The Politics of Deception: Financial secrets of the candidates

Posted December 6, 2007

"We, too, love to make money on oil and drug companies. Despite what candidates may tell you, investing and even speculating is a prudent way to create and expand wealth, achieving financial independence. Every American household should actively and responsibly take charge of its finances — instead of counting on the government to nationalize and redistribute the individual property of those who already do." — J. Christoph Amberger

by J. Christoph Amberger

Baltimore — (TFN): Watching the candidates' debates these days, you might get the impression they all are saints and humanitarians who spend their spare time ladling soup for the homeless, polishing their halos, and fretting about where the next paycheck is going to come from to cover the rent for their rent-control efficiency.

Especially liberal candidates running for President of the People are keen to appear as veritable Mother Theresas, making a lower-middle-class living right next door to the blue-collar working man.

Pulling this off requires the acting skills of Academy Award winners. And I presume more than method acting is involved if you're a multi-millionaire living in the biggest mansion in your home county, spend more on heating your pools and tennis courts than the average American earns in a year, and require a private jet to take you to your hair appointments — as you need to convince people you're the champion of the poor.

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(It is quite tragic that John Edwards has thus far been passed up for the Daytime Emmy Awards…)

Financial Secrets They'd Rather Keep to Themselves

The Clintons' total wealth, for example, has been valued at anywhere between $10 million and $50 million. No wonder, if you clear a cool million in speaking fees every month. Much of this folksy wealth is parked in a blind trust that profited handsomely from stock holdings in oil and drug companies, military contractors and Wal-Mart — before Hillary ordered it to made more politically correct for her presidential run this past summer.

Not that there is anything wrong with that: We, too, love to make money on oil and drug companies. Despite what candidates may tell you, investing and even speculating is a prudent way to create and expand wealth, achieving financial independence.

Every American household should actively and responsibly take charge of its finances — instead of counting on the government to nationalize and redistribute the individual property of those who already do.

But it becomes quite problematic when politicians mix their holier-than-though rhetoric with the unscrupulous pursuit of their own financial well-being. Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder comes to mind… whose crypto-communist past and close ties with East German communists didn't keep him from masquerading as a moderate liberal for the duration of his office.

Vested Interests

Schröder was instrumental in bullying Poland and the Baltic states into accepting the plans for an undersea natural gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. Russian gas would bypass troublesome countries like Ukraine and cut out their tariffs and taxes levied on Russian gas monopolist Gazprom.

Russian president Putin sent his compliments… and handed Schröder a highly-paid job on the board of a Gazprom affiliate within days after leaving his office.

Former vice president and latter-day eco-saint Al Gore also has just demonstrated the benefits of long-term financial planning. After an Oscar-winning performance in his science fiction movie, the leni Rieffenstahl Awards, and the Yassir Arafat Peace price, the inventor of the internet is now a leading venture capitalist. He announced last week that he'd be joining Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers as partner heading up their "climate change solutions" group.

I would, too, if I knew that my political colleagues were about to unleash a torrent of government money at that particular sector that will probably lift and carry even those technologies that would never be able to become economically viable by their own virtue.

Meanwhile, those of us who have not (yet) been able to leverage our politically correct mantras into seven- or eight-figure honoraria, consulting fees, and options deals still have to make a buck the old-fashioned way.

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