Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Bloomberg Loves Gunmakers

What's the word I'm looking for to describe this? 

Oh, yeah - "hypocrite":

The massive city teachers pension fund responded to the horrors of the Newtown massacre by dumping all its stock in guns and ammo makers — but Mayor Bloomberg surprisingly opposed the move.

Bloomberg is one of the nation’s most outspoken critics of the gun industry. As the founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, he’s become a fixture on national news shows and a leading campaigner for sweeping gun control measures that he says will make everyone safer.

But when the Teachers Retirement System board voted to pull $13.5 million in investments it made in companies like Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co., Bloomberg directed his rep on the pension board to cast the lone “no” vote. 
Raymond Sarola, Bloomberg’s emissary to the board, said the mayor doesn’t believe in mixing politics and finance.

“Pension decisions should rarely, if ever, be based on other criteria except what’s best for pensioners, which should benefit taxpayers as well,” Sarola said in a statement Friday.
 
UFT President Michael Mulgrew puts the mayor's rationale in perspective:
 
The $46.6 billion teachers pension fund is the largest major pension fund to pull its gun investments since Newtown, though other large funds have started the process.

Mulgrew said educators had to make sure guns were not part of their holdings.

“I don’t understand how the mayor, who wants to be characterized as a national leader on gun control, has allowed his people to vote against divesting from gun manufacturers,” Mulgrew said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Perhaps the little mayor only hates guns when he's the one leading the charge against them?

Is this all about the little man's fragile ego?

Or does Bloomberg really hold the position that he wants very strict gun laws all across the nation but doesn't want to divest from gun manufacturers because the rate on return for the teachers pension fund is too good to give up?

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