Alan,Alan-I love you, but

[packman]

really, twice taken. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me . In addition, I just assumed Alan was one of us great unwashed middle-class guys struggling for a few bucks to stay in office. Just got an e-mail from him saying how he was under attack from the Repukes and needed money. Alan must be up there with the 99% moneywise. Still admire him and glad he's on our side .


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/congressman-loses-millions-in-fraud-scheme-for-second-time-in-his-life

[phleshdef]

1. Its never been a secret that Alan Grayson is quite wealthy.

He also worked for it. And he wants to tax the shit out of it.

[frazzled]

2. Did he?

He made his fortune as president of a discount telecom corporation (IDT International Discount Telecom), not something we would generally approve of here. And the revelation that he has twice invested his millions in fraudulent schemes suggests that, rather than "earning" money, he is prone to trying to parlay it via risky stock ventures (possibly of the sort that helped to topple the financial industry and cost us little people a lot of bucks).

I'm not the sort that foams at the mouth at wealthy people. I do not. But I sense something amiss here in the same way I always sensed something phony in John Edwards--who was also begging $25 political contributions from the people from his "two Americas" even as he was using it to pay off a pregnant mistress. One difference I'll grant you is that Edwards never showed an iota of progressiveness in any of his politics, while Grayson has (though it must be said that it's at the level of words, still, and until something comes of these words, I'll remain skeptical).

Let's be clear: it's, at minimal, troubling that he has gotten caught twice in these Ponzi-type schemes.

[phleshdef]

3. He worked his way through college as a janitor and security guard.

He made his fortune as president of a discount telecom corporation (IDT International Discount Telecom), not something we would generally approve of here

Theres no sin in that in and of itself.

Theres also no sin in investing money and losing out because of someone else's fraud or bad business decisions.

I don't care that Alan Grayson made a lot of money and exercised his right to lose some of it, as long as he wasn't screwing people over himself while doing it and thus far, theres no evidence to support that.

[frazzled]

4. So what? Lloyd Blankfein grew up in a housing project

and worked as a kid as a concession vendor at Yankee Stadium. Let's not get silly on the "up from poverty" score.

[phleshdef]

5. No one said shit about any kind of "score".

I just pointed out that he worked for it, he isn't like a Donald Trump or a Mitt Romney that had it handed to him via inheritance (not that I hold prejudices against someone based on just that either). That means that he has known life from a humbler perspective.

That was my simple point. You decided to question that by pointing out that at some point he obtained employment that made him wealthy, which was pointless to even point out because we all knew that from the outset of this discussion.