The Occupying Army Should Protest Against the Pelosis

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is among the wealthiest members of Congress. Her net worth actually increased over 60% over the past couple of funemployment-filled years, while most Americans’ net worth fell and many of the occupiers piled up pointless student debt. And now, it turns out that Nancy’s son Paul got preferential job and loan treatment because of his political connectedness.

Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi, Jr., was protected from a round of layoffs when he was a mortgage broker for Countrywide, according to “Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon,” a 2011 book co-authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.

“Paul Pelosi, Jr., the son of Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House, worked as a mortgage broker and sales manager at a Countrywide office in San Mateo, California,” Morgenson and Rosner wrote in the book. “In 2007, when the company was on the ropes and beginning a mass of layoffs, Pelosi’s name was on the list of those to be cut. According to a former executive with knowledge of the situation, [Countrywide CEO Angelo] Mozilo personally removed Pelosi’s name from the list.”

According to Morgenson and Rosner, Countrywide was able to make political alliances with people like Pelosi through favors like this.

“With more than thirty-five thousand employees, it was easy for Mozilo to make a few strategic hires for friends and others in positions to help Countrywide,” they wrote.

Also, according to the Los Angeles Times, Pelosi’s son Paul also got about $1 million in loans for a condo from his politically-connected employer Countrywide.

Pelosi’s son’s special treatment contrasts with the top House Democrat’s support for Occupy Wall Street — a movement that appears to oppose corporate corruption and cronyism.

That sort of cronyism is rumored to be among the various things that the occupiers hate. It’s hard to say for sure, of course, since the occupiers themselves just tend to let it all hang out while not saying much useful about what it is that they actually do want. Mostly, it seems, they want to camp. And chant.