Maybe This Is Just A Coincidence

Maybe This Is Just A Coincidence

But what a fascinating coincidence it is! From the October 18, 2008 Wall Street Journal:

New York Sen. Charles Schumer's public criticism of IndyMac Bancorp last summer, which critics say helped spark a run on deposits that took under the troubled thrift, came while IndyMac's assets were being eyed by investors who are major donors to the Democratic Senate campaign committee the senator chairs.
Sen. Schumer, chairman of a Senate banking subcommittee, was criticized at the time for publicly raising questions about the bank's solvency and regulators' oversight of it. What wasn't known then was that a group of potential investors, led by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management LP, had been inside the bank looking over its books. They had already decided not to invest in the bank, but were scouting assets that might become available if the bank failed and was taken over by the government.
Sen. Schumer's office said recently he didn't know anything about Oaktree's possible interest in IndyMac until after the bank failed. Oaktree Chairman Howard Marks said he never talked to the senator about IndyMac.

Oh yeah, I believe that! Some years ago, when I was writing Firing Back!, Microsoft Word's spellchecker didn't recognize "Schumer" as a word, and suggested an alternative choice: "Schemer." And who said software couldn't be wise?

Unfortunately, the next paragraph of the column just makes me shake my head:

The bank's demise in June now is almost a footnote in the financial-sector problems that have exploded in succeeding months. Still, Sen. Schumer's fund-raising involvement with investors looking over the bank underscores how Democrats' entanglements with the financial industry will make it hard for them to score political points over the market upheavals in the remaining weeks of the election.

Well, I suppose if Americans who read the Wall Street Journal were comparable to the number who watch ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, they might have a point here.

What is just amazing is how many progressives will vote Democratic this year in an attempt to destroy crony capitalism--and either don't care, or don't realize that when it comes to crony capitalism, the elephants are inconsistent amateurs compared to the donkeys.