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Picking Up the Tab: A Failed Texas Savings and Loan
January 17, 2001
Listen/download helpOn this program, we take a look at the company behind the fifth largest savings and loan failure, Maxaam. Maxaam and CEO Charles Hurwitz used United Savings Association of Texas (USAT) funds to gain capital backing for large stock purchases. Hurwitz and Maxaam also teamed up with Drexel, Burnham and Lambert, the investment banking firm which earned infamy during the S&L scandal years, to take control of United Savings Association of Texas without having to assume capital responsibility for the thrift.
Hurwitz bought Pacific Lumber with a combination of USAT funds and junk bond money. Maxaam started liquidating, cutting down thousand year old trees once it acquired Pacific Lumber, and environmental protests arose. Since 1993, Cherney and others have been lobbying the federal government to accept Pacific Lumber land, specifically the Headwaters Forest, in exchange for Hurwitz's S&L debt.
Featuring:
Darryl Cherney, Earth First!; Representative John Doolittle; David Foster, United Steelworkers of America; Jeff Petrich, House Committee on Resources; Jill Ratner, The Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment.
For more information:
Earth First!
P.O. Box 14720
Santa Rosa, California 95402
707-887-0262;
fax: 707-887-0865
Representative John Doolittle
2130 Professional Drive, Suite 190
Roseville, California 95661
916-786-5560;
fax: 916-786-6364;doolittle@mail.house.gov
www.house.gov/doolittle/
United Steelworkers of America
2829 University Avenue, SE, Suite 100
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414
612-623-8045;
fax: 612-623-8854
www.uswa.org
The Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment
6008 College Avenue, Suite 10
Oakland, California 94618
510-658-0702;
fax: 510-658-0732