The shady ShoreBank bailout
The shady ShoreBank bailout
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
“No more bailouts, no more greed, how many profits do you need?”
That’s been a signature chant of community organizers and Big Labor thugs who have stormed bank offices and financial executives’ private homes decrying corporate welfare over the past several months. But now that the federal government and a coalition of big banking interests are poised to bail out a crony Chicago bank with longtime ties to the Obama administration, Saul Alinsky’s avenging angels are nowhere to be found.
ShoreBank is a Windy City investment bank with all the right (or, rather, left) ties. Its stated progressive mission isn’t merely to make good lending decisions, but to engage in Barack Obama-esque social engineering to “create economic equity and a healthy environment.” The ShoreBank corporate slogan: “Let’s change the world.”
The company website features a video of Obama in Kenya championing ShoreBank microlending projects overseas. ShoreBank has also touted itself as a “green” bank from its founding days — promoting dubious carbon credit programs, subjecting new borrowers to eco-litmus tests (“we look at how you use water, how you recover water and clean it, how you use energy, if you produce clean energy, how you manage CO2, whether you are offsetting CO2 that your product produces, if you are using sustainably produced materials”) and encouraging customers to participate in “EcoDeposits” to “directly support the green agenda.”
Social and environmental justice may make for good Volvo bumper stickers. They do not, however, make for a good bottom line. While the bank was on do-gooder missions around the world, business at home was in trouble. As The Wall Street Journal reported, “Losses racked up during the recession have left the bank facing a demand to raise new capital or face likely closure by regulators.”
Enter the Chicago political friends and family of ShoreBank. The ties are long and deep, as the Central Illinois 9/12 Project has been chronicling for months:
– ShoreBank co-founder Jan Piercy was a Wellesley College roommate of Hillary Clinton’s, who has long supported the bank along with former president Bill Clinton.
– Former ShoreBank Vice Chairman Bob Nash worked for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid as deputy campaign manager. Board of Directors member Howard Stanback is a Hyde Park neighborhood pal of President Obama, who served with Stanback on the board of the radical Woods Fund (where Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers also sat).
– White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett served on the board of Chicago Metropolis 2020 with ShoreBank Director Adele Simmons, former president of the liberal MacArthur Foundation, where she focused on “climate change” and “global governance” issues.
– The bank and its employees donated some $12,000 to the Obama 2008 presidential campaign, and co-founder Mary Houghton reportedly gave advice to Obama’s late mother about small business lending issues.
In other words: ShoreBank is too politically connected to fail. And now you, the taxpayer, may be on the hook for helping its cronies engineer a special rescue. Fox Business News reported this week that a consortium of large lenders — including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and GE Capital — have partnered with the feds to pitch in a combined $200 million public-private bailout. (In addition, Illinois Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky has been crusading for a state-level bailout of the beleaguered bank.) The buzz on both Wall Street and Capitol Hill is that Goldman and perhaps others in the public-private partnership were pressured to lend a hand.
It wouldn’t be the first time that businesses have felt the Obama squeeze. And it wouldn’t be the first time that Democrats exploited the financial crisis to milk public money for their banking cronies.
The laggardly House Ethics Committee is still investigating Democrat California Rep. Maxine Waters, who had a personal and financial stake in Boston-based OneUnited, a minority bank that received $12 million in TARP bailout money under smelly circumstances. The bank’s executives donated $12,500 to her congressional campaigns. Her husband, Sidney Williams, was an investor in one of the banks that merged into OneUnited. Waters secured meetings between OneUnited execs and Treasury Department officials.
That probe has dragged on for nearly a year, which doesn’t bode well for fresh GOP demands for an investigation into the shady ShoreBank bailout. House Financial Services Committee ranking minority member Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., has demanded that the White House cough up documentation about any possible overt contact with Goldman about the deal.
Team Obama is smarter than that, of course. To quote Obama’s environmental czar Carol Browner, who pressured auto industry execs last year to cooperate on a fuel standards increase, they know “to put nothing in writing, ever.”
The fingerprints may be missing, but the stench of the Chicago Way is impossible to cover up.
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When you put Tony Soprano in the White House, you can expect nothing less than organized crime on a national scale.
The 20th Century motor company, all over again.
Others have done more research into this than I have, but “microlending”/”microfinancing” has been big among Communists.
