McCain Advisor/Lobbyist Pushed "the most macabre investment scheme[s] ever devised by Wall Street" known as "death bonds"
By Cliff Schecter Monday Jun 02, 2008 2:20pmA cheery guy, that Phil Gramm. According to Newsweek, he brought his zest for life into his work as a banking industry lobbyist, and no, we're not just talking about the subprime mess and tax evasion he and UBS pioneered. From Newsweek, via Progress Ohio:
McCain's campaign is already distancing itself from some of Gramm's other work for UBS: his involvement in attempts to sell financial products known as "death bonds," which BusinessWeek described last summer as one of "the most macabre investment scheme[s] ever devised by Wall Street." Not long after joining UBS, the Houston Chronicle reported, Gramm helped lobby Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, to sign on to a UBS proposal in which revenue would be generated for a state teachers' retirement fund by selling bonds, whose proceeds would in turn be used to buy annuities and life-insurance policies on retired teachers. UBS would advance money to the retirement fund, then repay itself, compensate bondholders and pocket profits when insurance companies paid off on retirees who died. According to a banking-industry source, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter, Gramm was involved in efforts to pitch similar UBS products to other financial institutions.
Gramm's office declined NEWSWEEK's request for comment. A source familiar with the bank's current business, who also asked for anonymity, said UBS no longer markets the kind of plan that Gramm was allegedly trying to sell to Texas. Hazelbaker said that McCain, who has been critical of the financial industry's performance in the subprime market, disapproves of death bonds and "supports increased accountability, transparency and capital backing in our financial markets as a solution to these problems." Death bonds, she continued, "move markets away [from]—not toward—these goals."
It's good to know McCain disapproves of just about every type of business in which his economic advisor engaged.
And hey, I remember Jill Hazelbaker! That chipper young lady and hearty sock puppet called me a "trash journalist." Which of course is only slightly preferable to "death bond salesman" or economic advisor to Team McCain (oops, redundant).
Just perhaps, and I am spitballing here, this kind of cynical attempt to cash in off of the exploitation of legislative loopholes and their fellow countrymen, is why-- as my friend David Sirota puts in his new barnburner of a book "The Uprising,"-- there is a populist revolt brewing around the country (see the 82% who think we are headed in the wrong direction).
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Thanks, C&L, for this revealing info!
Give McHypocrite credit. He would had left Obama's church when Rev. Wright began his "anti-America tirades". What a hero.
I remember reading about some Republican or a major donor of his who was actually selling the skin of dead people.
Marx was right: everyone and everything is a commodity to these people.
[Sips Martini]:
"Bond. Death Bond"
I wonder if Fox Snooze will lead off with this story tonight.
Chico Hussein @ 5:
Only if the dead teachers were 19y/o blonde cheerleaders ....
What a shitbag! If there's money in death, then the trail always leads to Repugs. Coincidence? Methinks not. Surprised you don't see the Carlyle Group buying up all of the funeral homes near Fort Bening, Fort Bragg and Fort Lewis.
Also, why do these slimeballs look so alike? Phil Gramm & Dick Cheney?
Visceral @ 3:
Neorepubliconservofascists !
watch the spelling
William @ 7:
in-breeding ?
earl @ 6:
and missing.
Chico Hussein @ 5:
They are are praying for another Hilton or Spears incident.
marko @ 9:
spel chekir ees yor frend.
harley @ 12:
I saw a t-shirt the other day ....
'Spear Brytney'
You mean REVOLT, do you not. The problem is that so many of the 82% you cite don't know how to spell the word. They turn on their TeeVees and they get get manipulation served up by the boatload.
This country needs a Jeffersonian REVOLUTION.
Man... Nikolai Gogol must be laughing from his grave at this scheme!
It's good to see
lifedeath valued so highly.Liberal AND Proud @ 11:
Liberal AND Proud @ 11:
LOL!
Ok then, what if it was OBAMA who had hired Gramm and not McSame, would Obama even be alive today ?
The emphasis is mine.
…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…
— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.…
Read On
I HATE REPUBLICANS!
Boy, McSame sure has a lot of seedy characters surrounding him. It should really work for him this fall.
I read on Newsmax, according to preliminary polls, Obama has clinched the necessary number of delegates to be the Democratic nominee.
