Teachers and our unions have tremendous power that we often don't use. One of the weapons we could utilize is to withhold our labor but in New York that isn't even considered because of the two days pay fine for each day out on strike penalties of the Taylor Law.
Another weapon of labor is to use our money properly. Public school teacher pension funds are worth plenty of money and we have a say in where our money is invested. We should not put our money with anyone who wants to obliterate public education and/or unions. I don't see why this concept is so difficult to grasp or support.
The Wall Street Journal has a piece that Diane Ravitch copied on this issue. Here are the first three paragraphs:
Daniel Loeb, Paul Singer and dozens of other hedge-fund managers have poured millions of dollars into promoting charter schools in New York City and into groups that want to revamp pension plans for government workers, including teachers.
The leader of the American Federation of Teacher;s, Randi Weingarten, sees some of the proposals, in particular the pension issue, as an attack on teachers. She also has influence over more than $1 trillion in public-teacher pension plans, many of which traditionally invest in hedge fund
It is a recipe for a battle for the ages.
Further down, Randi is quoted:
"Why would you put your money with someone who wants to destroy you?"
Battle for the ages might be too strong a phrase for this but I enjoyed reading an article where I was pretty much in agreement with the AFT President.
No, she is not right. The right thing to do is to remove investments from ALL hedge funds.
ReplyDeleteHedge funds are fakes, not good for long term returns, even without taking into account their high fees.
The best way to invest is just mirroring the market, directly buying stocks at the same proportion of SP500.
Hi James,
ReplyDeleteWhat's the deal with the ATR contract? No one has returned my calls or emails. Can you give it a try?
Thanks.
Guess whrn this happens I will be transferring my TDA to my own portfolio. Don't like having the Union decide that their political preferences are deciding where to put my funds.
ReplyDeleteWe have a socially responsible investment fund. I was on the Executive Board when it was created.
ReplyDeleteTRS decides how to invest our money. The board which has three UFT members on it are the ones who oversee the investments
ReplyDeleteIn this day when many pension funds are undervalued and ours is not, I say let TRS keep doing what they are doing. Leave the political crap out of it.
ReplyDeleteNYCTRS has never invested with hedge funds.
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ReplyDeleteThis post was not political 9:42 Friday. It was actually in favor of Randi's actions.
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