Where does a trillion dollars go?
So how many of you are actually budget oriented in your house? Do you sit down at the beginning of the month and spend every dollar you have “On paper On purpose” as Dave Ramsey says? Ok, so maybe you do. Do you think that you could do that for a trillion dollars? I doubt it. Any budget that contained that much money to be allocated is certain to have a few “leaks”. You know, where people try to allocate some of the money to an organization or company for a “good” reason… Sooner or later (usually later) we find out that the organization in question has ties back to the progenitor of the disbursement.
In today’s episode, we are looking at the little reported ‘coincidence’ that Senator Diane Feinstein’s (D-Cal.) husband and his firm were recently hired by a firm that strangely enough got a $25 Billion, taxpayer-funded chunk of cash… courtesy of legislation introduced by Senator Feinstein herself. Hmmm…
Now, when you’re looking at a budget (this year) of a trillion dollars (that’s a thousand-billion dollars by the way) 25 billion isn’t really that big of a number. I mean, it’s only 2.5% of the budget, so no big deal. Right?
Well, the story from the Washington Times says that the Senator’s husband Richard Blum sits as a Board Charmain for CB Richard Ellis. CBRE won a contract to sell FDIC insured properties from failed banks. The $25 Billion comes in as a hand-out to the FDIC to pay someone to sell off these properties.
Now, there is always the possibility that this is actually all ‘above-board’ and CBRE really is the best company for the job. I mean, look at some of the no-bid contracts that Halliburton won. They were, without a doubt, the best company for some of the jobs that needed to be done. The stink comes in when the fact that the Senator doesn’t sit on the comittee that oversees the banking industry. It wasn’t really ‘her place’ to be offering this type of legislation.
I was always taught to ‘avoid even the appearance of impropriety’. Sound advice for sure. It doesn’t look like it was applied here, however. I’ll let you be the judge.