Irony: Wisconsin Public Worker Retirement Pension Owns $5 Million In Bonds Of Koch Companies

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Written By:
Rob Port

Mar 3, 2011
1:52am

The Koch Brothers, owners of Koch Industries, have become the central figures in leftist conspiracy theories about the right. The Kochs have been blamed with orchestrating the take over of Wisconsin’s state government by Republicans who, in turn, have decided to push back against the unions.

I guess they must have used some sort of mind control to make a majority of voters in Wisconsin a) angry about their state’s budget deficits and b) willing to vote in leaders willing to do something about it.

So it’s not just a little bit ironic that the state’s public worker pension fund owns $5 million worth of bonds issued by a Koch-owned company:

The vitriol from protesting Wisconsin workers towards the Kochs emerged quickly and intensely. Signs ranging between lame and vulgar (often both) dot the public-union marches.

But what the protesters don’t realize is that they actually have a reason to root for the Koch brothers.

According to the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), the Wisconsin Retirement System owns $5.5 million in Georgia Pacific corporate bonds. (Georgia Pacific is owned by Koch Industries.) This is the retirement system in which the overwhelming majority of state and local employees participate. These are the pension benefits that public employees are trying so hard to protect.

Someone ought to take a camera down to Madison, tell some of the protesters there that they’re funding the Koch brothers, and then film their reactions.