As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.
The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group [1] LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006.
That’s Chris Cooper on page one of today’s WSJ [2]. The dancing currently going on in the Edwards camp makes “Saturday Night Fever” and “Riverdance” look like still life.
These statements that Edwards has been making about subprime lenders, about Fox news, and so on, and then having to do the warp-speed backtrack makes Edwards come off as precisely what I have always thought he was, a snake in the grass. That’s an easy judgment to make, given the proof he offers with every other utterance. The question of honesty arises here. Is Mr. Edwards so rich that $16 million worth of investments just slipped his mind?
But let’s take this a step further; Mr. Edwards is pleased to call such organizations As the one he has $16 million invested in, “predatory lenders”. let’s examine that business model, for just a moment.
Wasn’t the government specifically responsible for forcing those organizations to be performing a certain level, a certain percentage, of high risk loans particularly to minorities? Imagine the charges of racism flying around, were the banks to turn down such loans.
Look, gang…
It’s not the bank’s faults that the government insisted on playing arbiter on what constitutes “equal housing” lending.
It’s not the bank’s faults that as a direct result that said borrowers following a major disaster were unable to pay the loans they signed for.
It’s not the bank’s fault that Katrina came along. It’s not the bank’s fault that the people who were asking for loans lived in an area that is prone to storm damage.
And finally, it’s not the bank’s fault the John Edwards is hip deep in such businesses, and has piles of cash invested in making such loans, essentially profiteering from the governmental requirements to make such loans, in the first place.
Others blogging: Michelle Malkin, [3] OTB [4]