that are illegal in California.


State Treasurer Bill Lockyer made a motion to begin the divestment process after pension fund officials determined that the fund invests in the owner of a company that manufactured one of the weapons used in the Connecticut school shooting. The California State Teachers' Retirement System's investment committee unanimously approved the motion.
Thank you, idiots.  I guess more of my money will be invested in Solyndra and its look-alikes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's easy to invest with "social responsibility" with all the taxpayers in CA backing up your decisions, however irrational they may be.

CalSTRS has done similar things in the past. For example, they divested themselves of companies who had connections to Iran some years ago. Regarding this decision, Forbes reported: "Fund managers at Calstrs predict that its substitute non-Iranian stocks will yield $200 million a year less in returns. [...] Any losses will be borne by taxpayers, who are on the hook for public employee pensions."

Sadly, many of the dimwits who are making these decisions will probably be long dead when the fit hits the shan (borrowing a turn of phrase from Larry Elder). By my reckoning, I expect CalSTRS will be really tight on cash in about 20 years, and that's when we get to see the real cost of this decision, and all the other stupid socially-responsible investing decisions.

Cuts in benefits are all but certain.

KauaiMark said...

I'm fortunate that CalSTRS can't force me to join until I sub more than 99 classes in any one school year.

I view all "mandatory volunteerism" as suspect.

..Mark