Obama’s mother and grandmother were also heavily involved in microfinancing.
Keep digging. You’re on to something here…
That’s what an Orwellian administration does, while simultaneously claiming to be the most transparent administration in history.
As with all these Left Wing scam/money washing operations ShoreBank is an incestuous, inbred cess pool of all the usual suspects. As with the above mentioned Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and GE Capital ShoreBank is but a front for Crony Capitalism providing nothing of value but sucking the life blood of the American taxpayer.
Sadly I fear it will take more than an election to stop the stench of the Chicago Way-the way of the Left; these people are too close to total power to let anything so insignificant as a Bill of Negative Rights get in their way. And should we further open this sewer for inspection I imagine there will be a Republican or two with his finger in the mud pie.
This will not end well, not anytime soon.
===
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed.
I think it’s more like Urkel trying to be Tony Soprano.
Strip out the eco-babble, and that sure sounds like a kickback scheme to me.
I think you’re right on AzN. And I think it’s more than a few Repubics involved. It’s hard to believe they aren’t all complicit. I think I’m going to have to buy a gun. I see the future.
Chicago patriots should consider adopting ObamaCorn tactics and visit the homes of these Crony-Capitalists.
Thank you, Michelle for doing the work, the MSM won’t do.
I’m outraged out. The GOP sucks, but if voters continue to believe Obama is acceptable and that voting for a “conservative” Dem member of the House or Senate, we will be Greece. Dems are inherently corrupt. I just don’t understand how Americans can roll over for this sh*t.
In other Chicago-way news…
ICE Chief Declares Himself Selective Outlaw
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Benito Mussolini
Very good TigerLady; I wish all my fellow Americans were prepared to defend themselves from any number of unfortunate situations-social unrest on a massive scale not the least of them.
I am so sick and tired of the thuggery of “O-bow-ma”…what he and his thugs are doing to America is despicable and disgraceful…not to mention, unconstitutional and un-American. I am not surprised by anything this wanna-be dictator does. May God have mercy on us and deliver us from the evil of this man and his minions, not to mention Pelosi, Reid, et.al.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson: “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
“On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
And here I thought that smell was from the waste treatment plant a few miles away.
I guess that makes me a raaacist for even suggesting such a thing.
Obama is winning. He is bringing down the US economy on a daily basis and attacking the very fiber of our country, but getting no blame or criticism, let alone real opposition.
The old media is running the country. They are doing it by NOT doing their jobs. They didn’t do their jobs to expose who BHO really was before the election and have not done their jobs since he was elected.
We get daily propaganda by this “state run” media. We get daily misinformation about the job he is doing. We get daily attacks on Republicans and conservatives. We get attacks on all religions…..EXCEPT THE SCOURGE OF THE WORLD….ISLAM! We have very few truly challenging him in any way.
The child POTUS runs the USA like a combination Chicago thug/African ruler/Black Theology Muslim/Communist dictator. His ultimate goal is World King.
So far so good. He is on his way.
As I said: I wish all my fellow Americans were prepared to defend themselves from any number of unfortunate situations-social unrest on a massive scale not the least of them.
===
I have decided to NOT be like the European walking meekly into the death camps. I am one of Bill Ayres Unrepentant Capitalist, Bambi’s Bitter Clinger, Miss Hillary’s Vast Right Wing.
Michelle, I sincerely hope you continue using your nose for real news to follow this trail. Kinda looks like fingerprints all over it.
This reminds me of when Chrysler was pressured to terminate 25% of it’s dealerships by Barry’s Car Czar and “the President’s automotive task force”. Turns out most of the dealerships scuttled were in Repub districts and supported GOP candidates. Coincidence, no doubt. /supersarc
Here in Atlanta the northside dealer in GOP district 6 was shut down, and the one in Dem district 4 was spared – regardless of the northside dealer selling almost twice the volume.
I rather expect the bank Bailout bus will travel the same route.
Glenn had his whole Fox show about this last night. He did the chalk board with all the players and different agencies involved. Thanks Michelle for bring us this information also. This bho and team are knee deep in this. Lots and lots of money involved and to be made to those involved.
L
If we want to make a dent in dissolving one-party government, we need to stop defining the problem as Dem v Rep. It is entrenched incumbents vs citizens. We need to vote out ALL incumbents. We may get rid of some good ones… maybe… but we would be starting anew for sure.
