Early on in the debate, Cayman Islands bank accounts became a hot topic because Mitt Romney had a few that the left quickly confused with Swiss bank accounts (or offshore ones), and determined were unreported tax shelters Romney used to hide his money or, alteratively, fund the construction of a machine that could either destroy the moon or control the weather depending on which James Bond film they’d seen last.
Sadly, Mitt Romney is (1) not that interesting and (2) honest enough to report his “tax shelters” to the IRS in order to get taxed on them appropriately, which means he really needs a new accountant. At any rate, the campaign even mentioned at one point that the accounts functioned as a way for Romney to entice overseas investors to hide their money in American companies, so who knows, maybe the whole thing was a patriotic exercise in bringing super villainy back to the good old US of A where it belongs.
In Tuesdays debate, the subject came up again, not because Obama was attacking Romney’s sin of being wealthy (or putting money into a blind trust that happened to have invested in Chinese companies), but because it appears, Obama might have some overseas investment structures of his own.
Romney: “Mr. President, have you looked at your pension? Have you looked at your pension?”
Obama: “You know, I don’t look at my pension. It’s not as big as yours so it doesn’t take as long. I don’t check it that often.”
Romney: “Let me give you some advice. Look at your pension. You also have investments in Chinese companies. You also have investments outside the United States. You also have investments through a Caymans trust.”
Record scratch!
Turns out, Obama has investments made through the Illinois State Board of Investment, which cares for the pension funds of Illinois state employees. Obama was an Illinois State Senator and is entitled to (and did) make investments through this board, in a manner almost identical to Mitt Romney’s own blind trust. In fact, the ISBI even put some of it’s cash into Avent International, a private equity and buyout firm like Bain Capital that puts a percentage of it’s investors money into a Cayamn Islands partnership (sound familiar?). And as part of it’s diversified portfolio, the blind trust also has investments in Chinese companies, presumably some of which have human rights problems. Because pretty much all Chinese companies have human rights problems.
Now, like Romney, Obama has about as much control over which funds Avent selects as he does over what Avent employees have for lunch, meaning he’s pretty distant from his Cayman Islands situation and these Chinese companies that everyone’s freaking out about (and they could both probably get into a pissing match over whose pension fund is actually bigger), but let’s put it this way: maybe Obama should check his retirement portfolio a bit more often.
UPDATE: He really should check his portfolio. As it turns out, Obama has a much larger pension than Romney.
[...] NAKED DC: Someone has a Cayman Islands bank account for his Chinese investments. Nope. Other guy. [...]
The Cayman Islands…isn’t that next to the Maldives ?
Do they speak ‘Austrian’ there ?
Obama is demonstrating the application of the Reverse Midas Touch.
Everything he touches turns to . . . er, not gold.
“. . . er, not gold.”
Danegeld?
Obama’s got a Midas Touch all right. Everything he touches turns into a muffler.
Well, actually, as an IL State Senator, Obama was always very interested in how State pension funds were invested and he sat on the Senate Pensions Committee. His main interest was in the minority investment manager angle, but until he left for the US Senate at the start of 2005 he arguably was in a position to influence ISBI investment policies, and if he had a problem with China or the Caymans or whatever, he would have carried a lot of weight had he said anything even informally.
once again, Barack Hussein Obama accuses someone else for doing exactly what he’s doing.
listen carefully to Barack in tonights final debate – as we’ll all learn what Barack Hussein is attempting to hide now – including his participation in the Bengazi cover up
“its”!
http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/its.html
Would be poetic if that state fund also had investments in Bain Capital – lots of public pension fund do hold a stake in Bain. Anybody looked?
[...] Gawker was not available for comment: Obama *does* have a Cayman Islands bank account for his Chinese investments.Gawker was not available for comment: Obama *does* have a Cayman Islands bank account for his Chinese investments. (via Instapundit). [...]
Also, Romney has NO pension. Obama has TWO pensions, one from his time in the Illinois senate and one from when he’s no longer president. Two pensions.
Romney took no money when he served as governor, therefore he didn’t qualify for a pension.
Not to mention, that Obama is going to have to be dipping into that pension a little sooner than Romney, since he will be unemployed in 2 1/2 months.
“Record scratch!”
In more ways than one. Since I made up my mind regarding this election a long time ago and since I was busy, I didn’t bother watching the debate. But I did see, repeatedly, over and over, this particular exchange, except that the excerpts always cut off with Obama’s reply. Oh. look how Obama managed to cut Romney down to size, ha ha! Yay Obama! Romney’s pretty sharp point? No need for us to burden you with that, citizen.
[...] Someone has a Cayman Islands bank account for his Chinese investments. Nope. Other guy. :: Naked DC. Share this:TwitterRedditFacebookEmailPrintDiggStumbleUponLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. [...]
[...] funny. I should be immune to hypocrisy by now, but is still rankles. No Comments [...]