Eliot Spitzer or the Subprime CEOs – Which Crime Should Really Call up Outrage?
The Starbucks, sidewalk and subway comments continue to flow abundant as New Yorkers processed the country’s latest made-for-TV sex scandal. The reality that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Time Magazine’s former Crusader of the Year, the man now dubbed “George Fox” and “Client #9,” had repeatedly gotten too hot and heavy with various high-class call-girls broke in salacious bits. This is the stuff that causes political dreams in America to dissolve even faster than the seismic destruction unleashed by the subprime mortgage crisis and the economic recession that has followed it.
Spitzer’s meteoric rise to heady ‘American Dream’ heights guarantees that his sudden plunge will furnish rich fodder for everything from Saturday Night Live to Hardball with Chris Matthews. The governor’s shattered dream is a bit like those of the subprime mortgage moguls who found their professional successes crumbling at a House Financial Services Committee hearing nearly a week earlier.
That March 7th hearing was called by Chairman Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) to examine the wildly exorbitant compensation packages of the three CEOs who rode the housing boom to great heights before it burst in their faces. Their combined take during that five-year period was $460 million! That’s the kind of wealth that buys a lot of privilege, if not necessarily the kind in which Spitzer indulged.
Former Citigroup CEO, Charles Prince worked his way up his firm’s ladder over a 30-year period, the first member of his family to go to college. The father of former Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal labored at a GM factory in Atlanta, the same one in which his son worked while putting himself through college; O’Neal’s family lived in a federal housing project until they bought their first home. Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo’s grandfather came to America because ‘anything is possible in this great country,’ a mantra Mozilo held close as he built Countrywide from nothing over 40 years, increasing its stock value by 23,000 percent. He also fortuitously cashed out almost $150 million in stock as his firm navigated a share buyback in early 2007.
Subsequently, the firms that Prince, O’Neal and Mozilo ran respectively lost a combined total of $20 billion in the last two quarters of 2007. Their past compensation packages were scrutinized in the context of a banking industry that has so far written off $120 billion in deteriorating loans and counting - an industry running so scared, banks have stopped lending money to each other.
Their firms stand at the crossroads of an over-leveraged, non-transparent, risk-saturated banking and credit industry that will be deteriorating for the next several quarters to come, if not longer, and whose unregulated workings have spilled into the larger economy. As this industry tries to contain future corporate losses, individuals are already feeling more pinched than ever with escalating credit card, mortgage, home equity and auto loan interest rates and payments.
Indeed, the Spitzer scandal provided citizens a momentary respite from an economy collapsing on the subprime-housing-turned-full-fledged-economic-crisis which faces them in their daily lives. But shocking though the revelations about Spitzer were (and hypocritical to the max, given his platform of lily white ethical standards), his personal choices haven’t actually damaged the quality of life for any Americans - other than those of his family, of course. Spitzer didn’t transfer any actual money from the pockets of New York State or other homeowners around the country into his own.
But, there is one striking similarity between Spitzer and the group of men who defended their career paths and corporate stewardship last Friday morning. It can be summarized in one word: entitlement.
Both Spitzer and the CEO triplets assumed that certain perks came with their roles. In Spitzer’s case, expunging fraud and various prostitution rings only made the lives of the prostitutes miserable, nonetheless under the covers, he felt a sense of entitlement to the sex, its secrecy, and the classic double-standard “do not as I do, but as I say.” What Spitzer prosecuted as criminal behavior in his professional life, he wholeheartedly embraced in his personal one.
The CEOs lived under no such self-imposed professional constraints. They enjoyed America’s ballooning executive pay which allowed the CEOs of the five largest companies to receive average compensation of $50 million each in 2006 - a 38% increase over the prior year. In 1980, America’s CEOs were paid 40 times more than the average worker; today that figure hovers around 400 times more. Nearly 10% of all corporate profits go to top executives, while average workers’ wages remain stagnant.
All three CEOs echoed similar refrains at their hearing. They cast themselves in rags-to-riches stories - ordinary men who had realized the classic American Dream - that hard work and perseverance would catapult them beyond their parents’ social class. And it did. So they believed they deserved all the wealth that their dreams bestowed upon them.
But they failed to heed a deeper truth, that “with great power comes great responsibility.” As Countrywide stock lost 85% of value, Merrill lost 40%, and Citigroup lost 45%, the CEOs argued that they were victims as well, not responsible participants. Mozilo referenced a housing market not seen this dire since the Great Depression. He recognized no liability, nor did he acknowledge that his company, the acts he lobbied for, and the greed of his industry might have caused the disastrous decline in that very market.
Besides which, Mozilo’s financial cushion is substantially more plush than that of the average borrower facing foreclosure. This insulated status appears to transcend culpability (though the timing of Mozilo’s stock sales may yet get him criminal charges). The issue of such extreme compensation should be examined not merely as a case study of personal avarice, but as a true problem which throws into question what is moral and what should be accepted as right or wrong in our society.
