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Matthew Cunningham-Cook

Matthew Cunningham-Cook

Matthew Cunningham-Cook is an award-winning investigative journalist covering labor, private equity, health care, retirement policy, and capital markets, contributing to The Intercept, The American Prospect, The Lever, The Nation, and In These Times.

Aug 18, 2026

17:02
In your article, you speak of, as a labor reporter, that these blue states populations are funding inadvertently, or maybe not inadvertently, but you tell me, how is this working? Did we not know in the blue states, New York, California, that we are actually funding some of these conservative policies that many people in these states are protesting against?
17:27
Yeah, I think it's, you know, in New York, it's a sad story.
17:32
You know, Tom DiNapoli, the state controller, controls one of the largest pots of money around, over $200 billion.
17:44
And that's the money in the state pension, employees pension fund.
17:49
And, you know, unfortunately, instead of kind of investing the bulk of that money in things that could meet human needs, like housing, he has chosen to put enormous sums of money into private equity, into private real estate, and yeah, into some of the companies that are kind of most behind Trumpism.
18:17
So whether it's Tesla, he's refused to Get out of Tesla or, um, Valor Equity Partners, which is, um, uh, a private equity firm that's extremely close to Elon Musk.
18:32
Um, he's just been very kind of resistant, uh, to, to change.

19 MINS LATER

37:30
When we are listening to this and trying to figure out what to do, what do you see that the person who's in the, the, the New York State pension, pen, uh, Teachers Pension, who's a part of this New York Common Stake, what should they do at this point after hearing this information?

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