Lawmakers Invested in Bailed-Out Firms -- Conflict-of-Interest Questions Arise

[Octafish]

No wonder the Wall Street bailout got passed so fast. News from our friends at BuzzFlash.com...

Lawmakers Invested in Bailed-Out Firms

Conflict-of-Interest Questions Arise

By Paul Kane and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 11, 2009

Top House lawmakers had considerable holdings in major financial institutions that took billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts at the end of last year, according to annual financial disclosure reports released yesterday.

From stock holdings to retirement funds to mortgages, more than 20 House leaders and members of the House Financial Services Committee had large personal stakes in the Wall Street powerhouses whose collapse last year led to an unprecedented government intervention in the marketplace. In some instances those lawmakers, like millions of other investors, sold their holdings at steep losses while others retained the stocks at greatly diminished value.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her husband lost hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in American International Group, which has received $170 billion in government loans and cash injections, making it by far the largest recipient of federal bailout dollars. Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and his wife held stock, retirement plans and other investments worth at least $183,000 and as much as $495,000 in firms benefiting from federal government rescue efforts, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

At least 18 members of the House Financial Services Committee -- which oversees the banking and housing industries at the core of the economic meltdown -- held stock last year in firms that received federal bailout assistance, according to a review of the forms that were available yesterday.

The release of the annual disclosure forms was not scheduled to occur until tomorrow, but the House clerk's office briefly posted many of them online yesterday, apparently by accident. A firm called LegiStorm captured the data and posted them on its Web site. The Senate will release its forms tomorrow.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/10/AR2009061002565_pf.html

Bush and Congreff emptied the Treasury and defrauded our nation of its future and all We the People got were two lousy wars, a lot of military-industrial complex hoodoo, and the warning not to count on Social Security in our golden years. That's a "wow!"