Most New Yorkers, average Americans and national pundits seemed certain that if Spitzer broke any law, he should forfeit his governorship, which he did this morning. On the other hand it’s unlikely that these CEOs will have to forfeit their gains, even if some have resigned from their positions.
Yet, shouldn’t the average American have the right to question the wildly extravagant pay these CEOs received when they refuse to bear any accountability in return? And why should they be allowed to protect themselves by exercising the power they enjoyed while busily stacking the decks in their favor at the expense of all the rest of us? If Spitzer has to pay the piper, surely the CEOs should be made to dance, or at least do community service.
Nomi Prins is a journalist and Senior Fellow at Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization. She is the author of Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America and Jacked: How “Conservatives” are Picking your Pocket (whether you voted for them or not). Other People’s Money, a devastating exposé into corporate corruption, political collusion and Wall Street deception was chosen as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron’s and The Library Journal.
Copyright © 2008 The Women’s International Perspective
As someone on the left fringes of the Common Dreams readership, I despise the Republican right as much as anyone, yet I find it hypocritical that Nomi Prins and others on the so-called left are so morally outraged at the media, when their scandal target is a Democrat. Yes, the Subprime CEO’s and the other thieves propagated by our political system, should be more important than our sexual scandals, but where is your outrage when the target is a Republican? Sorry, but it just sounds like a lot of partisan whining to me.
Eliot Spitzer Affair:
The most significant aspect of this scandal is the excessive attention given it by the media, and the resulting detraction from meaningful events.
Another opportunity lost.
When Governor Rockefeller wanted a divorce (remember when divorce was not legal in New York State)
he had the law changed.
So Spitzer was caught using a prostitute. This also should no longer be a crime, when both parties are willing. No worse than putting in a personal classified and start paying some one else’s living expenses or buying expensive presents. This is just life and the pursuit of happiness. Spitzer could have really changed things, fight back, go for changing the law and not stepped down. Let them start with those impeach statements. Once the impeach fire gets started we can focus it to bring more attention to the chief executive that really should be impeached - Bush.
Then get on with getting rid of the stupid drug laws, more victimless crimes.
I have a weird feeling that none of our congressmen or governors or trilateral economy-wizzards would make it through initiation (Skulls and Bones-style) if the shadow goverment didn’t have really embarrassing stuff hanging over their heads. That way the “apparant” government is really a puppet governmnet.
How else can we explain all the talking with no doing?
Which “crime” should really cause outrage?
How about this one: innocent until PROVEN guilty.
Look at the timeline, folks. On the same day the Spitz story breaks, The House Judiciary Committee is forced to filed a lawsuit against White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers aimed at forcing them to provide information about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys because the Attorney General of the United States REFUSES to enforce the laws of the land.
A cause of outrage? Nope.
Okay, then, how about this, just a few days before the Spitz:
“The Justice Department’s inspector general reported that FBI abuses in obtaining personal information about Americans during terrorism investigations continued to rise in 2006.” Said “abuses,” or, as we used to call them, thousands of felonious Constitutional violations, are on top of the already admitted-to tens of thousands of felonious violations committed by the FBI every year since ‘02.
Then, just a couple of days later, said felons of the FBI score the Gov on NY!!!
What a f**king coincidence of events, eh?
A cause of outrage? Nope.
Come on, folks - stop taking the bait.
Mayflower spritzer
From ‘rags to riches’ to Mayflower Spitzer spritzes
the deregulate Enron gate profligate corporate shills
are getting their thrills in the markiest market of old
while the main stream media tellie tube hookers
shower schadenfreude
to the festering masses
gleeful they don’t aspire to the higher classes
Yes.
Despite the Spitzer scandal-The war still rages, the economy is still in a state of collapse, and the international reputation of the United States is still in tatters.
Wonderful that the media is distracting us from all this misery-but intermission must almost be over-and back to the “main features.”
If we had real investigative reporters we might get to the bottom of this mess. I never believe what is first offered to me anymore, especially by the corporate press. They have lost credibility, they are hired lier’s.
Weather this thing comes out in the wash it remains to be seen, but never believe what is told you by the corporate press. They have an agenda.
The answer to the question posed by the title of the article is: both and for the same reasons–they show a gross abuse of trust and blatant dishonesty. So does the Iraqi war. The reason the Spitzer thing gets so much more play is that our salacious minds want to know more.
We want to know how many times he met with the high priced whore(s), what did she (or they) look like, what did the “services” include, which other “pillars of society” might the clients of the Emporor’s Club Whore House also include, etc.
