Madoff Was Huge Dem Donor

[babylonsister]

http://firedoglake.com/2008/12/14/madoff-was-huge-dem-donor/


Madoff Was Huge Dem Donor
By: Stirling Newberry
Sunday December 14, 2008 12:00 pm



Call it the Bonfire of the Sanities. In any other year, the meltdown of Bernard Madoff would be huge news, this week he broke down and confessed to his family and business partners that his investment advising had been a straight up Ponzi scheme.

He was using new money coming in to pay back old money that he owed, and lying about the firm's holdings. Billions were in his control, as much as 30 billion was invested with him by other funds and advisors. Madoff's own number? 50 Billion. He was a Master of the Universe.

snip//

Madoff's clients included charities, town pension funds, well known business people. As one of the creators of NASDAQ, he was a name.

Madoff's claim is that he did this himself, but the court isn't buying it, and I find it impossible to believe that his director of trading, and youngest son, didn't know what was up. Who ever heard of a master of the universe who filled out all of his own paper work?

However, the financial scandal is also a political scandal. Starting in this decade Madoff's giving became radically one directional. In the 1990's he gave to whoever was local, and to people who regulated the securities industry. Locally, Alphonse D'Amato and Jerrold Nadler were both on his contributions list. But in this decade, he and his youngest son Andrew began lavishing money on the Democratic Party. In all Bernard gave $128,000 to Democrats as a donor, but $100,000 of that came in the last three years to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. His wife Ruth gave heavily to Hillary Clinton and HILLPAC, their sons gave as well. The recipients? Back in 1999 they were backers of Bill Bradley, but over the long term, the tight cluster of giving was to Ed Markey, Chuck Schumer, and Ron Wyden. Frank Lautenberg got political contributions, and put his and his charity's money with them. That's a clear conflict of interest.

The Blagojevich scandal has rocked the Democratic Party, the Madoff giving scandal is next. Already the far corners of the right wing are fuming about liberal zionist conspiracies. Money helped Obama win the nomination and the election. Money drives politics. It is easy when in power to take a benign view of the checks that are rolling in, details like Eric Holder being an Obama bundler are waved off. However, money brings down politicians - even those who are trying to make positive change. Rangel's effectiveness is going to be dogged by his financial dealings. It elevates men who are more comfortable with the status quo, it taints actions taken. It raises questions about the good faith of any politician to do the right thing, or enough of the right thing, at the right time.

[TheWebHead]

1. well he was trying to keep regulators away

no matter how Mr. Magoo-esque they've been anyway, so donating in New York to accomplish that means giving the Democrats. I suspect you'll see, and have already seen similar funding on the right w/ the defense industry, big oil, tobacco, etc. The upshot is that for the next generation at least, until people forget what a bunch of crooks were running things, there will be more transparency, not necessarily because of public outrage, but to regain some confidence in the whole capitalist system.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Interesting.

The bulk of Madoff's giving to Dems was during the last three years. Here was a reasonably intelligent guy, who could read the handwriting on the wall and see that the Dems were ascendant. It's called being in the favor of the right people at the right time.

How anyone can say that this somehow taints the recipients, without the evidence that said recipients were somehow knowledgeable about the malodorous extent of Madoff's business affairs...well, that is just silly. Few people ask the well-to-do how they got that way. It just isn't done. Besides, they would only offer vague generalities.

With liberals like Mr. Newberry, who the fuck needs Karl Rove? He's just grabbing threads of disparity and weaving a tapestry of suspicion.

Perhaps his time would be better spent working for real and meaningful campaign finance reform?

[malaise]

3. Now I understand why he was exposed before the much larger

Citi ponzi scheme. Looks like the financial goons were all in this together but some names will be called first.

[ellenfl]

4. so? eom

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

5. Unsavory, but does require digesting.

rec.

[Jack Sprat]

6. It is scary bad. Read the "This is Wall Street" column?

http://roguecolumnist.typepad.com/rogue_columnist/2008/12/this-is-wall-street.html

This link was posted recently on the Economy Forum. The subprime mortgage scheme is complicated to follow. Eventually, it seems the sub-primes were passed into a pool of bonds. Someone found a way to change these pools of risky bonds into "AAA" ratings without scrutiny. Then, the AAA bonds were purchased by pension funds, legitimate entities, etc. When they ran short of unqualified borrowers for the subprimes, they created "dummy" borrowers, i.e. dead people, etc. These went into the same pools, converted into mortgage bonds, approved AAA ratings, and sold to entities who never suspected.

I don't know what is going to wash out of all this. People need to be busted and serve long sentences for this stuff. People in high places, if they were involved. Nobody knows the depth of the corruption or its' long reaching fallout. It is sobering and maybe a tragedy of historic proportions.

[rucky]

7. "A liberal is a conservative who's been arrested."

or about to be :shrug: