Matt Taibbi on How Wall Street Hedge Funds Are Looting the Pension Funds of Public Workers
While doing my research on deravitives and Dodd-Frank a while back, I found Matt Taibbi to be the best single source for the average reader.
Video at: democracynow.org
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to major new piece by Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi. It’s called “Looting the Pension Funds: Five Years After the Financial Crisis, Wall Street Is Picking at the Carcass of Flat-Broke City and State Governments, Blaming Public Workers and Making Millions to ‘Rescue’ Them.”
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Matt Taibbi joins us here in our studio. Explain how the pension funds are being looted.
MATT TAIBBI: Well, the primary focus of my piece—there are a couple of things. Number one, how did these funds come to be broke in the first place? I think everybody realizes that states are in fiscal crises or having trouble paying out their obligations to workers. One of the reasons is that states—at least 14 states have not been making their annual required contributions to the pension fund for years and years and years. So, essentially, they’ve been illegally borrowing from these pension funds, sometimes going back decades.
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