Billionaire GOP donor realizes he's pissed away $10 million on "Jeb!"

[Miles Archer]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/07/the-biggest-donor-to-jeb-bushs-super-pac-says-bush-is-not-living-up-to-expectations/

The billionaire insurance magnate whose company gave $10 million to the super PAC behind the Jeb Bush presidential bid expressed regret Thursday about the direction of that campaign.

"Listen, I like Jeb Bush," Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg told a Fox News correspondent late Thursday morning, just hours after the donation was first reported. "Sorry he's not living up to expectations, but that's the reality of it."

Greenberg's mega-donation, first reported Thursday by the Wall Street Journal, puts him in a rarefied group of donors who have contributed double digit millions to a politically-oriented organizations so far this campaign. A handful of donors who have given to super PACs supporting the presidential bid of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), including Robert Mercer, the New York hedge fund executive, who gave $11 million; Toby Neugebauer, a private equity company founder, who gave $10 million; and members of the Wilks family, energy entrepreneurs in Texas, who gave $15 million. With the revelation of his eight-figure contribution, Greenberg became by far the largest known donor to Bush.

Greenberg made his fortune building American International Group, the insurance and investment giant that received a government bailout several years ago, after Greenberg had left. It is not known when Greenberg's current firm, C.V. Starr and Co., made the donation to support Bush. A spokesman for the Bush super PAC, Paul Lindsey, declined to address the report, saying that "we do not discuss donors." Those details will still emerge by the end of the month, when the next Federal Election Commission reporting period ends on Jan. 31.

[hobbit709]

1. Money well spent. He could have spent it on something worse for us.

[bulloney]

2. To people who think the private sector is inherently superior to the public sector on managing money

I hold cases like this as an example of why it's not true. These billionaires squander money on crapshoots like this all the time. And they make similar-sized financial mistakes in other things they do. It's just that they've reached a point where they have rigged the whole system to where they can make up the losses quickly.

[Tace]

3. Pretty Odd For A Donor To Be Trash Talking His Candidate

It doesn't make much sense to me. There must be some promise that Greenberg hasn't been able to elicit from Jeb! Like maybe a promise that he will prevail in his latest lawsuit against the federal government. He wants the United States to pay AIG billions of dollars in damages for rescuing it from bankruptcy (by spending billions of dollars).:

(From Wikipedia)

In November 2012 a Miami court dismissed Greenberg's claims that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York breached its fiduciary duties to AIG shareholders.[22] In late 2011 Greenberg's Starr International announced a lawsuit against the federal government. According to Reuters, the lawsuit seeks $55.5 billion in damages against the government stemming from the government's financial bailout in 2008.[23][24] Following a lengthy trial in Fall 2014, the Court of Federal Claims ruled in June 2015 that the federal government acted without authority, but did not award any damages.[25] That decision is on appeal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_R._Greenberg#Legal_issues

[elias49]

4. Oh snap! Not the only one i bet nt

[jberryhill]

5. What's truly amazing...

Is that these guys yammer on about taxation, which is money better spent.

[beac]

10. You say amazing...

I say disgusting.

His attitude is "Well, that didn't work... good thing I have another $10 million to buy someone else." He's about as upset as someone who lost a 10-cents-off coupon at the grocery store.

[SoCalDem]

6. Shoulda played powerball

[Vinca]

9. I think it's more of a sure thing than JEB!

[IDemo]

12. The chances of a Jeb! presidency

are smaller than being struck by lightning while being abducted by aliens.

[HughBeaumont]

7. Wow, wish I had $10 million in pocket change to burn.

Too bad ten million doesn't buy you foresight to weed out tone deaf legacies.

[hatrack]

8. Poor man! I sure hope he has enough left to retire on!

[Octafish]

11. Poor Hank, taken in by the BFEE.

Bailout of AIG, the CIA, and Covert Operations

Billionaire Hank has made it the old fashioned way: secret cronies.