Lehman Aug 31

Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel

Comment - Jeb Bush

1. Jeb Bush Made Millions Giving Investors Billions Of Florida Pension Funds To Lose

   Aug 30, 2015 | Politicus USA

   ...For Florida taxpayers, their trust in then-Governor Jeb Bush to protect their lifelong pension savings was wasted when he forged a highly-profitable relationship with Lehman Brothers that made Lehman and Bush millions. That special relationship was ultimately a certifiable disaster for Florida public employees...

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Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel

Comment - Jeb Bush

1. Jeb Bush Made Millions Giving Investors Billions Of Florida Pension Funds To Lose

   Aug 30, 2015 | Politicus USA

   For many Americans the idea of entrusting their life-savings, or retirement savings, to a trustworthy entity is a very serious matter; and it certainly should be. A great number of Americans learned the hard way in 2008 that it is no guarantee that their life-long savings will exist if entrusted to uber-greedy, deceptive and deceitful financial institutions and investment firms. It is just one reason why the millions of Americans who depend on their Social Security retirement accounts were relieved when Republicans crashed the economy in 2008 but were prevented from endangering the Social Security Trust reserves; not for lack of trying.

   ...For Florida taxpayers, their trust in then-Governor Jeb Bush to protect their lifelong pension savings was wasted when he forged a highly-profitable relationship with Lehman Brothers that made Lehman and Bush millions. That special relationship was ultimately a certifiable disaster for Florida public employees. While governor of Florida, Jeb Bush made some deceitful transfers of funds in 2005 and 2006 that put the Wall Street investment bank in charge of $250 million worth of pension funds for Florida cops, teachers and firefighters. Lehman profited by more than $5 million in fees on the initial deal with Jeb Bush, and they garnered several additional contracts to manipulate, and then lose, another $1.2 billion of Florida teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public servant’s pensions.

   Of course those horrific losses came after profits for Lehman and Florida Governor Jeb Bush. When Lehman collapsed into bankruptcy in the fall of 2008, it left Florida’s public employee pension funds with over $1 billion in losses, but good old Jeb kept the $1.3 million in annual salary Lehman paid him as a consultant, or for giving them access to billions of Florida public workers’ pension savings. Being Florida’s governor and having access to billions of state employees’ retirement savings, coupled with an “enduring personal relationship” with Lehman Brothers was a very lucrative endeavor for Bush. It is a similar relationship and lucrative scam to that of several other Republican governors who repay their big-money donors with public employee’s pension savings that Republicans persist in claiming belongs to the rich. It is prescient to note that Jeb was shifting state pension money to privatization for “management” and predictable losses at about the same time his brother George was crusading to do exactly the same thing with all Americans’ Social Security retirement savings.

   It was no coincidence that within a couple of weeks after Jeb Bush left the governor’s mansion and took the Lehman job with a handsome salary courtesy of stolen Florida employees’ pensions, the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) handed over to Lehman additional pension money, $842 million, to buy worthless Lehman mortgage-backed securities the company lost. In fact, to add insult to the billions of dollars in lost pension savings, the Florida SBA shifted an additional $420 million of pension savings into the exact same fund that good old Jeb initially sent stolen pension money to squander. It is noteworthy that the Florida SBA, that three-member body that gave away billions of state employees’ retirement savings recently counted Jeb Bush as one of the three.

   What makes this theft even more egregious is that Bush’s colleagues in the Florida state capital moved billions of Florida employees’ pension money to Bush’s buddies at Lehman even as dire warnings about its financial troubles began to grow very loud. However, while teachers, firefighters, law enforcement and state workers lost billions of their lifelong pension savings, Jeb Bush got his millions, and Lehman got its millions for “managing” the pilfered money. And, it is notable that it was not an isolated Florida Bush incident using employee pensions for profit. Just a few years earlier another Bush pension scam profited all the Bushes as well as a number of obscenely wealthy investment and financial firms, and it was all with Florida employees’ pension savings to keep George W. Bush in the White House.

   ...For example, Lehman Brothers, already recipients of Florida pension largesse courtesy of Jeb Bush donated $499,000 to Bush campaigns and received $175 million in pension money from Bush. Also included in the eleven investment firms was the largest private equity firm in the world, the Carlyle Group, where Bush daddy George H. W. Bush served as senior adviser from 1998 to 2003 during the time all these “Pioneer” transactions were occurring. The Carlyle Group received $275 million of Florida public employees’ pension savings for donating $69,000 to keep George W. Bush in the White House. As one pundit noted, the special relationship between Jeb and giant financial institutions really means that the “quid pro quo was a double windfall for the Bush clan,” and contributed to monumental pension losses for Florida public employees...

   For full story: http://www.politicususa.com/2015/08/30/jeb-bush-millions-giving-investors-billions-florida-pension-funds-lose.html
   

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