It’s a crooked game. Get rid of the crooks first and the game will get better.
OT – Don’t generally do this, (dont think I ever have) but our intrepid counsellor Ragspierre who IMHO has been contributing outstanding content here for years, is doing Hindenblog – and is posting daily some provocative and interesting content. It’s now one of my new daily stops. He puts in serious effort and would appreciate some support. Swoop in and poop some coments sometime.
“EcoDeposits” are what this bank is full of.
Hey media: since you’re so perplexed as to why the Tea Party movement has taken root, consider the above a clue!
So in other words they were as successful as all of these non “green” non”do-gooder” banks?
Swede,
Thank you so much. Very high praise, considering the source.
I always learn from you guys, and have been richly rewarded here from both you and our brilliant Michelle.
Phil, when you post this stuff I wonder if you are serious. Do you really believe this is possible? And do you really want DeMint, Inhofe, Isakson, Coburn, Ryan etc out?
The universalism is idealistic but unrealistic. Or are you suggesting perhaps that setting this as a goal and standard would move is in the right direction?
And ultimately, if we got rid of the whole slimy bunch, I have to believe we would just end up with another slimey bunch to replace them. Real world politics and life.
Less so! Plus the banks you mentioned were once very successful. ShoreBank, from what I understand, was never able to break even, let alone post a noticeable profit.
I agree – unbelievable as it is, there are still some good apples in the congressional basket.
Um…ShoreBank has been around since the early 70s. I don’t think any company that has never been able to break even could last that long. Plus, just glancing at some of their annual reports from past years indicates they had been successful right up until the recession.
Obama used magic beans when he was in financial trouble. Shorebank just needs a few beans. Politics + Plants = Beans. Problem solved.
As opposed to other banks that have been around since before WW I and have never failed to turn a profit and/or remain solvent on their own? I don’t think there’s any comparison; in the life span of most banks, SB is an infant that was destined to flop! And now that it has, good riddance.
Dude, like I said, if you spent half a minute looking at the financials, you would know that ShoreBank has been very successful in the past. And by all means, if you want to go through the list I linked to and find out how long many of those other banks have been around, go right ahead.
Put simply, Malkin (and you) wants to blame its failure on its social goals. Which she (or you) have failed to substantiate even one bit.
This just goes to show: phony-crony banks never succeed w/o government bailouts!
I think the issue is what criteria is used to decide which of the myriad of failing banks get the bailout bonanza, and which are left to crash and burn or are swallowed up.
Shore’s connections to the administration are highly curious at best. Smells like a duck, quacks like a duck…
I will agree that is the main issue. And I also agree that they are getting preferential treatment based on those connections.
But MM also clearly implicated the bank’s social philosophy in its failure, which I think is absurd.
Chaps;
I’ll surprise you. I think it is totally consistent with capitalism to have green banks, green power companies, etc. So long as they are market players and receive no government subsidy or regulatory advantage, and are exposed to market forces. If people are willing to pay a premium for them, that is swell by me. So long as I don’t have to pay it with them.
What separates me (capitalist) from a collectivist is that they would deny me the choice I would extend to them.
As to this bank’s failure, there are myriad reasons you can screw up a bank. When you do, bankruptcy is the ONLY rational end-point…NOT a bail-out.
Look at their business model and tell me that a bank dedicated almost exclusively to green clientèle is going to succeed? Come on – the handwriting was on the wall!
There are lots of businesses that thrive marketing to a green clientele. I would be shocked if you could not think of any off the top of your head.
And, in fact, ShoreBank was succeeding as well. Until, like thousands of other businesses, green or not, it ran headfirst into the recession.
Not everything has to fit into The Big Narrative, DBN.
My, My,My:
“Now you have all the pieces in place to put together a plan to create green jobs. You have a window manufacturer (Serious Windows) receiving government money. You have a weatherization project, also government funded, awarded to the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County. And then there’s the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, which recommends Serious Windows, trains energy auditors and develops certified contractor lists. And finally, there’s ShoreBank, a bank with long ties to the Progressives that has also received government money. ShoreBank requires that an energy audit be completed before a home loan is approved. (Oh, and did I mention that one of the board members for Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance works for ShoreBank? Joel Freehling is the Manager of Triple Bottom Line Innovations at ShoreBank, whose “… primary task is the creation of innovative financial products to promote energy efficiency and green development in urban markets, such as ShoreBank’s Homeowners’ Energy Conservation Program.”)”