Now it's time for the Democrats to join together and sing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DmYLrxR0Y8
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080529/LOCAL18/3052...
Marines to run checkpoints in Indianapolis?
Edgar Allan Poe had nothing on this guy. At least Mr. Poe only wrote about macabre things, this guy was trying to do them.
I hope that now that we have a nominee, the media will start to report on at least a handful of Grampa's daily disasters.
THAT's sick... Just fucking sick whether ongoing or not.. The very concept makes me want to puke.. A dead pool basically. I don't even want to go into the potential abuse this fosters... Phil Gramm behind it? Figures, he's always been a total tool.... Jesus, its no fucking wonder people like this Jerry dude from another thread have such a low opinion of us... Phil Gramm should be banned for life from working in the lobbying industry.. And kept away from the financial services industry as well... Frankly, a Wallmart greeter is about as much responsibility as I'd like to see this prick given.....Christ! What a sick sick bastard....JD
You would have to be crazy or healtless to come up with a scheme like this. McCain really is trying to surround himself with people just like the people who worked for bush. Maybe he wants to be worse than bush.
Who the hell is involved in deciding who will and will not be in the McCain campaign?
By this point, in addition to the death-bonds, you would have to assume that Gramm has cut some kind of deal with the Texas state morticians to get a split on any money found in the pockets of the teacher's corpses.
Of course Gramm would set it up so he'd be getting the heavy side of a 90/10 split.
baby jesus has nothing to do with the selling of these bonds.
Wasn't there something like this once where people would buy the life insurance policy of people who were terminally ill and poor? The idea being the poor dying person would have some cash now and the purchaser of the policy would benefit after the the sick person's death.
baby jesus @ 29:
Baby Jesus, where have you been? I have missed you and your comments and often wondered where you had gotten to.
Chico Hussein @ 18:
Obama hiring Gramm? C'monnnn mon. These are Republicans we're talking about. Gramm would be hiring Obama...as his gardener.
Ohh...Obamaaa.
Yasssur, Mr. Gramm.
Bring around the Rolls please. I need to go see my banker.
baby jesus has been very busy traveling the world monitoring all the silly little humans.
baby jesus takes money from the living, not from those who have passed.
Look at the Republicans attempting to make a profit from death. I wonder how UBS and Graham worked out the splitting of the proceeds from the auctioning of the organs on the black market.
Now I know why I never liked Gramm. Just like McCain and Bush and Cheney and Rice and Rumsfeld and the beat (list) goes on. All of them would rather lie when the truth would fit better.
Chico Hussein @ 10:
Its a Dorian Grey painting kind of thing.
pissed off patricia @ 27:
He needs to surround himself with familiar faces. Heck, he's having a hard enuf time keeping his facts straight.
Cut the old guy some slack.
Senator Obama's campaign is too smart to hire a ghoul like Gramm.
pissed off patricia @ 31:
me too! welcome back.
OT, but I just heard on MSNBC (Shuster) that Hillary said she would consider taking VP spot if offered.
StirFry @ 40:
Yep, it is on the National News...
StirFry @ 40:
Further, should Obama do so, and as rumored appoint both Biden and Dodd to
Cabinet positions, can we be guaranteed that the FOUR(4) Democrat vacancies
in the U.S. Senate will be filled by other Dems???
It OK though as they all had flag pins and ate freedom fries .........
Hard to believe that mush mouth texas redneck Graham ever thought he had what it takes to be president . Talk about your ASSES of EVIL , bush, cheny and graham... The company that Mclame keeps is increasingly being brought to light and should and I hope will add to his down fall as a viable candidate .
Every time I saw that asshole Gramm speaking in congress, I wanted to kick his idiotic ass. That shit stick is a totally typical amoral mainstream Republican. I hope that he will soon be behind bars or in a casket!
John Silber (Boston U. pres '71 thru '96) tried this in 1989. He wanted BU to take out life insurance on all recipients of financial aid. Didn't get very far then either.
Underground Pirate @ 45:
Just another of those idiotic, red-neck Texans we(NOT me) sent to Washington
as a U.S. Senator....and replaced him with another total incompetent slime ball; being
John Cornyn.
