Mini Madoff

Sir Allen Stanford a fait une petite arnaque de $8 milliards. Après Madoff tout le monde est blasé. Stanford a dépensé $7,2Mln en soutiens politiques (contributions de campagnes et lobbying) depuis 1999. Encore un pièce à charge (s'il en était besoin) montrant que le congrès américain n'est plus aujourd'hui qu'une gigantesque grande surface qui vend de la législation au plus offrant, en gros ou au détail. Madoff avait aussi des connections politiques mais il semble que Stanford ait eu des résultats concrets sur l'abandon d'une législation sur le blanchiment comme décrit ici. Extrait:

(Traduction/résumé: ça dit que Stanford a contribué notamment à financer Phil Gramm, sénateur qui s'est targué ensuite d'avoir "tué la législation anti-blanchîment).

The Stanford Financial Group hired its first Washington lobbyists in 1999, at the time the anti-money laundering drive was gathering steam. And the company quickly learned how to cultivate pull in the Capitol -- between July 2000 and July 2001, Stanford and his employees doled out $448,000 in "soft money" contributions to senior lawmakers in both parties, according to a report by watchdog group Public Citizen.

Among the lawmakers benefiting from Stanford's largesse was Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm (R-TX), who let a House-passed money laundering bill die a quiet death in his panel in the last months of the Clinton administration.

According to Public Citizen's report, "Gramm later publicly boasted to a group of bankers that 'I killed the administration's anti-money-laundering legislation.'" But Stanford's attention was by no means limited to Republicans, who happened to control the Senate at the time. Stanford made a splash at the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, a tale that we'll pick up in Part Two of Mr. Stanford Goes to Washington ...