Jeb Bush as FL Gov invested $1.3 million in state pension fund money in pornography, says report

[John Poet]

Jeb Bush invested more than $1 million from the Florida state pension fund in pornography while he was governor, a new bombshell report alleges.

The former Florida governor, while in office, invested $1.3 million from the fund into Movie Gallery, a publicly traded video rental giant that offered a wide selection of pornographic films along with mainstream movies, the International Business Times reported.

Bush, who as governor was a trustee on the board overseeing the state’s $149 billion pension system, purchased more than 47,000 shares in the company in 2005, the Times reported, citing emails it obtained from Bush’s tenure in office.

The state later sold its Movie Gallery shares in 2006 after the stock didn’t perform as well as expected. Movie Gallery, which also owned all Hollywood Video franchises, closed up shop entirely in 2010 as the video and DVD rental business model faltered amid industry changes.

However, during the time the state owned the shares, social conservatives across Flordia and the nation were outraged — a problem that could resurface for the centrist Republican as he seeks the Republican 2016 presidential nomination in a field of candidates packed with outspoken social conservatives.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/jeb-bush-fla-gov-invested-state-cash-porn-report-article-1.2213815


*** DIRTY JEB: http://saynotojeb.com/dirty-jeb-bush/
A Summary of stories about the seedier side of Jeb Bush which appears on my website at SayNoToJeb.com (His dirt is piling up!)

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. A real Bush scandal would be he bought the shares to bail out Neil or Marvin or something.

[John Poet]

3. I'm waiting for "the other shoe to drop".

It would be not at all unreasonable to suspect that the stock buy was greasing the stock of some Bush crony.... that's the way the Bushes usually roll.

[cloudbase]

2. I'll give him a pass on this one.

I've been a trustee (one of twelve: six each union and management) on a multiemployer pension and medical plan worth $1.8 billion. Trustees don't micromanage their investment advisers, but closely monitor their overall performance. Since the porn was just a part of the overall business, it's not likely any of the trustees would even know about that.

$1.3 million out of $149 billion wouldn't receive much notice.

[1939]

6. Alliance Berstein

Alliance Bernstein was handling the Florida pension funds. Much more damaging to the funds was the A-B investments in Enron. As I recall (dim memory) A-B got sued by outraged beneficiaries over the losses but i don't recall the outcome. A-B does (or did) the stock picking for the Florida funds.

[tanyev]

4. Never mind the porn--2005 is pretty late to think that DVD and VHS rentals were a smart investment.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. That's why I think he was bailing out a family investment. Like when Bar bought Neil's...

...education materials to donate to Texas in some sort of special Katrina fund writeoff. Or when Poppy's friends bailed out W's oil stocks back in the day.

[Agschmid]

7. Seriously?