Love the note at the Madoff Trustee Site about Friday's "Meeting of Creditors" in the auditorium of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in lower Manhattan:
Due to the fact that this case involves a criminal matter, the Trustee does not expect that any member of pre-liquidation management of BLMIS will be present for examination.
The monster won't be there. So, villagers, leave your torches at home. And that goes for your whips, chains, guns, and cudgels, too. And also the sick and helpless Americans who depended on their organizations' investments with Madoff. Don't bring them, because, as court-appointed trustee Irving Picard also notes:
Meeting attendees are encouraged to arrive early as the Auditorium and overflow rooms have a limited seating capacity of 460 and attendees are required to pass through a security checkpoint before being admitted to the building.
For those of you who didn't get snookered by Bernie, BLMIS stands for "Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities." Of course, the "investments" may not have existed, and if they did, they weren't secure.
One more note: Cash will not be handed out at this meeting.
The Senate just passed an $789 billion stimulus package, but parts of it are already scaring hell out of web users.
The devil may or may not be in the details, as broadbandreports.com explains:
Consumer advocate group Public Knowledge issued an alert saying that Democrat Dianne Feinstein was trying to sneak copyright filters into the bill (it's not clear if she was successful).
Consumer advocate group Free Press issued a statement applauding the fact that grant money in both bills [the House and Senate versions] still requires carriers to hold fast to network openness.
The Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement chief is out as the agency faces anger over its handling of the Bernie Madoff alleged Ponzi scam.
The SEC said Monday that Linda Thomsen, its director of enforcement, was leaving to return to the private sector.
There have been reports that newly appointed SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro was talking to ex-federal prosecutor Robert Khuzami about replacing Thomsen. Khuzami is currently Deutsche Bank's chief counsel for the Americas.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday it obtained a partial settlement that will impose a permanent injunction against Bernard Madoff in its civil complaint for his alleged role in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
The judgment, submitted to a New York federal judge, makes permanent a temporary injunction imposed on Mr. Madoff in December that froze his assets and restrained him from violating the antifraud provisions of securities laws.
Mr. Madoff did not admit any wrongdoing under this partial settlement, but under its terms, he won't be able to challenge the allegations when it comes to determining fines and disgorgement.
...Great Neck appears to be the hardest hit area here, with about 600 accounts invested with Madoff, who is out on $10 million bail and under house arrest at his Upper East Side apartment. The losses overall have had a myriad of effects, ranging from the devastation Adele and her husband face to not as worrisome ones faced by more moneyed investors.
Even though his name and the names of his late parents appear on the 162-page list of purported Bernard Madoff investors, Ira Sorkin, Madoff's attorney, tells the Wall Street Journal: "I have never been an investor or customer of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. I'm not going to talk about my family members."
Plans are moving apace to purposely set up a "toxic bank" full of poisonous assets to further bail out those banks that had greedily and recklessly accumulated them.
Call it Shitibank. And give it the naming rights to the new baseball stadium for the New York Mets, taking the moniker away from toxic Citibank.
No joke. As Ground Zero reminds us of 9/11, ShitiField would serve as a monument to the global financial meltdown caused by New Yorkers. ShitiField would remind us to burst any future Wall Street bubbles before they blow up in our faces.
And, once the toxic bank is up and running, we proles can move our non-existent pension money to it. But don't count on driving a new Nissan to the new bank: Even if you could afford to buy one, Nissan can't afford to keep its factories open to manufacture one.
What's really going to happen this week sounds just as far-fetched, but it's not: Many investors on Wall Street don't want the market to recover. They want it to hit bottom so they can start buying shares and companies again.
Bigwig Ray Dalio of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates tellsBarron's:
"Buying equities and taking on those risks in late 2009, or more likely 2010, will be a great move because equities will be much cheaper than now. It is going to be a buying opportunity of the century."
Meanwhile, corporate welfare is humming along, as government's sudden socialists are coming to the rescue of capitalism. Heartwarming, especially for the likes of Nissan, which, as the Wall Street Journalreports, plans to "seek government assistance from Japan, the U.S. and elsewhere."
And now the rescue plan for America calls for a combination of the toxic bank and encouragement by the government for hedge funds to profit from the grief by expanding their investments (instead of the government's clawing back ill-gained profits from hedge funds). And don't worry about Wall Street's top execs: All the scoldings by President Barack Obama won't stop them from making their big bucks. See? The free-market system does work.
At least we know that defense contractors will make it through the depression in good shape. Bibi Netanyahu is about to reclaim control of Israel, and that will signal that, as the BBC reports, "Israel is shifting to the right" and, as the Daily News says, "a harder line is coming with Israel's Arab neighbors."
