Bush got sweet deal on loans

In his sad little speech Tuesday, Bush "challenged" corporations to prohibit low-cost loans to directors. Well, with Bush it's 'been there, done that'. Turns out Bush received $180,375 in low-cost loans from Harken when he was a director. Bush didn't have to pay the principal for 8 years, and was charged only 5 percent annual interest.

So now we have insider trading, improper (though not illegal) loans, and approval of sham transactions. And though Bush claims (falsely) that the SEC fully vetted his actions and cleared him, the White House is refusing to release either SEC documents on the investigation, or corporate documents from Bush's Harken tenure (such as corporate minutes).

Thank God for the subpoena-issuing powers of committee chairmen, huh? Time for the Dems in the Senate to get cracking!

As for the markets, it's anyone's guess when the current downward spiral will end. The markets have taken a 600-point hit through Wednesday this week. So much for Republicans being good for the markets. In fact, Bush's presidency has yielded the sharpest market declines since Richard Nixon (another Republican!).

Republicans are trying to blame Clinton, of course. But Clinton wasn't president when Harken engaged in Bush-sanctioned shenanigans, and the argument is getting little respect outside of Dittohead territory.

Posted July 10, 2002 11:35 PM | Comments (1)