Obama’s Finances
The New York Times has an article up, stating that Obama “bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors.”
One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.
The most recent financial disclosure form for Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.
An Obama spokesman offers the following explanation:
said yesterday that the senator did not know that he had invested in either company until fall 2005, when he learned of it and decided to sell the stocks. He sold them at a net loss of $13,000.
The spokesman, Bill Burton, said Mr. Obama’s broker bought the stocks without consulting the senator, under the terms of a blind trust that was being set up for the senator at that time but was not finalized until several months after the investments were made.
“He went about this process to avoid an actual or apparent conflict of interest, and he had no knowledge of the stocks he owned,� Mr. Burton said. “And when he realized that he didn’t have the level of blindness that he expected, he moved to terminate the trust.�
That sounds reasonable to me. Sometimes there’s fire when there is smoke, sometimes there is just smoke. In the end… he lost money.
Dan Riehl agrees, describing it as “a hit piece with no powder behind it”. Olliver Willis summarizes and wonders:
So apparently his blind trust bought some stock, then sold it when there was a possible conflict of interest… and he lost money. Is nothing else happening in the world why the team of the NY Times/Drudge decided that they should push this story?
That’s not entirely clear to me either.
Frankly, I think that the NYT would do better if it would report about actual issues as to inform readers about things that matter.
That’s why I will post about something else asap.
9 Responses to “Obama’s Finances”
[...] An Obama spokesman offers the following explanation: read more. [...]
Memo to NYT — if DAN RIEHL thinks you’re writing a substance free hit piece about Democrats, then you’ve gone off the deep end.
The stocks were pretty random, though. It’s not like these were microsoft or mutual fund shares.
Obama’s Investments…
This isn’t the same as Hillary Clinton’s cattle futures only in that Obama lost money, but I wonder about all these stock tips and land deals (ala Harry Reid) that are used as a way to launder contributions to candidates…
For the reasons I discuss over at Stubborn Facts, I think the explanation raises more questions than it answers. The fact that he sold at a loss is pretty good evidence that the Senator is not himself corrupt. However, the fact that the investment was made at all suggests that some of the people surrounding him and working for him may be on the dubious side. Sen. Obama needs to come clean about who actually made these investments for him, and why.
Is it just me or is the whole “blind trust” thing completely broken? I don’t know if they need to change the rules but if I was a legislator I’d certainly only invest in bonds or currency trading or something else that is much less likely to have conflict of interest. I’d even put it as part of my campaign about how I’d invest X% in tax-free municipal bonds or somesuch.
So long as politicians have to raise campaign funds, they will be accepting them from one special interest group or another. This can be a corrupting influence in itself. as donors will get the attention of pols in relation to their generosity. But as long as fund raising is legal, we can’t claim that every relationship is tainted. We have to be a little careful about overreacting, or we could accuse every member of Congress. If they’re all guilty, there are no distinctions among them, and we would not recognize the really bad apples in the barrel.
There are so many new scandals and outrages cropping up every day, while people still argue about Monica Lewinsky. Let’s not stoop too low to find more dirt.
Transparency is our only defense.
Lost money and sold it 2 years ago as soon as he found out there was a conflict of interest? Sounds like he’s acting above board to me. This actually goes in the favorable column for me as far as Obama is concerned.
[...] But my favorite line so far? From The Moderate Voice (apologies to the author, with your server ‘troubles‘ your temporary template doesn’t say which author penned the piece): Sometimes there’s fire when there is smoke, sometimes there is just smoke. [...]