Could the line get any harder, you ask?
While you're investing in weapons makers or just waiting to pour your money back into the market or snap up some ailing companies, click on these...
This week we'll see a knock-down, drag-out battle between Obama, Geithner and the Senate who want to keep the market from falling, and the market itself which wants to drop precipitously.
As Seth Meyers pointed out on Saturday Night Live, Kellogg Company's image is closer to that of bong-smoking Olympian Michael Phelps than the cereal maker likes to admit.
Kellogg's Keebler Elves, after all, "live together in a treehouse and do nothing all day but think of new things to put cheese on."
Wall Street helped produce the global financial and economic crisis. Now, as the Obama administration prepares to unveil a revised bailout plan for the banking system, policy makers hope Wall Street can be part of the solution.
Administration officials said the plan to be announced Tuesday was likely to depend in part on the willingness of private investors other than banks — like hedge funds, private equity funds and perhaps even insurance companies -- to buy the contaminating assets that wiped out the capital of many banks.
For many high school seniors who are applying to college in the midst of an economic meltdown, Cooper Union's commitment to full scholarships -- regardless of need -- has given the institution an almost mythic allure....
While many of the nation's elite colleges underwrite the education of poor students, Cooper is among a handful of private colleges that are tuition-free for everyone (it does not, however, pay for room and board, though financial aid is available for living expenses).
Another Bank Bailout: On Monday, Treasury Secretary Geithner is due to announce the next phase in a long series of government bailouts for banks. The leaks about the plan thus far have indicated a hybrid approach using elements of a "bad bank" and more government guarantees on bank assets. The price action of Bank of America and Citigroup does not inspire confidence in the market's reaction to previously announced government guarantees of toxic bank assets.
If the regulators hope to bring stability to the markets, they might want to consider leaving the rules unchanged for more than two weeks at a time.
A 21-year-old autistic man perished and his grandmother was left fighting for her life as flames engulfed their 17th-floor East Harlem apartment yesterday morning, police said.
The stimulus plan emerging in Washington could offer an unprecedented, multibillion-dollar boost in financial help for college students trying to pursue a degree while they ride out the recession.
Former Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, who is poised to be swept back into power Monday, declared Sunday he would not give up the strategic Golan Heights, signaling a harder line is coming with Israel's Arab neighbors.
Casino operator MGM Mirage says a tax break for forgiven debt is a good way for Congress to stimulate the U.S. economy; Granite Construction Inc. favors more money for roads and bridges; General Motors Corp. wants incentives for car buyers.
Critics are skeptical of gains cited by school officials at an Assembly hearing Friday on whether mayoral control of the school system should continue.
The Obama administration is considering turning to a new program run by the Fed that depends heavily on hedge funds to jump-start the financial system.
Mayor Bloomberg came to a Queens banquet hall Sunday like a man looking to woo a lover he once spurned, sweet-talking a roomful of Republicans to take him back. It didn't work.
The debate over the controversial practice of child marriage in Saudi Arabia was pushed back into the spotlight this week, with the kingdom's top cleric saying that it's OK for girls as young as 10 to wed.
"It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks quoted Wednesday in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."...
Late last month, a Saudi judge refused to annul the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man.
The judge, Sheikh Habib Abdallah al-Habib, rejected a petition from the girl's mother, whose lawyer said the marriage was arranged by her father to settle a debt with "a close friend." The judge required the girl's husband to sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reaches puberty.
More than 70 percent of firefighters who retired in the past five years did so on disabilities - hiking the cost of taxpayer-funded FDNY pensions to nearly $1 billion a year, a Post analysis shows. At the same time, a rise in final-year overtime racked up by firefighters - even those retiring on disabilities - has boosted pension costs...
A law firm with bankruptcy expertise, three capital-markets lawyers and an investment bank are advising the U.S. government on how to restructure General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, two people involved in the work said.
The present and impending disorder of the automobile companies is a reminder, even more than the decline of the housing and banking industries, of the desolation of the Great Depression. It is a reminder, too, of economic history, or of the rise and decline of industrial destinies.
The Great Depression of the 1930s created hardship and suffering among millions of Americans. It also created populist resentment of elites. Among the many signs of this anger was the astonishing popularity of Huey P. Long, governor of Louisiana and then U.S. senator, a figure so dominant in his own state that his enemies called him a dictator. But to the ordinary people of Louisiana -- and later to millions of ordinary people across the U.S. -- Mr. Long was a heroic figure, fighting for the "common man" and challenging the right of elites to monopolize power and wealth....
