When the No. 2 House Republican fights tooth and nail to keep millionaires and billionaires from having to play any part in the “shared sacrifice” of having to pay a cent more in taxes, he fights with the conviction of someone with skin in the game, so to speak.
From an interesting Salon item we learn, “Disclosure forms indicate that Cantor has considerable personal assets, including real estate in Virginia worth up to $1 million, and a number of six- and seven-figure loans to private entities and limited liability companies.”
But that’s not all, folks, because Cantor has some serious conflict of interest going on, in the form of money invested in a fund that shorts U.S. Treasury bonds — meaning that Cantor stands to profit when T bonds decline in value.
Last year the No. 2 Republican in the House, had between $1,000 and $15,000 invested in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury EFT. The fund aggressively “shorts” long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, meaning that it performs well when U.S. debt is undesirable. (A short is when the trader hopes to profit from the decline in the value of an asset.)
According to his latest financial disclosure statement which covers the year 2010 and has been publicly available since this spring, Cantor still has up to $15,000 in the same fund. Contacted by Salon this week, Cantor’s office gave no indication that the Virginia Republican, who has played a leading role in the debt ceiling negotiations, has divested himself of these holdings since his last filing. Unless an agreement can be reached, the U.S. could begin defaulting on its debt payments on Aug. 2. If that happens and Cantor is still invested in the fund, the value of his holdings would skyrocket.
So, despite the fact Cantor owns some T bonds, the drastic downgrading of those that will follow the first default on debt payments in U.S. history would put money in Cantor’s pocket.
That’s clearly a conflict of interest. It’s clearly a reason Cantor might have no problem forcing a default on U.S. debt repayment by refusing to raise the debt ceiling — a move that could plunge the U.S. economy into its second disastrous decline in four years precipitated by Republican stupidity, selfishness and crookedness.
While hundreds of thousands to millions more Americans would be thrown out of their jobs, homes and see their small businesses go under, Cantor would be counting substantial gains made on betting against the Treasury bonds that finance U.S. debt, so much of which has been racked up by a Republican president and Republican-controlled congresses from 2001-2006.
It’s entirely fitting Cantor made it to a House leadership position and is considered a rising star in the Republican Party. He is that despicably corrupt and selfish.
So now that this is public, will he be called out? We he be investigated? Will there be criminal charges?
As in all misgivings of the Republican party, not a damn thing will come of it. I’m so disgusted. Let’s see the Democratic voices in Congress bring this up. The silence will be deafening. Maybe the News media like MSNBC will do an in depth report. Naw they would rather talk about that little girl that was murdered. Covering that stupid trial is top priority.
I agree with the basic premise of your posting that Cantor and everybody else in congress should not be allowed and should be held accountable for any such conflicts in interest.
That said, you are exceptionally disingenuous to imply that the economic straights we are in are due just to Republican malfeasance. The supreme idiot of the world we have as president and his minions doing his bidding of Pelosi and Reid for the first two years he was in office managed to rack up more debt in 18 months than the idiot Bush did in eight years.
I guess the progressive policices such as “spread the wealth around” also have the additional caveat of “spread the misery around”. Both parties are guilty, but the damned progressives are by far the worst offenders for our economic mess.
Tim, I don’t know that Cantor’s investment in that fund is illegal. It’s clearly unethical. The appropriate response if Cantor doesn’t divest would be an ethics committee investigation followed by censure. If he votes against raising the debt ceiling while still holding that investment, he should be impeached. The MSM should indeed be making much of this, and looking to see who else has that kind of investment.
Paine, consider this fair warning. I’m going to take the time and use the space to explain this once more, and if you repeat it here your next comment is likely to be deleted — something I don’t want to have to do.
“The supreme idiot of the world we have as president . . . managed to rack up more debt in 18 months than the idiot Bush did in eight years.”
That is a right-wing noise machine lie, and I won’t allow you to use Oh!pinion to propagate it. Obama started off with $1.4 trillion in debt inherited from Bush. Bush financed both Mideast wars throughout his two terms entirely with debt. As soon as he could, Obama put the cost of those inherited wars in the budget. That was $185 billion to $230 billion a year, which ballooned the budget. On top of all that, Bush left Obama a collapsed economy with tax revenues drastically below what they had been 2001-2007.
Obama has aggravated the revenue situation greatly since by using tax cuts for stimulus and going along with Republican blackmail to keep the Bush tax cuts and make large-scale spending cuts. Again, ballooning the deficit while dampening the jobs recovery.
Your statement is a complete distortion, being spread as a lie. You now should know better than to repeat it here or anywhere. If you do, you’ll be deliberately lying.
“Despicably corrupt and selfish” are positive qualifications in the GOP operation. It goes without saying for the party of the economic elite.
Bush’s wars of choice are now projected to be $4.4 Trillion.
Time for Republicans to impose “austerity” on most Americans to pay for the malfeasance of the aristocracy.
