Ralston gets it

A great quote from Bill Ralston which gets to the heart of the matter:

Am I the only person who finds it slightly hypocritical that we move to stymie the Canadian Pension Plan buying one of our “strategic assets” when Dr Cullen’s New Zealand Superannuation Fund is prowling the planet, merrily buying up other people’s strategic assets?

The NZ Super Fund already has assets of $13.2 billion – making it larger than almost any NZ company. And in just another 15 years it will be a staggering $100 billion in size and will own strategic assets in dozens of countries I suggest.

It already own assets in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada (that nasty country which can’t be trusted to own 30% of an airport), Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic,  Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany,Greece, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UK, and the USA.

And amongst those investments in around 50 different countries are a couple of airports!