Cabinet Pick’s Finances May Foreshadow Battle

The Prof · May 6, 2013

nyt yesterday---awkward questions about her financial dealings

In November 2008, as President-elect Barack Obama began putting together his cabinet, reports emerged that he was considering nominating Penny Pritzker, the billionaire Hyatt Hotels heiress and businesswoman who had served as his chief campaign fund-raiser, as commerce secretary. But faced with awkward questions about her financial dealings, she declared that she did not want the nomination.

Last week, however, on Ms. Pritzker’s 54th birthday, she stood beside Mr. Obama as he announced her nomination for that same position, investing his administration’s political capital in trying to get her confirmed amid a far more toxic political atmosphere than he faced at the start of his first term.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/u...ers-on-finances-hints-at-road-ahead.html?_r=0

there are 3 problems

Republican senators are likely to be interested in the Pritzker family’s reputation as innovators in the use of offshore trusts and foreign bank secrecy laws to shelter their wealth from income, capital gains and inheritance taxes. Even after tax code loopholes were closed, the family’s trusts were grandfathered in and it kept benefiting from them.

offshore innovator, eh?

how resourceful

is she as good as immelt, obama's former jobs czar?

General Electric Paid No Federal Taxes in 2010 - ABC News

what a bunch of hypocrites, selling out your values

no?

but it's worse

Ms. Pritzker’s role in overseeing Superior Bank, which collapsed amid accounting irregularities in 2001, may also draw scrutiny.

Her family and a partner established the bank in 1988 from the ruins of a failed savings and loan that was acquired — along with the right to more than $600 million in tax credits from its previous losses. Ms. Pritzker became its chairwoman, and later a director of its holding company.

In the 1990s, Superior focused on subprime lending — high-interest loans that are marketed to people with shaky finances. It was a pioneer in bundling them into securities — selling some portions, while retaining riskier ones — a practice that later spread and led to the 2008 financial crisis.

Outside accountants signed off, allowing the owners to take cash out of the bank as dividends. But in 2001, regulators said that Superior was undercapitalized because it had overstated the value of the toxic assets on its balance sheet.

In a sign of the closeness of her own role, Ms. Pritzker wrote a letter assuring employees that its owners would save the bank, adding, “Our commitment to subprime has never been stronger.” But the deal fell through, and the bank was declared insolvent two months later.

a pioneer, yet

of subprime lending and the bundling of mortgage backed securities

penny pritzker, 2001: our commitment to subprime has never been stronger

penny pritzker, 2013: barack hussein obama's nominee for COMMERCE secretary

they're all so chicago

in other words---why, exactly why was penny pritzker at the end of the 90's openly COMMITTED to subprime?

what's her public rationale?

how could anyone get away with saying so?

she certainly isn't claiming to be a predator

so what is it?

depositors at superior bank lost 10M, the fdic named ms pritzker out as knowing exactly what she was doing

proud subprime proponent, offshore pioneer---meet penny pritzker, the keynesian extremist's third commerce secretary (if she gets thru)

hyatt, according to a mighty coalition of labor and interest groups---including the aflcio, now, nflpa, gay and lesbian task force---called in 2012 for a global boycott of the third biggest hotel chain in the us for "widespread labor abuses," for being the "worst hotel employer in america"

Union calls for worldwide boycott of Hyatt Hotels - Chicago Sun-Times

she brings so much baggage, obama must be beholden pretty big

Pritzker, a billionaire who is largely credited with orchestrating the record-smashing $750 million fundraising haul in 2008, was rumored to be interested in the Commerce Department post after the first presidential campaign, but later withdrew her name.

During the 2012 campaign, Pritzker took a slightly less prominent role, but ranked among Obama’s top bundlers – raking in millions of dollars and hosting fundraisers at her Chicago home.

Obama Names Donor, Friend Pritzker to Commerce Post - ABC News

crass

let's discuss---on the floor of the us senate

Cabinet Pick’s Finances May Foreshadow Battle

The Prof