Romney and Obama Have Foreign Investments Through Cayman Islands

One of the many tense moments in the second presidential debate turned on a new topic in the race: President Barack Obama’s pension account.

Here’s how it came up: Early in the face-off, Obama scoffed at Mitt Romney’s pledge to crack down on unfair trading practices by China, saying Romney is currently invested in companies “that are building surveillance equipment for China to spy on its own folks.”

Romney later explained that, yes, he understands that his blind trust has invested in foreign firms, including companies in China. Then he confronted Obama.

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.”

The exchange was a role reversal: An Obama campaign ad in July 2012 claimed Romney had millions in the Cayman Islands, among other “tax havens.” We rated that True, noting that nothing was illegal or improper about the investments through his blind trust.

We also reviewed an Obama claim from an ad in September 2012 that said, “Even today part of Romney’s fortune is invested in China.”

We rated that Mostly True, noting that Romney had money invested in funds that owned shares in two Chinese firms, but that Obama’s claim suggested Romney had more to do with the investment decision than is the case. (We further noted that the New York Times reported that one of the funds had invested in a Chinese video surveillance company that supplies cameras to police for watching public spaces.)

Okay, so what about Romney’s debate description of Obama’s pension investments?

The Romney campaign told us it was referring to investments made by the Illinois State Board of Investment on behalf of the state employees’ retirement system there.

Obama, you may recall, was an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004 before winning election to the U.S. Senate. He is a participant in the General Assembly Retirement System in Illinois, said William Atwood, executive director of the Board of Investment, who confirmed that for us.

The Romney campaign pointed us to that pension fund’s holding in an entity that is part of Advent International. Advent has described itself as “one of the world’s most global private equity firms” and has buyout offices in 16 countries.

Read the rest at PolitiFact

Views: 70

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

"Destroying the New World Order"

TOP CONTENT THIS WEEK

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SITE!

mobile page

12160.info/m

12160 Administrators

 

Latest Activity

Doc Vega posted blog posts
17 hours ago
Sandy posted a photo
yesterday
Sandy commented on tjdavis's video
yesterday
Sandy favorited tjdavis's video
yesterday
Sandy commented on tjdavis's video
yesterday
tjdavis's 2 blog posts were featured
yesterday
Doc Vega's 4 blog posts were featured
yesterday
FREEDOMROX's blog post was featured
yesterday
Doc Vega posted blog posts
yesterday
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Is Contact With Extraterrestrials Plausible?
"Burbia, we now know from Dr. Stevn Greer that there are 3 kinds of UAP's -alien or NHI,…"
Friday
tjdavis posted a video
Friday
Burbia commented on Doc Vega's blog post Is Contact With Extraterrestrials Plausible?
"There's the story of John Dee making a deal with entities leading up to splitting the atom and…"
Thursday
tjdavis posted videos
Thursday
Doc Vega posted blog posts
Wednesday
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's photo
Wednesday
cheeki kea posted a photo
Wednesday
cheeki kea commented on tjdavis's photo
Thumbnail

Muskrat Love

"Good vid. find Burbia. Very interesting indeed. "
Wednesday
cheeki kea posted a blog post

General Dynamics Was Contracted By Pentagon To Run An Anti-Vaccine Psyop? Deep insight from a reader comment...

 A top notch comment from a Substack post. I nominate this individual as as commenter of the year…See More
Wednesday
Burbia commented on tjdavis's photo
Wednesday
tjdavis posted photos
Wednesday

© 2025   Created by truth.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

content and site copyright 12160.info 2007-2019 - all rights reserved. unless otherwise noted