When we (I am not speaking of CD respondents only but rather the American society as a whole)devour news of the malfeasence and misfeaasence on Wall Street as eagerly as we do sexual escapades then we will begin to see some parity in the public outrage factor.
Who knows?–maybe we might see corporations deprived of their immortal personhood–we can only wish and dream at this point.
Prins sez: “… shocking though the revelations about Spitzer were (and hypocritical to the max, given his platform of lily white ethical standards), his personal choices haven’t actually damaged the quality of life for any Americans …”
Ayuh. What Spitzer allegedly did with call-girls, Cheney has done to the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. treasury, the U.S. populace, the U.S. standing in the world, all while murdering hundreds of thousands. Only it was non-consensual. And we paid him.
If the truth ever comes out about the “investigation” that brought down Spitzer, it’s also likely to make my short list of outrages. Hypocrisy in pursuit of pleasure, in this context, does not.
Yes,Naomi Prins write about CEO compensation–outrageously high, while benefits for workers fizzle. But, why present it as a defense for Eliot Spitzer? I agree with dponcy above. This article reeks of partisanship. I think we pay way too much attention to when an official has an affair. That is none of our business. But prostitution is illegal and disgusting. More to the point, this incident demonstrates a sociopathic ability to believe the law is for him to enforce, not obey.
This is a Democrat-Republican issue.
If you’re a Republican you are above the law, immune to prosecution, and not accountable for anything. Smile, nod, say something about God, and walk away scot free from anything you do.
If you are a Democrat you can’t do anything, say anything, or even think anything without getting ripped to pieces by the Rebublicans and the media they control. Since America is made up of a bunch of mindless robots, they’ll all follow the media. Thus you have Democrats always doing NOTHING. When one Democrat (Kucinich) tries to stand up to a Republican, you will see all the other Democrats turn tail and run. Democrats do not back each other up. They shout about the ‘change’ they are going to make until a Republican shows up, then they don’t say a word. If Spitzer was a Republican, he would be laughing and tap dancing right back into his office.
While Spitzer is but one of the many basket cases that needs to be fired immediately, the media has used the Spitzer case to deflect attention from an even worse basket case…Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve.
Bernanke has institutionalized the regressive monetary policy perfected by Alan Greenspan. Greenspan’s loose reign on the banks and low interest rates enabled the “subprime mortgage crisis” as it it called. By cutting interest rates during the past six months Bernanke has set the stage for a far worse recession than would otherwise have occurred. On Monday Bernanke started allowing banks to borrow by using subprime mortgage securities as collateral. Although that action is tantamount to using laxatives to treat a person suffering from diahrrea, it should allow the banks to dump more of the bad loan liability on to the US taxpayers.
Spitzer is a massive hypocrite, for he says one thing and behaves in one way when it comes to others (for instance, the prostitution rings he went after when he was district attorney), but he does another when it comes to his own interets (for instance, his sexual interests).
He is also a cynic, for he obviously believes that there are two standards: one for the hoi polloi, and one for his holliness.
For these reasons, not because he had sex with a prostitute, he had to go, for a man so hypocritical and so cynical cannot be trusted. If he had remained governor, what law would he have exempted himself from next?
It is entirely inappropriate to dub this man “George Fox”. George Fox founded the Religious Society of Friends. This is about on par with
dubbing him “Martin Luther King”, or “Pope Pius”. What is wrong with
his own name, that other revered names should be marred by association
with his conduct.
It is sad that the US people get more upset about one mans hypocricy than another mans lies, when the lies have resulted in hundreds of thousands dying in Iraq, and millions loosing their homes and been turned into refugees. Compare that to the victims of Spitzer’s crime — his wife and to a lesser extent his family; and his crime seems somehow much deminished.
His biggest failing is not that he paid for sex.. it is that he was (and I hope no more will be) a rank hypocrite. A fitting punishment for his misdemenor would be to spent the rest of his life being an advocate for prostitutes and the legalisation of their trade rather than a user of prostitutes. Why should he be forced to step down, when Bill Clinton who
commited a far more egregious crime, both by his abuse of an employee working for him, and by doing so in the Oval Office (forever tarnishing the name of the White House) was not.
We’ll be hearing about Spitzer’s (gasp!)prostitution thing, and Geraldine Ferraro’s mangled comment about Obama for a week or two. I wonder what Bush is “taking care of” while we’re being diverted?
Nothing tittilates the public curiosity more then a taudry affair or illicit sex, expecially when it involves the high and mighty. Just witness the feeding frenzy in ‘98 over the Monica-Bill events.
But try and expose the twisted tale of deception, war profiteering, murder and ignoring-pissing on the constitution, and the nation and the MSM, collectively yawn.
I can imagine similar reactions in Rome, Greece and antient Egypt.
