CLEVELAND, OHIO – With the US presidential election in less than a month, Senator Barack Obama has presented his own variation of the Wall Street bailout package by buying troubled investment bank Lehmann Brothers. The buyout price of US$1.2 billion represents about one-third of the money he will have left over after saturating swing states with anti-McCain television ads 24 hours a day for the next 28 days.
“The people of this country need leadership to see them through this crisis,” the candidate explained at a stump speech in Ohio. “Actions speak louder than words, and so I have decided to bail out a bank myself.” As CEO and majority shareholder, Obama will be in charge of the day-to-day operations of Lehmann Brothers as its tries to climb its way out of insolvency following a collapse in the leveraged debt it held based on increasingly worthless mortgage-backed securities.
While many leading Democrats praised the move as a demonstration of “change” from the Bush administration which is widely blamed for the current financial crisis, some financial analysts and even leading reformists expressed concerns about a possible conflict of interest. However, campaign spokesperson Neal Jorgens assured voters that rooting out corporate evil was best accomplished “from the inside.”
“Barack Obama is an agent of change,” he said. “Just because he’s now a billionaire financier Wall Street insider with a direct stake in the profitability of investment-backed securities is no reason to think less of him.”
