It's Good to Have Friends in Texas

Photo: Andreanna Moya Photography

The University of Texas System regents have chosen to invest $10 million in a start-up company that provides web-based advising services to university students. Perhaps a good idea, although unlike nearly all other investments of the System’s endowment, this one was made by fiat of the Board of Regents with no consultation of its investment advisors. Interestingly, the start-up is run by a man who was on Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election finance committee and by another whose father was a previous chancellor of the System (with the former chancellor being part-owner of the company).

This is one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of successful rent-seeking in the public sector (although laypeople might use a less felicitous term than rent-seeking).  This blog needs a contest for the most outrageous example of this behavior, and this is my entry into that contest. So, dear readers, please share your examples in the comments section.

[HT to AC]