[Vision2020] Wal-Mart cause and effect

[Jeff Harkins]

Moving on to consider other salient points related to the impact of 
an expanded Walmart store in Moscow, there are secondary and tertiary 
effects for all of you to ponder.

With so many university level educators in Moscow, it may be 
important for you to consider your retirement portfolio.  Like many 
of you, I have a CREF account.

I just looked over the 2005 Schedule of Investments for CREF.  You 
might find the following sample of their holdings interesting:

Avista                  2,900 shares    $      54,000
Applebee's              5,687 shares    $    151,000
Blockbuster             12,560 shares   $    115,000
Carmike Cinemas         8,40 shares     $      26,000
Loews                   52,085 shares   $   3,032,000
McDonalds               85,243 shares   $   2,365,000
Office Depot            21,101 shares   $      482,000
Papa Johns              575 shares      $      23,000
Sears Holding           6,680 shares    $  1,001,000
Staples         49,538 shares   $  1,056,000
Starbucks               26,215 shares   $   1,345,000
WalMart         169,404         $  8,165,000
Wells Fargo             113,490         $  6,989,000

With the exception of Loews (perhaps a soon to be neighbor), all of 
these firms have invested in Moscow and many of you have in turn 
invested in them through your retirement portfolio.  You will receive 
retirement earnings as a result of that symbiotic relationship. 
Please note the scale difference for the WalMart holdings.

CREF offers numerous other funds (and of course there are thousands 
of other mutual funds). Because WalMart is a bellweather stock, there 
are not many funds that don't hold some WalMart.

It is even better for you if you are an investor and have some of 
these holdings in your personal portfolios - you are now a local 
business owner - and each time you frequent those establishments, you 
get "cash-back" through your dividend earnings and capital gains from 
increases in stock value.  Just curious - when was the last time you 
got a dividend from ____________ ? (you fill in the name of a locally 
owned business).

Most of our police, fire, k-12 personnel and government employees are 
covered by PERSI.  The WalMart holdings for PERSI for the last year 
totalled $48,655,272 - it was the fourth largest equity holding by 
PERSI.  This one touches a bit closer to home - if you are a PERSI 
person, you have a substantial investment at stake here.

But the real point is that if you hold mutual funds, retirement 
accounts, investment accounts - before you take a position on a 
business entity, you might want to look not only at how that business 
treats its customers, you might want to consider how restrictions on 
those businesses would affect your portfolio holdings.

As I noted earlier, the economic system is a complex network of relationships.

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