Friday, September 19, 2008

Penny Pritzker's bank connections

In addition to Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines of Freddie and Fannie fame, we now find this about Hussein's National Finance Chairwoman...

Honestly folks, you couldn't make this up yet it doesn't even get a blip on the national media's screen!

White House hopeful Barack Obama talks a lot on the campaign trail about how failing banks have used subprime loans to victimize customers.

"Part of the reason we got a current mortgage crisis has to do with the fact that people got suckered in to loans that they could not pay," he told a crowd in Reading, Pa., last week. "There were a lot of predatory loans that were given out, a lot of teaser rates. Banks and financial institutions making these loans were making money hand over fist."

One of the banks that went under after making a lot of subprime loans -- leaving 1,400 of its customers without part of their savings -- was Chicago's Superior Bank.

At the helm of Superior Bank at least some of the time was Obama's national finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker, an heiress to the Pritzker fortune.

Obama's campaign notes that Pritzker stepped down as chairwoman of the bank's board in 1994, seven years before it failed. She then went on the board of the bank's holding company.

But a letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times shows that until the end, Pritzker appeared to be taking a leadership role in trying to revive the bank with an expanded push into subprime loans.

.....

But at least some of the 1,400 victims who are still owed money seven years after the bank failed say Pritzker is the wrong person for Obama to put in charge of the campaign's finances when part of his campaign is about reforming the banking industry.

"They still owe me $113,000," said Fran Sweet, 63, of Downers Grove, who deposited her $480,000 retirement account at Superior a month before it collapsed. "To the Pritzkers, this is nothing. They probably think, 'Why pay her back?' That's nothing. But we're all upset that someone who made these decisions could be in that position."

Judging from the record-breaking job Pritzker has done raising money for Obama's campaign, her fund-raising skills do not appear to be in question, but Sweet said it sends the wrong message.


Chicago Sun Times link.

Oh poor me..

This has been kicking around for a while and you may have seen it, but Larry P sent it in and I thought it worth reminding everyone about.

Top 10 Poorest Cities

What do the top ten cities with the highest poverty rate all have in common?
Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1954;
Cincinnati, OH (3rd) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1984;
Cleveland, OH (4th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1989;
Miami, FL (5th) has never had a Republican mayor;
St. Louis, MO (6th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1949;
El Paso, TX (7th) has never had a Republican mayor;
Milwaukee, WI (8th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1908;
Philadelphia, PA (9th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1952;
Newark, NJ (10th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1907.
Pittsburgh, PA (11) ... No Republican held ANY office in Pittsburgh for 65 years until two were elected in 1995.

Einstein once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

It is the disadvantaged (define that however you will) who habitually elect Democrats --- yet they are still disadvantaged. Imagine that.


I think Memphis, TN and Little Rock, AR could be in the top 20.

Franklin D. Raines and Obama

In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae's chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters


Hussein's minion's say, "Pay no attention to the man behind the screen."

Funny. Hussein receives $120,000.

The story of Hussein's life...starring....

Hussein's legions.... Reverend Wright.....William Ayers.....Franklin Raines....Jim Johnson... And a cast of thousands...

Link