How the 1% Scrubs Its Image Online
Prominent figures from Jacob Gottlieb to Betsy DeVos got help from a reputation management firm that can bury image-sensitive Google results by placing flattering content on websites that masquerade as news outlets
Jacob Gottlieb was considering raising money for a hedge fund. One problem: His last one had collapsed in a scandal.
While Mr. Gottlieb wasn’t accused of wrongdoing, googling his name prominently surfaced news articles chronicling the demise of Visium Asset Management LP, which once managed $8 billion. The results also included articles about his top portfolio manager, who died by suicide days after he was indicted for insider trading in 2016, and Mr. Gottlieb’s former brother-in-law, an employee of Visium who was convicted of securities fraud. Searches also found coverage of Mr. Gottlieb’s messy divorce in New York’s tabloids.
So last year Mr. Gottlieb hired Status Labs, an Austin, Texas-based company specializing in so-called reputation management. Its tactic: a favorable news blitz to eclipse the negative stories.
Afterward, articles about him began to appear on websites that are designed to look like independent news outlets but are not. Most contained flattering information about Mr. Gottlieb, praising his investment acumen and philanthropy, and came up high in recent Google searches. Google featured some of the articles on Google News.
His online makeover shows the steps some executives and public figures are taking to influence what comes up on the world’s top search engine. It also illustrates that despite Google’s promises to police misinformation, sites can still masquerade as news outlets and avoid Google’s detection.
Google removed five websites from Google News after The Wall Street Journal inquired about them. Google, owned by parent company Alphabet Inc., said the sites violated its policies around deceptive practices. Google’s news feature forbids “content that conceals or misrepresents sponsored content as independent, editorial content.”
Mr. Gottlieb said in an interview with the Journal that he found his press coverage unfair and wanted to fight back.
“I worked with this company to help me launch my new venture,” he said.
Status Labs interviewed Mr. Gottlieb on his interests and plans, and told him it would get him positive press coverage, according to a person familiar with the matter. He paid between $4,000 and $5,000 per month for the services.
Afterward, an article on a site called Medical Daily Times was published, saying Mr. Gottlieb made a donation to an initiative at New York University’s medical school.
The phone number for Medical Daily Times on its website rang at a pizzeria in Toronto. Until recently, the article’s author was listed as BJ Hetherington. The author couldn’t be reached for comment.
A black-and-white photo accompanied BJ Hetherington’s author page on Medical Daily Times. The photo is of a Canadian theater actor, Randy Hughson. A publicist for Mr. Hughson said he wasn’t aware his photo was being used with BJ Hetherington’s name until the Journal contacted him.
The information about Mr. Gottlieb’s donation is also inaccurate: An NYU spokeswoman said Mr. Gottlieb didn’t donate to that particular initiative, though he has donated to NYU on other occasions. Medical Daily Times didn’t check the information with Mr. Gottlieb, said a person familiar with the matter.
Medical Daily Times couldn’t be reached for comment.
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Status Labs’ client list has also included scandal-rocked companies, billionaires and public officials, said former employees. Status Labs provided services to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, according to former Status Labs employees.
Status Labs’ services can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars per month, said people familiar with the matter.
Ryan Stonerock, a lawyer for Status Labs at law firm Harder LLP, said the company wouldn’t discuss its clients. A spokeswoman for Ms. DeVos at the Education Department said it “doesn’t sound like the department or the secretary have a relationship” with Status Labs and didn’t respond to other questions sent by the Journal.
Former Status Labs employees said that in addition to helping clients bury negative information in Google’s search results by gaming the tech giant’s algorithms, the company has also edited Wikipedia pages without disclosure of its role, something Wikipedia forbids.
Academics said these actions can deprive the public of information that may help them make more informed decisions.
Mr. Stonerock said Status Labs was founded to correct what it perceives as an imbalance of power between its clients and the information available online about them.
“A single false accusation can cause permanent damage to a person or a company’s hard-earned reputation,” said Mr. Stonerock. “This imbalance of power has made the first page of Google the first, and often times the last, impression for individuals and companies.”
