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<font face="Arial Narrow, Helvetica" size=4>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.<br><br>
</font>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.<br><br>
I just looked over the 2005 Schedule of Investments for CREF. You
might find the following sample of their holdings interesting:<br><br>
Avista<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>2,900
shares <x-tab> </x-tab>$
54,000<br>
Applebee's<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>5,687
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>$
151,000<br>
Blockbuster<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>12,560
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>$ 115,000<br>
Carmike Cinemas
<x-tab> </x-tab>8,40
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>
$ 26,000<br>
Loews<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>52,085
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>$ 3,032,000<br>
McDonalds<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>85,243
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>$ 2,365,000<br>
Office
Depot<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>21,101
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>$
482,000<br>
Papa
Johns<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>575
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>
$ 23,000<br>
Sears
Holding<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>6,680
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>$ 1,001,000<br>
Staples<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>49,538
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>$ 1,056,000<br>
Starbucks
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>26,215
shares<x-tab> </x-tab>$ 1,345,000<br>
WalMart<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>169,404<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>$
8,165,000<br>
Wells
Fargo<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>113,490<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>$
6,989,000<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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).<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
As I noted earlier, the economic system is a complex network of
relationships.<br>
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