Connections (They run deep)
Offline Hi folks. With apologies to James Burke for the shameless title rip off, I would like to share some of the things I came across while wasting the better part of a day waiting for the family car to get fixed.
Over in Europe, while acting as director of Swiss banking giant UBS AG, former US senator from Texas Phil Gramm over saw careless lending activities that culminated in $43 billion dollars in write downs on US sub prime loans. This is the biggest hit so far in Europe to date.
Now it seems they have to also buy back $19 billion dollars worth of garbage auction rate securities complete with interest rates that periodically reset higher which is a point they some how forgot to disclose to their customers.
Now you may wonder why I am wasting time posting such drivel, but a quick look at who is close to Mr. Gramm should help clarify.
It seems that this view on corporate governance is something of a family affair. Wendy Gramm who just happens to be the former head of the Commodities Futures trading Commission and wife of the former powerful senator had a long stint on the board of Enron Corp. as it drifted into an iceberg field. Mrs. Gramm has since had to pay back some of her director's fees to settle a class action law suite against her.
Nice lady.
In the U.S. senate, Mr Gramm was the prime cheerleader for the disastrous "supply side economics" policies through which Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior were kind enough to bequeath a record sized federal deficit to Bill Clinton.
Oh and this is worth mentioning; this is the same Phil Gramm who recently stated that Americans are only imagining the poor economic conditions that are afflicting the country.
None of this would be worth a rat's ass if it wasn't that Mr. Gramm was John McCain's most influential economic adviser and a long-time close friend. Apparently Gramm was asked to quit after his less than benign comment on the psychosomatic nature of the down turn.
But alas, just like a bad smell, these things never seem to really go away. Gramm is heavily favored as treasury secretary in a McCain administration.
Connections indeed.
Jamie
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Few more details....and a good story on Gramm here:
www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html
Here, here! This is a really good article on Gramm. . . just bummed nikimoto beat me to the post.
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
.....However,
It should be noted that switch-hitter Gramm, Democrat congressman 78-83, Republican congressman 83-85, and finally to the Senate from 1985-2002, was not really the prime cheerleader.
That distinction, in the Senate, belonged to the following trinity:
Bob Packwood (R) Senator from Oregon, Orrin Hatch (R) Utah and Pete Wilson (R) California.
The really big "Rons" that Phil Gramm belonged to were En-ron and Mo-ron, not so much Ron-ald Reagan.
Thanks for the clarification Wonko. It always amazes me how these guys can be around for so long and then just ride off into the sunset as soon as every thing starts to fall apart.