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U.S.-based custody bank Northern Trust is helping traditional "mainstream" hedge funds expand into cryptocurrencies, Forbes reported Tuesday. Northern Trust's president, Pete Cherecwich, told the news organization that the financial services firm is working with three hedge funds – whose names he declined to provide – to add cryptocurrency investments to their portfolios. To that end, Northern Trust has reportedly created new administrative tools and services specifically for cryptocurrency assets. These include tools to price and trade cryptocurrencies, according to the report. Cherecwich said: "You can take anything today. You can take movie rights, you can take all sorts of entities,...

This, the first of a series of articles on the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood, establishes that three individuals other than Obama are listed in public records as owners and taxpayers on the property. Barack Obama is not among at least three people listed as current owners and taxpayers of the mansion his family calls home in Chicago's upscale Kenwood neighborhood, according to public records. WND reported in December 2008 that William Miceli, the attorney for convicted political operative Tony Rezko and a fundraiser for Obama, owns the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood.

May 29, 2008 By Andrew Walden (Hawai'i Free Press) Nadhmi Auchi, seen here with the Governor of Illinois, Rob Blagojevich (middle) at a 2004 Chicago dinner in Auchi's honor arranged by Antonin Rezko (potentially, right)[1]. All three men have been convicted of corruption related charges (Auchi 2003, Rezko 2008, Blagojevich 2009).[2] “A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser (dual US-Syrian citizen Tony Rezko) just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi,...

The Subprime home mortgage collapse...a Primer. It's ALL about the CRA of 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 - This required banks to offer credit throughout their entire market area for “underserved” populations and small businesses. The CRA gave incentives to help low income borrowers become “home owners”. Liberals call this group “low income borrowers”. Conservatives call them a RISK!The CRA was passed by the Carter administration. In 1995 the Clinton administration authorized subprime loans under the CRA. Democrats added these provisions for the securitization of subprime loans and then ENFORCED the lending to high risk individuals. By 2000,...

The tale of private investment bank Northern Trust Corporation of Chicago, criticized because it sponsored a golf tournament, with proceeds to charity, followed by a private performance starring such popular acts as Earth, Wind and Fire and Sheryl Crow for its top clients and employees, should serve as a warning to other companies--and even private individuals--on the dangers of accepting government money. Learning its lesson, Northern, which received $1.5 billion in government bailout funds, plans to repay the government "as quickly as prudently possible" while promising future standard practice corporate entertainment will be "appropriate, given the current environment." Leading the...

Apologizing, Northern Trust to Pay Back Bailout FundsBy Tim State in News on February 28, 2009 12:27 PM Northern Trust, after receiving $1.5 million in Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, has apologized for sponsoring the PGA Northern Trust Open golf tournament in Los Angeles last weekend, and has pledged to repay the bailout funds it has received. Northern Trust CEO Frederick Waddell wrote in a letter to U.S. Rep Barney Frank, D-Mass.: We understand this is a time of great anxiety and financial distress, and your question regarding our support of an event such as the Northern Trust Open is...

Northern Trust Corp., which in November received about $1.5 billion as part of the U.S. Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program, defended Tuesday its wining and dining of clients during the recent Northern Trust Open in California. Entertainment Web site TMZ.com on Tuesday reported that Northern flew hundreds of clients and workers to California and put some of them up at ritzy hotels, including the Ritz Carlton in the Los Angeles area, and entertained them with such groups as Chicago, Earth Wind & Fire and Sheryl Crow. A spokesman for House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said Frank would...

This is curious and bizarre. A reader, Jane, conducted some Google searches related to the Obamas’ Chicago home on Greenwood Avenue, and discovered the following, which I verified with my own searches, and documented with screenshots at approximately 2:30 PM ET on 12/17/08: A Google search of the Obamas’ address, 5046 Greenwood Ave., Chicago, yields this: Greenwood Ave. Search 12/17/08 The phone number listed for the address, if you can’t make it out, is 415-821-6171, a San Francisco area code. When I Google’d that phone number, this came up: Greenwood Phone Search 12/17/08 The phone number associated with the Obama’s...

A watchdog group filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Senate Ethics Committee Wednesday against Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) over a discounted mortgage he received from Northern Trust. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, filed the report after The Washington Post reported that Obama received a discount on a mortgage for a Chicago home valued at $1.65 million. The complaints said the Illinois senator received a loan at the interest rate of 5.625 percent, which Judicial Watch says is lower than the standard rate of between 5.93 and 6 percent indicated by surveys....

WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama received a discounted home loan in 2005, along similar lines to that received by a former adviser to his campaign who was forced to resign after it became public, The Washington Post revealed yesterday. Former Fannie Mae chief executive James Johnson resigned abruptly as head of Senator Obama's vice-presidential search committee last month after The Wall Street Journal reported he had received favourable terms for a jumbo home loan with help from the CEO of Countrywide Financial - a major actor in the sub-prime mortgage mess. Senator Obama had previously spoken out against Countrywide's...

As reported by WaPo the Obama campaign claimed that the discounted rate on his $1.3 million mortgage was due to a competitive offer made by another lending institution. A campaign spokesman went further by claiming that Obama had no prior ties to the Chicago based Northern Trust. Apparently the Obama campaign has once again forgotten those “pesky”...

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. This Story The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some...

Sweetheart mortgage loans to Senators are much in the news of late, with calls for increased scrutiny of the solons' dealings with their mortgage lenders. In this spirit, I took a look at some of the publicly available information on Senator and Mrs. Obama's mortgage, obtained in 2005 when they purchased their mansion in Chicago's upscale Hyde Park district. The Obamas purchased their home with the help of his friend Tony Rezko, recently convicted of a felony. His wife Rita purchased the adjoining lot, the former side yard of the mansion, to seal the deal. According to the mortgage documents...

Here's the bottom line on Barack Obama's sweet mortgage deal: He got a lower rate because he was rich, not because he's a senator. The Washington Post reported today that Obama got a lower-than-market rate on his $1.3 million home loan from Northern Trust in Chicago in 2005. This contradicts what Obama's office told Politico last week for a survey of all 100 senators' mortgages. Answering the Politico inquiry of whether the senator received any special terms, Obama's campaign answered "no." Obama received a 5.625 percent interest rate on his loan, which was below Northern Trust's going rate at the...

Obama received $71,000 in campaign cash in 2004 from a lender in Illinois, who then in February 2005 gave him a below-market mortgage rate personally saving him nearly $4,000.00 per year. Perhaps just a whiff of corruption from the Chicago Kid?