Fifty-five Status Labs employees use “a variety of proprietary methods, which are always evolving” to help clients “disseminate positive and truthful information about themselves online,” he said. “An internal ethics committee at Status Labs vets the potential client and determines whether Status Labs can assist the client in an honest and truthful manner.”
Status Labs executives Darius Fisher and Jesse Boskoff agreed to an interview at its Austin, Texas, headquarters but canceled the meeting due to what Mr. Stonerock said was a “pressing client matter.”
Status Labs declined to respond to most of the Journal’s questions. Mr. Stonerock said the company wouldn’t comment “on its proprietary business methods and/or trade secrets.”
Google is under increased scrutiny from global regulators. Senators recently proposed bipartisan legislation that would require Google to disclose its algorithms. A recent investigation by the Journal found that the search giant has interfered with its algorithms and changed results. A Google spokeswoman disputed the Journal’s conclusions.
Google said that it tries to monitor deceptive behavior. But Google News, the unit of Google’s search engine that highlights news articles, featured several of the outlets that contained articles about Mr. Gottlieb and other Status Labs clients.
“Any efforts to enhance someone’s online presence shouldn’t involve deceptive tactics aimed at influencing Google Search rankings,” said Google, which removed the sites from Google News because they didn’t meet its transparency standards. Google News says it doesn’t allow “sites or accounts...that misrepresent or conceal their ownership or primary purpose.”
Mr. Gottlieb said the information Status Labs helped get published about him wouldn’t have affected his reputation with investors.
“Obviously nobody invests in a hedge fund...based on an article in a no-name online blog,” Mr. Gottlieb said in a statement, though he added it has “improved my reception on Tinder.”
Former Bank of America Corp. executive Omeed Malik also received services from Status Labs, according to people familiar with the matter.
The website Chronicle of Week, which used the tagline “Independent News,” published information on Mr. Malik after he became the subject of articles last year related to his firing from the bank. Mr. Malik denied allegations of sexual misconduct, later filed a defamation complaint against Bank of America and obtained an eight-figure settlement, the Journal previously reported.
In October, a Chronicle of Week article about Mr. Malik appeared on the first page of an ordinary Google search of his name. The article, dated July 23, 2019, cited his “vast pertinent experiences within multiple leadership roles” and said he “stands out as a leader within the industry.” It didn’t mention the allegations or the settlement.
The website where that article appeared has also gone by the names “Chronicle of the Week” and “Chronicle Week.” Chronicle Week described itself as “an online digital newspaper” and listed an editorial staff in February 2019. By October, after the Journal’s queries, that language and staff names had been removed, and a sentence was added that some of the information appearing on the site is paid for as sponsored content.
A Wikipedia page about Mr. Malik also became the first result in a Google search of his name, displacing news articles.
Following a Journal query, Wikipedia removed Mr. Malik’s page. Anne Clin, a Wikipedia editor involved in the decision, said Mr. Malik should never have had his own page because he isn’t notable enough. A lawyer for Mr. Malik, Tom Clare, didn’t comment on the removal and said Mr. Malik has disputed reports regarding the reasons for his departure from Bank of America.
Mr. Clare didn’t respond to questions about Status Labs. In a brief phone call in October, Mr. Malik said, “we view this as libelous.”
Status Labs provided services to Ms. DeVos before she became U.S. education secretary to suppress Google search hits connecting her to her brother, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, a person familiar with the matter said. Blackwater was a State Department contractor that was banned from Iraq after a deadly 2007 shootout of Iraqi civilians. Mr. Prince couldn’t be reached for comment.
One article touting her accomplishments as a “reformer” appeared on chemfindit.com, a site that briefly used the same IP address as a company affiliated with executives of Status Labs called Blue Land Partners, according to a Journal analysis of data from Farsight Security Inc.
Another article about her appeared online titled “Betsy DeVos Positive News Article.” The August 2017 article was on a website called “Enable Diversity,” which also featured Mr. Gottlieb. The website has since been removed.
