CURMUDGUCATION: RI: Foxes In The Governor's Mansion

CURMUDGUCATION: RI: Foxes In The Governor's Mansion

RI: Foxes In The Governor's Mansion

I haven't paid much attention to Rhode Island (motto: That State Nobody Pays Much Attention To), but we should all take a look, because Rhode Island has become yet another example of the many ways that privatizers and profiteers get their hands into the cookie jar.

These frickin' people

We start with Gina Raimondo, a venture capitalist who decided to get into politics via the office of state treasurer. Her signature move in that office was to "fix" the state pension fund problem by taking an axe to it, in much the same way that you would "fix" the problem of not having enough gas to get to the hospital by deciding to drive to the house on the corner of your block instead. Also, she decided to direct a bunch of those pension funds to hedge funds of her own (generating lots of fees for the Wall Street crowd). Her play was backed by EngageRI, a dark money group that pumped $740K into a pension "reform" campaign; the donors were kept secret, though the WSJ determined that John Arnold had pumped anywhere from $100k to $500K into it. Arnold is not a resident of Rhode Island; he's just a guy who "retired" at age 38 from ENRON and went on to become a major funder of pension attacks in this country. And he has many CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: RI: Foxes In The Governor's Mansion