I saw this news item this morning, but it has been one hectic day and I just have not gotten a chance to ask you, “What would you call it?”…and, “How many others inside the beltway profited from this information?”
Durbin cashed out during big stock collapse
WASHINGTON | Asset sales came after meeting with Fed, Treasury chiefs
As U.S. stock markets plummeted last September, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual-fund shares and used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
The Illinois senator’s 2008 financial disclosure statement shows he sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696 on Sept. 19, the day after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged congressional leaders in a closed meeting to craft legislation to help financially troubled banks. The same day, he bought $43,562 worth of Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B stock, the disclosure shows.
Altogether, Durbin sold investments worth $116,000 in September. By Oct. 2, he had invested $98,046 in Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway, the form shows.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index plunged 4.7 percent last Sept. 15 after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp.’s government-engineered takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. By the end of October, the index had fallen 22.6 percent.
“Durbin was doing what a lot of other people were doing, taking a look at their savings” and seeing it “start to tank and trying to preserve some level of wealth by getting out of the market,” said his spokesman, Joe Shoemaker.
I’m really glad Mr. Durbin was able to “preserve some level of wealth” while the rest of us are being drained bloodless through inflation, taxation, job loss, the economic meltdown, the un-Constitutional Chrysler and GM fiascos, etc.
Shoemaker said Durbin didn’t capitalize on anything Paulson and Bernanke told congressional leaders at the Sept. 18 meeting.
Whatever information Paulson gave lawmakers wasn’t secret or classified and was disclosed publicly the next day, Shoemaker said.
Just thought you might like to know what was happening while following the money.
I am still tracking how many millionaires have left the US for less financially brutal shores, and I will keep readers updated.
P.S. Can We Impeach Obama Yet?
Looks lke Insider Trading to me! Call a spade a spade!
This is Uber Insider Trading! This man had knowledge that was not publicly available and was given to him in his sworn role to serve the people. Even if I believe the crap about everything being released to the public the next day (and I don’t), he got a 1 day jump on everyone else. Unless I misunderstand the way the market works, that means he was able to sell before the prices started to drop and made practically the full amount off his sales.
If Martha Steward did jail time for her scenario, then this guy should be serving 25 years for this. Where’s the public outcry over this one? We need to spread the word far and wide. Screw Letterman – I want this guy tossed in jail after he’s been tarred and feathered!
Congress passed a law exempting them from insider trading, then they can vote for things to benefit themselves. What other laws have they written for themselves? Lets see, private health care so they do not care what we have to deal with; private retirement system so they do not care what happens to Social Security; bailed out AIG who insured their retirement system. The list goes on and on. These are the “elite” and above the law?!?!?!