I think what she’s “implying” is that the reason they’re getting the “public/private” bailout instead of being taken over by regulators is because of their political connections. Also, that Goldman, Citigroup and GE Capital are more than slightly susceptible to thug pressure. In fact, she’s made it pretty clear that’s what she means. Except to you, of course, the counsel for the Democrats.
Shockingly, txvet, it is possible to imply more than one thing in a post.
For example, I could also imply that you are being purposely obtuse if you don’t think she was saying that.
Can’t help but think of Man/Bear/Pig raking in a cool billion on junk green science and carbon credits. If the investors are savy, there are big bucks to be made in greenland. Just sayin’
I am, in fact, betting my legal career on this notion as we speak.
Jail… time… for… all… now.! The law must prevail. All of these principals have got to be prosecuted if the financial system is have it’s integity and public confidence restored.
Based on the investigations done by various people and highlighted on shows like Glen Beck or written about by MM, there should be enough for the FBI to start their own investigation into criminal activities. Forget Eric Holder doing his job at DOJ. He’s so partisan he wouldn’t know a legal or illegal action if it hit him right in the face.
To me, Holder is the black, male version of Janet Reno. Incompetence at it’s best. Then again, with Obama being the black, version of Jimmy Carter, I guess that makes sense.
Reads like a major duck-up in the making to me.
Chap could be our E.F. Hutton. Do tell, we’re all eyes. Or is this just part of the “mean green” thing?
And I could infer from that that you don’t know the difference between “imply” and “infer”.
Shhhhhh! I’m trying to hear chap. Did you say solar panels?
Think about what you just said. You can’t see the virtue of attempting to do the very difficult unless it is guaranteed to work perfectly?
We are staring into face of kissing out freedoms away without a shot being fired. It wasn’t easy to get to the point where we took our freedoms for granted but here we are. We are in trouble regardless of what we do.
We have a one-party government. Don’t we all agree with that yet? Yet we keep getting bogged down in the RINO logic that takes us right back into defending the party that sucks less than the Democrats. It’s a one-party system! Vote it out! How complicated is that?
If it helps you grasp the logic, the numbers that show that the GOP would have a veto-proof Senate and would dominate the House. If you believe that having the GOP in charge is better than having Dems, this would do it.
Why get bog us down again in that mindless swamp of who is a good Republican versus who is a bad Republican? We have more conservatives here in CA than anywhere else in the country and yet you guys are always hammering CA just because our conservatives are Californians. You would vote out solid conservatives like Tom McClintock, Duncan Hunter, Buck McKeon and the rest so there is no logic to your logic.
We clearly can’t discuss this intelligently as it is so why not adopt a simpler concept that is easier to understand and go with that? Or maybe we could discuss this intelligently for a change?
You can’t criticize the status quo and defend it at the same time.
You’d be better off listening to Jim Cramer.
I know the difference and used the correct word and on purpose.
An inference would imply arriving at a conclusion based on evidence and reasoning. Which MM did not.
She did, however imply (as in indirectly) a causal connection between the banks failure and its social message.
“Logic” did you say…???
Really????
Chaps…
I recommend a good Plan B.
So does my wife.
If that were true, why do “Green” programs seems to be in so much need of taxpayer subsidy? If they were such money makers… they would do just that. Make money. Not suck it out of taxpayers pockets.
There is a difference between a green industry and a green business.
Green Industry= Wind Turbines
Green Business = Restaurant down the street that buys organic and local food, composts its wastes and recycles.
but for what its worth, many industries were heavily subsidized in their nascent years. Think railroads.
I will take the Spanish (as in Spain) tack on Green Jobs – sure worked out for them? But hey, why argue about a scam that is pushed by hucksters and believed by sheep.
I’ll take the Lowville (as in NY) tack on green jobs. It most definitely worked out for them.
