Elite Obama Donor Robert Wolf, CEO of the US branch of Swiss Bank UBS, seen exiting his limousine upon his arrival at Private Obama Dinner for Elite Obama Donors Only. Elite Obama Donor Robert Wolf is currently under Senate investigation.
Posted on 01/20/2009 3:10:56 PM PST by bd476
Wall Street Journal
* JANUARY 9, 2009
Wall Street Is Big Donor to Inauguration
Obama Bans Funding From Corporations and Big Donors, but Financial Employees Put Up $5.7 Million
Other bundlers from the financial sector include executives from Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., two New York-based institutions that have accepted billions of dollars each in rescue money from the federal government.
...The analysis shows that Lou Susman , a Chicago-based managing director for Citigroup, bundled $265,000 in inaugural donations for Mr. Obama, including $50,000 donated personally and $50,000 more from the firm's employees.
< Snip >
Financial-executive donors to the Obama inauguration include an executive from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared bankruptcy last fall. The executive has bundled at least $115,000 in donations so far for the inaugural, according to records made public by the Obama organization.
Excerpt. Wall Street Is Big Donor to Inauguration
Elite Obama Donor Robert Wolf, CEO of the US branch of Swiss Bank UBS, seen exiting his limousine upon his arrival at Private Obama Dinner for Elite Obama Donors Only. Elite Obama Donor Robert Wolf is currently under Senate investigation.
Excerpt from
Washington Post
Senate Probe's Targets Give to Campaigns
Report Accuses Bank Officials of Helping Clients Hide Money From the IRS
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 1, 2008; Page A05
"...UBS always has been a major donor in Washington, in addition to spending close to $1 million a year on lobbying. The bank has spent more on the 2008 elections, which are still more than three months away, than during the entire 2006 cycle. The UBS political committee distributed $2.21 million to politicians and political groups over the past 18 months.
The chairman of UBS Americas, Robert Wolf, helped raise more than $250,000 for Sen. Barack Obama's Democratic presidential bid.
< Snip >
Pragasam noted that Wolf's role in the Obama campaign predates the Senate investigation by more than a year, and that Wolf oversees the bank's American operations, while the Senate probe is focused on the activities of UBS offices in Switzerland.
"He was a very early supporter of Senator Obama, and began that support long before the Senate investigation into tax havens," she said...
Excerpt. Senate Probe's Targets Give to Campaigns
* * * * *
Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 8:47am MST
Colorado business leaders among largest inaugural donors
Denver Business Journal
Six Colorado business leaders are among the top donors to Tuesday's inauguration ceremony for President Barack Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Individual donors were limited to a maximum gift of $50,000 to support inaugural festivities.
Colorado donors listed by the CRP, which studies and reports on political contributions, as having donated $50,000 are:
* Merle Chambers of Denver, president of Leith Ventures LLC, a privately held investment company.
* Holly Lev of Boulder, co-founder of health-supplements company Organic India.
* Pat McConathy of Vail, an energy investor.
* Bruce Oreck of Boulder, an attorney with Oreck Bradley Crighton Adams & Chase and son of vacuum-cleaner magnate David Oreck.
* Thomas Strickland of Denver, chief legal officer for UnitedHealth Group Inc. and former U.S. Senate candidate.
* Pat Stryker of Fort Collins, an heiress and longtime progressive activist.
Colorado business leaders among largest inaugural donors
* * * * *
Politico
Big donors foot inaugural bill
By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 1/14/09 7:00 PM EST Updated: 1/15/09 10:19 AM EST
Wall Street
Barack Obama has boasted that his inauguration will be funded by the same small donors who propelled his presidential campaign to victory, but a new analysis shows the inaugural bill is being footed primarily by big-dollar contributors, including many from Wall Street.
Barack Obama has boasted that his Inauguration will be funded by the same small donors who propelled his presidential campaign to victory, but a new analysis shows the inaugural bill is being footed primarily by big-dollar contributors, including many from Wall Street.
In fact, nearly 80 percent of the $35.3 million raised by Obama’s inaugural committee can be traced to just 211 individual bundlers, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan watchdog group Public Citizen.
One Wall Street bundler, Louis Susman, a top Citigroup executive, steered the $300,000 maximum to the committee, the report found.
“No doubt many donors give simply because they want to be part of history,” said Craig Holman, a campaign finance lobbyist for Public Citizen. “But donors and bundlers who represent special interests with business pending before the government and who dole out five-figure checks to the inaugural committee usually want a seat at the table with the new administration.”
Though the federal government is pitching in $10 million toward the cost of Obama’s Inauguration, his team is planning festivities that could cost as much as $50 million.
The privately raised funds will go toward opening up the Inauguration so more can participate in it, said Inauguration spokeswoman Linda Douglass.
The cash will pay for Jumbotrons and audio systems on the mall that will allow the expected massive crowds to watch the proceedings, as well as low-cost or free inaugural balls or concerts.
There are almost no limits on inaugural fundraising and Douglass pointed out that Obama is voluntarily disclosing contributions in almost real time, barring contributions from corporations, lobbyists, political action committees and unions and capping individual contributions at $50,000 a person, and bundled contributions at $300,000 per bundler.
Other Wall Street bundlers who contributed include:
* Mark Gilbert, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers: $185,000
* Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS Americas: $100,000
* Jennifer Scully, a vice president at Goldman Sachs: $100,000
* Bruce Heyman, a manager at Goldman Sachs: $50,000
Bundlers are major fundraisers who corral checks from friends and associates and deliver them to a campaign or committee en masse.
