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    Do California Teachers Know They're Investing in Keystone?

    This story comes from the Yahoo! Contributor Network, where individuals publish their unique perspectives on some of the world’s most popular websites.
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    COMMENTARY | According to The Daily Ticker, the California State Teachers Retirement System has sent a letter to Facebook as a potential investor in the company complaining about how much voting control founder Mark Zuckerberg has. While Zuckerberg's control of Facebook is what The Daily Ticker's post is about, I found myself fascinated more about the notion of the California State Teachers Retirement System and who it invests in.

    According to CalSTRS website, it is the nation's second-largest pension fund and it has assets of more than 144.8 billion. CalSTRS membership and beneficiaries as of 2010 were 852,316 and its total benefit payments were $9.4 billion. $67.06 billion was invested in global equity in 2010. The list of companies those investments involve is massive. And there are some very familiar names. Perhaps what is most interesting is the teachers' seemingly large interest in oil.

    Do the teachers in California know their pension fund invests in TransCanada? CalSTRS has more than $44 million invested in the company. TransCanada is owner of the Keystone XL pipeline -- the same pipeline the Obama administration denied a construction permit for and the Republicans in Congress are vowing will be approved.

    Are teachers in California big fans of Pakistan's oil industry? According to CalSTRS list, it has $17 million of the retirement fund tied up in stocks with two Pakistani oil companies.

    It would appear the teachers in California really like the energy industry overall. There are a slew of stocks of international companies involved in oil, uranium and mineral extraction held by CalSTRS totaling millions of dollars, and on the U.S. side, with names such as Exxon (of which CalSTRS owns over $1 billion worth of stock), Cabot, Peabody and Halliburton.

    While energy is not the only thing the pension fund is invested in, companies in the industries of oil and gas, uranium, coal and solar certainly see a share of the wealth of the California State Teachers Retirement System.

     

    5 comments

    • JOSEPH  •  Powhatan, Virginia  •  3 mths ago
      you really can't expect teachers to educate themselves
    • Nemesis  •  3 mths ago
      $145 BILLION is a LOT of cash. They have to invest it SOMEWHERE. They don't keep shoe boxes full of $20's under the bed. Do you know where your bank is investing YOUR money? Yeah, I don't know what mine is doing either. Maybe I should check before I pick up that first stone...
      • BlondeGirl 3 mths ago
        I know each and every company I am invested in, thanks anyway.
    • Brian Brekke  •  3 mths ago
      Its kind of like our government...besides getting to vote for the person we think will do the best job reresenting us and doing the right thing for us...do we get a vote on things in congress? Does our congressmen go to the precinct or district they represent and ask us how he should vote? Then they are not doing a very good job representing the people that put faith and trust that they will do the right thing...Instead we have no voice in these matters,Im sure our forefathers are turning over in their graves the way our government is run now...we did not get to vote on congress pay raises...they did the cowardly thing and went behind our backs and closed doors to vote themselves pay raises...We should vote for a new pay structure for them...they should immediately get a 75 percent pay cut if they want a pay raise we the people should decide that...If they do right by us then by all means give them a 2 percent raise
    • Rodney  •  Lansing, Michigan  •  3 mths ago
      Which demonstrates, again, that "Big" whatever is not a huge safe where billions of dollars go to hide...workers get paid, taxes get paid, dividends get paid...so pick on the COs for their personal greed, if you wish, but don't pretend corporations are evil.
    • BlondeGirl  •  Los Angeles, California  •  3 mths ago
      Hahahahahahaha, hypocrites, hahahahaha. Maybe it's ok since they are making money, nope, hahahahaha.
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