Since this paragraph makes clear that she traces its problems to the recession – in spite of, not because of their “do-gooder” motivation, your inference appears inaccurate – as is your implication of my personal obtuseness. Furthermore, while I have no problem with a bank spending its reserves on low/no-return leftist causes as long as the depositors are aware of the uses to which their money is put, it would, it seems to me, tend to dissipate the bank’s resources and weaken their financial position in a recession – which, I inferred, was her point. In any event, the reason for the failure is less relevant than whether their political connections resulted in impropriety on the part of the administration and others with respect to the ensuing bailout.
Then Chap, you can be the first one on your block to collect your waste, human or otherwise, put it in a nice size cistern and let it boil and then capture the methane and use it for cooking – works in India.
This paragraph makes it clear she thinks that the social goals of the bank contributed to its downfall.
However, I do owe you an apology. The fact that you quoted the relevant part leads me to believe you are not obtuse. Rather, you are disingenuous.
Reason 6,294 why we need to sieze one House of Congress and then hit these people with a blizzard of supenoas. Stick them in a chair and put them under oath.
It may not be in writing, but it is in some medium.
A point she backed up with what, exactly? Why do you presume that they made “low/no profit” investment? Or if they did, that these were tied to their social goals? How do you explain the dissipation of the wealth of the hundreds of other non-green banks?
Think AmTrack
While you are, in fact, obtuse. As I said, the actions of the bank with regard to its green agenda very well may have had an effect on its failure, since they were dissipating their reserves on non-productive activities.
And you know these activities were non-productive and dissipating reserves, how exactly?
I guess you don’t need any evidence since you can engineer an explanation tofit your narrative. That’s good enough for you.
Sorry. We’re talking past each other somewhat. The significant point remains that lots of banks have “failed” during this recession. Not many of them, outside of majors, have been bailed out. and this bailout appears politically motivated.
Because that’s what leftist causes do. An inference drawn on a lifetime of experience.
Anyway, it’s been fun, but my Culligan guy is here. Got to go.
Someone should tell that to Whole Foods. I don’t think they have gotten the memo that they aren’t supposed to be profitable.
Note to Greenies, Volvo is now owned by the Chinese.
You fail to see another use for this bank that Obama and his cronies might have………………
When these people come out of the woodwork they are in critical need to keep something under wraps.
A very nice example of capitalism, NOT collectivism.
How come you ignored my post earlier?
Obama doesn’t just ignore statutory law…
and economic law…
no, no. Now he’s insisting on ignoring the laws of physics.
Which one?
Provided there are enough easily misled suckers in the world to fork over their cash to these green piranha.
The issue is bailing out private companies with public money.
Ragspierre said:
Rags, the Sock Puppet is all knowing and all seeing, don’t you know? Why just the other day I heard just by him making his edict that the seas will stop rising, that the ocean levels actually recede at low tide and its all by his holy handiwork.
Rags,
I just checked out your blog. You’ve gotta go easier on the color and formatting changes.
Think “Robber Barons”.
And while the media goes to town tryin’ to paint Rand Paul as some sort of closet racist simply for stating the Libertarian view on government regulation and control, this sort of thing remains virtually unreported.
Note to Newsweek/Howard Fineman: You’re vastly over rating Rand Paul’s Democrat opposition: I’d wager not five in one hundred Kentuckians can even name him (at least I think it’s a him), let alone vow that person their support.
The Chicago political slime machine is polluting this country more than the gulf oil well disaster. At some point an insider will expose a key element which will bring the administration down, causing the the rest of the rats will turn on each other to save their own hides. This administration has too many plates spinning and it won’t last.
Really? Because more people voted for Conway (226,773) than did Paul (206,159).
If fact, more people voted for the SECOND PLACE guy (221,269) in the Dem primary than voted for Paul.
Thank you for stopping by, and hope you will again.
Critique duly noted.
Believe me – they simply voted their party, not the candidate; I know my state. Paul has the name and face recognition and position identification that attracts voters in my state.
Chaps, #37 is the one you missed…
Well, no this is where you lose me. I am NOT Republican. I have not registered Republican since, I believe ’98. The GOP gets, precisely $0 from me and less time. I work for and support ONLY conservative candidates. It has nothing to do with the GOP, but genuine conservatives. I think this is where we are not on the same page.
I have not connected you with the idiots who unfortunately run CA. I have family who own businesses in San Diego and Sacremento. I know there are conservatives there. I do not assail you or them. Having said that, my senators are Isakson and Chamblis who are conservative and I will continue to vote for – Yours are Feinstein and Boxer. Ya’ll have some work to do.
