Change We can Believe in??
Penny Can You Spare A Dime?
Billionaire, Criminal, Thief, Liar, family figures out ways to avoid paying taxes, close friend of the new face on the old empire.
Where is Marat when he is needed!?
Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker, who led the prolific fundraising that helped power Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, said yesterday that she had taken herself out of the running for an appointment as US commerce secretary.
A member of one of the nation’s wealthiest families, Pritzker has known Obama since the mid-1990s and has been a financial patron of his political career since the early days of his US Senate campaign. She provided a valuable bridge to the national and regional business elite as finance chairman for Obama’s presidential campaign. Pritzker’s personal fortune is estimated at $2bn by Forbes magazine, which this year ranked her 227th on its list of the richest Americans.
Moreover, Ms. Pritzker’s family is renowned for finding ways to avoid paying taxes on its wealth. The Pritzkers were pioneers in using tax loopholes to shelter their holdings from the Internal Revenue Service, and many of their dealings have never been made public.
The family also increased its wealth by exploiting loopholes in the tax code, including setting up a series of offshore trusts that sheltered their assets from taxes.
The I.R.S. fought several battles with the Pritzkers over the arrangements. But the agency was hindered by foreign bank secrecy laws that concealed what the Pritzkers owned.
White House hopeful Barack Obama talks a lot on the campaign trail about how failing banks have used subprime loans to victimize customers. But kiss kiss Penny.
“Part of the reason we got a current mortgage crisis has to do with the fact that people got suckered in to loans that they could not pay,” he told a crowd in Reading, Pa., last week. “There were a lot of predatory loans that were given out, a lot of teaser rates. Banks and financial institutions making these loans were making money hand over fist.”
At the helm of Superior Bank was Obama’s national finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker, an heiress to the Pritzker fortune.
*Oh Yes, Do Birds of a Feather flock together? Can one tell a person by the company he/she keeps? Wasn’t someone during the campaign railing against “gaming” the tax system? But its politicks and I guess that is just the way it is.
Parts of this article are copied from the Chicago Sun Times, piece written by Lynn Sweet. For entire article click HERE.
Parts of this article are copied from Guardian.co.uk the full piece can be found by clicking HERE.
Parts of this article are copied from the New York Times and can be found by clicking HERE.
Photo from Reuters.
0 comments
Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment