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"Follow the Money"

The leaves are changing color, the temperature is dropping, and the rhetoric is heating up. It’s the home stretch for Election 2004, and even though pressing issues have been covered, and covered, and covered, and covered once more, the “establishment media” is ignoring the biggest story of every campaign: just who is giving these guys all of the money? This is the most expensive election in the history of democracy itself, (unless of course you consider Julius Caesar’s second term as consul of Rome, in which he was rewarded with the governorship of Gaul). So going where angels fear to tread, Unpaid asks the question just where has the half billion both candidates have raised together so far come from?


Answers like this are remarkably easy to get at first blush. The Center for Responsive Politics lists the major contributors as well as the top industry or sector sources of funding for every candidate for federal office (and many for state) on their website, www.opensecrets.org. What you find is that both candidates have remarkable similarities, with the largest donor group being “Retired” or “Lawyers/Law firms”. In Kerry’s case people describing themselves as attorneys have contributed the most, with those not in the work force second. For Bush it is reversed, but the amount of money contributed by both is almost the same. [Please note the CRP can only use information released by the Federal Elections Commission, which had their last cycle end on August 2, 2004]


But this naturally begs the question who are the largest individual donors for Bush and Kerry. Believe it not, many of the names even here are the same…with companies such as Microsoft and Goldman Sachs doling out money for each candidate. Still, in ranking there is no overlap; many of these bipartisan givers lean one way or the other. This leaves both candidates with five different top contributors. As to why each is so generous, we give a primer of sorts.


George W. Bush


1 Morgan Stanley $573,380 The Center for Responsive Politics cites large contributions to the Republican side (though MS does give to the Democrats too) are in large part because this investment house is the biggest proponent of privatizing Social Security. The obvious reason that is a good idea for Morgan Stanley is that unless legislators completely change their positions, the money from privatized Social Security fund would not have special regulations attached to it. It would effectively be money going from paychecks directly into funds managed by Morgan Stanley (or a similar account). Imagine if your bank which receives what the government does not take from your paycheck could use your money with no federal guarantees. For accountants, fund managers, venture capitalists, and row houses like Morgan Stanley, this sounds like a wet dream.


2 Merrill Lynch $546,154 Just what does Merrill Lynch do? Well that’s a good question, considering it appears that at least to the CRP, that Merrill Lynch was caught in the middle of two client snafus. The first was Enron, and the second was ImClone. It could be that Merrill Lynch is hoping to stonewall the federal investigation into its role in Enron’s collapse (and Martha’s bizarre legal adventure). It could be the Bull wants to see Social Security privatized too. In fact it could be that what Merrill Lynch really wants is complete deregulation of the financial service market. You know, the type of situation we had in 1929… What’s the danger in this? Nothing except if there’s no regulation, this means that bundling would be legal. In other words, if you applied for a home loan, you might have to use Merrill Lynch as your primary bank for other things as well like your paycheck. Again, considering the massive financial services deregulation that President Clinton pushed through in 1998 on the advice of his first Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, we may have to stop calling this scenario a wet dream and instead use the phrase “cocaine-driven fantasy”.


3 PriceWaterhouseCoopers $499,850 The CPR explains this beautifully: When the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen collapsed, Congress was about ready to take seriously a bill later passed called “Sarbanes-Oxley”. At first, the big accounting companies were able to claim AA’s poor practices were not the sign of a bigger crisis. Then WorldCom collapsed, and Congress responded by passing Sarbanes-Oxley. It prohibits an accounting firm from offering consulting service to a client who is being audited by that firm. Translation: PWC would have to sell all its consulting services to someone else if Sarbanes-Oxley is not overturned. No wonder the Republican National Convention was set in New York City…the big players appear to be in trouble.


4 UBS Americas $439,275 UBS, or the Union Bank of Switzerland is among the largest financial entities in the world. Not surprisingly, it grew in America by acquiring the lending house of Paine Webber. But in terms of why UBS lines up with Dubya? Those same Clintonian measures to deregulate financial services have been a boon to UBS. But also, the Swiss bank is afraid of European Union regulation and Asian monetary malaise. Therefore, America is where the growth is, and UBS is ready to provide everything an American could possibly want. UBS is also a major creditor of the federal deficit. Oh yeah…in addition…some UBS accounts were created from confiscated Jewish assets in World War II. This leaves one to wonder if the Bush campaign’s use of Nazi blood money didn’t justify that oh-so-popular MoveOn.org ad comparing him to Hitler.