We may be able to communicate instantanously across the globe, shot a plane down over the horizon, take a photo of a golf ball from 22,000 miles up in space and read Titleist 4 on it, but focus on the real crimes occuring behind closed doors?
Our reptilian brains would much rather be entertained with a story of a fall from grace then a failure of our institutions to protect us from the real criminals in our midst.
Frank1569 and Andersdl - I should have started at the top instead of the bottom of the posts, and would have seen from your posts a little of what’s being hidden by Spitzer’s and Ferraro’s scandals.
It’s amazing what Aphrodite does to middle aged men just to amuse the other Gods. Poetic justice for hypocracy brings a smile to the rest of us. In another time and place NOT having something on the side is viewed with suspicion. This gives someone else an opportunity to lead for awhile - lets hope he’s not robbed blind by those Subprime CEOs.
There’s something wrong with this guy’s head that he pays $4300 for a goddamn whore.
I would advise the governor to spend a weekend in Nogales. He should ask the cab driver to take him to Canal Street and drop him off at the Club Mexico. He should mention to the prostitutes who descend on him at his bar table that he’s the governor of NY. I’m sure the girls will be really impressed.
I had a boss in the early 70’s who took me to a whore in Mexico, and I eagerly went. $10, and I bet she was smarter and prettier than the governor’s whore.
You can get some nasty diseases balling whores these days. But it doesn’t take any brains at all to be a politician in the U.S.
There are a couple of things to consider. The first is that sex scandals are a two-edged sword that does not discriminate between political parties: David Vitter, Mark Foley, et al. Until the USA gets over its’ puritan hangover regarding sex (which the porn & escort businesses would loath as they would lose a lot of earning power), this will remain a factor. The second is that sex scandals sell a lot more media than financial scandals, even though money scandals damage the general public a lot more. Until the public, on its’ own, determines to make media explicating financial scandals more lucrative than sex scandals, we will be at this sorry state.
How about NONE of them? Why blame the CEOs of sub-prime lenders for people thinking they were going to get away with buying houses they couldn’t afford? They all signed the applications stating they were making 3 to 5 TIMES what they made to purchase these homes and never said a thing. Then when it all went south, it became the fault of their mortgage brokers. Americans are a bunch of spoiled, self centered, self involved cry babies who need to start taking responsibility for their own actions. In the case of Elliot Spitzer, it was nobody’s business what he did with his free time.
Isn’t it odd that millions watch soaps and live vicariously through the actors’ illicit affairs. Probably many of these same people are condemning Spitzer for his immorality. But, hey, at least don’t stone adulteresses to death, like Jewish law decreed in the days of old.
Meanwhile, Wall Street greed continues to run rampant. That’s our family values for you.
He slurps her up and Spits her out when done. Well, that was fun. Here’s 500 down on future funhood when I’m in the neighborhood. Damned Charming, D.C., it’s been nice. I came, I got go - to get back home to frown and stomp out vice.
wall Street has been gunning for Spitzer since he started (being one of the few that would actually take these bastards to court).
The media and us slop it up because sex is 1. easier than economics 2. prostitution is more transparent that facism 3. we’re all so puritanical and suppressed we really do get off on this stuff.
I apprecieate this article. Have I heard even a smidgen of “isn’t wall street more grieveous and imporant issue?” Not a one. Oh wait, was this about a blow job in the oval office?
And this thought started to form in my head….
Shaping the Language.
We get quick reactions from talk about affairs and sex etc because it may be easier to understand than economics, but the underliying framework is Morality. Sex=Bad. But when we talk about ceo’s and corporations, and how things fall apart or get stolen, it is all very complex, dealing with many people over time etc etc, when we should be framing the issue Stealing=Bad. Morality easily fires up people because, well I still don’t know, but maybe because it is an absolute, and we can yell because we know we are standing with our backs firm against some moral wall, and can’t get confused or defeated with ‘details’.
It’s ok for us liberals to use this frame:
Adultery=Bad (spitzer)
Stealing=Bad (corporations)
Murder=Bad (Iraq)
Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column today begins:
“I admit that I’m curious.
What, exactly, is included in $5,500-an-hour sex? Does the woman sweat Dom Perignon?”
And let’s not forget that Harkin Energy insider trading thing that George W. Bush didn’t get nailed with because his father was President of the United States. Guess what a prosecution in that instance might have saved us and the World. Reminds me of the bumper sticker that reads as follows: “Can someone give George Bush a blowjob so we can impeach him?”
Like I said before, anyone who can spend $5000 an hour on whores has too damn much money. Democrats included!
