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McCain Adviser Phil Gramm in the News Again: Did His Bank Help Wealthy Clients Evade Taxes?
For someone who wants to change Washington, John McCain has surrounded himself with plenty of guys who game the system. His campaign in recent weeks had to boot out a bunch of lobbyists, though his two top campaign aides—Rick Davis and Charles Black—remain in their posts, despite the fact they recently were high-powered lobbyists. Then there's Phil Gramm, a campaign cochairman and economic adviser to McCain. After leaving the US Senate, he became an executive and lobbyist for UBS, the Swiss mega-bank. And as I noted recently, eight years ago, when he chaired the Senate banking committee, he helped create the current subprime meltdown by slyly slipping into a must-pass appropriations measure a bill that completely deregulated certain financial instruments. Isn't that the sort of person you want advising a president and in line to be Treasury secretary?
Gramm is back in the news today. The New York Times reports that federal authorities are investigating UBS to determine whether the bank helped thousands of wealthy Americans hide their assets from the IRS in UBS offshore accounts. Without mentioning that Gramm is a top McCain ally, the paper notes:
The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive of UBS and the former head of its private bank, as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank's investment banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in bad investments, many of them linked to risky American mortgages.
So it's not too early to ask, What did Phil Gramm know about UBS' offshore practices, and when did he know it? And reporters ought to ask McCain if he has asked Gramm about this investigation. Another query: how long can Gramm remain on McCain's campaign?
well all you have to do is look at this crum and see that hes a crooked bastard
As the Ship of Fools continues to sink, more and more of the rats rise to the surface. The next thing we'll learn is that the unemployment rate is more than 25% instead of the 5.5% they're reporting. When the aristocrazy in this country fall, the sound will be a resounding whimper. I say bring it on. They deserve everything they have coming to them. And their gated communities will fall before them with just a bump from a electric golf cart at just the right pint of impact. Screw 'em all.
Once again our supine media fails us. Why no connection of dots between Phil Gramm's treachery and his current position in McCain's campaign? An informed populace is apparently feared above all else...OTOH, too many of us don't give a rat's butt.
If the hens ever do come home to roost, I pray I live to see it. Bastards.
We're going to find out that inflation is much higher than reported. We're going to find out that joblessness is much higher than reported. We're going to find that our country's wealth has been sucked away. We're going to find out that every major economic indicator used to divine the health of the U.S. economy has been manipulated and falsified in some malignant fashion. Like tapping on what you thought was a perfectly healthy and strong piece of your house with a hammer, but the hammer goes right on through because the wood has been completely hollowed out by the termites to the point that it's no stronger than toilet paper so we will find the nation hollowed out to the core and the laughter of kleptocrats in the distance as they scatter across the globe like cockroaches when the lights are turned on...
Let alone his wifw's role as a member of the Enron Board of Directors
Al Jazeera had an interesting post that I thought was interesting.
http://english.aljazeera.net/business/2008/09/2008915183931742758.html
A little sobering, I thought.