Doggiebobo @ 42:
He's crazy to offer it to her.
"Bobby Kennedy", anyone?
mcKeatingFive has yet another corrupt lobbyist?
that means that he's down to 114 lobbyists!
earl @ 4:
lol....fell out of chair
Doggiebobo @ 42:
Good point. Not sure, but a concern.
NoGWBpolicyleftinplace @ 39:
Sweet Baby Jesus, he's risen from the dead.
It's a funny coincidence, since McCain and Abramoff hate each other, but this is exactly the same scheme that Casino Jack tried to get his Indians (Choctaws, I think) to invest in when they started to run out of money...
I'm quite sure that this idea would have been extended to soldiers if they could have found a way to buy the insurance coverage.
Was wondering whatever happened to this POS. Like a bad penny. Can I take insurance policy's on old fucking republics like Gramm?
The first time I ever saw Phil Gramm on TV years ago, he seemed so familiar, I knew I had seen that face before. Then it came to me- of course! It's Heinrich Himmler! The resemblance is more than uncanny.
Necroconservatives.
Peter G @ 54:
yes. also,I wonder about the soldiers getting the bonuses to fight at the end of their tours. How hard would it be to funnel these soldiers to the worst areas of Iraq and Afghanistan prior to departure raising the probability of being knocked off? Or are those bonuses paid in advance? just askin'.
UBS taking a cue from those Black Widow wives we see on the detective shows. Sick.
In any case, ethics is alway secondary when it comes to money.
This is a great idea! Not only does it create incentives for the government to off it's retired teachers, thus keeping down pension costs, but it gives the retirees a new reason to live (i.e. the challenge of surviving as your gov't bets on your untimely demise.)
I love this idea! Maybe we can extend it to all our current politicians and their retirement funds.
Bitter Bud Hussein @ 48:
Honestly, he shouldn't offer it to her, and if he does she should turn it down. With all due respect to Harry Reid...Hillary should be nominated for Senate Majority Leader. She'll run rings around the opposition...and her mere presence will drive them to distraction.
Making history is a nice bonus.
Goseph Gerbils @ 57:
An excellent neologism.
Liberal AND Proud @ 60:
Very good point....so here's hoping that Obama and she will sit down in private
together, discuss the options, and decide that Hillary can best serve the country
where she is today,..in the U.S.Senate w/perhaps being elevated to Sen.Majoity Leader.
According to the experts who testified to congress today phil gramm is responsible for the "late night inclusion" of a bill that effectively negated 78 years of oversight in the commodity futures market which in turn has allowed the blatant fraud and thievery in todays oil rip off, by allowing Goldman-Sacks and others to manipulate oil futures and run up the price to the ridiculous and economy destroying levels of today. So when goldman-sacks says "we see oil being $150 a barrel, it is because they are manipulating the market and have a vested interest in making it go to $150 a barrel. It is all corrupt and because of the bill that gramm stuck in in the late night hours in 2000. This Gramm guy is quite guy. Phuckking criminal.
UBS was also the fence for the German Nazi Party and the gold stolen from murdered Jews.
Wow! These used to be called "Dead Peasant Policies." Large corps like Wal-Mart would buy an insurance policy on an employee, never tellling the employee or their family about it. When the employee died the corp would cash it in and the family would never see a penny of it. Normally you have to have "standing" )a legal or familial interest in a person to take out a policy, but corps said they had an interest in all their employees--even the janitors) and the regulators allowed it.
This is sick!
gramm is a money launderer for over compensated capitalist fascists all over the world.
That is only the tip of this slimey iceberg. To ensure the deth bonds made double digit returns, Gramm personally went out and shot retired school teachers in the face. Since he was drunk, a repig and in Texas, nobody gave a shit.
XXT @ 63:
Really its not just speculation that is driving up the prices of oil. You have to take into account the continuing falling dollar- ESPECIALLY when it comes to oil. Oil when measured in Gold has remained stable for years if you look at the comparison charts- while Oil measured in dollars has obviously spiked.
Speculation itself can't drive up the price to the level its gone at this point.
Given the fact that most gay bashing staights who slam gay marriage are usually from broken marriages, it bring to mind the saying
'Those who live in glass houses ought not to throw stones'
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