The most devastating line is the conclusion. If John Edwards loses the 2008 presidential campaign,
he can certainly fall back on his investments. They include many of the things he rails against, and those investments are good.
- How John Edwards makes his millions grow
Investments in limited partnerships, an offshore hedge fund and subprime-mortgage lenders have made this wealthy presidential candidate even richer.
By Tim Middleton
The presidential candidate one newspaper has labeled “Richie Rich in bib overalls” is a remarkably sophisticated investor.
You can read the whole thing for yourself, but of Mr Edwards’ “Two Americas,” he clearly belongs to the one against which he campaigns. Does the word “hypocrisy” mean anything?
- Edwards is running as a populist, but profits on his stock investments alone would distance the candidate from the cause.
Edwards has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital gains from stock in Apple, BP PLC, Burlington Resources, Medtronic and Schlumberger, the chief rival to Halliburton, where Vice President Dick Cheney was once CEO.
BP PLC is the old British Petroleum. Whenever those Evil Oil Companies raise the price of gasoline, hurting those of us who live in the America about which Mr Edwards talks so much, John Edwards makes a little bit more money.
- Edwards generated most of his wealth as a trial lawyer, but last year his principal employment was as a senior adviser to Fortress Investment, a large hedge-fund operator, for which he received $479,512. His and his wife’s investment in Fortress Investment Fund III (Fund D) totaled between $1 million and $5 million.
Fortress, based in New York, owns subprime lender Nationstar Mortgage, formerly Centex Home Equity. The Dallas company calls itself “one of the nation’s leading mortgage lenders offering nonprime mortgages and home-equity loans.”
As a presidential candidate, Edwards has lashed out at subprime lenders, saying they are “pulling a fast one on hardworking homeowners.”
But, gosh darn it all, he does have great hair, doesn’t he?
I have absolutely no problem with someone getting rich; I’d like to do it myself one day! 
But at least be honest about yourself, be honest in where you get your money. If you are going to combitch about subprime lenders, then have the honesty to divest yourself from companies which are in the subprime market! If you are going to rail against big oil, don’t own stock in BP! If you are going to campaign against the existing health care industry, don’t make money from Medtronic!
I guess that’s expecting too much.
Oh, but wait! It seems that Elizabeth Edwards has decided to reduce the family’s carbon footprint by swearing off fruit that isn’t grown locally! Maybe that will make up for flying her husband’s hairdresser all the way across the country.
Could ya translate that one more time Dana?
(permission to delete comment requested/granted)
Pick, pick, pick! I fixed it. But there’s almost never anything wrong with my speling.
John Edwards, IMO, hates rich people. He seems to have hated them from his youth. Sounds envious even. The reason I think this is he’s always berating wealth while at the same time flaunting his riches. Everything he detests, he thrives on it. But to me, there is something wrong in his character to covet and hate the same thing at the same time.
So, John Edwards hates himself? And he spends so much time looking in the mirror!
[...] There’s cronyism and there’s phoneyism, and as we all know by now, John Edwards ranks high on the list of biggest phoneys to ever run for political office. I’ve written about it here before on numerous occasions, and tonight, ST reader Dana Pico takes the hammer to the nail in this piece about how Edwards has made oodles and oodles of $$ off of things he rails against to the public. Dana referenced this article, written for MSN’s Money Central page by Tim Middleton. In it, Middleton lays out the facts: Edwards is running as a populist, but profits on his stock investments alone would distance the candidate from the cause. [...]
[...] Dana has a good post up on John Edwards. Bookmark to: Sphere: Related Content Posted by: Brian in: Linkage at 3:00 pm Permalink | trackback (right click and save) | [...]
Edwards is not the first slickster to play pseudo-populist.
The Senior Al Gore pretended to be a friend of the little guy. He accused the late David Packard (a man who epitomized the best sense of entrepreneur) of being a criminal simply on the basis of making a lot of money by selling superior products. Yet the Gore fortune was obtained in a rather sleazy way, through the largesse of one Armand Hammer. Hammer pretended to be a multi-millionaire and a generous patron of the arts. He was a glorified hustler and fence, who used blackmail to control a large company. His ‘generosity’ could have inspired the plot of The Producers.
Now we have Edwards pretending to be a man of the people. His courtroom hustling have made him a wealthy man who can live like a professional athlete or entertainer. His investments in the sleazy sub-prime loan racket demonstrates that his great love is the acquisition of easy money.
The fees he has extracted for speaking before students shows that he is more interested in a fast buck than improving education.
He could afford to buy a Senate seat but I suspect that his political career has peaked.
I am happy to finally see somebody shares my opinion of Al Gore Senior and Armand Hammer. Mr. Hammer was always presented as something of a hero when in fact he was a worm.
David Packard, as I am sure Art knows, was also an example of that vanishing breed of “doers” who gave years of public service to his country and then returned to the private sector.
[...] Former Senator Edwards is just about the most hypocritical politician I have ever seen: he regularly excoriates parts of our economic system as unfair to the people, unfair to the working man, all the while holding investments in such companies, and making money from the very companies he criticizes. I have absolutely no problem with someone getting rich; I’d like to do it myself one day! But at least be honest about yourself, be honest in where you get your money. If you are going to combitch about subprime lenders, then have the honesty to divest yourself from companies which are in the subprime market! If you are going to rail against big oil, don’t own stock in BP! If you are going to campaign against the existing health care industry, don’t make money from Medtronic! [...]
[...] There’s cronyism and there’s phoneyism, and as we all know by now, John Edwards ranks high on the list of biggest phoneys to ever run for political office. I’ve written about it here before on numerous occasions, and tonight, ST reader Dana Pico takes the hammer to the nail in this piece about how Edwards has made oodles and oodles of $$ off of things he rails against to the public. Dana referenced this article, written for MSN’s Money Central page by Tim Middleton. In it, Middleton lays out the facts: Edwards is running as a populist, but profits on his stock investments alone would distance the candidate from the cause. [...]