6. The head of your campaign finance chair is Penny Pritzker. Before taking over Obama´s campaign finances, she headed up the borderline shady and failed Superior
Bank. It collapsed in 2002. The bank engaged in deceptive and faulty lending, questionable accounting practices, and charged hidden fees. It made thousands of
dubious loans to mostly poor, strapped homeowners. A disproportionate number of them were minority. Why does she still have a principal financial role in your
campaign? http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/56968 :yoiks: :think:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/671/Breaking the Bank
By David Moberg
Hopefully, they were on their way in to close their accounts.
Share Digg del.icio.us Reddit Newsvine After federal regulators closed the $2.3 billion Superior Bank in July 2001, investigations revealed that the suburban Chicago
thrift was tainted with the
hallmarks of a mini-Enron scandal. New legal developments are adding additional twists, including racketeering charges. And yet the bank’s
owners, members if one of America’s wealthiest families, ultimately could end up profiting from the bank’s collapse, while many of Superior’s borrowers and depositors
suffer financial losses.
The Superior story has a familiar ring. Using a variety of shell companies and complex financial gimmicks, Superior’s managers and owners exaggerated the profits
and financial soundness of the bank. While the company actually lost money throughout most of the ’90s, publicly it appeared to be growing remarkably fast and
making unusually large profits. Under that cover, the floundering enterprise paid its owners huge dividends and provided them favorable loans and other financial deals
deemed illegal by federal investigators.
Superior’s outside auditor, which doubled as a financial consultant, engaged in dubious accounting practices that kept feckless regulators at bay.
Many individuals—
disproportionately low-income and minority borrowers with spotty credit records—had apparently been exploited through predatory-lending techniques, including
exorbitant fees, inadequate disclosure and high interest rates. In the end, more than 1,000 uninsured depositors lost millions of dollars in savings in one of the biggest
bank failures of the past decade.Yet unlike Enron, the people behind Superior’s collapse were not nouveau-riche corporate hustlers, but members of Chicago’s Pritzker family. The Pritzkers, whose
two current patriarchs—Robert and his nephew Thomas—tie for 22nd place on Forbes’ list of the richest Americans, own an empire valued at more than $15 billion,
including the Hyatt hotel chain, casinos, manufacturers and real estate, and they are major contributors to both political parties. They were equal partners in the private
ownership of Superior with New York real estate developer Alvin Dworman, a longtime associate of Thomas’ father, Jay Pritzker, who died in 1999.What is it with Obama and the people he surrounds himself with? Outright GROSS!