Obama Fundraiser Linked to Subprime Lender
Karl at Protein Wisdom and Erick Erickson both linked to the Wall Street Journal story about Sen. Obama’s fundraising chairman Penny Pritzker and her involvement with collapsed subprime mortgage lender Superior Bank.
Reporter John Emshwiller tries to make the story about a conflict with what the bank did and Obama’s statements about subprime lenders. But there’s nothing in the WSJ story about predatory lending. What seems to have done in Superior Bank was accounting shenanigans (2001 was the year of Enron’s implosion) rather than mortgage fraud. The In These Times article Karl linked to takes the stance that aggressive marketing like television commercials is inherently predatory and bad. What’s more interesting are the details of a scheme with “Ponzi-like characteristics” that paid out dividends using bank deposits instead of income.
While not as sexy and timely as an actual subprime scandal plenty of questions can be asked about Penny Pritzker’s role at Superior Bank and how an Obama administration would go after such corporate wrongdoing.
[via memeorandum]
