If I told you I had a way to create 10,000 new jobs in Minnesota, just by changing the investment strategy of one state agency, wouldn't your next words be, "Let's make it happen"?
What state wouldn't want to invest its own pension funds in high-return, job-creating, local businesses, while creating new jobs along the way? Minnesota, apparently.
Thirty-two other states have investment programs targeting local companies, our research shows. Meanwhile, in Minnesota, we sit idle. Those are exactly the kinds of investments that historically produce higher long-term returns than other assets. Right next door, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) in 2010 invested over $12.3 billion in companies with economic ties to Wisconsin. Minnesota's State Board of Investment (SBI), by contrast, invests only 7 percent of its $60 billion portfolio in private equity and 0.3 percent in venture capital, and very little of that in Minnesota firms.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Business forum: 10,000 new jobs without raising taxes? Here's how | StarTribune.com
