Let’s cut to the chase. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine has jumped on the American Federation of Teachers “blacklist bandwagon.” As it turns out, the Show-Me Institute’s work on public union pensions and public union policy generally has made us a national bête noire of the Left.
Of course, Taibbi knows his role in that game and plays it as best he can. But I would like to know his source on this nifty factoid (emphasis mine):
Dan Loeb isn’t the only hedge fund manager aligned with groups like Students First, the Manhattan Institute, or local anti-benefit lobbies like the Show-Me Institute (created by billionaire Rex Sinquefield to campaign against defined benefit plans in Missouri) . . .
Oh? And what actual evidence, Matt, do you have for the assertion that the Show-Me Institute — now close to a decade old — was founded for the purpose of “campaign[ing] against defined benefit plans”?
We’re waiting.
But while we wait, Matt, I did want to tell you that I found your investment advice remarkable, compelling, and ironic (emphasis mine):
A lot of teachers and public sector workers would do just as well to just dump their money on some plain-vanilla S&P index and not pay obscene tax-sheltered fees[…]. Not only would the returns probably be a wash or close to it, but retirees at least wouldn’t be stripping themselves of their biggest asset – the political power their money represents.
That is excellent advice. And you know who helped invent the first S&P index fund? Rex Sinquefield, of course. But you knew that, right?
Right?
