SPECIAL REPORT— So, who is Paul Singer, the hedge-fund billionaire who gave Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito a free trip on his private plane in 2008? Alito accompanied Singer on a luxury fishing excursion in Alaska, but never disclosed the trip.
Six years later he ruled with a majority of justices in favor of Singer’s hedge fund in a major case against the nation of Argentina. An arm of Singer’s Elliott Management sought several billion dollars in debt repayment from Argentina, one of several cases involving Singer’s company that came before the court.
Alito appears to have broken financial disclosure law, which requires disclosure of gifts of private jet flights. Prosecution please!
In Vultures' Picnic, investigative journalist Greg Palast pulled together documents and stories from decades of detective work to expose real life vulture capitalists like Singer. “The vultures get their hands on money that they claim is owed by the poorest nations, usually during a civil war,” he explained. “Then they find loopholes and seize all the wealth.”
I talked with Palast in December 2011, before a speech in Vermont, covering BP's crimes in the Gulf and Caspian Sea, Entergy's exploitation of hurricane Katrina, and how Uber-Vulture Singer tried to knock him him off British TV. At the time Singer was the the number one US vulture, an advisor to then presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He was also the number one donor to the Republican Party.
“He makes his money by literally killing babies, according to the former Deputy Secretary of the UN,” Palast charged.
Singer “picked up bonds with a face value printed on them of $100 million” during the Congo’s civil wars. “He paid about $10 million, but won a judgment to collect $400 million.” Earlier, he made a killing on Owens Corning, buying the company cheap after revelations that its asbestos plants were linked to worker deaths.
For more, check out In Fedora and Trench Coat, Greg Palast Exposes “Vultures” Who Profit From Crisis
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