does anyone recall the story about Bush and the trust fund in TX? . . .

[OneBlueSky]

when the shrub was first running in 2000, I read a lengthy article about some trust fund or other -- might have been for the U. of Texas -- that Bush took over and appointed new trustees to oversee when he became governor . . . if I recall correctly, there were billions of dollars in the fund when Bush got control of it, and a few years later it was essentially bankrupt . . .

I'd like to find the info on this so we can pass it around as an indicator of what will no doubt happen to Social Security if Bush gets control of it . . . which is what he's essentially looking to do . . .

does anyone recall this story? . . . or know where to find the article? . . . it may have been in Rolling Stone, but I'm not sure . . .

[Lars39]

1. Here's an article detailing the scam...

http://tinyurl.com/3qyur

[Lars39]

2. I think this article gives more details...

http://bushwatch.org/bushwhitewater.htm

[Not_Giving_Up]

3. Here you go

http://bushwatch.org/bushwhitewater.htm

snip

Bush tells folks outside of Texas that if they don't know what he's capable of doing, they should just come down to Texas and look around. Then they'd know. Some are dismayed by what they've found. On Monday we wrote that in the February issue of "Harper's" Joe Conason's will "report that scant weeks after Dubya was sworn in as first-term Texas governor in 1995, the University of Texas Board of Regents voted to place millions of state dollars with the Carlyle Group, even though Bush had just quit his job as a corporate director of Carlyle-owned Caterair, a leading U.S. airline caterer."

end snip

[Lisa]

4. Paul Krugman's take ...

http://www.uni-muenster.de/PeaCon/global-texte/g-w/n/krugman-prowar.htm

"Experienced Bushologists let out a collective "Aha!" when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks. When Bush was governor of Texas, Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Co., called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Bush a multimillionaire.

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy."



I looked up whether there were any student protests about this (I remember the campus activity back in the 1980s when universities across the continent were being urged to divest from South African holdings, etc.) Sure enough ...

"UTIMCO has proven to be one of several examples of the University's ideals not matching reality. For a university that claims to teach and use basic democratic values, UTIMCO has left its mark as being grounded in anything but. Until the Texas Legislature intervened, UTIMCO insisted on acting in secret and proclaimed itself to be not subject to the public scrutiny. When pressure from various parties finally forced some level of transparency, it quickly became clear that the investment decisions by the company were suspect. UTIMCO has proven itself to be caught in a web of tit-for-tat political favors, and ethically questionable appointments that can be traced back to both big Texas money and George W. Bush. In addition, the performance of UTIMCO's investments have been bleak. The company has lost over $1 billion in the last year alone, including substantial losses from its ties to the scandal-ridden corporations Enron and WorldCom. Even if UTIMCO can post profits for certain investments, UTIMCO has continually performed well below the Dow Jones average."



http://www.utwatch.org/utimco/

[TreasonousBastard]

5. These links refer to Conason's Harper's story, but...

I seem to remember reading an Atlantic story about the same time.

I could be confused about that, but I also seem to remember that the story claimed that Shrub sent a billion or so in university pension money to Hick's hedge fund WITHOUT oversight or approval of th4e trustees, and that the fund actually lost principle. There was hell to pay with the trustees when that came out.

The same article mentioned how Shrub magically bailed out of some Kuwaiti oil field leases a week before Iraq invaded.

The Kuwaitis originally didn't want to give him the leases because he was a lightweight, but, then again, he was the President's son.

[Lisa]

6. if the Conason article came out in Feb 2000 ...

If you recall the other story as being around then, let's say allowing 2 months on either side just to be sure....

I went back to the Atlantic Monthly archives.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/backissues.htm


The main article for March 2000 is about the link between universities and corporations, "The Kept University" by Eyal Press and Jennifer Washburn. That's the closest match to the topic within that timeframe. They used to have open access to their articles online -- not anymore!


http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/index.htm


I think this is the same one ... unfortunately, it doesn't have the Bush stuff in it. Could it have been in a sidebar article that isn't posted?

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/The-Kept-UniversityMar00.htm



This article lists other allegations against Bush.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0208/S00075.htm


It doesn't mention another billion on top of the $1.7 billion directed to private investment companies, already discussed by Conason.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1797_300/ai_59086099/pg_7


Is it possible that the oil lease was in Bahrain? That's where Bush's company Harken was drilling. It was affected by the invasion of Kuwait -- just after Bush sold his stock (apparently to buy an expensive mansion in Dallas).

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1992/09/bushboys.html




As far as any mention of Bush and (specifically) pension funds ... there is something about the Texas public school teachers' pension fund, and a deal that lost money.

"The Texas Teachers Retirement System, which manages the pension fund for the state's 800,000 public school teachers, sold two office buildings and a mortgage on a third to Crescent in 1996 and 1997 at a $70.4 million loss. As first reported by R.G. Ratcliffe of the Houston Chronicle, two of the sales were done without public bids, and the Teachers Retirement System refused to disclose what the initial bids were on the third. At the time of at least one of the sales, Bush owned about $100,000 worth of Crescent stock."

UTIMCO did fund Crescent, so there are 2 Bush links there.


http://www.topplebush.com/article7_busdeal.shtml


A lot of what UTIMCO seems to have been without oversight:

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~schwrtz/WHPF10.html

[OneBlueSky]

7. thanks, y'all . . . I'll have to look at these links tomorrow . . . n/t

.