As I’ve said on other sites, this is not about Eliot Spitzer, sex, prostitutes and money manipulation. It is about our own, individual lives and how we practice our personal and professional values, day to day. Mr. Spitzer apparently(I don’t know him personally and can only guess at his motivations for his deeds, sexual or otherwise) succumbed to the Medusa of Power and may have felt himself invulnerable to his enemies. I can only guess, from my own perspective. What this offers each of us here is another opportunity to examine our own weaknesses and recognize that no one is exempt from the consequences of his/her actions. Client 9 has been identified and he is accepting at least some of his responsibility for his behavior. What of the other Clients who have yet to be named? What are the motivations of those who have called for Spitzer’s resignation or impeachment? What might the unturned stone reveal about them? In a world of speculation, we are left with only our own suppositions, based on little more than our own prejudices and shadow sides of projection.
Forgiveness is an incredibly powerful virtue. It may be time to dispense a little and see what healing may arise. There is a classic line in ancient literature: “Physician, Heal Thyself.” Casting stones from glass houses invites a lot of broken glass. Be careful where you tread.
I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john
blueticket –
Everyone’s missing the obvious here about the ‘fee’. The types of sex acts insinuated, “ones that you may not think are safe”, practically require illegal drugs as part and parcel of the experience. Cocaine is highly favored, because it can numb other body parts besides the brain. Then you might wonder, “what is the point”, but having lived through the Prudehole Bay, Alaska pipeline days (fortunately only vicariously), let me assure you that cocaine is a BIG player in these games.
I would guess at least a grand and probably more of the fee went to purchase drugs, and the call girl acts as courier. Wish this would at least be speculated on in the msm. There are WAY too many little people in jail for partaking of the evil weed (sacrament of the hippie religion), and WAY too many bigwigs (the Clintons and Bushes come immediately to mind) who are secretly coking up big time.
For any interesting read, look up info on drug running in the 1980’s through Little Rock where Slick Willie was gov; the money ended up being used by Bush the Elder to buy weapons for Iran Contra.
The Clintons and the Bushes go WAY back. In more ways than one.
Also, we make a grave mistake in separating sex from war. Too often they are polar opposite expressions of the same mindset. My father-in-law spent two wars dropping bombs on people and whoring around (both genders) between missions. Just another way to drop bombs, in his view.
And it wasn’t stress release for him. He liked his job. (Dropping bombs, that is). Ask the people on the receiving end of the bombs Clinton ordered dropped on Bosnia during a phone conversation while Monica was pleasuring him under the table, if they think those were two separate events.
When men stop prostituting themselves to the war machine, THAT will be the beginning of the end of prostitution.
Spitzer is an arrogant Son of a Bitch.
Last week he was caught in a sex scandal.
However, after all of the Media stories and leaks, it still remains that as a High Government Official, he broke a half dozen Federal Laws. .As a New York licensed lawyer and former Federal AG he violated his Oaths to Uphold the Law.
Spitzer should be tried for serious charges. Starting with Federal Income Tax Violations, Braking the Mann Act on numerous occations, Illegally wiring funds across state lines, and outside the USA to finance criminal activities.
Obstructing a criminal investigation by lying to FBI investigators. Violating U.S. Banking Regulations by disguising over $80,000 into a series of checks, each under $4,900, and made out to dummy corporations for multiple illegal transactions.
The IRS should audit all of Spitzers’ Tax Returns for the most recent 5 years, prior to 2007…….
Eliot Spitzer is both a CRIMINAL and PERVERT.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The U.S. Department of Justice should make an example of this corrupt Public Official.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He had to go if only for his fiscal irresponsibility. $80,000.00 really? What a waste of money. What a dope. What a maroon, as bugs would say.
Why is it that only victimless sex crimes get the Republicans interested in impeachment, when wars without declaration, deliberate lies, conflicts of interest, searches without warrants and torturing does not? Which are the higher crimes and misdemeanors which is the Constitutional test?
Could it be that they are jealous or just that they are angry because those who get caught make it too dangerous for the rest of them to do the same immoralities themselves with sex partners behind closed doors?
[more irreverence at resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]
Spitzer is an Hero and defender of America’s home equity wealth.
Last week he caught the bankers in a multi-billion dollar subprime scandal, stealing precious mortgage funds and throwing good Americans onto the street, with direct complicity with the “White” House. They retaliated in typical subterfuge with FBI.
However, after all of the BS, … … …
no one recalls why he was set up for the sex “scandal”, and curiously, why it only seems to happen to Democrats, while the rethuglican keep on getting caught and nothing happens doing even worse.
“This is the stuff that causes political dreams in America to dissolve even faster than the seismic destruction unleashed by the subprime mortgage crisis and the economic recession that has followed it.”
When the majority in this country lose most of what they have worked for all their lives as a result of multiple and apparently never-ending Wall Street scams, they might actually wake up and start paying attention to what’s important.
Sheep just love sex scandals!
