Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (282870)	8/1/2002 5:36:18 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

BS. You are SO naive! Shrub began by investing $28,000 from his trust fund, pulled in some other investors who wanted to cozy up to the Bushes... then went Bust-o. Fortunately, Harken wanted some political capital, so they acquired his busted paper shell of a company Arbusto and gave him a couple of hundred K in Harken stock... and a well paying job as director. Helps to have a famous name, eh? Then they parlayed his name (son of VEEP) into landing some Persian Gulf oil leases - for which they didn't even have the finances to drill at the time. However on the basis of some optimistic press releases (and financial backing by big oil company who had been bidding on the leases before Harken's 'political in' stole them from under their noses) they go ahead. Bush then sells out (but after he - as a member of the Hawkin audit committee - had been informed of serious financial trouble for the company)... netting, what? $850K or so, wasn't it? The SEC takes a peep but - what with his dad as Prez and all, and Shrub's own personal lawyer heading the agency investigation, it all goes away. (They do tell him though 'not to consider the absence of charges to be an exoneration'.) Ouch! 'Go forth and sin no more' seems to be the drift of the SEC's comments. (Harken's Persian Gulf leases come up dry round about now.) Some good ole boys from Texas set their sites on a ball club... and think a little political juice could go a long way there too, so they invite Shrub in... then get the city to use the power of imminent domain to condemn the land of the private citizens who don't want to sell out to them at their under-market price. Surprise, surprise, Shrub actually turns out to be good at something: he, by all accounts, enjoys smoozing-up potential investors in the ball club... and likes hanging around the park. Now, when the owners sell out the club to a new group of investors, they make a pile of money. They are so happy that - out of the goodness of their hearts, no doubt - they decide to up Shrub's takehome from the sale: instead of paying him the profit his ownership share should entitle him for (the, I believe, 2.5% of the club that he owned), they dip into their OWN PROFITS from the sale and pay him off as if he had really owned 12% of the club! Nice guys, huh? His $28,000 trust fund has now turned - in just a few short years - into a close to $30 million profit! Hey, that's GREAT! With all that dough and his good family name he becomes Governor of the Lone Star state. (As Governor, one of his early acts is to repeal the Texas Freedom of Information Act as it applies to state pension funds. Then he turns over the management of the 1/2 Billion dollar U. of Texas pension fund to a NEW group of financial managers. Guess what? The new managers are composed of a bunch of his old pals from the club ownership - those nice guys who decided to more than quadruple his profits in the Rangers sale just 'cause they liked him!) Is this a swell deal, or what? Now, these new financial managers for the 1/2 billion dollar pension fund didn't have the kind of track record as fiduciaries to win the contract to manage that money in an open contest but, hey! It doesn't matter 'cause without that pesky old Freedom of Information law no one in the public really knows what a really bad job they are doing managing all that dough (I hear it's a pretty poor job, though, assets are WAY down), nor do they know how much these guys are paying themselves. Guess Crony Capitalism really DOES WORK... if you can only figure out how to be one of the cronies. As Shrub was quoted as saying about his early, sparkling business career: "I was a bulldog on the pants leg of opportunity!"