Dan Maes’ new low

by Rossputin | 6:47 am, October 19, 2010 | 2 Comments

As I was watching Dan Maes’ most recent video, posted yesterday on YouTube, I actually felt a little sorry for the guy, at least for 4 1/2 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPkcNYNiNrc

I mean, it was a little pathetic for him to have to take 4.5 minutes of a 7 minute video explaining how misunderstood he was, how he really did work with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and really didn’t misappropriate any money from his campaign.

And believe it or not, I think he’s telling the truth, at least to a Maes-like degree which is to say that at least those claims aren’t completely false.

But my brief soft spot for Maes disappeared when he said, after explaining his own bankruptcy filing earlier in his life, that “at least I didn’t lose one million dollars of my retirement in a Ponzi scheme trying to make money fast.”

That’s it, Maes, I’m done with you for good.

Let’s make this absolutely crystal clear, you slimy little man so desperate to be somebody:

Tom Tancredo, along with many other Coloradoans, invested in a “fund of funds” through the former Agile Group,  which was marketed to them as the “Safety Funds” according to a friend of mine who, unfortunately, was also an investor in this disaster.  It was sold to these investors as extremely low risk, in part because it was supposed to be diversified over a fairly large number of different conservative hedge fund investments.  (I believe it was supposed to be in about 30 different funds.)

Tancredo and others invested in this program not to “make money fast” but because it seemed solid and safe, even boring; in other words, it seemed an absolutely appropriate place for retirement savings. It also served a secondary purpose of being “black box”, meaning that Tancredo didn’t know precisely what stocks he might be invested in, which is the situation he required while serving in Congress.

The manager of the Agile Group, Neal Greenberg, put too much of these funds’ investments into two hedge funds and added leverage to the mix.  The two hedge funds were the well-known Bernie Madoff fraud and the less-well-known Petters Group, which also turned out to be a Ponzi Scheme and which, I’m told, actually cost Agile investors even more than Madoff did.  Greenberg is being sued by the SEC for misleading investors.  And obviously Madoff and Petters were misleading investors, to put it kindly.

Victims of these evil men included many colleges and charities, many rich and many not-so-rich, the famous and the unknown.  In this unfortunate diverse group was Tom Tancredo.

Victims of Agile, Madoff, and Petters were most certainly not aiming for a quick buck.  Yes, one might criticize them for putting too much of their money in one place.  But, one needs to remember at least two things: First, Tancredo was not a financial professional.  He was a teacher turned Congressman.  Second, many victims of these frauds, particularly of Madoff, were extremely sophisticated investors.  It would not have been unreasonable for someone to say “If these many dozens of major institutions and billionaires are investing here, it’s probably a decent place for my money.”

Maes’ characterization of Tancredo’s losses – in which he did indeed lose the majority of his life’s savings – as somehow deserved because Tancredo was “trying to make money fast” is a reprehensible and unforgiveable slander, accusing the victim who has had decades of his labor stolen.

I know I’m just one guy and I don’t expect dozens of my readers to join in the intensity of my feelings on this issue, but Dan Maes has earned a new level of my scorn and I will do everything I can to keep him from winning a race for dog catcher in the future unless I hear him apologize to Tom Tancredo and the other innocent victims of these frauds.  How ironic that Colorado itself is about to become the victim of a fraud, if Dan “the accidental candidate” Maes’ candidacy gives us four years of Governor Hickenlooper.

Remember this Dan Maes: what goes around comes around.  As a man who seems to believe that the universe rewards people for good behavior, I presume you believe the flip side of that coin.  Seems to me you just took on a lot of risk by your reprehensible lie and I look forward to seeing how the universe rewards you.

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