Soon after completing his second term as Florida's Governor, the republicon party's favorite little brother took a job with Lehman Brothers. Now, that shouldn't be a big deal, I suppose. Hell, private citizens ought to be able to be able to work where they want. The problem is that it looks like Lehman sold the State of Florida (and by extension the municipalities and pensioners of Florida) some large (and, it turns out, shaky) investments while Jeb was still Governor, and while he was on the board overseeing state investments. This became kind of a big deal back in November, when several hundred million of that investment turned out to be worthless.
Of course, now that Lehman is bankrupt, there are even more questions and worries for Florida's future. Follow me below the fold as I fret about my pension ...
As you see here from yesterday's Miami Herald, Florida's
State Board of Administration holds $322 million in Lehman stock and bonds. The SBA manages the state's employee fund and more than two dozen other funds, including assets for the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and the Florida Prepaid College Plan.
Three Hundred and Twenty-Two MILLION DOLLARS. Now, I'm a big boy and I know that in the great scheme of things, that may not be a big chunk of money. The SBA oversees quite a large amount of money, and this is only a piece of it.
My concerns are twofold: First, it's clearly unethical, if not illegal, for Jeb to have placed major public assets with an investment house and then without letting the smallest blade of grass grow under his feet, gone to work for them when he left the governor's mansion. One does not need a PhD in finance to understand the potential for ethical lapse inherent in that move.
Second, I'm worried about my pension. One of the reasons I work where I do (and for a substantially smaller amount of money than I would receive in the private sector) is the promise of a nice, safe, solid pension. Thankfully, I've only got seven years "invested" in this pension. A whole lot of people have their entire work life invested as employees of the state of Florida.
The Florida CFO, Alex Sink is a good Democrat (one of only two Dems elected statewide in Florida), and I'd like to know she's exerting some serious oversight in this whole mess. For that matter I'd like to see her actively getting us OUT of any crony-capitalism scenarios like the Jeb mess described above.
Not sure where I'm going with this and how to wrap it up - I just know that my pension is most certainly not safe. Is yours?