Just business as usual. Nothing to see here.
They all have the feed bag on in Washington these days. Feathering their nests for the long Kondratiev winter which they have created.
Approaching winter perhaps, but there is the smell of graft upon the air. Or is that just the burning of the infrastructure of freedom?
It does take a special kind of greed and arrogance to accept contributions from the very banks which you recently rescued with billions in taxpayer money, and who are still receiving billions in Federal support from the Fed, and dictating the terms upon which they will allow themselves to be 'reformed.' Thank you for watering down the derivatives bill, Barney.
2008 Campaign Contributions to Congressmen:
Finance and Credit
Hedge Funds
Securities and Investment
Bloomberg
Morgan Stanley Resumes PAC Giving After TARP Funding Repayment
By Jonathan D. Salant
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley’s political action committee resumed donations in the third quarter of this year after the New York-based investment bank paid back its U.S. taxpayer rescue funds, Federal Election Commission records show.
The PAC had ceased making campaign contributions until Morgan Stanley repaid $10 billion in June under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. After making no donations during the first six months of this year, Morgan Stanley gave $157,500 between July 1 and Sept. 30, including $120,000 in September.
The investment bank made $374,000 in political contributions during the first nine months of 2007; its donation total for the comparable period this year represents a 58 percent reduction.
“Since repaying TARP, Morgan Stanley’s PAC has resumed normal PAC-related activity,” Carissa Ramirez, a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley, said in an e-mail yesterday.
Most of the other large U.S. financial institutions have reduced their political giving at a time when Congress is drafting new financial regulations. Just two of 10 institutions reported increases in their PAC contributions through the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period in 2007.
Morgan Stanley has long been a major political giver. Its employees contributed $3.7 million for the 2008 elections, fifth among financial companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.
Donation to Frank
The company’s PAC donations this year include $2,500 to Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. Frank’s panel is writing the revamp of financial regulations. The PAC also gave $5,000 to Representative Melissa Bean, an Illinois Democrat, and Representative Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat. The two lawmakers co-chair the financial services task force of the pro- business New Democrat Coalition.
The PAC of Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, gave $195,000 in donations during the first nine months of 2009, as compared with $349,122 during the same period in 2007, a decline of 44 percent.