Quoting from an article by David Walsh entitled, “New York Governor Eliot Spitzer Forced to Resign in Sex Scandal” —
“The real concerns in this episode center on the methods used by the Bush administration’s Justice Department and their implications for the entire political system. What the facts and the context strongly suggest is that Spitzer was targeted by powerful enemies in the government, who act without restraint and on behalf of a definite political agenda.
“With its enormous financial and technological resources, and new-found powers under laws enacted in the name of the bogus “war on terror,” the federal government has the means to “get the goods” on its opponents and either intimidate them into silence, destroy their careers, or have them locked away in prison. Political scores are settled in this manner and prominent figures eliminated in bloodless “hits.”
“How many others are under investigation? What kind of impact will the set-up of Spitzer have on American political life, where those who live “blameless lives” are few and far between? …
“… one needs to ask, at what level did this sting operation receive approval? Was it approved by Attorney General Michael Mukasey? Was George W. Bush involved?
“The affair became the property of the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, notorious under the Bush administration for its investigation of 5.6 times as many Democrats as Republicans. …
“This is all about politics and the way in which politics is conducted in the US at present. With great fanfare, amid endless claims about the need to protect freedom and democracy, the US government launched the “war on terror,” tightened banking regulations to fight “terrorist financing,” and what has it accomplished? Involving the governor of New York in a sordid sex scandal! …
“The Spitzer affair is terribly American, reflective of a country where social and class issues are not yet fought out openly, but through coded messages, metaphors and scandals. Meanwhile, the working population is disenfranchised and forced to choose between one or another millionaire politician.
The increasing resort to police-state methods to regulate political differences demonstrates that those social and class issues are threatening ever more insistently to burst through to the surface.”
Here’s the entire article by David Walsh — http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/sptz-m13.shtml
namaste March 13th, 2008 6:56 pm
“Last week he caught the bankers in a multi-billion dollar subprime scandal, stealing precious mortgage funds and throwing good Americans onto the street, with direct complicity with the “White” House. They retaliated in typical subterfuge with FBI.”
While retaliation is the name of the game, we can only hope that the rest of the governors and attorney generals across the country who are going after this part of the Wall Street crime syndicate aren’t hiding any sex scandals yet to be uncovered.
The mentality in this country is so pathetic….it’s just astounding!
It is refreshing that so many bloggers here condemn men buying prositute services. The general hubbub around some offices has seemed to portray buying sex as an extreme sport by virtue of the price paid. There has been very little talk of the moral apsects of Spitzer’s behavior, only whether she was worth the price paid. And some add the thought of how much they’d pay. So thanks for these blogs which broaden perspective from “Doin’ what comes natural”.
Spitzer’s big crime is hypocrisy. He’s been hoist on his self-righteous crusader persona. Those CEOs on the other hand are part of the raider baron mentality that rules the world. We have a world view based on an economic theory of permanent growth. It is a world view as laughable as the flat earth dogma. But it is the model our world leaders have chosen to accept. It is a model that compels the continuation of the practices that have brought us climate change, rampant pollution, loss of biodiversity, oh, and the mortgage crisis. In the grand scheme, Spitzer, like Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, Dwight Eisenhower, and probably 9 out of 10 of the remaining US presidents, is guilty of exercising the long-prevailing male prerogative of stepping outside of marriage when they think they can get away with it. Ho-hum
Yawn. It should be obvious by now that sex scandals are the preferred method to get rid of political problems for the real power-brokers in this country.
One would think with all the electronic surveillance going on right now, there is a long list of people in powerful positions with known sexual affairs. The important questions are: why did they choose this guy to expose, and why now?
My guess is 1) he is went after the “wrong” folks, and 2) as a distraction from other much more pressing problems, like failure in Iraq, collapsing economy, rising unemployment, etc.
The FBI, which apparently took time off from illegally spying on millions of other Americans, investigated Spitzer for at least six months to find evidence that he had private, consensual sex for cash with adult women. This was a political hit job, no doubt about it. Yes, these corrupt CEOs are bad, but what about Bush, Cheney et al., who have committed literally millions of felonies–forced disappearances; torture, including many cases resulting in death; accessing email, phone, financial, health, academic and other records; awarding huge, lucrative, no-bid contracts to political cronies and covering up their wrongdoing, destroying records, and other offenses? Where is the outrage? I’m sick of gloating conservatives smirking about Spitzer’s peccadillos while gleefully supporting the Bush administration’s crimes that are destroying our nation.
The telling difference between Spitzer and the housing CEO’s is that they are still enjoying their $1000/hour prostitutes. And to do so, all they needed was an unwavering desire to promote their own welfare, at the expense of others if need be. As a prosecutor and politician, Spitzer had to at least pretend to care about crime, and the evidence is that he DID care and did much to clean it up. Nevertheless, because we expect CEO’s to be nothing more than predators, and politicians to be nothing less than saints: he’ll go down for the count, and they’ll continue merrily ripping off the little guy in the name of capitalism, and spending their gains on madams of every persuasion. I wish, often, I could be a CEO. All you have to do is chuck your morality and wade into the killing fields. If killing your competition means having the ‘flavor of the month’ in your bed, with no regrets, how much better and simpler than trying to figure out how (and how far) ethics should proceed in our messy public lives.
