Another reply to the divestment scheme

Source: Writes Like She Talks blog
http://writeslikeshetalks.blogspot.com/

(July 2007)

Brian O'Connell said... Except that US companies have already divested from Iran & Sudan. The Mandel bill would have extended that to second-order investments, and only by state pension funds, i.e. for them to divest from non-US companies and US corporations whose foreign subsidiaries are doing business in Iran and Sudan, such as Rolls-Royce or GE.

Without looking it up, the US Iran sanctions have been in effect for nearly thirty years, and Sudan for a couple.

The Cuba vs China debate on US sanctions will continue of course, but the debate has largely been settled on Iran and Sudan. The Mandel bill constitutes a small state add-on to the existing federal policy.

So the question was not should we divest from Iran and Sudan- we already have done so. The question was whether the public pension funds should have this special burden with regard to second-order investments. I think the cost to them outsized the limited benefit to the US- plus it was just unfair to target public pensions exclusively.