Every Sunday night, New York bankruptcy lawyer Marshall Huebner spends a 13-hour shift on call as an emergency medical technician. His day job involves work on another sort of rescue: The government's $152.5 billion bailout of American International Group Inc.
After six months of deliberating whether to buy a car, Mumbai real-estate agent Abraham Mathew took out a 300,000 rupee ($6,200) loan to buy a Suzuki Motor Corp. sedan. The clincher: a 20 percent drop in interest rates.
You may have seen the PDF version of the latest list of Bernie Madoff's human and corporate victims. If not, check it out.
See my colleague Roy Edroso's riff on the list. I'm trying to post a text version of the entire roster of willing suckers, but our server is gagging on the size. Anyone have a Bloomberg machine? May I borrow it? May the SEC borrow it?
Good for the New York Times! Always trying to take a broad view (even when one doesn't exist, as Jack Shafer often points out), the paper weighs in on how the plight of Bernie Madoff's white-haired victims gives us valuable insights about the global meltdown with this morning's "Fossils of Largest Snake Give Hint of Hot Earth."
Good info that the "prehistoric snake" was "a giant relative of today's boa constrictors." The elderly Madoff wasn't the first, nor will he be the last, snake to swallow your money. Wall Street is really is a dangerous place, even for celebrities — see the latest list of Madoff's victims.
Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos's testimony yesterday on Capitol wasn't quite as colorful, but the bookish-yet-tigerish accountant was pretty damn intense, as I previously noted.
Among other fascinating details, Markopolos told the dazed House members that he planned to deliver to the SEC today a "mini-Madoff." The agency is sure to accept this silver platter with respect and care.
President Barack Obama, on the other hand, is showing me no respect with his $500,000 limit on CEO pay ( VIDEO). To get a bailout, I have to limit my pay? I don't think so.
New York's top banking firms went on a multimillion lobbying spree late last year -- just as the feds were crafting a $700 billion rescue plan for struggling banks.
The banks got an extraordinary return on their investment, as they got federal cash injections that were thousands of times larger than what they spent trying to influence Congress and the administration - which doled out the cash.
In a high-profile reversal of the Bush administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said yesterday the government is scrapping the leases of 77 parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling in Utah's redrock country.
When President Barack Obama launches his version of the faith-based initiative Thursday, he will expand the mission to include abortion reduction and outreach to the Muslim world. He will also try to avoid the thorniest constitutional issues that beset the program for years under his predecessor.
Mr. Obama's approach to the federal faith office reflects his search for common ground on contentious social issues, and his willingness to dial back some of his campaign positions.
A federal judge charged with slapping his wife hired a big shot defense attorney as he faces a misdemeanor charge that could land him in the clink.
James Peck, 63, the bankruptcy judge overseeing the breakup of Lehman Brothers, hired Barry Bohrer, a prominent criminal defense lawyer whose clients have included Sam Israel, the hedge fund swindler who went on the lam last summer after faking his own suicide to avoid a 20-year jail term.
Peck, who was briefly assigned to handle the Bernard Madoff bankruptcy until he recused himself in December, told cops when they came to his Park Ave. apartment Saturday afternoon that "I was defending myself."
He said his wife, Judith Peck, 64, was late in returning to the city from their home in the Hamptons and then they argued over a ladder that she had put in his closet.
"I was moving the ladder out. She slapped me in the face," he told cops. "I put the ladder down and slapped her back. We slapped each other back and forth."
...Other victims were identified as Ground Zero developer Larry Silverstein, the estate of late singer John Denver, actor John Malkovich, former Mets second baseman Tim Teufel and even Madoff's lawyer Ira Sorkin. The 163-page list also includes hundreds of trust funds, charities, pension plans and unions, as well as entries for Madoff's grandchildren. [FULL LIST]
Two managers of the Massachusetts state pension fund have been fired for poor performances, including one who lost $12 million investing with accused Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff.
Chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon computed the Mets' 2009 payroll at $143 million when factors such as Freddy Garcia's probable salary with bonuses, the $1.6 million owed to the Diamondbacks for Scott Schoeneweis and $2.25 million owed to Willie Randolph are included. Wilpon handed Minaya that budget early in the offseason, before Wilpon learned his family had lost money in the Bernie Madoff scandal. Wilpon declared that the Mets had accomplished their winter objectives, mentioning the acquisitions of Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz and "addition by subtraction" with trades that shipped out players such as Aaron Heilman and Schoeneweis.
After only part of this morning's House hearing starring Harry Markopolos, there's little doubt that Bernie Madoff's true identity is Dr. Evil.