What are you griping about, those three CEO’s are the poster boys for the Great American Dream that is part and parcel of this nation. Getting rich is all that matters. The business of america is business, isn’t that the motto, it has been spouted enough and the guvmint has followed it for the past 100 years. The Constitution is about property rights and little about human rights. Mencken called those blind believers in the goodness of this nation the booboise what has changed? Spitzer, the law and order man, got caught and his mendacity uncovered, couldn’t keep his mouth or his fly zipped. He reminds me of another fighter for justice, ever ready for the fighting pose, that paragon of American virtue, Edgar J. Hoover, hollow men. Don’t look to the two parties to change anything for your betterment , they won’t and yet when Nader runs for Presdent what do you hear but mostly condemnation. Those guys in Vermont who want to secede sound damnedably sane to me.
The answer to this one is easy: go after Spitzer - - his money will run out before that of the greedheads he’s threatened.
look at how focused,efficient and timely the msn can be when going after the whore monger-compare the same crowd when its covering the war mongers.can’t help but notice.we now know all about the obscure mann act,structuring,and yikes-dummy corps-not to mention those dreaded wire transactions.not so much about the war powers act,the geneva accords,fisa,the bill of rights,habeas corpus,or what ever damned part of the us code prohibits the sale of weapons abroad to be used for aggressive purposes.it took several YEARS,and a host of lawsuits just to get a list of the attendees at cheney’s energy policy meetings back in the day,and the minutes are still state secrets.but they attacked the sheriff o’ wall street like a wolf on a damned pork chop.
He could have also gone to Germany or Holland where it’s actually legal. The $4300 could have paid for a foursome and first class plane and hotel.
He seemed way to smart to get caught in his own net. He knew going after the powerful would put him in such a position. I find this whole thing very surprising.
Yet it wasn’t (like Craig and the other reps) the sex. It was the hypocrisy, and he now falls into that as well.
The off putting thing is that he was going after the legitimately corrupt as apposed to bashing gay rights and cutting taxes to the rich.
We should be outraged that sex is turned into the circus it is, because doing this is quite intentionally designed to keep us from much more important questions. If you want to start feeling some real outrage at a massive fraud that has been stealing trillions from you, no matter which ‘modern western democracy’ you live in, start here - Banketeering - how the banks have been stealing trillions from you, and the tap is still running http://www.rudemacedon.ca/dlp/box/box01-money.html
Elliot who cares. But there should be a cap on wealth/income!
Who needs more than a hundred grand a year say, who needs to accumulate more than a mill…?
Greedy materialistic a-holes, that is who. Because if there is only so much to go around, profound wealth for some=profound poverty for others…..hhhmmmm…..
BUT I NEVER HEAR THAT-A CAP ON WEALTH!!!!!!!
I don’t have much sympathy for Spitzer, not only because of his hypocrisy, but because he should have been smart enough to keep his you-know-what in his pants, as he must have known that the Bushies and Wall Street would be looking for dirt on him (just like Bill Clinton knew it but was too horny and reckless to care).
Check out Greg Palast’s take on Spitzer and the Subprimes (apologies if someone posted it above and I missed it):
The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked
By Greg Palast
Reporting for Air America Radio’s Clout
Listen to Palast on Clout at www.GregPalast.com
While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.
Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.
This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.
Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.
Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.
How? Follow the money.
The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.
Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and it’s variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chuck of these ‘sub-prime.’
Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 a month payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. Grinnings move into their Toyota.
Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.
‘Steering,’ sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called ‘fraudulent conveyance’ or ‘predatory lending’ under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.
But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hardy – it was OK now to steer’m, fake’m, charge’m and take’m.
But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.
Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush’s regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of “federal pre-emption,” Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws.
Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block Spitzer’s investigation of ugly racial mortgage steering. Bush’s banking buddies were especially steamed that Spitzer hammered bank practices across the nation using New York State laws.
Spitzer not only took on Countrywide, he took on their predatory enablers in the investment banking community. Behind Countrywide was the Mother Shark, its funder and now owner, Bank of America. Others joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup’s Citibank made mortgage usury their major profit centers. They did this through a bit of financial legerdemain called “securitization.”
What that means is that they took a bunch of junk mortgages, like the Grinnings, loans about to go down the toilet and re-packaged them into “tranches” of bonds which were stamped “AAA” - top grade - by bond rating agencies. These gold-painted turds were sold as sparkling safe investments to US school district pension funds and town governments in Finland (really).
