Snow Red-Faced Over Investment Mistake

WASHINGTON - Oops. A red-faced Treasury Secretary John Snow, who has been going around the country preaching the importance of financial literacy, can now point to himself as a glaring example of what not to do.


It turns out his investment adviser made a $10.87 million mistake. Snow didn't catch it because he didn't bother to read his financial statements for more than a year.


Snow had told the adviser to invest the money in U.S. Treasury securities. Instead, the adviser used the money to buy bonds held by the biggest players in the mortgage market: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.


These government-sponsored enterprises just happen to be the targets of an intense administration campaign led by Snow to bring them under tighter government regulation.

~snip~
more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=7&u=/ap/20040527/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/snow_mistake

Gotta love the headline...lots of red faces in the misadministration lately. :)

How do you misplace 10 million? If this were a Democratic cabinet member they would be forced to resign, any bets what will happen with this.

why do all the Bushpeople look like horrible, twisted monsters? About the only one I can think of that isn't a monstrously ugly creature is Paul Bremer - the foppish dandy of the rogue's gallery. He's just dirty on the inside.

Not a one of them looks quit like a real human being.

Why does the Treasury Secretary have such control over his investments in the very entities he oversees? That he made a mistake with his finances speaks volumes about his alleged competency for his position. But more importantly, why does he have any control over his personal investments? This is why blind trusts are established, to remove the possibility of his professional judgments being tainted by his concern for his personal gain or loss. Ah, hell. . . once again, I'm expecting integrity from a Bushista. . .

http://www.insightmag.com/news/2001/04/02/Nation/Government.Ethics.The.100.Million.Misunderstanding-210923.shtml

This article is about O'Neill not selling off his Alcoa stock (he did later) saying that he would recuse himself from any position that might pertain to Alcoa.

I don't know but apparently the Sec. of the Treasury doesn't HAVE to divest into a blind trust.

It seems to me, no matter what the political persuasion, the Treasury Secretary (more so even than the President) should be required to put his money in a blind trust. I guess that's the type of government we get when we leave the details to the interested parties.

On edit: Thanks for the link.

-Carville when Snow was appointed.

this whole story bends over backwards to portray this as a mistake.

Which it may be, but it's far from fact. With any Bushie, it's much more likely to be corruption than "mistake."

Fire the fucker.

Goes well with the rest of the administration, though. He lost money, if you believe them:

"Snow then ordered the bond holdings in the mortgage companies sold. He incurred a loss of $478,000, Nichols said, even though a Treasury Department (news - web sites) ethics officer ruled that the holdings did not represent a conflict of interest."

Looks like he can afford the loss, though. This is a pretty big uncertainty in net worth, and a big change from one year to the next. The $33 million pension sounds nice:

"Treasury also released Snow's 34-page financial disclosure form. It estimates he was worth between $43 million and $128 million last year.

This may be something else Snow will want to take up with his financial adviser since these amounts were well below the ranges for the previous year. He had assets worth between $77 million and $295 million, according to his financial disclosure form for 2002.

Assets only have to be reported in broad ranges.

According to his latest financial disclosure form, Snow, who led CSX Corp. for 14 years, received CSX-related income of $72.2 million last year, with $33.2 million of that in a special retirement pension."