Another Thing They Agree On…

Senate Weighs Aid to 2.2 Million Subprime Borrowers (Update4)
March 13 (Bloomberg) — U.S. lawmakers will have to consider providing aid to about 2.2 million subprime mortgage borrowers who are at risk of defaulting and losing their homes, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said today. “The impact of losing 2.2 million homes I suspect will be in a lot of areas of our cities and towns that are already pretty hard hit, so we clearly want to look at that and legislate,” Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, told reporters in Washington after a speech to the National League of Cities.

All the firms like Christopher Dodd. It’s not the man, his party, or his politics, but his position that attracts the dollars. The Chairman of the Senate Banking Commmittee (Senator Dodd and retired Senator Alfonse D’Amato before him) have significant influence over the way things go for the Big 4 firms. This is also another example of how far back the next tier audit firms (GT, BDO, RSM) are in power and influence. They don’t show up anywhere near the Top 100 donors on these lists.

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
CAREER PROFILE (SINCE 1989)
Top Contributors

1 Deloitte & Touche $194,970
2 Greenwich Capital Markets $183,000
3 Bear Stearns $162,850
4 Citigroup Inc $157,000
5 Goldman Sachs $147,516
6 United Technologies $124,550
7 JP Morgan Chase & Co $114,523
8 PricewaterhouseCoopers $113,850
9 Morgan Stanley $99,725
10 American International Group $97,338
11 Lehman Brothers $96,000
12 Ernst & Young $86,000
13 Prudential Financial $85,512
14 Credit Suisse First Boston $85,250
15 Time Warner $84,250
16 General Electric $78,280
17 Hartford Financial Services $78,150
18 KPMG LLP $72,290
19 UST Inc $71,400
20 UBS Americas $66,950