<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>Pots calling kettles black. <br><br>Kit Craine<div><br></div></div><div><br>On Feb 23, 2012, at 2:45 PM, Donovan Arnold <<a href="mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com">donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div style="RIGHT: auto"><span style="RIGHT: auto">I don't understand why politicians don't attack their opponents contributors more. It says a lot about the candidate and their (lack of) values.</span></div>
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<div style="RIGHT: auto"><span style="RIGHT: auto">Donovan Arnold</span></div>
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<div style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; LINE-HEIGHT: 0; MARGIN: 5px 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; HEIGHT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 0px; BORDER-TOP: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-TOP: 0px" class="hr" contenteditable="false" readonly="true"></div><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</span></b> Art Deco <<a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</span></b> <a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</a> <br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</span></b> Thursday, February 23, 2012 1:04 PM<br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</span></b> Re: [Vision2020] Romney’s Top <span id="misspell-0" class="mark">Funders</span>/Vultures Made Billions on Auto Bail-Out<br></font></div><br>
<div id="yiv1534220300">Whores.<br><br>
<div class="yiv1534220300gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Nicholas <span id="misspell-1" class="mark">Gier</span> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ngier006@gmail.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:ngier006@gmail.com"><a href="mailto:ngier006@gmail.com">ngier006@gmail.com</a></a>></span> wrote:<br>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><b><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Romney’s Top <span id="misspell-2" class="mark">Funders</span> Made Billions on Auto Bail-Out</span></b></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">By Greg <span id="misspell-3" class="mark">Palast</span>, Nation of Change, Feb. 23, 2012</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney called the federal government’s 2009 bail-out of the auto industry, “nothing more than crony capitalism, Obama style... a reward for his big donors to his campaign." In fact, the biggest rewards – a windfall of more than two billion dollars care of U.S. taxpayers –– went to Romney's two top contributors. </span></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> John <span id="misspell-4" class="mark">Paulson</span> of <span id="misspell-5" class="mark">Paulson</span> & Co and Paul Singer of Elliott International, known on Wall Street as “vulture” investors, have each written checks for one million dollars to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC supporting Romney’s candidacy.</span></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> The two hedge fund operators turned a breathtaking three-thousand percent profit on a relatively negligible investment by using hardball tactics against the U.S. Treasury and their own employees.</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Gov. Romney last week asserted that the Obama Administration’s support for General Motors was a, “payoff for the auto workers union.” However, union workers in GM’s former auto parts division, Delphi, the unit taken over by Romney’s <span id="misspell-6" class="mark">funders</span>, did not fair so well. The speculators eliminated every single union job from the parts factories once manned by 25,200 UAW members. </span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Under the control of the speculators, Delphi, which had 45 plants in the U.S. and Canada, is now reduced to just four factories with only 1,500 hourly workers, none of them UAW members, despite the union agreeing to cut contract wages by two thirds.</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">It <span id="misspell-7" class="mark">wasn</span>’t supposed to be quite so bad. The Obama Administration and GM had arranged for a private equity investor to provide half a billion dollars in new capital for Delphi, but that would have cut the pay-out to Singer and <span id="misspell-8" class="mark">Paulson</span>. The speculators blocked the Obama-GM plan, taking the entire government bail-out hostage. Even the Wall Street Journal’s <span id="misspell-9" class="mark">Dealmaker</span> column was outraged, accusing Paul Singer of treating the auto company, “like a third world country.”</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">But it worked. Singer and <span id="misspell-10" class="mark">Paulson</span> got what they demanded. Using U.S. Treasury funds:</span></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN-LEFT: 1.25in" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">·<span style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 7pt"> </span></span><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">GM agreed to pay off $1.1 billion of Delphi’s debts,</span></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN-LEFT: 1.25in" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">·<span style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 7pt"> </span></span><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Forgave $2.15 billion owed GM by Delphi (which had been spun off as an independent company)</span></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN-LEFT: 1.25in" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">·<span style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 7pt"> </span></span><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Pumped $1.75 billion into Delphi operations, and </span></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN-LEFT: 1.25in" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">·<span style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 7pt"> </span></span><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Took over four money-losing plants that the speculators <span id="misspell-11" class="mark">didn</span>’t want.</span></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> If those plants had been closed, GM factories would have shut down cold for lack of parts.