What else can one think when House members wondered aloud whether there are "mini-Madoffs" or "medium-size Madoffs" lurking in the Wall Street wastelands.
Markopolos answered in the affirmative and said he plans to "deliver a mini-Madoff to the SEC tomorrow," adding, "Hopefully they listen to me this time."
The House Financial Services Committee members agreed that this time the SEC will probably listen to Markopolos. There's no hint, however, of who Markopolos is talking about.
But speaking of Dr. Evil, Markopolos also pointed out (as I and some others have) that Wall Street's fraudsters couldn't pull off their schemes without Mayor Mike Bloomberg's proprietary sophisticated hardware/software machines.
There's no other way, many say, to conjure up the increasingly sophisticated financial instruments that ruined Wall Street and will no doubt ruin it again during the next bubble.
Bloomberg is supposedly the biggest philanthropist in America; he got the money from the sale of his machines on Wall Street.
Which leads to the question: How could Mayor Bloomberg not have known the various nefarious uses to which his machines could be put? Of course he knows.
Which leads to this: Wall Street's meltdown happened on his watch, and it was created by his pals — his customers — at the Street's big banks. So why didn't he stop it or at least see the signs of an impending disaster?
If not him, who? If not then, why not?
And now he wants another mayoral term to keep our streets supposedly safe when the only street he knows — Wall Street — has become the most dangerous stretch of pavement in the country?
Just wondering.
Markopolos didn't make that point, but he did say that the SEC operates at a tremendous disadvantage in trying to understand the complex schemes of the Street's white-shoed gangsters by not having nearly enough Bloomberg terminals. Give the SEC more Bloomberg terminals, he told the House panel, because the fraudsters and scamsters have them.
Wild-eyed Harry also has a beef with the press: He contended that a Wall Street Journal reporter (whom he didn't name) was very interested three years ago and was willing to fly to Boston to meet with Markopolos but that the reporter's editors were scared off by Madoff's power and reputation and nixed it. (For more on that, see Gary Weiss's post on Seeking Alpha.)
Treated with extreme deference, Markopolos is surely one of the most brash witnesses to testify on Capitol Hill in quite a while. And well-prepared — browse his lengthy (but entertaining) written testimony if you can't wait for the sound bites later today.
Of course, he can back it up, having warned a decade before Madoff confessed to his sons that Bernie was a fraudster.
At least, Markopolos can back it up for now. His hubris, his zealotry, his sense of certainty — they make you wonder whether Markopolos, like Madoff's scheme, is too good to be true.
Anyway, Markopolos's halo — or is it his intense eyes? — cast an eerie glow for now on the scene of perhaps capitalism's all-time worst disaster.
California Democrat Brad Sherman noted that Markopolos isn't just some "wild-eyed populist." Sherman was half-right. Markopolos is definitely wild-eyed — he has the look and tone of a zealot — but he's also the staunchest defender of capitalism one could imagine, and that includes Ayn Rand.
And imaginative, too. Markopolos raised the intriguing notion that retired Wall Street bigwigs, people with little or no hair, as he put it, should be hired by the SEC to replace the young whippersnappers who now infest the agency's lower ranks.
Markopolos reasons that veterans won't have to do it for the money, because they've already made theirs and that they would be foxes able to sniff out the rotten eggs in the henhouse.
This probably won't happen, unless these Wall Street veterans are suddenly imbued with that sense of civic responsibility that Barack Obama mentioned in his inaugural address.
Obama tells a surprisingly blunt Katie Couric, "I messed up."
Tom Daschle's quick exit from the health-care Cabinet job is just proof that he was a poor choice for the job.
If the guy can't get it together enough to wipe his nose clean after rubbing it against the rear of society schmuckettes like Catherine Reynolds, then he's not the person to tackle the extraordinarily tricky job of cleaning up the health-care mess.
He should just return to his destiny: playing off his former job in Congress to lobby his former Congress pals on behalf of rich clients. (See Muckety's quick read on Daschle's ties to Reynolds.)
Daschle wasn't a notable senator in the first place, despite his high post in the Democratic Party heirarchy. Teddy Kennedy or Paul Wellstone he wasn't.
Barack Obama did take responsibility for the Daschle embarrassment and did admit that he, the president, screwed up, but it was Daschle who screwed up his own nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
All he had to do was come clean to Obama or Obama's vetters, and this wouldn't have happened. Actually, he could have just paid his taxes in the first place. But hubris isn't exclusive to Wall Street bankers or pro athletes. Former senators often think that they, too, are above the law or the law's consequences.
