Inside The Controversial Deals That Boosted Rick Perry's Wealth

[sonias]

Huffington Post 9/15/11

Rick Perry Supplemented Wealth With Profitable Deals Involving Political Friends & Their Businesses

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Perry is worth is at least $1.1 million. His chief Republican rival, businessman Mitt Romney, is worth more than $190 million.

Perry became a millionaire through a practice common to many other politicians over the years: taking part in profitable deals involving political friends and their businesses. He made more than $800,000 in 2007 reselling a resort development plot he had gotten from a Republican friend in the Legislature, and he cleared a quick $38,000 in 1995 by flipping stock in a company owned by one of his top campaign donors.

Private deals involving campaign supporters are widely criticized by government reformers as a potential form of backdoor donations or influence-buying. But they are often legal; in Perry's case, the Securities and Exchange Commission did not act on a complaint about his stock windfall.

"It's a familiar pattern to see politicians do well with their own personal investments," said Richard Hasen, an expert on money in politics at the University of California at Irvine School of Law, noting that wealthy people often like to cut favored politicians in on financial opportunities. "That's not to say that there is anything illegal or unethical about it, but it is how the world works."

This is why unscrupulous people become powerful politicians - their aim is to get rich. Perry is the prime example of one of these uncaring bastards that goes into political life to profit on the backs of others.
:puke: