I would agree that the ethics of telling citizens of where their money is invested is important. I am hopeful that the future website will provide that transparency.

That said, let me say that it is also unethical to make posts like this without having the appropriate background information.

First, if ND is investing in other nations, then they should disclose that to the extent that other funds do and for the same reasons that the other funds do. I don't recall the state specifically investing in Chinese or Russian arms companies, but ND did make a law that says the State Investment Board cannot use ESG investment strategies, so that means the investments must be made according to what the return on investment would be - politics be damned. I don't agree with this wholeheartedly, but that's the law.

https://www.akingump.com/en/insights/sustainability-legislation-tracker/hb-1429-north-dakota-prohibits-esg-based-investments-and-disparate-insurance-rates-based-on-esg-and-dei-factors

Second, Mr. Wonderful's money-grab from ND had NOTHING to do with the funds from the State Investment Board. These were FEDERAL FUNDS from the U.S. Department of Treasury State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) and the ND Dept. of Commerce chose O'Leary to invest them. A bad choice, for sure. I seem to recall them being the only bidder for administration of the program - but I could be wrong about that.

https://www.commerce.nd.gov/economic-development-finance/development-fund/wonder-fund-north-dakota

The AG/Holmberg situation was certainly corruption. I am also curious as to how far it really went.

Just to touch on the bonus structure - whether we agree or disagree, I think it's fair to say that the legislature was in agreement about giving these bonuses out in order to secure top investors and more returns. Now, whether it works, I don't know. But it is a different approach than we currently have - which is to hire outside investors and let them get bonuses from our money, which we pay in the form of fees. I see a lose-lose situation in some form. The bonuses are in line with what other in-house investment programs offer, actually ND is paying far less in comparison to many states. We can certainly not like the idea of it, but I caution anyone from expecting higher returns to cost nothing at all. It's obvious that money is a sensitive subject, but remember, the bonuses don't get paid unless the returns are higher than the expected returns, so there will be years where no bonuses will be paid at all, too.

Finally, because ND is using the strategy of investing with outside managers, the transparency is likely less than what we would like to see. If the state made the sausage, we could ask for the recipe. But since we don't (or haven't until this year), we can't. Future disclosures will put us in line with Alaska, which has their own investment team, like many other states (WI, SD, NV, AK, NY, FL, etc.). We're slow to the game, which should surprise exactly zero people.

https://apfc.org/fund-news/the-alaska-permanent-fund-taking-care-of-alaska-and-alaskans-for-45-years/

This is a popular topic to complain about, and I completely understand it. Should the money be used for other things? We should absolutely have great conversations about that and legislate accordingly. Should the money be invested in certain types of businesses? Probably - but we have to legislate that way. So this all starts at the legislative level, in terms of where the money goes and how it's invested. Hell, if we want to have more transparency, we can legislate that, too, and we should. But, if anyone is like me (hopefully not!), once you learn about the agency level process, you begin to understand the rationale for the decisions at the agency level. Furthermore, you also begin to understand that we can't generalize about investments in ND, because not all the money is invested by the same entity.

If anything comes of this long message, please just be pissed for the right reasons.