It is always much more fun to spend someone else’s money. It is especially easy to give away or sell things in which one has no investment.
The United States owned free and clear many properties upon which United States Postal Services conducted daily business.
In 2013, the CBRE Group, of which California’s Diane Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum sits as the board chairman, was given an exclusive contract to sell these government owned postal properties.
Of course, Feinstein and a Postal Representative both deny anything out of the ordinary, citing that seven firms had put in a bid and CBRE just happened to win.
Feinstein’s people issued a statement that she did not discuss her husband’s business affairs with him. Well, never mind then, of course that is plausible.
Of course, the Panama Canal was a huge outlay of resources by the United States government during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. In 1914, the cost added up to $639 million, an estimated $14 billion by 2007 standards.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty for transfer of the canal to Panama by the year 2000, superseding and voiding the lease of the canal and surrounding property signed in Roosevelt’s time, renewable in perpetuity.
How nice, just give away a valuable asset. No big deal, it was nothing out of your pocket.
Then there is the matter of the American Embassy in London.
Seems a deal had been cut by former President Bush to sell the property where the American Embassy sits in London. Although the deal was initiated by Bush, it was left to Obama to approve the final sale. The land and building’s net worth was said to be $687 million, and it sold for $481 million to a company out of Qatar. That makes a loss of $250 million.
President Trump decried the deal and refused to attend the ribbon cutting, drawing criticism, but it seems he may have a point. $250 million is quite a loss.
Everyone remembers John McCain, Senator and former POW during the Vietnam War. Seems he was the author of a bill that slipped in a deal to sell sacred, traditional Indian land, protected from mining by both President Eisenhower in 1955 and again by President Richard Nixon in 1971. A fine print rider in a must pass military spending bill was added at the last minute by Senator John McCain of Arizona. In 2014, the title of the land was handed over to a British/Australian mining company, causing outrage among the San Carlos Apache tribe.
Then we have the horrible deal brokered by Obama/Kerry team with Iran, giving the rogue country millions of dollars in cash assets.
Not to mention the $221 million he tried to send to Palestine in the 11th hour of his presidency on January 20th, 2017.
Seems it causes no moral scruples to those in positions of power to liquidate assets paid for by the American People.
Image: Excerpted from: Creative Commons CC0: https://pixabay.com/en/hang-tags-for-sale-tag-sign-tags-234566/