Though Obama’s presidential campaign also had its share of bundlers -- many of whom are also bundling for the Inauguration -- the campaign boasted that more than half of the record-shattering $662 million it raised came from small donors.
Those donors don’t appear to have had as large an impact on inaugural fundraising, which is typically harder to do than campaign fundraising. It’s difficult to gauge their impact precisely, since Obama’s inauguration web site is not listing donors who gave less than $200, but of the 5,632 reported contributions to the inaugural committee, only 113 came in at $200.
Douglass said internal figures show that nearly 200,000 people have contributed to the inaugural committee and that the average donation is $34.
Big donors foot inaugural bill
* * * * *
Excerpt from:
San Francisco Chronicle
Google execs among big donors to inauguration
Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 3, 2009
< Snip >
Some big donors
Bay Area business leaders are among the major donors to President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration. A sampling of the contributions:
Derek Dukes, founder of Dipity: $25,000
Robert Haas, former CEO of Levi Strauss: $50,000
Carole Hays, president of SHN Theaters: $100,000*
Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder: $25,000
Mitchell Kapor, founder of Lotus Development: $50,000
Michael Kieschnick, president of Working Assets: $50,000
Bara Oscodar, CEO of Expert Communications: $50,000
Larry Page, co-founder of Google: $25,000
James Pooley, attorney with Morrison & Foerster: $25,000
Chris Sacca, a former Google manager, now angel investor: $50,000
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google: $25,000
Daniel Skaff, Sienna Ventures: $25,000
John Thompson, CEO of Symantec: $50,000
J. Minott Wessinger, president of McKenzie River Corp.: $100,000*
*Amount includes $50,000 donation from spouse.
Excerpt.
Google execs among big donors to inauguration
* * * * *
“Most blacks believe all blacks are African”
Surprisingly, I’ve been told by someone bi-racial, that is true. I’ve also been told..... “just wait until he pi**es them off, he’ll become ‘white’ over night”.
“So maybe someone could explain to me why Bush and Paulson gave away our money to these guys.:’
I can’t. But I have noticed how often the Libs/Dems have enjoyed throwing it back in our faces....careful who you call THE socialist.
“These institutions were getting money before Barry was elected and in any position to help them.
Sorry but I am not seeing the connection. The last several months’ stink is Bush’s legacy.”
I agree. Money has no bias. Had McCain won, I’ll bet his coffers and receptions would have been full of the same elites and worse.
So, we know what BO’s inauguration cost in $’s. Someone needs to hit him where it hurts...figure out, from a - z, what the whole ordeal’s, including attendees, “carbon footprint” cost.
They set him up, knowing that it will be near impossible to bring him down,
Anything for the drama.
They set him up, knowing that it will be near impossible to bring him down,
Anything for the drama.
Corrupt...YES
Investigated...doubtful.
Well just to clarify it, he is HALF WHITE. He is then about 45% Omani Arab, and he is the remainder black African. There, fixed that.
Surprise, surprise.
Vote for Ci-cago and that’s what you get.
Only if we mobilize.
That way, when they dole out the journalist blowjobs for the two years leading up to the next election, they have some mothballed negative stories they can point to and claim balance.
Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
Well, his white American grandmother (who he cannot disown) WAS a banker...
The MSM made sure nothing detrimental was published or said about BHO during the election no matter how true it was.
Am surprised at ABC for publishing this. Maybe BHO snubbed them in some way so they are retaliating.
Today’s Democrat Party, Rich liberal elites setting policy combined with ignorant, useful idiots doing the legwork and paid off with other people’s money.
Excellent comment. Ditto's to it.
They missed THAT by a hundred million bucks.
You are right, first of all, about the government itself being the major factor behind this whole mess. They got in there by politicians deciding that they knew how housing
As Thomas Sowell...
the government thought they knew how markets ought to operate better than people who had operated housing markets all their lives and so they put pressure in various sorts but very strong pressure on all kinds of lending institutions to lend money to people they would never have lent money to otherwise. And now that both the lenders and the borrowers have been ruined by this transaction, the politicians are looking everywhere except in Washington to find a scapegoat.
I heard that it was more like 7.5%
from consumers to business, the problem is not going to be solved by borrowing more money for “bailouts”
To recover, the USA needs to :
1. Impose bold and brave tax incentives to individuals and businesses in order to break up the huge monopolies that suck everyone dry , from the phone companies to fast food to Home Depot, we are sucked dry and got nothing left to buy stuff with
2. Pass Laws and regulations that make consumer loans and mortgages possible to pay off, the loan rates have everyone sucked dry, we have nothing left to buy anything with, its all going to pay interest rates and taces
3. stop hemorraging money out to the rest of the world, it NEVER returns into the US economy
too bad this will NEVER happen during the CHANGE to socialism
the greedy politicians and their good friends the moneylenders have the citizens in a stranglehold
with a rope around our necks choking the life out and another in our pockets
so the politicians solution is to loan their buddies more rope
mark
I have asked this question before and got yelled at. Why are we protecting these guys from tax increases? We draw the tax protection line above them and so far R party has completely lost the tax issue. I say elected Rs raise firedrill about national debt and offer democrats these guys to pay more taxes, but no small business owners. Democrats plan on probably increased taxing above 80K. We offer them 1000K (1M) in return for no additional spending, which they will reject.
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