Divestiture, a poker game, and retirees furnish the chips!

From John Curry, September 1, 2007

Subject: Divestiture, a poker game, and retirees furnish the chips!

I have the utmost respect for the State of Israel and their fight for survival since becoming a country in 1948. At the same time, we public servant retirees shouldn't idly stand by and allow our trust monies (U.S. pension funds) that are only the property of public servants in the United States be used as bargaining chips in the high-stakes "poker game" of international politics. Ohio STRS, Ohio Retirement Study Council, and the Ohio Police and Fire pension boards have now clearly sent this message (by an almost unanimous vote) to our legislative leaders in Columbus as well as Washington. Will they take the hint?

If our federal politicians want to use economic sanctions against Iran...then they should use "their" monies, not the trust fund monies of the public servants' retirement funds in this country. We aren't winning the war in Iraq and we certainly can't afford a war with Iran - militarily or economically. The divestiture scheme is a gift to Israeli leaders at retirees' expense. If you don't think so, just read the excerpt from The Jewish Week below. We, the public employee retirement stakeholders, and our money are being used as pawns in an international political poker game. It's easy to play poker when one uses someone else's money, isn't it?

John

P.S. I find humorous the statement below made by Laszlo-Misrahi: “It’s something Americans do like; it’s not a bunch of politicians, it’s people taking action in their own portfolios, state and local-level politicians divesting their pension funds.”

Well, Laszlo-Misrahi, the "funds" you speak of do not belong to the state and local-level politicians..these funds belong solely to the individual stakeholders of those pension systems. It is not THEIR portfolio, it is OUR portfolio.

The script below was taken from a longer article in The Jewish Week, dated 8/31/07

"Washington’s credibility crisis and signs of a mood of international retreat have led Jewish groups to seek new strategies on Iran.

“It’s one of the reasons we have focused so much on divestment at the state and local level,” Laszlo-Mizrahi said. “It’s something Americans do like; it’s not a bunch of politicians, it’s people taking action in their own portfolios, state and local-level politicians divesting their pension funds.”

And increasingly, Jewish groups are portraying divestment, sanctions and other forms of economic leverage as a kind of anti-war tactic — a way to avoid a new conflict the American people are not ready to support.

“Communities are calling for the most vigorous economic and diplomatic efforts as a way of heading off the possibility of war with Iran,” said Martin Raffel, assistant director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). “Divestment and other strategies are essentially anti-war initiatives.”