When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers were left with bonuses. Countrywide’s top man, Angelo Mozilo, will ‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion dollars – he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.
But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.
Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.
The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bail-out. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.
Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value. Mozilo’s Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The Citi sheiks saw their company’s stock rise $10 billion in an afternoon.
And that very same day the bail-out was decided – what a coinkydink! – the man called, ‘The Sheriff of Wall Street’ was cuffed. Spitzer was silenced.
Do I believe the banks called Justice and said, “Take him down today!” Naw, that’s not how the system works. But the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was “Wall Street Declares War on Spitzer” - made clear to Bush’s enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden.
It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:
“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which he federal government was turning a blind eye.”
Bush, said Spitzer right in the headline, was the “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.
Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”
But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.
A note on “Prosecutorial Indiscretion.”
Back in the day when I was an investigator of racketeers for government, the federal prosecutor I was assisting was deciding whether to launch a case based on his negotiations for airtime with 60 Minutes. I’m not allowed to tell you the prosecutor’s name, but I want to mention he was recently seen shouting, “Florida is Rudi country! Florida is Rudi country!”
Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”
Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.
Or maybe we should say, ‘indiscretion.’
If this is the worst they got on Spitzer, he must have been fairly clean otherwise. If they had evidence of embezzlement, fraud, bribery, etc. that would have landed him a felony and been a much better way to take him down. Of course, if the FBI investigated everyone in politics for those crimes, D.C. and other hotbeds of politics would be somewhat devoid of people. Also, it would also create an expectation that crooked politicians, investors, etc. everywhere might be at risk of being brought to justice. God forbid that.
But worse than infidelity, etc. is bringing it out into the public sphere. What people do in their bedrooms is not a matter of public record, though I’d assume his wife may have something to say about it. The list of leaders, foreign and past, which have had mistresses is large. Only in America, probably the largest producer of both porn and prudes, would this even be an issue.
Outrage? Politicians have been doing “it” to us for years at least GW has finally gotten around to paying us for the priveledge, although $600 isn’t the same as $5000 per hour. Wait a minute he’s paying us with our money. Boy we really are getting “it” !!! ln New Jersey we call it “BOHICA”
anne faith — Thanks for the details, the insidious corruption is reprehensible and clearly racist violations of many people’s civil rights.
Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
Um- why are so many people anti-prostitution here?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not exactly and “honorable” job, but I just don’t understand the level of disgust people have for it. It’s just sex between two consenting adults for a fee. Nothing really dangerous about it - especially with “high-class” hookers who don’t streetwalk for their tricks. The streetwalkers are more likely to have diseases, but getting those is like drinking a forty when you could be sipping champagne - you get what you pay for, and sometimes a little something extra.
If prostitution were brought above-ground, it would actually improve the prostitutes’ health and public health in general. In Amsterdam, it’s regulated and all of them are required to get STD screenings and use condoms, all of which is paid for by the state. There’s no streetwalkers over there either. While I was there I treated myself to one because there’s really nothing controversial about it.
Come to think of it, if all you want is sex, you’ll spend less money, time and effort banging a hooker than to get a “real” woman out of her pants.
Bottom line is that prostitution will NEVER go away. It’s a lot like drug use, which is why combating it with prohibition will NEVER work. It’s better to stop real crimes with that money than waste it on a consensual, victimless act. Spitzer was just an idiot for banging prostitutes while being a politician. That was some expensive pussy because it cost him over $80,000 and his career. He definitely didn’t do a cost-benefit evaluation.
Being a prostitute is about 20 rungs up the ladder of intrinsic wickedness from our current crop of psychopathic fascist republican criminals in DC.
We should be celebrating the prostitute’s relative purity and morality, as compared to those murdering millions for egregious profits and suffering of all of humankind.
Namaste
Yeah, take the Hookers out of the hands of criminals and put them into the hands of Politcians who know what to do with them. In California we used to say COYOTE!!!
there was a suggestion made in the letters to the editor of the new york times that eliot spitzer could make up for his crime by creating a fund for free housing for jailed prostitutes to help them overcome what likely brought them to practice that trade: poverty.
thank you, anne faith, for the info about how it apparently went down in double standard washington, dc.
the connection between types of scandals? poverty for the victims.
mary lou That’s why l started Father Fingerin’s Home for Wayward Girls. A place where they can get off the street and feel as safe as an altered boy. Faith,Hope, and Charity are just three of the girls that no longer work the streets and now work my rectory where l lay my hands upon them and show them Gabriel’s Trumpet. That’s Father Fingerin’s Home for Wayward Girls where all men are welcome for a donation of only $500 for the first hour and only $100 for each additional hour. Father Fingerin’s we always have a red light on for the sinner.