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John Parulis
Blackstone, BlackRock or a Public Bank for California’s Money?
In her latest piece on the need for public banking, Ellen Brown writes,
"California is far from broke. It has over well over $700 billion in funds of various sorts tucked around the state, including $500 billion in CalPERS and CalSTRS, the state’s massive public pension funds. These pools of money are restricted in how they can be spent and are either sitting in banks drawing a modest interest or invested with Wall Street asset managers and private equity funds that are not obligated to invest the money in California and are not safe. For fiscal year 2009, CalPERS and CalSTRS reported almost $100 billion in losses from investments gone awry."
"In 2017, CalSTRS allocated $6.1 billion to private equity funds, real estate managers and co-investments, including $400 million to a real estate fund managed by Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private equity firm, and $200 million to BlackRock, the world’s largest “shadow bank.” CalPERS is now in talks with BlackRock over management of its $26 billion private equity fund, with discretion to invest that money as it sees fit."
If this money were rather placed under the careful management of a State Bank, the billions lost to shadow banks like Blackstone and the ominous "Too Big To Fail" could be invested for the rightful needs of the people of California.
Read about the only successful state bank in the country here.