5 Goldman Sachs $357,025 New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine used to be the boss at Goldman Sachs in New York. As a Democrat, you wonder exactly how his ex-company funnels so much money to Bush. CPR cites the usual reasons…financial service deregulation, being hunted down by the feds, yada, yada, yada. But there’s also the fact that Goldman Sachs’s office is at 80 Broad Street. While not at the foot at the World Trade Center site, it’s close enough to have felt very small that fateful day in a cloud of debris and dust. Some of the world’s richest didn’t work in the Trade Center itself, but close enough to be shaken by its destruction.


John Kerry


1 University of California $481,310 Just what on earth does the largest university in the world want? First, there’s retention of the Los Alamos nuclear research lab contract. Then there’s hunting down and killing the folks at Enron for nearly bankrupting, CalPers, the California state employee retirement fund. Many of whom are UC employees. Add to the fact that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger responded to the budget crisis by doubling fees at the UC system, and those below him are looking for help from above. No not God…the Department of Education.


2 Harvard University $311,389 Clinton’s second Treasury Secretary Larry Summers was the surprise pick to succeed Neil Rudenstine at Harvard. Now some of Harvard’s greats are wild about Larry and some, like Cornell West, certainly are not. But Summers isn’t just backing Massachusetts’ junior senator for the hometown effect. Harvard wants into the stem cell biz and they want in because in case you have heard, Harvard has an endowment larger than most nations. A smart guy, (actually a brilliant economist) Summers realizes much of this endowment might become devalued and wants to get into copyrighting and patenting of proteins in stem cell research…own the patent and Harvard will collect revenue on each for around 100 years before having to renew. If you think the money involved in privatizing Social Security is a LSD trip of Hunter S. Thompson proportion…this would be the Louisiana Purchase of 21st century moneymakers.


3 Time Warner $260,199 Feeding Fox News’s belief that CNN is really just an outlet for the liberal media is Time Warner’s big time donations to KE ’04. So what does Time Warner want? Effectively they want more of what Clinton gave them, deregulation of the media. Effectively Time Warner would like to have total control of content and conveyance. In other words, they want to be able to own various different types of media such that you would be unable to avoid watching or seeing their material. If this sounds diffuse still, think of this way: if they own your cable company they want to make sure you can’t get rid of CNN. If you use AOL, they want to make sure that you see advertising for Warner Bros. movies or music. If you subscribe to Time magazine you will find that other Warner Books are profiled in its pages. What is so ironic about this? Procter and Gamble, the housewares giant, tried to crush CNN in the late 70s because it feared that CNN’s presence would destroy P and G’s lockdown control on the major three networks for advertising time during the nightly news slot. Proctor and Gamble could keep national air time so expensive that very few companies could compete with its brands, such as Tide soap. Now CNN is the very tool being used in similar oppression. O tempores, o mores!


4 Microsoft Corp $258,593 Microsoft used to give mostly to Democrats but in very low amounts. And then came the avatar of death, Janet Reno, to tell Bill Gates that he was going to be sued for antitrust violations. Suddenly MSFT poured money into Republican coffers. With the trial over, and settlement complete, Microsoft appears to be aware that many Democrats are pliant on strong intellectual property laws. Beyond that, Microsoft might agree with Kerry’s stance on other issues. Just what those are is hard to calibrate at present, but should become obvious soon.


5 Citigroup Inc. $252,106 Who says the financial sectors are run only by Republicans. Citigroup is very loyal to the Democrats after being able to repeal federal laws prohibiting banks from owning insurance units. Also, Citigroup issues the largest number of credit cards in the US and this plays into Kerry’s desire to pay down the deficit. A meteoric rise in interest rates could cripple Citigroup, and that is not out of the question economically in the near future.


So while both candidates talk big on the economy, they appear to have the same prescription. Neither Bush nor Kerry supports gay marriage, and it’s not like either of them will stop the “War on Terror” or simply withdraw from Iraq. Of course, what Bush really wants to do is institute a national sales tax of some kind to reduce the federal work force to say what we had in 1876. By privatizing Social Security, the Congress could not use it to leverage current spending, keeping the size of the federal government smaller still. It just so happens this is likely to ensure that there’s limited upward mobility, leaving most people to hope for a trickle down effect. Kerry won’t sign off on the national sales tax, and that is the most significant difference between him and Bush, and the hope that the robber barons of the 19th century have not been reincarnated in the 21st.

posted by Thomas at 9:51 PM 0 comments