George S. May Business Blog

Peter Kraus spends 37M on a new home.

The United States is going though one of the worst recessions we’ve seen in decades. Companies are laying people off, labor is being shipped overseas, and tax payers are flipping the bill for the banking crisis. In this time of economic turmoil parents are working two or three jobs just to scrape by and get the rent paid. There is however, a different class of people that are doing quite well, and they are doing so by destroying, and pillaging huge companies, only to walk away with a big fat paycheck. Peter Kraus appears to be one of these individuals.

Peter Kraus worked for Merrill Lynch for 3 months when it was injected with 25 billion dollars of tax payer’s money through a TARP fund. Peter Kraus resigned after working only three months at Merrill Lynch, and his quick exit landed him a 25 million dollar bonus check triggered by the Merrill sale.

Today the public learned that Jill Kraus, Peter’s wife purchased a 37 million dollar home at 720 Park Avenue in New York. The only reason we know of this is because New York’s real estate purchases are a matter of public record.

“The sellers, who are top Democratic fundraisers, bought the apartment in June 2006 for $20 million, property records show. Earlier reports of the sale estimated the price tag at $37 million. Just before buying the 7th-floor unit, the Spielvogels sold their 17th-floor apartment in the building for $18.7 million, in May 2006, records showed.”

So why someone would purchase real estate in a down market and pay almost double the going rate is fairly suspicious. I personally think an investigation should be launched to find out why.

We have no idea where our bailout money is going, according to Mr. Paulson we should not ask. So the government is telling us it’s too hard to track that much tax payer money. The banks are telling us they have no legal obligation to inform us where our funds are going to be used.

So the bloggers and I counting myself among them, will be more than happy to show exactly where 0.1% of the Merrill Lynch bailout money is going.

Let’s have a look at the Kraus’s new pad.

That is a very spacious layout Mr. Kraus I’m sure the tax payers are really impressed with your success.

Well at least we now know where some of our tax dollars going.

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