“Progressive policies” my ass.
I don’t particularly care why he doesn’t vote for it, so long as he doesn’t vote for it. To hell with any congressmen who does unless we get a ballenced budget ammendment and a trillion in cuts PER YEAR MINIMUM.
I guess the progressive policices such as “spread the wealth around” also have the additional caveat of “spread the misery around”. Both parties are guilty, but the damned progressives are by far the worst offenders for our economic mess.
T. Pain has outdone himself with mindless repetition of a stupid talking point, with this one. Anyone who has lived in America for more than 30 years knows it. And ain’t it funny how Pain and the rest of the flying monkeys don’t have a damned thing to say when pay and benefits are slashed so that a CEO can collect a $10,000,000.00 bonus? THAT isn’t “wealth redistribution?”
T. Pain and the rest of the reverse-Maoists are to blame for our problems. The statistics do not lie. History does not lie. Only the wingers lie. Constantly.
If Cantor is raping us, he’d only be following the doctrines of his meth head heroine, Ayn Rand. That would be considered virtuous among the Randiots.
You are too kind, Mr. Anderson.
Dave, yes, and we’ll be paying for the “malfeasance of the aristocracy” plus the greed of the corporatocracy, for generations.
J.R., in some corner of his ideologically set-in-concrete mind, Paine knows the radical right caused the mess we’re in, is trying now to make it worse for political gain, and doesn’t have a leg to stand on. So, Paine is trying to change the subject, shift blame and rewrite history using Fox propaganda memes. I expect there will be much more of this from the right through the end of 2012.
L.P., I’m trying to be reasonable. It wouldn’t have been so bad if our friend had started off with, “I think” or “IMO.” He’d still be wrong, but at least wouldn’t be regurgitating lies and distortions as facts.
If I was kind, it was in omitting the billions Bush & Co. squandered on no-bid contracts, the pharmaceutical industry’s self-serving farce of a prescription drug bill and the many instances of privatizing government functions, costing taxpayers additional hundreds of millions yearly for Bush’s crony-capitalism party favors.
Nothing could surprise me about Eric Cantor. He’s one of the slipperiest bastards in Congress, and that’s saying a lot.
A few weeks ago he gave a speech to an audience full of oil speculators. He basically told them he had their backs and he’d make sure those socialist regulators wouldn’t bother them or jeopardize their Freedom.
yes, and we’ll be paying for the “malfeasance of the aristocracy” plus the greed of the corporatocracy, for generations
Ain’t that the truth. Why we allowed politicians to bail out … oh lord where to start! The first I can think of was the Savings And Loan bail outs of the 80s and there were many more leading up to the epic bail outs of TARP with George Bush and Obama along with ARRA stimulus. And now we want to enrich Goldman Sachs and the other banks with further treasuries? Are they mad?! No more borrowing. When politicians say we need to increase the debt limit, it’s like saying we need a new credit card to make the minimum balance payments on the old ones. It’s just crazy!
Tom, as usual, Cantor was just trying to keep the people he works for happy. And no, that’s not Mr. and Mrs. Nobody of Virginia.
Free0352, we do need reform to deal pre-emptively with current and future outfits deemed too big to fail. Dodd-Frank reforms make a baby-steps start, but much bolder, more-thorough reform is required.
Re: the debt ceiling. No, it’s like waving the bill from the credit card co. and saying, “OK, we spent this money, got the bill and we’re going to pay it.”
Don’t let yourself be suckered. It’s not about getting clearance to spend more. Congress doesn’t have to pass a debt ceiling measure to do that and never has had to.
Anderson… um dude… The Democrats (and a lot of Republicans for that matter) are telling us we need to raise the debt ceiling so we can “Meet our debt obligations.” What that means is… we need to borrow more money to pay the minimum balance on the money we already borrowed. That isn’t paying a debt, that’s what happens when you get f’ed up on credit… just like thousands of individuals and companies do all the time. Same thing will happen to the Government that happens to them too… bankruptcy. To me it’s a foregone conclusion at this point – our country defaulting. The FED just bought too many treasuries, no turning back at this point. It’s very simple, we have a ginormous defacit, and that leaves our country with a choice if congress refuses to let us borrow more. Pay the entitlements, or pay the debt. Can’t do both.
Since I want to stop paying entitlements, I’m going with no increase. Starve the beast. Course we could always pay the entitlements and default on the debt… but to be honest I just don’t see our elected leaders having the balls to hyperinflate. If the do, hahaha it’ll be hilarious, tragic… but hilarious all the same.
we do need reform to deal pre-emptively with current and future outfits deemed too big to fail
“We” only have to do one thing… let them fail. They made horrible financial decisions, they DESERVE to fail. People will loose their jobs. Oh well, people will then get new jobs and we can then rid the economy of these companies that have no business doing business. That’s a net plus long term.