Florida originally began investing money in Lehman in 2005, while Bush was the highest profile member of the SBA, which oversees the $150 billion pension fund. The Bush-led SBA that year committed $176 million to Lehman; in 2006, as Florida moved another $87 million into the Lehman investment, the firm hired Jeb Bush’s cousin, George Herbert Walker, to run the firm’s investment management division.
The next year, Lehman offered the outgoing Florida governor the consulting job. Bush had worked briefly at a Texas-based bank after college, but he lacked significant Wall Street experience.
Sweet deal. If you can get it. And don’t care about much else.
Adios, Jebbie ‘ol boy.
It seems that our country’s elite are nothing but greedy pigs with only a few exceptions.
Not much difference between this and simply writing himself a check straight from the pension’s bank account.
This should be in all the headlines, MSM strangely unconcerned. Wonder if this was being saved for a nice “October Surprise?”
One of Jeb’s favorite sayings (according to acquaintances) was “There is no tooth fairy and there are no heroes.”
The Bush family is corrupt. They talk about being good people but their actions say otherwise for the most part.
It would be interesting to read the minutes of the meeting to see if Yeb was steering the board towards Lehman.
If he did, IMHO he’s as crooked as Hillary, Obama or Reid. As a fiduciary he’s obligated to place the funds in a safe place, not a place willing to `divvy the take’ with him.
El Jebito just feathering the hacienda for Evita, er, Columba.
Jeb is also a big proponent of Charter Schools. He is also on the board of one of the largest Charter school organizations in the country. Charter schools are a public/private partnership. If charter schools become the norm, then school boards will go away (no public input or accountability) and property taxes will go to a private corporation (Charter schools). He is just as bad as Hillary. Sad thing is, his backers all know it.
Cruz can cram this crony profiteering down Bushies’ throats.
Weeks after Bush took the Lehman job, the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) -- a three-member body that makes investment decisions about state pension funds and whose ranks had recently included one Jeb Bush -- gave Lehman additional business: SBA purchased $842 million worth of separate investments in Lehman’s mortgage-backed securities. Over the course of the year, the SBA would shift an additional $420 million of pension money into the same fund in which the state had begun investing under Bush. (My emphasis.)
"Mortgage-backed securities" is a gentle term for absolute, pure junk bonds with no real backing at all. Remember, at that time the mortgages that were being used for backing were HUD forced garbage mortgages supported by over-valued assets and often executed by insolvent borrowers contrary to every concept of sound banking. Indeed, at that very time, the GWB administration was trying to cut back on them, fearing the very collapse that occurred a year later. Thus, to pay off his Lehman Brothers benefactors, Jebbie knowingly and willfully violated his fiduciary duties to Florida tax payers and pensioners by putting nearly a billion dollars of their money into Lehman Brothers' garbage bonds that were nearly sure to fail and, indeed, did fail in about a year.
Now Jebbie's running for President when he ought to be running from the sheriff. He and his gal pal, the Witch, will look great in matching da-glo orange jump suits.