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Prairie Fire

Last updated on June 17, 2009

durbinA Very Lucky Dick…

On September 18th, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke and then U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met in a closed-door meeting with Congressional leaders.

I wish I knew what was discussed in that meeting – don’t you?

In less than a month, the S&P would drop by nearly 25 percent and Americans retirement savings would vanish.

If we only had an inkling of what was to come from that briefing being given to Senators and Congressmen, we might have been able to sell off our more risky investments and put our money into safer things like money markets or conservative investment funds.

But we just didn’t know.

We weren’t there.

There was nothing we could do.

Dick Durbin was somebody that was there in that closed-door meeting. You know Dick, don’t you? He’s the Senator from Illinois that was elected to office, as opposed to the other one – the one that spit on the people’s right to choose their represenatives and sold his soul for the office.

People see a lot of Durbin these days on the news. That isn’t so much because he happens to be the senates number 2 ranking democrat, but more so because nobody can really stand the sight of Illinois’ other Senator. So we Illinoisans pretend that one doesn’t exist and our media gives twice the airtime to Durbin.

Illinois’ “good” Senator.

So anyway, there was the good senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, on September 18th, in that very private meeting with the Fed Chairman and Treasury Secretary receiving a private briefing about the economy and being urged to craft legislation to try to save US banks and the American people from a devastating financial collapse.

Whatever it was these two told Durbin, it must have been very inspiring to him indeed. Because when he left that meeting, he was damned determined to protect the meager savings of hardworking Americans. Well, actually, he was determined to protect the savings of one, specific American. You see, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, the very next day, Dick sold off his own mutual fund shares. He dumped about $116,000 worth of those investments and converted most of it into Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B stock – a very safe and secure investment.

I don’t know about you, but he never got around to calling me and telling me to move any of my retirement savings. In fact, Dick apparently didn’t find it important enough to mention any of the details of that closed-door meeting to most his own constituents. What was discussed apparently remained a secret between himself and his own stock broker.

Durbin claims that selling off his investments the day after this closed-door meeting was simply a coincidence. Well, actually, now that I think about it, he really hasn’t said that. It’s his mouthpiece – Joe Shoemaker – who’s spinning that tale. Both Shoemaker and Durbin I guess, expect all of us in Illinois to buy the ‘ole coincidence story. And of course, for those that may not, well, they certainly don’t give a damn. After all, we’re talking about Illinois here and not some real democracy.

So while the rest of us lost a third or more of our retirement savings, we can all take some comfort in knowing that the senior senator from Illinois managed to safeguard the majority of his own savings.  It was just a lucky fluke – a simple coincidence.

By our good senator from Illinois.

Isn’t that right, Dick?