U.S. military pensions to get invested in Chicom assets?

American Thinker ^ | 04/17/2020 | Monica Showalter

[SeekAndFind]

Military pensions are important, and it's natural that the agencies investing them would want to get them the best possible returns.

But a new report from John Solomon's JustTheNews site suggests that something a little disturbing is going on:

U.S. military and other federal pensions are apparently going to be invested Chinese entities if a new investment setup goes through. Christine Dolan of JustTheNews writes:

In November 2017, FRTIB Chairman Michael Kennedy, who is Managing Director of Korn/Ferry International, and his board decided to change $50 billion in U.S. government retirement funds to a new global investment index known as the MSCI ACWI Index. The board hopes the change allows for greater returns on investments in emerging Asian markets but critics warn the index would allow investments in adversarial nation-owned companies in Russia and China.

The board is in the final stages of completing that transition this month, despite repeated and vocal objections ranging from former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.

In their October letter to the pension board, Rubio and Shaheen wrote, "This decision would effectively invest the retirement savings of America’s civil servants and military personnel in constituent companies of the ACWI ex-US IMI that assist in the Chinese government’s military activities, espionage, and human rights abuses, as well as many other Chinese companies that lack basic financial transparency."

Up until now, critics, who have been sounding the alarm for a couple of years now, have warned that U.S. military pensions could then be financed by "sanctions violators, fraudulent actors, intellectual-property thieves and human rights abusers."

[Starboard]

One alternative might be to invest in the MSCI Emerging Markets ex China Index which captures large and mid cap representation across 23 of the 24 Emerging Markets (EM) countries excluding China.

[PAR35]

U.S. military pensions could then be financed by "sanctions violators, fraudulent actors, intellectual-property thieves and human rights abusers."

As long as they provide a good ROI.