Disgraced blood-testing startup Theranos Inc. also received services from Status Labs, according to former employees. An editing account used by Status Labs was called Jppcap, according to people familiar with the matter. That account made several favorable edits to Theranos’ Wikipedia page. One edit removed a reference to an article in the Journal reporting Theranos devices often failed accuracy requirements. Theranos dissolved last year. A lawyer for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and lawyers for Theranos while it was in business couldn’t be reached.
The co-founders of Status Labs, Mr. Fisher and Jordan French, also ran a company called Wiki-PR, which edited Wikipedia pages for clients, according to a former employee. Mr. French left Status Labs in 2015 following a dispute, according to that former employee and a press release from Mr. French. Status Labs was founded in 2012.
Wiki-PR edited clients’ Wikipedia pages without disclosure, according to a cease and desist letter sent by a lawyer for the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia.
“When outside publicity firms and their agents conceal or misrepresent their identity by creating or allowing false, unauthorized or misleading user accounts, Wikipedia’s reputation is harmed,” the letter said. It added that the practice “is expressly prohibited by Wikipedia’s Terms of Use.”
The Wikimedia Foundation banned Wiki-PR and its “employees, contractors, owners and anyone who derives financial benefit from editing the English Wikipedia on behalf of Wiki-PR.com or its founders,” the letter said.
Status Labs continued to stealthily edit clients’ pages, said former employees.
The hedge fund of billionaire Ken Griffin, Citadel LLC, hired Status Labs to edit information on Wikipedia in 2015 about the fund’s investments and Mr. Griffin’s art collection, according to a person familiar with the matter. Citadel’s spokesman said “changes made to the Wikipedia pages in 2015 were to correct factual errors.”
The Wikipedia account used, Jppcap, was the same one that worked on the Theranos page, according to a review of Wikipedia’s edits, which are public. The account didn’t disclose it was working on behalf of Status Labs or a paid client, which would have been a violation of Wikipedia’s terms, said Ms. Clin, the Wikipedia editor.
Mr. Gottlieb didn’t end up starting a new fund, but he is now managing his own money. His Google results still do not prioritize certain articles. In August, his former firm filed a lawsuit against the widow of Mr. Gottlieb’s deceased portfolio manager, seeking more than $100 million in repayment for money it said it paid the money manager.
The Journal published an article about the lawsuit and mentioned Mr. Gottlieb’s full name once and last name twice toward the end of the article. Many factors, such as the keywords used, help determine what Google turns up in search results.
In October, a Google search of Mr. Gottlieb’s name returned 19 pages of results. The Journal’s article wasn’t among them.
—Rob Barry, Jim Oberman and Russell Gold contributed to this article.
Biden Bashes Influence of Billionaires While Relying on their Money
JPMorgan shares climb after the bank posts record earnings and revenue
Barack Obama is rather typical of the Wall Street insiders who comprise a cabinet and White House team that is filled with multi-millionaires, presided over by a president who parlayed his own political career into a multi-million-dollar fortune.
Banks, hedge funds and other financial firms lavishly backed Barack Obama his presidential bid, giving him considerably more than they gave to his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain.
Trump criticized Dimon in 2013 for supposedly contributing to the country’s economic downturn. “I’m not Jamie Dimon, who pays $13 billion to settle a case and then pays $11 billion to settle a case and who I think is the worst banker in the United States,” he told reporters.
“The response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”
Practically every cabinet appointee of Obama’s has close personal connections to the ruling class, many having come directly from corporate boardrooms. Under Obama’s watch not a single executive at a major financial firm has been criminally tried, much less sent to jail, for their role in the financial crisis.
“Attorney General Eric Holder's tenure was a low point even within the disgraceful scandal-ridden Obama years.” DANIEL GREENFIELD / FRONTPAGE MAG
"One of the premier institutions of big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued an internal report on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008 crash, which warned that another “great liquidity crisis” was possible, and that a government bailout on the scale of that effected by Bush and Obama will produce social unrest, “in light of the potential impact of central bank actions in driving inequality between asset owners and labor."
