" Angus King Is a Nice Guy" ~‏ Even Though He Legally Stole Your Hard Earned Money And Some Of Your Homes

Angus Is a Nice Guy  

He just doesn't deliver when it comes to fiscal management

AUGUSTA - A clear pattern is emerging.  The Maine Today Media newspapers summed up the story nicely.  On a campaign walk in Oakland yesterday, Angus King posed with the bank whose board he abandoned shortly before it was slapped with another federal regulatory enforcement order.  He then jovially joked with onlookers about mashed potatoes and pet grooming.  There's no doubt about it, Angus is a charmer.  He's a nice guy, loved by all.  But Maine needs more than that, just as the Bank of Maine needed more than that.  What Angus can deliver is a winning personality, but where he comes up short is delivering competence and results.  

On February 25, 2004, Angus King was appointed to the board of W.P Stewart & Co. Ltd., a Bermuda-based investment company.  Not much is known about Angus's time at this mysterious Bermudian investment cartel which caters to the world's super-rich.  Aside from the pink sand, that's one of the advantages of home-basing in Bermuda.  What we do know is that by January 5, 2009, W.P. Stewart's value had declined so badly that the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) delisted it. On June 3, 2010, the company announced that it was parting ways with King as part of a reorganization that favored a "more stream-lined corporate structure going forward" than the structure that King and his fellow board members had provided.  Since then, the firm has been able to post much better results in its performance summary.   

Angus was seen at W.P. Stewart events during his tenure there and was appointed to several subcommittees of the board, so his directorship was not an inactive one.  Since his activities at the shadowy investment firm were covered by more lax Bermudian disclosure laws and he was let go only weeks before the period covered by his senate financial disclosure, Angus should come clean about his time there and give Mainers the whole truth.   

How much did they pay you, Angus?  What kind of decisions did you make?  What were your time commitments while on the board?   What kind of perks and benefits did you get?   

Of course, perhaps the best example of King's financial mismanagement is Independence Wind, the company that he used to snag up $102 million worth of federal loans from the same Obama stimulus program that funded the infamous Solyndra scam - loans obtained with help from a letter from Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, with whom Angus likes to hang out in a posh, Sussman-owned Virgin Islands getaway.  Congress is still investigating whether King's wind project was sufficiently "innovative" to qualify for the loans, but why have innovation when you can have a letter from Rep. Pingree?   

Again, Angus's financial record is tarnished.  Why would he need that big patronage loan from Barack, Chellie, and the American taxpayer if he has such solid business acumen and the partnership of the $19.4 billion Yale Endowment?     

It is unfortunate for the taxpayers and for countless investors that Angus King's business skills don't measure up to the "political skills" he brags about on his wind company's website. 

"Do we really need more troubled banks, green energy boondoggles, and massive deficits in Washington, D.C.?" asked Maine Republican Party spokesman David Sorensen.  "No. I think Mainers have had enough of that."  

Angus King is a nice guy.  Go ahead and talk with him about mashed potatoes and pet grooming.  Just don't trust him with finances - especially not America's at this critical time.