Living History by Unknown (the lemonade war series txt) 📗

I was able to take four months off from fulltime work to stay home with our new daughter, though with less income. As a partner, I continued to receive a base salary, but my income depended on the fees I generated, which naturally decreased during the time I wasn’t working. I never forgot how much more fortunate I was than many women to be given this time with my child. Bill and I both recognized the need for parental leave, preferably paid. We emerged from our experience committed to ensuring that all parents have the option to stay home with their newborn children and to have reliable child care when they return to work. That’d why I was so thrilled when the first bill he signed as President was the Family and Medical Leave Act.

We were living in the Governor’s Mansion, which had a built-in support system to help with Chelsea. Eliza Ashley, the invaluable cook who had worked in the mansion for decades, loved having a child in the house. Carolyn Huber, whom we had coaxed away from the Rose Law Firm to manage the mansion during Bill’s first term, was like a member of the family. Chelsea came to think of her as a surrogate aunt, and her help was priceless. But I never took any of our blessings for granted. As soon as Bill and I decided to start a family, I had begun to plan for a more stable financial future.

Money means almost nothing to Bill Clinton. He is not opposed to making money or owning property; it has simply never been a priority. He’s happy when he has enough to buy books, watch movies, go out to dinner and travel. Which is just as well, because as Governor of Arkansas he never made more than $35,000 a year, before taxes. That was a good income in Arkansas, and we lived in the Governor’s Mansion and had an official expense account that covered meals, which made it a better one. But I worried that because politics is an inherently unstable profession, we needed to build up a nest egg.

I’m sure I inherited my concerns from my notoriously frugal father, who made smart investments, put his kids through college and retired comfortably. My dad taught me how to follow the stock market when I was still in grade school and frequently reminded me that “money doesn’t grow on trees.” Only through hard work, savings and prudent investing could you become financially independent. Still, I had never given much thought to savings or investments until I realized that if our growing family were going to have any financial cushion, it would be mostly my responsibility. I started looking for opportunities I could afford. My friend Diane Blair was married to someone who knew the intricacies of the commodities market, and he was willing to share his expertise.

With his gravelly drawl, large frame and silver hair, Jim Blair was an imposing figure and an exceptional lawyer whose clients included the poultry giant Tyson Foods. Jim also held strong political opinions. He championed civil rights, opposed the Vietnam War and supported Senators Fulbright and McGovern against the political tides. He was blessed with a great personal warmth and a mischievous sense of humor. When he married Diane, he found a soul mate, as did she. Bill performed their wedding ceremony in 1979, and I served as their “best person.”

The commodities markets were booming in the late 1970s, and Jim had developed a system of trading that was making him a fortune. By 1978, he was doing so well that he encouraged his family and best friends to jump into the market. I was willing to risk $1,000 and let Jim guide my trades through the colorfully named broker Robert “Red”

Bone. Red was a former poker player, which made perfect sense, given his calling.

The commodities market is nothing like the stock exchange-in fact, it has more in common with Las Vegas than Wall Street. What investors buy and sell are promises (known as “futures”) to purchase or sell certain goods―wheat, coffee, cattle―at a fixed price. If the price is higher when those commodities are brought to market, the investor makes money. Sometimes it’s a great deal of money, because each dollar invested can control many times its value in futures. Price fluctuations of a few cents are amplified by huge volumes. On the other hand, if the market in hog-bellies or corn is glutted, then the price drops and the investor loses big.

I did my best to educate myself about cattle futures and margin calls to make it less frightening. I won and lost money over the months and followed the markets closely. For a while I opened a smaller, broker controlled account with another investment firm in Little Rock. But soon after I got pregnant with Chelsea in 1979, I lost my nerve for gambling.

The gains I had made suddenly seemed like real money we could use for our child’s higher education. I walked away from the table $100.000 ahead. Jim Blair and his compatriots stayed in the market longer and lost a good deal of the money they had made.

The large return on my investment was examined ad infinitum after Bill became President, although it never became the focus of a serious investigation. The conclusion was that, like many investors at the time, I’d been fortunate. Bill and I weren’t so lucky with another investment we made during the same period. Not only did we lose money on a piece of property called Whitewater Estates, the investment would spawn an investigation fifteen years later that endured throughout Bill’s Presidency.

It all started one day in the spring of 1978 when a businessman and longtime politico named Jim McDougal approached us with a sure-thing deal: Bill and I entered a partnership with Jim and his young wife, Susan, to buy two-hundred-thirty undeveloped acres on the south bank of the White River in North Arkansas. The plan was to subdivide the