Posted on 09/19/2008 8:50:38 PM PDT by Perdogg
For the Pritzker family of Chicago, the 2001 collapse of subprime-mortgage lender Superior Bank was an embarrassing failure in a corner of their giant business empire.
Billionaire Penny Pritzker helped run Hinsdale, Ill.-based Superior, overseeing her family's 50% ownership stake. She now serves as Barack Obama's national campaign-finance chairwoman, which means her banking past could prove to be an embarrassment to her -- and perhaps to the campaign.
Superior was seized in 2001 and later closed by federal regulators. Government investigators and consumer advocates have contended that Superior engaged in unsound financial activities and predatory lending practices. Ms. Pritzker, a longtime friend and supporter of Sen. Obama, served for a time as Superior's chairman, and later sat on the board of its holding company.
Sen. Obama has long criticized predatory subprime mortgage lenders and urged strong actions against them.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
My mortgage broker friend in Chicago says you can’t turn around without hearing Pritzker’s name. He’s known she was bad news for the last 25 years.
I’m glad this is finally starting to hit the “service roads”, at least. Maybe the MSM will have to report on the reporting, if not carry the story themselves.
Maybe if they accompany it with pictures of Britney Spears’ latest shoes, it’ll get some attention.
Mars is still unoccupied. LOL
So lets review.
CRA started the ACORN / unsecured Fannie Mae deal.
Fannie Mae was lead by an AA baby that ran it aground.
We now have another AA baby running for president that is using the AA baby head of the failed Fannie Mae as an adviser and this chick too?
With this gal and Raines so strongly connected to Obama...no wonder BHO is not talking much about the problems with Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac nowadays. We have all observed that he has been strangely silent most of the time on this. Still waters run deep...and the deep pockets of the Obama strategists and fund raisers are all suspect now. Obama can’t point fingers. They have probably ordered him to keep quiet as much as possible while they try to figure a way to shovel their frauds and criminal acts under cover.
Subprime Pritzker pure gold for Obama
Mar 15, 2008
If the first woman doesn’t become president of the United States, isn’t it ironic that it may be due to the billionaire white woman who serves as the mastermind for the Obama fund-raising operation?
Penny Pritzker, a Chicago-based scion of the Hyatt Hotel fortune worth more than $2 billion, has helped Obama raise $188 million. That’s reported to be the largest ever for a primary race.
A weekend Wall Street Journal article is an informative piece, but reveals itself to be a “puff piece” by the way it buries the real news. Toward the end of the article is this mention about Pritzker:
Her business career hit a bump in 2001, with the costly failure of Superior Bank FSB, a Chicago-area thrift that was seized by federal regulators after it ran into problems with subprime lending.
The Pritzker family held a 50% stake, and Ms. Pritzker had been on the board of the bank’s holding company.
Anxious to avoid further embarrassment and liability, the Pritzkers and their co-owner settled with federal officials by agreeing to pay $460 million over 15 years. Nearly all of the funds came from the Pritzkers. Ms. Pritzker says she regrets what happened.
Some critics of Sen. Obama have cited Ms. Pritzker’s role in the bank failure, arguing that it undermines the candidate’s criticisms of subprime lenders who target low-income borrowers.
You bet it does. Read an earlier entry on this blog linking to Dennis Bernstein’s excellent piece on Pritzker. The mainstream press hasn’t really addressed it.
Now that the Pritzker connection comes up as it has in the Journal, she gets a free pass from the financial world’s paper of record with a glowing piece headlined “Money Maven.”
The real news is buried after the jump at the end of the story, well off the front page which coincidentally blares away about the rescue of Bear Stearns.
Isn’t the subprime mess related to what got Bear into its mess in the first place? Sure it is. Pritzker’s past shouldn’t be excused as old news. And when subprime is driving the economic distress in the U.S. , how can it not be addressed by either the paper or the Obama?
If the Journal wasn’t trying to sugar coat Pritzker, it would have more prominently connected Bear’s rescue with the bailout and seizure of the Pritzker’s Superior Bank FSB.
But why connect all the dots? We’ll do it for you.
Of course, you won’t see Obama react to Pritzker’s past either.
Aides and confidants can call Hillary a monster (Samantha Power), or say politically incorrect things about race and 9/11( Rev. Jeremiah Wright) and can be expected to get publicly dumped by the candidate. But subprime Pritzker? She’s pure gold to Obama.
