Whitehouse/Langevin Profiting From Wall Street Banks
If you read things from the progressive caucus and others who follow it closely, big business, big banks and Wall Street firms are the devil. You can also read about some of their darlings like Sheldon Whitehouse and the now-near-untouchable Jim Langevin. However today, GoLocalProv.com has a front page article on the worth of Rhode Island’s Washington delegation. I congratulate each of these people on their wealth and money management that they’ve achieved, but in the article, one part really jumped out at me:
Whitehouse also reports collecting between $15,001-$50,000 in interest
each with dozens of publicly traded assets including Goldman Sachs,
… Bank of America, Bear Stearns
and
Langevin also owns stock in General Electric and Goldman Sachs
(between $6,002-$17,500)
It would seem to me that these guys are trying to have it both ways. They get their base all stirred up about these big bad Wall Street banks and how they need to be investigated, but at the same time, they’re financially involved in them. It sure isn’t in the best interest of Whitehouse or Langevin to open any great investigations, as that could cause the stock values to plummet if there was a real negative finding. If you’re making upwards of $50,000 just on *interest* in a company like Goldman-Sachs, you sure don’t want to see that value drop.
Why wouldn’t shareholders be concerned with transparency and sound corporate governance? Trust me, Lehman shareholders would have preferred to know.
Now on the other hand, one would expect that corporate campaign cash would have exactly the effect you describe. Public financing anyone?
Russ, I have no idea what you’re talking about. My point is that many of Langevin/Whitehouse’s supporters hate Wall Street banks with a passion and think the bailout was one of the worst things we could have done. However, the darlings of these people *own* those banks that the bailouts went to, through stock ownership. Many of the people who support Langevin and Whitehouse would prefer to see Goldman-Sachs destroyed, put out of business. Clearly that’s not something that Sheldon and Jim want to see.
So yes, people should prefer transparency. Thus the point of the GLP article and my post.
That’s a pretty weak argument you’re making there, Patrick. You seem to be implying that either 1) owning stock in those companies somehow makes their attempts to regulate them hypocritical or 2) that their self-interest will prevent them from actually regulating them. The first point makes so little sense I won’t bother to refute it and the second you provide no evidence for. And as for your starting assumption that all progressive think corporations are “the devil,” if you can’t tell the difference between partisan posturing and an actual position, you may want to get out of the punditry business. Way to phone it in, guys.
“My point is that many of Langevin/Whitehouse’s supporters hate Wall Street banks with a passion…”
I’m one of those supporters calling for increased scrutiny and regulation of the banks. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Bush bailouts either, although I’m not sure a series of Lehman style collapses would have been desirable.
I’m also a shareholder in a number of the banks through my 401k and even owned a fair amount of Lehman stock from when my wife worked there. I don’t see anything inconsistent in that. Why would I want to allow executives to make bad bets in the name of short-term profits that risk tanking the economy or destroy the company itself?
Strikes me as simply a liberal strawman to knock down. Liberals all hate banks, but they have 401Ks (probably have mortgages too)!
@Russ & Ron
Lefty double talk at it’s best. George Bush was an oilman so according to you lefties, he was in their pocket. So Sheldon can own a piece of the corporation but he is above letting it affect his vote at $15K-$50K in interest? You lefties want it both ways.
Both these guys are learning from the best in the game, Jack gREED. Our guy has the federal money, politcal oversight committee and donation game down pat.
“Whitehouse also reports collecting between $15,001-$50,000 in interest each with dozens of publicly traded assets including Goldman Sachs, … Bank of America, Bear Stearns …
It would seem to me that these guys are trying to have it both ways.”
H’mm, yes. So when the senator prattles on about the need, for example,
it would be elucidating for his constituents if a disclaimer were to appear on the screen, along the lines of,
By the way, last year, I received in the region of $15,001-$50,000 in interest from the very banks that I am now railing against. So clearly, I’m not so worked up about them that I’m willing to forgo income from them.
* news.firedoglake.com/2011/02/18/whitehouse-goes-ballistic-on-geithner-on-foreclosure-crisis/
It’s hard to take the comparison seriously. Holdings in a 401k are equivalent to the Bush administration’s contacts with the oil industry?
The Bush family’s connections go back more than 100 years. Cheney was tbe former CEO of Haliburton (he continued to hold stock options and receive deferred salary during his time in office). Rice was a former director Chevron. Commerce Secretary Evans headed Tom Brown Inc. and held $5m and $25m in stock. You couldn’t swing a cat in the Whitehouse without hitting a former oil exec.
More to the point though, lefties think all (or nearly all) of these folks are in the pocket of big business! Look at the Obama administration’s ties to Wall Street.
And just look at how they finance their campaigns. No quid pro quo there? Puh-lease. The real left doesn’t buy that line of bull from either side of the aisle.