I wonder what the reaction would be if anything like this was in Hillary Clinton’s tax return. I’m sure everyone would give her the benefit of the doubt, though, right?
Less than two months after ascending to the United States Senate, Barack Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors.
One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.
The most recent financial disclosure form for Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.
A spokesman for Mr. Obama, who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination in 2008, said yesterday that the senator did not know that he had invested in either company until fall 2005, when he learned of it and decided to sell the stocks. He sold them at a net loss of $13,000.
Usually senators’ money is held in blind trusts, so if this is the case, it’s likely that Obama didn’t know. Remember when Frist transferred stock of his family hospital company into a “blind trust,” but of course kept the money invested in the company? That was a wink wink situation.
Here? I’d like to know more specifics.
I don’t like it at first blush, but as John said, I’d like know more.
Hillary’s a better investor … she made money with her stocks ^_^ !
This money was invested for Senator Obama by those who run his Senatorial blind trust. When he discovered it, he divested.
I am more concerned about the 3.3 million former President Bill Clinton earned from InfoUSA founder. InfoUSA and its founder are currently under federal investigation for selling the contact info. of elderly folks with alzheimers. The people who bought this information then stole everything the elderly people had. This is huge news right now in Kansas (where I went to college). I don’t know if former President Clinton had anything to do with this outrage, but I do believe it should be investigated and thoroughly.
Kim, per Wikipedia, Iowa already looked into this:
“InfoUSA was involved in a controversy in 2004 centered around the sale of data lists to a third party which were used by fraudulent telemarketers.
“Supposedly, InfoUSA advertised lists of “Elderly Opportunity Seekers,” 3.3 million older people “looking for ways to make money,” and “Suffering Seniors,” 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. “Oldies but Goodies” contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list said: “These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change.” A subsequent press release denied these allegations[2], and the State of Iowa cleared InfoUSA of all wrong doing in their investigation. “
Duh - it’s clearly spelled out in the linked article:
” The spokesman, Bill Burton, said Mr. Obama’s broker bought the stocks without consulting the senator, under the terms of a blind trust that was being set up for the senator at that time but was not finalized until several months after the investments were made.
“He went about this process to avoid an actual or apparent conflict of interest, and he had no knowledge of the stocks he owned,” Mr. Burton said. “And when he realized that he didn’t have the level of blindness that he expected, he moved to terminate the trust.””
sold at a loss??…apparently hrc is a better investor judging by her astounding cattle futures windfall from the 90’s…but mr hrc had done such magic to the market everyone was turning a $1000 to $10000 with little market knowledge…