An untouchable.
As they say, campaign donations’ are the mother’s milk of politics.
http://amok.asianweek.com/2008/03/15/subprime-pritzker-pure-gold-for-obama/
Surprise. NOT!
Ping. #25 post.
Thanks to Starwise for posting this.
Add on to:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2086352/posts?page=23#23
A NJ reporter was on the our local radio last night. He was reporting on a meeting Gov. Jon Corzine was in. Corzine is working Obama’s campaign. Word is Corzine is promised a high level position in the Treasury in an Obama Presidency. Corzine was former CEO of Goldman Sachs. The reporter said that Corzine told his Wall Street buddies that this financial crash will be fixed in an Obama admnistration. No details on how though.
I DO know that Maurice Strong is involved with Chicago’s Climate Exchange. Al Gore is chairman of a private equity firm called Generation Investment Management. That firm invests money from institutions and wealthy investors in companies that are going green. Generation Investment Management purchases carbon dioxide offsets. The co-founder of Generation Investment Management is former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson, who is currently the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. Goldman Sachs bought 10% of Chicago’s Climate Exchange shares for $23 million. Chicago’s Climate Exchange owns half of the European Climate Exchange, Europe’s largest carbon trading company.
Lots of good links at that link. Thanks!
This was interesting: (in the comments section at one of the links)
” The Pritzkers philanthropy comes at the expense of Superior Bank depositors and the loan shark interest rates Superior Bank charged for subprime mortgage and auto loans. One year after stiffing 1,406 depositors of Superior Bank for $42 million, the Pritzker family donated $30 million to the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago Directors having full knowledge of the Superior Bank theft unethically accepted the money.”
Wonder if some of it went into the Annenberg Challenge/ Bill Ayers?
Of other interest concerning Ponzi Penny. The Pritzker’s also own TRANSUNION CREDIT BUREAU, which she chairs.
Sounds like the perfect set-up, doesn’t it?
A sub-prime mortgage banking company and a credit bureau!
(eye roll)
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?article_id=27738&seenIt=1
(snip)
“She has access to resources and all of a sudden, you have access to the same resources.”
(end)
Ya....I bet she does.....lol
Earlier I asked what monies from Pritzker might have gone to the Annenberg Challenge. Well, here it is:
(sorry for the long URL, but you cannot get into the page unless you subscribe..hence the long URL of the cache)
(snip)
4) The role of the Chicago Public Education Fund led by Susan Crown and Penny Pritzker, among others, should be explained.
A final possible explanation of the mystery donor is that the legal successor to the CAC, the Chicago Public Education Fund, was contacted, again inappropriately, as the donor. If that was the case then it raises a concern about the potential role of Penny Pritzker, who serves on the board of the CPEF. Pritzker is the Finance Chair of the Obama campaign. Susan Crown is also on the board of the CPEF, was a board member of the CAC, and is a donor to the Obama campaign.”
I am sure Kurtz and others have already written about this extensively...but it is time to refresh the memories of the American people.
I can’t subscribe ...! Did you? Says it’s by invitation only. How did you get to see that?
NOTE:
I always use tinyurl.com for long link htmls .. i.e.,
this link would convert to:
You just copy and paste the long link into
their blank space, and it gives you the new
short link.
~~~~
That diagram of the connections is WOW! Great digging!
"She oversees the Pritzker family's non-hotel real estate interests and chairs its TransUnion LLC credit bureau."
~~~~
CAN YOU IMAGINE THE HELL SHE COULD RAKE OVER THEIR 'ENEMIES' WITH CONTROL OVER THEIR TRANS UNION CREDIT RATING ... ESPECIALLY IN THE MONSTROUS VOLATILITY AND INSTABILITY OF THE CURRENT ECONOMY AND FINANCIAL MATTERS ?????
And we thought only the Clintons had squads of subversives on steroids. At least I'm not aware that they had a documented domestic terrorist in their ranks. God, save us.
Wealth of Obama links and connections here
****
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=800
BTTT
Thanks for the ping STARWISE.
Yes, as soon as I heard about Pritzker, I thought of The Marmon Group. They have access to some of the biggest private-sector databases on the planet. They know everyone’s secrets.
I’ve nicknamed her Ponzi Penny ;)
WOW..thanks!
You always post such great resources!!
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