GREENE CLAIM #1
Jeff Greene has repeatedly claimed that "I am a lifelong Democrat." Jeff Greene spokesman Paul Blank told The Daily Caller website, "For one year of life after Harvard business school, he went a different way."
REALITY #1
How many lifelong Democrats do you know ran for Congress as a conservative Republican who strongly supported Ronald Reagan? Greene challenged David Armor in 1982 for the Republican nomination in California's 23rd Congressional District. Greene lost the primary to Armor, and Democrat Anthony Beilenson was victorious in the November election. Lifelong Democrats, as Greene falsely claims, do not run for congress as a conservative Republican.
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GREENE CLAIM #2
"I've worked hard for every penny I have. No one has ever given me a thing."
"I saw where the housing market was going, and I knew I could be heading into a lot of trouble, and so I wanted to find a way to protect my investments and that's what I did."
REALITY #2
First, betting on credit default swaps is not "hard work." That's just nonsense. As the lives of hardworking, middle-class Florida families were being damaged - in many cases for generations to come - Jeff Greene told Forbes in October 2008, "I've never had more fun than now."
Second, if Jeff Greene was only worried about protecting his investments, he had other options. He could have pulled his money out of the market or bought traditional insurance on his investments. Instead, Greene convinced banks to allow him to short uncovered credit default swaps (CDSs) - betting that other peoples' mortgages would collapse. Greene was speculating by betting against the middle class and contributed to the underlying conditions that helped fuel the financial meltdown that wrecked our economy. That's an objective economic fact.
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GREENE CLAIM #3
"I've taken on Wall Street and won."
REALITY #3
Jeff Greene did not take on Wall Street. He worked with Wall Street to make himself a tremendous amount of money and pioneered a risky product that played a big role in the economic collapse.
Let's review Greene's record:
•Greene was the first to trade these risky derivative products. "In April 2006, just as the housing market was peaking, Greene convinced Wall Street banks to allow him to trade credit default swaps; he is believed to be the first individual to do so." .
•Greene convinced big banks to short mortgage-based bonds through credit default swaps. Greene got the idea from his friend and hedge fund manager, John Paulson, a central figure in the recent Goldman Sachs scandal. CNBC reported: "'I asked him, 'John, can I do this on my own?' He says Paulson told him, 'You won't get approved.' Greene tried anyway, finally convincing Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan to let him short bonds backed by risky mortgages through these swaps. It took a lot of convincing."
Greene didn't stand up to Wall Street, he was in cahoots with Wall Street in a scheme to get rich. Greene's purchase of uncovered CDSs set an example for the industry. Warren Buffet called Greene's CDSs "financial weapons of mass destruction." Buffet knew that they could harm the whole economic system. Once banks began selling them and making short-term gains, other banks joined in the arms race for quarterly profits. The example that Greene and other pioneers set led directly to the proliferation of uncovered CDSs that brought down the financial system, resulted in the credit crunch and further damaged the housing market.
In addition, with the big banks having sustained great damage to their capital reserves, the bailout was used to shore up these financial institutions that were on the hook to pay people like Jeff Greene.
more:
http://leaveittogreene.com/microsite/claims Greene sounds like a fake and a total scoundrel to me.
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