</span><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> Then there was the big one: The U.S. government agreed to take over $6.2 billion in pension benefits due Delphi workers under U.S. labor law. </span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Governor Romney, while opposing the bail-out of GM, accused Obama of eliminating the pensions of 21,000 non-union employees at Delphi. In fact, it was Romney’s <span id="misspell-12" class="mark">funders</span> who wiped out 100% of the pensions and health care accounts of Delphi salaried retirees.</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><span id="misspell-13" class="mark">Paulson</span> and Singer paid an average of about 67 cents a share for Delphi. In November, 2011, <span id="misspell-14" class="mark">Paulson</span> sold a chunk of his holdings for $22 a share. <span id="misspell-15" class="mark">Paulson</span>’s gain totals a billion and a half dollars ($1,499,499,000), and Singer gained nearly a billion ($899,751,000) –– thirty-two times their investment.</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">One-hundred percent of this gain for the <span id="misspell-16" class="mark">Paulson</span> and Singer hedge funds is accounted for by taxpayer bail-out support. </span></div>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> But, unlike the government loans and worker concessions given to GM, the U.S. Treasury and workers get nothing in return from Delphi. </span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">From GM, the U.S. Treasury got warrants for common stock (similar to options) that have already produced billions in profit.</span><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> And Delphi? It’s doing well for <span id="misspell-17" class="mark">Paulson</span> and Singer. GM and Chrysler, still in business by the grace of the U.S. Treasury, remain Delphi’s main customers, buying parts now made almost entirely in China and other cheap-labor nations.</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">And exactly who are <span id="misspell-18" class="mark">Paulson</span> and Singer?</span><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> Billionaire John <span id="misspell-19" class="mark">Paulson</span> became the first man in history to earn over $3 billion in a single year –– not for his hedge fund, but for himself, personally. At the core of this huge payday was a 2007 scheme by which, via Goldman Sachs, he sold “insurance” on <span id="misspell-20" class="mark">subprime</span> mortgage loans. According to a lawsuit filed by the Securities Exchange Commission, Goldman defrauded European banks by pretending that <span id="misspell-21" class="mark">Paulson</span> was investing in the insurance. In fact, <span id="misspell-22" class="mark">Paulson</span> was, secretly, the beneficiary of the insurance,
reaping billions when the mortgage market collapsed. </span><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Goldman paid half a billion dollars in civil fines for the fraud. While the SEC states that <span id="misspell-23" class="mark">Paulson</span> knowingly participated in the scheme, he was not fined and denies he defrauded the banks.</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><span id="misspell-24" class="mark">Multi</span>-billionaire Singer is known as Wall Street’s toughest “vulture” speculator. Vulture fund financial attacks on the world’s poorest nations have been effectively outlawed in much of Europe and excoriated by human rights groups, conduct Britain’s former Prime Minister Gordon Brown described as, “morally outrageous.”</span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><i>Greg <span id="misspell-25" class="mark">Palast</span> has been investigating vulture speculator Paul Singer for BBC Television <span id="misspell-26" class="mark">Newsnight</span> and Britain’s Guardian for five years. The investigative reporter is author of Vultures’ Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores and the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. For reports on Singer and vulture funds, go to <a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="COLOR: blue">www.GregPalast.com</span></a> and <a href="http://www.vulturespicnic.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="COLOR: blue">www.VulturesPicnic.org</span></a>.</i></span></div>
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<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%" class="yiv1534220300MsoNormal"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></div><br>=======================================================<br> List services made available by First Step Internet,<br> serving the communities of the <span id="misspell-27" class="mark">Palouse</span> since 1994.<br> <a href="http://www.fsr.net/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><a href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a></a><br> <span id="misspell-28" class="mark">mailto</span>:<a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com"><a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</a></a><br>=======================================================<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com"><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a></a><br></div><br>=======================================================<br>List services made available by First Step Internet,<br>serving the communities of the <span id="misspell-29" class="mark">Palouse</span> since 1994.<br> <a href="http://www.fsr.net/" target="_blank"><a href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a></a><br> <span id="misspell-30" class="mark">mailto</span>:<a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" ymailto="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com"><a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</a></a><br>=======================================================<br><br></div></div><var id="yui-ie-cursor"></var><var id="yui-ie-cursor"></var></div></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>=======================================================</span><br><span> List services made available by First Step Internet,</span><br><span> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.</span><br><span> <a href="http://www.fsr.net"><a href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a></a></span><br><span> <a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com"><a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com</a></a></span><br><span>=======================================================</span></div></blockquote></body></html>