When the history books record l’affaire Wisconsin, public-employee unions will have plenty of villains. They will remember Republican governor Scott Walker, who proposed scaling back their ability to collectively bargain. They will revile Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, who cut off debate and “rushed” the bill to a vote after 61 hours of debate on the Assembly floor. But for the Left, the most enduring villain might be the billionaire Koch brothers.
When frequently vile Buffalobeast.com blogger Ian Murphy prank-called Walker, he pretended to be David Koch — thinking that would be the most embarrassing call Walker could take. (Or perhaps Murphy simply hadn’t perfected a Kim Jong-il impersonation yet. “Hey Scott, it’s your boy Kim!”)
The vitriol from protesting Wisconsin workers towards the Kochs emerged quickly and intensely. Signs ranging between lame and vulgar (often both) dot the public-union marches.
But what the protesters don’t realize is that they actually have a reason to root for the Koch brothers.
According to the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), the Wisconsin Retirement System owns $5.5 million in Georgia Pacific corporate bonds. (Georgia Pacific is owned by Koch Industries.) This is the retirement system in which the overwhelming majority of state and local employees participate. These are the pension benefits that public employees are trying so hard to protect.
So here’s the challenge: Explain to a Wisconsin state worker that they are the ones helping fund the Koch brothers. Then sit back and watch the fun.
Granted, $5.5 million out of a $18.5 billion fixed-income bond fund isn’t a whole lot. (The state also holds about $5 million worth of Colgate bonds, meaning it is in the pocket of Big Toothpaste.) But one imagines the public unions’ vitriol will soften a little bit when they realize their retirement payout is incumbent on the success of the Kochs. They’re all part of the same money-making ecosystem, despite many state employees believing all their retirement funds are invested exclusively in dreams and rainbows.
So in the end, public unions should recognize that the real Koch will do them a lot more good than the fake one ever did.
— Christian Schneider is a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.
While the state pension may hold GP bonds, it will have no effect of pensions. That is contracted...the state may invest, and investments may succeed or fail, but in the end the state will pay.
Taxpayers have more at stake.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExpect about $5.5 million of Ga Pacific bonds to hit the market today.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree with Geeorge Bregar. The unions could care less how Georgia Pacific stock does. The states are on the hook for fixed pension amounts, and if their investments don't cover it, they will simply tax the people more.
That taxpayers are waking up and objecting to this is precisely what has the unions in a frenzy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe title of this post is funnier if "Koch" is read with a short "O".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYet another example of the widely known fact that liberals, from Barack Obama down to the most recent graduate of teachers' college, don't know squat about economics. And furthermore, they don't give a rat's patootie about their ignorance either.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe symbolism is what counts, folks. Whether the pension funds buy or sell $5M in GP bonds in the market makes hardly a whit of difference to GP, Koch, or the unions.
However, as a symbol, this is good stuff. If GP defaults, the pension fund takes a hit (albeit the taxpayers will end up covering the loss) and so the continued health of a Koch company is symbolically important to the unions.
The problem with the progressives and with the talking heads on the left is that they believe this is a zero sum game. They don't understand that the creation of wealth benefits everyone in the loop.
JFK understood a rising tide floated all boats. Today's progressives get all wee-wee'd up over the supposed gulf between rich and poor (as they define the terms). JFK had it right.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBig Toothpaste! Dreams and rainbows! LMAO! Great piece! Wait 'til them union Commies find this out! They'll chock on their taxpayer-funded granola! Hahahahaha...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo because they have 5.5 mil out of 78 billion (total portfolio, not just the bonds), which equates to 0.007%, they should care how Koch industries performs? I think they would gladly see Koch liquidated to get their influence out of Wisconsin politics.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse'JFK understood a rising tide floated all boats.'
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn a perfect world this would be true, but in a world run solely on corruption and greed. The rising tide causes the super-rich to become fat and happy and find all different ways of squirreling their money away in tax shelters at the same time causing inflation and forcing the costs of living for the middle-class up nearly equal to the rising tide.
AnonymousC--
Hey, thanks for the insight.
Reminds me of an apocryphal cartoon in Mad Magazine eons ago with a chick tentatively emerging from its shell, taking a look around, frowning, and returning to its shell.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI've wondered about this very thing for years.
The "evil rich" that the left/progressives rail about include 401k plans, IRAs, individual investors like Warren Buffet AND my Uncle Les & Aunt Elaine.