No, I thought I made it clear my point was to not vote out solid conservatives. This is where your logic eludes me. You would likely get RINO’s in their place.
That would be nice. Let’s start with not labeling people. Don’t know how I can be a RINO when I’m not a Republican, and am conservative. For me, the fact that true Conservatives are also GOP is coincidental. Unless and until they lose Steele and there is a decided shift back to the right, I’m not interested.
The only alternative to the status quo is removing 535 congressmen and senators, regardless of their record? Not sure what kind of intelligent discussion this leads to.
I don’t believe the GOP sinking into idealistic left leaning mush is intentional, but incidental. There is a monumental conservative leadership vacuum. Conservative principles are only part of a candidate package. I’m looking for someone with conservative vision for the future – and the charisma and skill to sell it, proven leadership gifts and skills and the ability to motivate people.
Nature abhors a vacuum, so the leadership vacuum in the GOP sucks in the nearest debris, ala Steele and McClown.
There’s a rumor that another smaller Chicago-area bank is about to go under in the next week or so.
Let’s see if these good-hearted companies step up and rescue that one, too.
ShoreBank lost 58 million dollars in 2009.
Considering its asset size, foot print and typical income for a bank like that, on a scale of 1 to 10:
1 – Good bank
10 – Really, really Bad Bank
Shore Bank: 1,000
I can’t even begin to comprehend how corrupt and poorly managed a bank has to be to lose 58 million in one year.
Short of burning money, I have no idea how they could do it.
A bank that size doesn’t even keep its mortgages on the books! They are all “sold” to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
That is about 2% of their total assets.
In 2008, they sold less than $1,000,000 of the $930,000,000 in mortgages they had on the books.
In 2007, they sold about $44,000,000 of the approximately $805,000,000 in mortgage loans they had on the books.
So they were in fact highly sensitive to default rates.
Chambliss is not a conservative, he’s a lot like Cornyn, talks a good game, then supports amnesty and other foolishness.
The GOP hierarchy has intentional sought out and supported RINO’s over conservatives so consistently it is intentional.
Figures.
I try to be green like the next person by using less energy, using green grocery bags, and recycling, but I would never bet the highest commodity I can offer, my labor, on, what is at best, a passing fad.
I would just be content with lawyers actually following the law, defending the little guy, instead of “betting” their reputations on passing fads and those who compromise capitalism and the Constitution. The law has nothing to do with being green.
SB made its reputation on being “socially aware” and appealing to a certain clientele of people. The beautiful thing about capitalism is that I can reject such transparent displays of pandering and choose banks who actually look out for both my/their bottom line at the same time not exposing themselves to risky plays that imperil the consumer.
Right. As I recall, you bet your career on what some guidance counselor and a couple of college program brochures said.
It is amazing so many ignorant statements can be packed into such little space.
1. I am not betting my reputation, I am betting my career.
2. The law does in fact have plenty to do with being green. Ever heard of LEEDS certification? Ever heard of L3Cs or benefit corporations? Social enterprises? Have you ever considered the consequences of the concept of shareholder primacy on business? These things have been around a long time in other countries. We are just now catching up.
3. I am defending the “little guy”. We are offering legal service to small to medium sized enterprises (you know…the ones you conservatives are always extolling). And doing so by offering drastically lower rates and flat fee arrangements.
4. “and those who compromise capitalism and the Constitution.” I’d try to respond to this, but it doesn’t make any sense.
You know…in a way, this is hilarious. You rail against government doing social work, saying that it should be the role of the private sector. And then you complain about the private sector involving itself as well. I suppose, in your world view, the only organizations that should have any role in social work is the (Christian) church.
Whatever. Maybe there isn’t enough business yet in social enterprises to sustain our practice. But I’d rather take the chance that there is and I am in on the ground level than spend the rest of my career worrying about my billable hours and making partner.
Chaps…still waiting on #37…
I didn’t see a question.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/leaked-spanish-report-obamas-model-green-economy-a-disaster-pjm-exclusive/
Spain comes clean on “green industry” as a boondoggle.
When did that EVER stop you…!?!?!
Hell, nobody here even has to address you, much less pose a question! (See Michelle Malkin)