This manufactured crisis has, in turn, been exploited by the Obama administration and both big business parties to hand over trillions in pension funds and other public assets to the financial kleptocracy that rules America.
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com
“This was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
"One of the premier institutions of big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued an internal report on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008 crash, which warned that another “great liquidity crisis” was possible, and that a government bailout on the scale of that effected by Bush and Obama will produce social unrest, “in light of the potential impact of central bank actions in driving inequality between asset owners and labor."
Biden Bashes Influence of Billionaires While Relying on their Money
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is bashing the outsize influence billionaires are having on the race for the 2020 Democrat nomination, despite his own campaign relying heavily upon their money.
In a fundraising email sent to supporters on Thursday, Biden’s campaign excoriated two of his Democrat rivals for using their personal fortunes to underwrite their presidential ambitions. The email, titled “the billionaires are coming,” took direct aim at Tom Steyer and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for spending heavily to “saturate your airwaves and news feeds.”
In particular, Biden’s campaign lambasted Steyer for using his fortune to gain access to the Democrat debates, while attacking Bloomberg for skipping early primaries and spending $100 million in delegate-heavy Super Tuesday states.
“One billionaire is buying his way onto the Democrat debate stage, and one is buying his way out of it,” Biden’s campaign wrote, before proceeding to argue both billionaires were undermining “how democracy is supposed to work.”
The former vice president’s attack on the influence Steyer and Bloomberg are having is surprising given the fact his own campaign has relied heavily on billionaires to underwrite his White House hopes.
A recent report by Forbes indicates Biden has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the billionaire donor class since launching his candidacy. In the last fundraising quarter alone, the former vice president pulled in contributions from 44 billionaires—the most of any 2020 Democrat. Many of those contributing opted to max out, giving the largest sum possible for a primary campaign under federal law.
The money rolled in from Silicon Valley titans, Wall Street elites, and some of the country’s largest real estate tycoons.
Among the donors was Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google who stirred controversy in January 2017 when claiming President Donald Trump would do “evil things” in office. Schmidt donated $2,800 to Biden’s campaign in May, less than a week after the former vice president entered the race. In the past the former Google executive has heavily backed Democrat candidates up and down the ballot, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Employees from Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., have donated more than $37,000 to Biden’s campaign to date, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The hefty contributions have ensured Alphabet is one of the former vice president’s top 20 contributors. Joining a list that includes another Silicon Valley giant, Microsoft Corp.
Biden’s support in Silicon Valley has not been confined to traditional Democrats. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, a one time Republican nominee for governor of California, donated $2,800 in September. In 2016, Whitman broke ranks by endorsing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over Trump. Since that time, the former eBay executive has become a consistent ‘Never Trumper.’
On America’s other coast, the former vice president has elicited prime backing from Wall Street and the real estate industry.
Topping the list of Biden’s Wall Street backers is Judy Dimon, the wife of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Although her husband, himself, has not donated, Dimon maxed out to Biden in mid-September.
The contribution comes with its own controversial history. In 2008, then-Sen. Joe Biden supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which granted large financial institutions bailouts to survive the recession. JPMorgan was one such institution, taking more than $25 billion in taxpayer money—one of largest bailouts granted to any company under the program.
The bailout came even though JPMorgan’s mortgage lending practices helped create the housing bubble that, when it burst, ultimately led the to the recession. In 2013, the bank agreed to pay a civil fine of $13 billion for its unscrupulous lending practices.
Apart from Dimon, Biden received maxed out contributions from private equity executives, like Blackstone President Jonathan Gray. Blackstone recently made a $250 million investment in a startup that helps outsource American jobs overseas.
In total, the former vice president has filled a significant portion of his campaign account from Wall Street donors, including nearly a million dollars from the securities and investment sector.
Wall Street’s contributions, however, paled in comparison to the amount of money real estate tycoons have donated to Biden. In between April and the end of September, the former vice president garnered more than one million from real estate interests.
The funds poured in from longtime allies like Neil Bluhm, a casino and real estate magnate, and George Marcus, the leader of America’s largest commercial property brokerage firms. Although Bluhm and Marcus have only donated $2,800 each, both men have hosted lavish fundraisers on Biden’s behalf that have raised unknown amounts.