When GM restructured their debt, bond holders got the shaft, including a couple of retirees in their 70s who are my aunt & uncle.
All this "for the people" garbage is just that GARBAGE. No longer are individuals dependent upon one particular corporation for funding retirement. Instead, millions of individuals have purchased shares in corporations like Coca-Cola, MicroSoft, GM, etc, putting their faith in those who run those businesses to run them efficiently with a profit.
Now a political party is screaming about obscene profits & one individual is even claiming that the jobs & salaries running major corporations are "everyone's".
Someone smarter than I should be able to develop a primer for the progressive mindset & overlay it onto the current NFL vs NFL Players Association situation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt takes a real weasel to write a piece of drivel like this and say, "granted, 5.5 million out of 18.5 billion isn't a whole lot."
18.5 billion is 185,000 million; divide that by 5.5 and try to figure out what percentage of the union fund the administer is entrusting to the good auspices of the Koch Bros.
As for the State Employees Pension, it is deferred money ALREADY earned by the employees for services ALREADY performed. If any of you have ever had to make a payroll, and recall having to make a monthly Social Decurity deposit for your employees, don't you remember that the money WASN'T YOURS? You deducted it from your employees paychecks already, and you don't get to keep it. Neither does the State of Wisconsin.
Uninformed, ill-informed, misinformed. You know which you are.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePulitzer Prize winning tax reporter, David Cay Johnston, has written a brilliant piece for tax.com exposing the truth about who really pays for the pension and benefits for public employees in Wisconsin.
Good article. The Wisconsin Lie Exposed – Taxpayers Actually Contribute Nothing To Public Employee Pensions. Read below:
External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseinteresting how liberals comment on articles in national review. i thought if you read it, it would burn your retinas.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseprivate unions sit down across from management to bargain over a % of the profits. if they cannot make a deal, the company moves overseas, closes down, or hires scabs.in public unions they sit down across from a politition they probably gave a hugh donation to, and ask for other workers tax money. are we talking bribery?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusec.wesley anderson:
"private unions sit down across from management to bargain over a % of the profits. If they cannot make a deal, the company moves overseas, closes down, or hires scabs."
Unions don't bargain for a percent, they bargain for a fixed rate. Have you ever seen a union employee's pay rate fluctuate given the company's net? Neither have I. This is why companies go out of business, or move their operations overseas. Nice try, though.
You claim that if the company can't make a deal with the unions (you have it backwards, BTW), they move overseas.... well, you know what you wrote.
"Hires scabs." That would mean non-union workers, right? So, more than 80% of the private work force are scabs to your way of thinking? Thanks for the compliment. And you wonder why Americans are increasingly fed up with unions.
BTW - regarding that whole "moving overseas" thing. Why don't you put your money where your mouth is? Look at everything in your house. Where is it made? Your HD TV, electronics, lamps, kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff, tools, computers, even your car (most parts are either made in Japan, or in Mexico, regardless of where in the U.S. they are ASSEMBLED).
OK? Found them all? Now, toss them in the trash. All of them. You have principles, right? Then man-up and live by your principles. If you won't do this, then stop b1t(h1ng about overseas workers. Be glad they're there, or you would be paying through your face for that laptop.
And to all you union speds, think on this. Those "evil rich" are the ones who hire you. They are the ones who own and run the companies in your investment portfolio.
You're biting the hand that feeds you. So don't be surprised when that hand gets tired of your thousand cuts and moves overseas, where the workers appreciate the jobs.
-
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Wisconsin State Employees Should Have Some Koch and Smile"
Well, now. Who's being a bad boy?
-
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe implication that the Wisconsin Pension plan would benefit from the Corporatist transfer of public lands to the Kochs is preposterous drivel. GP is privately held and Wisconsin investments are fixed income bonds....Wisconsin pension would have ZERO net gain
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Koch brothers destroy our environment use the common man to build their personal wealth then give millions back to right wing causes. No WE do NOT live for Corporations. The biillions taxpayers fork over to float these Koch brother companies would be better spent on unionized jobs. The billions we spend to clean up their mess and fund their profits could have been used in the first place to fund better lives for all of us. So don't point out how great these guys are becasue they donate to charities, they are only giving back 1% of the taxpayer money they stole from hard working Americans!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse