Yada, yada, yada. Heard it all before. He was not invested with Green Tree who did most of the foreclosures. So, what Fortress had more than one thing going for it besides lenders. The people who took those loans knew what they were getting into, and I don't feel sorry for them at all. Who would be stupid enough to get a loan that has an interest rate that changes from day to day? The Iowans probably had bad credit to begin with or they wouldn't have going to these lenders.

Sound judgement? You mean like going in on real estate deals with indicted political contributors?

Hmmm, I bet Bank of America and CitiCorp have both foreclosed on more Iowans than that. Millions of Americans (and not a few politicians) own shares of publicly traded banks.

Unless we want to go back to the Middle Ages and excommunicate Christians who engage in the business of moneylending, what's so unethical about owning a piece of a bank that lawfully forecloses on unpaid mortgages?

Since he's arguing against his own financial interest (the legislation he advocates would decrease the value of his investments), what's so hypocritical about it? Would it be better if he had all his money in organic farming but advocated for corporate deregulation and tax cuts for the rich?

Regardless of what you think about his investments, shouldn't he at least have figured out after the story came out in the WSJ a month ago about foreclosures in New Orleans that they also foreclosed on people in Iowa before the Des Moines Register told him about it?

I am invested in the S&P, but I have no clue what all the companies I am investe in. Duh!

Here's the problem: Edwards told the Associated Press that the reason he signed up with Fortress was “mainly in order to learn about the relationships between financial markets and poverty.”

How could he spend a year there and not learn about the problems with subprime and predatory lending?

I am puzzled why Edwards took the Fortress job to begin with because it has generated a lot of bad publicity for him. The "official reason" that he gave was that he wanted to see how markets affect the poor.

Regardless of what you think of Edwards, that has to sound somewhat phoney. It sounds like he was too good to take a job for the money or the prestige. Maybe the job provided him a pipeline for campaign contributions. Who knows?

I don't blame Edwards for the foreclosures no more than I blame my neighbor who may work for a bank or mortgage lending company for any foreclosures his or her employer makes.

If you don't make payments on a loan then there are consequences. Lending institutions would not stay in business long if they did not foreclose on non-performing loans.

But, I think that Edwards should have seen the hazards of working for a company that make sub prime loans given what can come out in a political campaign. It isn't fair to blame him for that but it is something that he could have avoided with a little research.

I am still puzzled by what he hoped to gain by taking the job with Fortress.

desmoulins:

Why would the Clintons be embarrassed by $1 Million cash transactions with the Saudi Royal Family?

By definition . . . Anything to do with real estate is to have something to do with foreclosure and eviction. It is part of the farging business. Grow the farg up.

Hilliary Don't Have Anything To Do With Edwards Stupidity,He Set Back And Accused Hilliary Of All Sorts Of Things He Could Think Of Now It's His Turn, Are Did He Assume Noone Would Find Him Out Before The Primaries.If You Look At The Way Edwards Hold His Mouth When He Talks Sideways You Can Tell He's A LIAR,And As Far As His Attack Dog Goes She Knew About His Dealings With These Hedge Funds To,It's The Pot Calling The Kettle Black

Buh . . . buh . . . buh . . . but what about Hillary?

"If you look at the context of everything I've done since the last election, it's absolutely clear where my heart is and what I care about," he (Edwards) said.

Let's see:

After being a miserable failure on the 2004 ticket with Kerry (didn't carry a single Southern state, not even his home state);

Worked for an offshore hedge fund tax dodge company after actively campaigning against them in 2004.

Before beginning his 2008 campaign as a champion of the working class, labor unions, land use issues, environmental issues, and energy issues - clearcut a huge swath of virgin timber in order to build a 28,000 square foot estate and didn't require his building contractor to use union labor whenever possible (ie: at all).

And on the seventh day he rested, got a $300 haircut, and hit the trail on Monday as the spokesperson for the poor.

Finally divested himself of the hedge fund stock after having to be told that they were actively foreclosing on homeowners in New Orleans and Iowa.

Buh . . . buh . . . but what about Hillary?!?

This is a classic non issue that the airheads in the media want to flap their wings about and sqwauk over. Who cares if a company he worked for, for a little while did something bad? I didn't realize that people running for public office were automatically responsible for everything that employer or client ever did. It's just incredibly vapid and idiotic to have this sort of thing become an issue regardless of who the candidate is.

If he were an executive with the firm and had part in the decision to foreclose on people then you have an issue. But this is nothing but the oppo research people of one of the other candidates trying to sully a rival. Pathetic.

Bard

You lose 94% of your credibility when you attack the poster personally.

Well, let me make that 100%. I don't work for Hillary (but I certainly would).
I don't know what "a volunteer a..hole" is. Mine has always worked for me fulltime.

a quick glance here
http://www.fortressinv.com/
will demonstrate that this fund does nothing but make subprime loans.
Edwards must have known that while working for them...
I am looking for the link from Drugee Report that has photos of Edwards personally serving eviction notices...
maybe I am missspelling Drugee...
Will someone please get the link...
This is the smoking gun that will sink Edwards

Let's face it, the guy is a lightweight. The idea that one would go to work for a hedge fund while making "anti-poverty" and "the war on the middle-class" central themes of his campaign just seems stupid. Add that to the $400 hair cut and you get the idea that "the Breck Girl" can't get out of his own way.

i didn't realize that ann coulter had so many aliases here! thanks for the empty attacks on edwards, ann! they are a substantive contribution to the political dialogue in this country and it is so very obvious that YOU and your candidate are the only ones who really care about the poor: blahblahblah haircut blahblahblah girlyman blahblahblah...

Ok....I will admit it was a fabrication...
just perhaps....of course I support all sides in his issue....
As a Denver guy...
Who would have thought our Denver baseball team would have a chance.....

I ask only one thing..
Go to ACTBLUE http://www.actblue.com/
compare Edwards to Clinton

Of course,; you decide which special interest supports Clinton....

anonymous4 wrote:

"I think there's a pretty good chance that all those idiotic attacks are just colonpowwow in different guise. That kind of behavior is so mindnumbingly stupid."

Again, as I pointed out to Bard, you lose 94% of your credibility when you attack the poster personally. I can make my own posts under my own name that you consider idiotic because you don't like them, please don't insult the others here that happen to agree with me.

You wanted to know how to get it to stop.

Okay, Edwards is not a phony. I made all that stupid stuff up about him working for an offshore hedge fund after campaigning against them in 2004. He didn't really clearcut a large gash in animail habitat in order to build a 28,000 square foot house. And I flat out lied about his $300 haircut. It was a $400 haircut.

All this nonsense about Edwards' hypocrisy is as irrelevant as Bush and Cheney's chickenhawkery is to ordering troops to war. I'm very sorry.

I stand thoroughly chastened by your insults and I will stop now.

Wasn't that easy?

bob

I agree with your post in most of its points, that is, that one has to work for a living and the corporate structure of most companies is complicated.

However, my problem here is one of Edwards exercising bad judgement time and time again. Did he not realize he was going to run for president in 2007?

Knowing that, couldn't he find a job anywhere else but Fortress Investments? He's a lawyer. Any lawyer who's ever filed a suit knows how to investigate the structure of a business, parent companies, subsidiaries, investment partners, etc. Offshore hedge fund tax-dodges are a significant part of Fortress Investments corporate profile. He campaigned strongly against such tax dodges as a symbol of the two Americas! Did he think everyone (the press, other Dem candidates, Republicans, etc. would be too polite to mention it!

It's like the question often posed to Bush. Is he hypocritical or incompetent in this matter?

Then after the Fortress issue surfaces, as he should have known it would, he tenders a transparent and laughable lie as an "explanation" and then STILL doesn't think to quickly divest himself of Fortress holdings.

Ouch!

wes2

Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that Hillary Clinton had couched herself as the candidate for financial transparency.

I thought this was about an Edwards' situation, not Hillary's. Yes, we all wish we had a political system that wasn't controlled by corporate capitalists. Maybe we should vote for the non-corporate-capitalist Democratic candidate that is running. Check out the Socialist Labor Party. They usually run an excellent candidate (no snark).

Now regarding Edwards' ridiculous explanation about why he took a job with Fortress Investments. Sorry to get back on topic.

Calling me a poor spokesperson for Clinton doesn't negate the point of my post. See if you can find it in there somewhere. You're obviously a smart person.