MATT TAIBBI: John Arnold is a former Enron energy commodities trader who became a billionaire, one of the world’s most successful commodity traders after the collapse of Enron and he is sort of the new Koch Brothers figure. He is on a crusade. He has created something called the Arnold Foundation which is funding pension reform efforts in multiple states all across the country from Montana to Kentucky to Florida to Rhode Island where I spend a lot of time. In Rhode Island Arnold donated a lot of money to a 501(c)4 organization called Engage Rhode Island which helped promote the pension reform policies of the sort of Wall Street friendly treasurer they have in that state. And this is sort of the new formula, you have in the Citizen’s United age you have some person, a hedge fund guy like John Arnold, who gives a whole bunch of money to some shadowing organization which advertises this crisis that we can’t afford to pay workers any more so we have to do things differently. We gotta make cuts and then we gotta put all the money in Wall Street managed funds. That is sort of his playbook. JUAN GONZALEZ: I would like to ask you about Detroit, obviously he biggest bankruptcy we know of in recent modern times for a municipality, and you have the situation of the pension funds there under threat. Big front page story in the New York Times today; but the average retiree from the Detroit government is receiving a pension of $19,000 a year. We’re not talking about golden parachutes here, yet these are the very pension funds that are now under attack. MATT TAIBBI: Sure, there is a huge corruption case that just broke open this morning. What I would say about that, is what did Willie Sutton say about why he robbed banks? That’s where the money is. Look, pension funds are sort of the last great big unguarded piles of money in this country and there are going to be all sorts of operators who trying to get their hands on that money. During the crisis era, it was Wall Street banks who were essentially looting these funds by selling them toxic, fraudulent mortgage backed securities. In Detroit, it was the workers themselves who were taking the money. They’re giving themselves what they called 13th checks, taking advances of their own money. But across the country the more typical narrative is not some worker who is making $19,000 who is really making out in this kind of corruption. It is the hedge fund who is making $50 and $60 million in fees managing state funds. That is the much more typical narrative.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 23:54:46 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015