Buffett, champion of bailout, is also leading beneficiar

[G_j]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/65496.html

Buffett, champion of bailout, is also leading beneficiary

By Charles Piller | The Sacramento Bee

SACRAMENTO — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has been lauded for his plainspoken denunciation of the greed and foolishness behind the economic crisis. He's pushed the massive federal bailout of imploding banks as the essential response to an "economic Pearl Harbor."

When Buffett speaks, people in high places listen. He's so highly regarded that in a fall debate, both presidential candidates said they'd consider him for Treasury secretary.

A Sacramento Bee examination of regulatory records has found that his extensive holdings in financial firms have made Buffett, the world's second-wealthiest person behind Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, one of the top beneficiaries of the banking bailout.

Just 28 companies received more than 90 percent of the funds so far disbursed to financial firms by the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, hasn't received any of that federal aid, but Berkshire, based in Omaha, Neb., owns stock valued at more than $13 billion in the top recipients of TARP funds, including Goldman Sachs Group, US Bancorp, American Express and Bank of America, which analysts all thought were in deep trouble before TARP was approved in October.

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[GoesTo11]

1. What are the odds of that?

Also Hank Paulson, beneficiary to the tune of hundreds of millions from Goldman Sachs mortgage games is architect of same bailout. How unlikely. It's like lightening striking twice, twice!

[acmavm]

2. Of course he is. He's admitted that he got stung. Now he's just making

sure that he comes out of it without any losses. In other words, he's looking out for his skin, and his stockholder's skins. Fuck you and me, we just have to pay for it.

[chimpymustgo]

3. We have truly gone down the rabbit hole. World gone mad.

[leftofthedial]

4. He is for whatever makes him the most money.