Biden’s reliance on such billionaires is one of the reasons his campaign has struggled to compete financially with the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Although Biden started the race with a strong funding advantage, thanks to support from high-dollar donors, he ended the most recent fundraising period well behind his competitors. In between July and the end of September, Biden only raised $15.2 million. The sum was dwarfed by that raised by Sanders ($25.3 million), Warren ($24.6 million), and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg ($19.1 million).
The former vice president’s fundraising troubles stem from an inability to make in-roads with small-dollar donors. Unlike Warren or Sanders, more than 2,900 donors have already maxed out to Biden’s campaign.
In fact, top-dollar donors make up a far higher percentage of Biden’s campaign coffers than those of his competitors. In comparison, only 38 percent of the campaign’s funds to date have come from individuals donating less than $200. Such a ratio poses a long term issue, especially when top contributors are prohibited by law from donating again until after the primary.
The disparate support between billionaires and small donors was seen as a primary motivator for Biden’s decision to jettison opposing outside help from Super PACs. Since such groups can raise and spend unlimited funds, the former vice president’s billionaire donors are no longer subject to contribution limits when supporting his campaign.
Biden, though, did not mention any of this in his email to supporters on Thursday. Instead, the former vice president kept his fire aimed at Steyer and Bloomberg, while downplaying his own support from the billionaire donor class.
“Since the day that this campaign launched, we have relied on grassroots support to power this campaign,” Biden’s team wrote.
JPMorgan shares climb after the bank posts record earnings and revenue
Jamie Dimon arriving to testify before Congress. Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
· JPMorgan reported first-quarter earnings results on Friday, kicking off another earnings season for the largest US banks.
JPMorgan Chase reported record first-quarter results on both the top and bottom lines Friday morning. Shares climbed 2.3% in early trading to $108.68.
Here's how the results stacked up with Wall Street's expectations as compiled by Bloomberg.
· Adjusted net income: $9.18 billion versus $7.7 billion expected
· Earnings per share: $2.65 versus $2.34 expected
· Revenue: $29.85 billion versus $28.4 billion expected
· Expenses: $16.4 billion versus $16.7 billion expected
"In the first quarter of 2019, we had record revenue and net income, strong performance across each of our major businesses, and a more constructive environment," CEO Jamie Dimon said in the earnings release. "Even amid some global geopolitical uncertainty, the US economy continues to grow, employment and wages are going up, inflation is moderate, financial markets are healthy, and consumer and business confidence remains strong."
A deeper look into the numbers showed the trading and investment-banking businesses exceeded expectations, though trading declined 17% from the year earlier:
· FICC sales & trading revenue: $3.73 billion versus $3.67 billion expected
· Equity sales & trading revenue: $1.74 billion versus $1.73 billion expected
· Investment-banking revenue: $1.75 billion versus $1.63 billion expected
Obama's Wall Street cabinet
6 April 2009
A series of articles published over the weekend, based on financial disclosure reports released by the Obama administration last Friday concerning top White House officials, documents the extent to which the administration, in both its personnel and policies, is a political instrument of Wall Street.
Policies that are extraordinarily favorable to the financial elite that were put in place over the past month by the Obama administration have fed a surge in share values on Wall Street. These include the scheme to use hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds to pay hedge funds to buy up the banks’ toxic assets at inflated prices, the Auto Task Force’s rejection of the recovery plans of Chrysler and General Motors and its demand for even more brutal layoffs, wage cuts and attacks on workers’ health benefits and pensions, and the decision by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to weaken “mark-to-market” accounting rules and permit banks to inflate the value of their toxic assets.
At the same time, Obama has campaigned against restrictions on bonuses paid to executives at insurance giant American International Group (AIG) and other bailed-out firms, and repeatedly assured Wall Street that he will slash social spending, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The new financial disclosures reveal that top Obama advisors directly involved in setting these policies have received millions from Wall Street firms, including those that have received huge taxpayer bailouts.
