Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[jacklanvo99]

Relationships between business and politicians in America have always been close, with super-achievers often moving between governmental and private sector roles with ease. Remember the closeness of Texan oil interests to George W Bush? Remember Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary under Bush and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, who told a bunch of hedge fund managers a few weeks before Lehman went bust that Uncle Sam would soon be seizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-backed mortgage institutions. Paulson thus gave them insider information on shorting the market before the crash. No clash of interest? Paulson was not even investigated for wrongdoing.

Why go that far? It is now well established that Hillary and Bill Clinton Foundation received huge donations from Saudi interests, but Newsweek chose to rubbish this as not a serious future conflict of interest. Rather, it said, it did not matter as all the money went to charity. Said the report: “No member of the Clinton family received any cash from the foundation, nor did it finance any political campaigns. In fact, like the Clintons, almost the entire board of directors works for free.”

To assume that there is no conflict of interest if the money goes to charity is foolish, for no charity will kick its benefactors in the butt if there is a conflict of interest at some future date. The Saudis don’t pay good money just out of the goodness of their hearts.

The Newsweek report is interesting from an Indian perspective because it reminds us of the strong linkages between politicians and land prices and property.

There is almost no major politician who has not been conflicted by property links. Starting from the top, we had Sonia Gandhi and Rahul trying to appropriate Herald House using Congress party funds. Sonia’s son-in-law Robert Vadra was a huge property speculator in Haryana and Rajasthan when the Congress ruled those states. In Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar is a byword for property dealings. Congress politicians were up to their necks in the Adarsh Society scam. YSR’s son Jagan Reddy went to jail for his property and business deals. BS Yeddyurappa lost his chief ministership when his tenure was impacted by a land scam involving his sons. Manohar Joshi of Shiv Sena and Raj Thackeray of MNS both have property interests in Mumbai. And so on. No party, national or regional, is untainted by property linkages. Worse, even the media is complicit. In Delhi, and many states, journalists have been given cheap plots of land, thus ensuring that they are compromised in their reportage.


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http://swarajyamag.com/world/trumps-realty-links-to-india-why-we-should-be-more-worried-than-the-us