Tag Archives: Bank of America

How the Permanent Political Class Rip You Off

money-bag-400301_150by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | MARCH 21, 2012

Just a few examples…

On February 21, 2003, Rahm Emanuel suddenly sold off all of his Freddie Mac stock (~$250,000 worth) just days before a 10% drop in share price.  It wasn’t until late spring until the rest of the public realized that there was a criminal investigation of its senior executives and its earnings had been inflated and would need to be restated in billions of dollars.  This Freddie Mack accounting scandal was much larger than Enron but most never knew about it thanks to our Government Media.

TARP Bailout 2008:  Senator John Kerry started buying lots of troubled bank stocks: $550,000 in Citigroup in early and mid-October,  $350,000 in Bank of America shares.  Days later on October 28, it was announced that Citigroup was getting $25 Billion from TARP and $35 Billion from the Targeted Investment Program.  On November 4th, it was announced that Citi would get loan guarantees that could total $277 billion from the Treasury, Fed and FDIC.

Big Pharma:  Senator John Kerry was on the committee overseeing the prescription drug plan. In all John Kerry and his wife made 111 transactions for their own personal benefit in pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies in 2003…all of which were great stock picks netting the couple millions in profit.

On March 18, 2008, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul made the first of three purchases of Visa stock totaling between $1 million and $5 million.  Why don’t we know the exact amount?  Because congress is only obligated to give ranges.  This was no ordinary stock purchase.  This was the most popular and lucrative IPO in American history.  Prior to this Visa had been privately held by a group of banks.  Everyone else had to wait until March 19 when the stock would be available to the public but not Nancy.  Even after the 19th getting access was virtually impossible for the average citizen.   Almost all the stocks were going to institutional investors and were oversubscribed –too many buyers—only special, hand-picked customers got these coveted shares at the opening price of $44. Two days later, after public trading began, the stock price jumped to $65 a share.  In short, Pelosi made a 50% profit on their investment in a matter of two days.  On June4, 2008, Visa stock closed at $85 a share.

Somehow the Speaker of the House and her husband happened to get these IPO share barely two weeks after a threatening piece of legislation against Visa from the House of Representatives.