The case of Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council and Obama’s top economic adviser, highlights the politically incestuous character of relations between the Obama administration and the American financial elite.
Last year, Summers pocketed $5 million as a managing director of D.E. Shaw, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, and another $2.7 million for speeches delivered to Wall Street firms that have received government bailout money. This includes $45,000 from Citigroup and $67,500 each from JPMorgan Chase and the now-liquidated Lehman Brothers.
For a speech to Goldman Sachs executives, Summers walked away with $135,000. This is substantially more than double the earnings for an entire year of high-seniority auto workers, who have been pilloried by the Obama administration and the media for their supposedly exorbitant and “unsustainable” wages.
Alluding diplomatically to the flagrant conflict of interest revealed by these disclosures, the New York Times noted on Saturday: “Mr. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, wields important influence over Mr. Obama’s policy decisions for the troubled financial industry, including firms from which he recently received payments.”
Summers was a leading advocate of banking deregulation. As treasury secretary in the second Clinton administration, he oversaw the lifting of basic financial regulations dating from the 1930s. The Times article notes that among his current responsibilities is deciding “whether—and how—to tighten regulation of hedge funds.”
Summers is not an exception. He is rather typical of the Wall Street insiders who comprise a cabinet and White House team that is filled with multi-millionaires, presided over by a president who parlayed his own political career into a multi-million-dollar fortune.
Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, worked for Citigroup and received more than $7.4 million from the bank from January of 2008 until he entered the Obama administration this year. This included a $2.25 million year-end bonus handed him this past January, within weeks of his joining the Obama administration.
Citigroup has thus far been the beneficiary of $45 billion in cash and over $300 billion in government guarantees of its bad debts.
David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s top strategist and now senior adviser to the president, was paid $1.55 million last year from two consulting firms he controls. He has agreed to buyouts that will garner him another $3 million over the next five years. His disclosure claims personal assets of between $7 and $10 million.
Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, was paid $3.9 million by a Washington law firm whose major clients include Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and the private equity firm Apollo Management.
Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, made $227,155 last year from IndyMac Bancorp, the California bank that heavily promoted subprime mortgages. It collapsed last summer and was placed under federal receivership.
The presence of multi-millionaire Wall Street insiders extends to second- and third-tier positions in the Obama administration as well. David Stevens, who has been tapped by Obama to head the Federal Housing Administration, is the president and chief operating officer of Long and Foster Cos., a real estate brokerage firm. From 1999 to 2005, Stevens served as a top executive for Freddie Mac, the federally-backed mortgage lending giant that was bailed out and seized by federal regulators in September.
Neal Wolin, Obama’s selection for deputy counsel to the president for economic policy, is a top executive at the insurance giant Hartford Financial Services, where his salary was $4.5 million.
Obama’s Auto Task Force has as its top advisers two investment bankers with a long resume in corporate downsizing and asset-stripping.
It is not new for leading figures from finance to be named to high posts in a US administration. However, there has traditionally been an effort to demonstrate a degree of independence from Wall Street in the selection of cabinet officials and high-ranking presidential aides, often through the appointment of figures from academia or the public sector. In previous decades, moreover, representatives of the corporate elite were more likely to come from industry than from finance.
In the Obama administration such considerations have largely been abandoned.
This will not come as a surprise to those who critically followed Obama’s election campaign. While he postured before the electorate as a critic of the war in Iraq and a quasi-populist force for “change,” he was from the first heavily dependent on the financial and political backing of powerful financiers in Chicago. Banks, hedge funds and other financial firms lavishly backed his presidential bid, giving him considerably more than they gave to his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain.
Friday’s financial disclosures further expose the bankruptcy of American democracy. Elections have no real effect on government policy, which is determined by the interests of the financial aristocracy that dominates both political parties. The working class can fight for its own interests—for jobs, decent living standards, health care, education, housing and an end to war.
“Records show that four out of Obama's top five
contributors are employees of financial industry giants –
Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806),
JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).”
OBAMA and HIS BANKS: THEIR PROFITS, CRIMES and LOOTING SOAR
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