Obama's screw-up came when he picked Daschle in the first place — unless Obama wanted a weak-sister guy like Daschle in there. All of this leaves murky the question of what exactly the Obama regime has in mind for health care.
The last time a Democratic administration came to power, Bill Clinton turned the health-care issue over to Hillary Clinton, who, true to her conservative roots, immediately reneged on her vow to supporters and advisers to consider a national health-care plan. Instead, she relied on the inherently corrupt health-care industry — not the doctors, but the insurers — and any hope of a cleaner, fairer, more inclusive national health-care plan that wouldn't be controlled by the middlemen (the insurers) was doomed. (Click here for my February 2005 rant about this; you'll have to scroll down a little ways to get to it.)
In any case, good-bye, Daschle. Don't let the revolving door hit you on your way into and out of government offices.
The rest of you, however, are welcome to stay right here and click on the following items...
President Obama will announce a crackdown on Wall Street fat cats on Wednesday, setting a $500,000 cap on executive compensation for companies getting taxpayer bailouts, a senior administration official said Tuesday night.
...One of President Barack Obama's closest political confidants and early mentors, Mr. Daschle had been tapped to spearhead the effort to overhaul the nation's health-care system. But concerns arising from Mr. Daschle's failure to pay more than $100,000 in taxes on time, coupled with tax problems involving two other cabinet nominees, threatened both the administration's health-care agenda and the credibility of Mr. Obama's pledge to raise the ethical standards of Washington.
Mr. Daschle's sudden withdrawal came two weeks to the day after Mr. Obama took office, and 24 hours after the president told reporters that he "absolutely" stood by his nominee. The abrupt move stands to potentially dent the reputation for steadiness and managerial prowess that the 47-year-old president had cultivated over a smoothly run campaign and a transition to power that boasted of a swift vetting and nomination of top aides.
Federal immigration officials had repeatedly told Congress that among more than half a million immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, they would concentrate on rounding up the most threatening -- criminals and terrorism suspects.
Instead, newly available documents show, the agency changed the rules, and the program increasingly went after easier targets. A vast majority of those arrested had no criminal record, and many had no deportation orders against them, either.
President Barack Obama will announce today that he's imposing a cap of $500,000 on the compensation of top executives at companies that receive significant federal assistance in the future, responding to a public outcry over Wall Street excess.
Any additional compensation will be in restricted stock that won't vest until taxpayers have been paid back, according to an administration official, who requested anonymity. The rules will force greater transparency on the use of corporate jets, office renovations and holiday parties as well as golden parachutes offered to executives when they leave companies.
Senior U.S. commanders are finalizing plans to send tens of thousands of reinforcements to Afghanistan's main opium-producing region and its porous border with Pakistan, moves that will form the core of President Barack Obama's emerging Afghan war strategy....
Virtually none of the new troops heading to Afghanistan will go to Kabul or other major Afghan cities. By contrast, when the Bush administration dispatched 30,000 new troops to Iraq as part of the so-called surge, the bulk of the new forces went to Baghdad....
The deployments, part of a planned doubling of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, are almost certain to spark heavier casualties and push the war squarely onto the public agenda. "I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be [more U.S. casualties]," Vice President Joe Biden said on CBS Sunday. "There will be an uptick."
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and his Alliance for Climate Protection say clean-coal technology is a fantasy.
Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. coal producer, says another prominent Democrat has pledged to make the technology a reality: President Barack Obama.
The Gore-Obama split illustrates a growing debate in the U.S. as the new president attempts to deliver on his promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the country 80 percent by 2050. Depending on who's speaking, coal is either the villain or part of the solution.
Ayad Allawi, the first prime minister selected after the Americans handed power back to Iraqis in June 2004, has made a comeback in the provincial elections, unofficial preliminary returns indicate, setting himself up as a potential rival to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
Connecticut, the wealthiest U.S. state with per capita income of $54,117 in 2007, has profited from its proximity to Wall Street since rail lines from the city reached north to Fairfield County more than a century ago. According to Forbes magazine, the state's richest residents now are hedge fund managers including Steven Cohen and Paul Tudor Jones, who live and work in and around Greenwich. Cohen earned $900 million in 2007 while Jones made $300 million, according to Institutional Investor magazine's Alpha publication.
A one-man crime wave from Massachusetts road-tripped it to Columbia University every weekend for the past two months -- stealing wallets from gymnasium lockers and a dozen laptops, the Post has learned.
Fraud investigator Harry Markopolos blamed the Securities and Exchange Commission's "financial illiteracy" for failing to heed his warnings about money manager Bernard Madoff.
Mr. Markopolos had warned the SEC for nearly a decade that Mr. Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme. Mr. Markopolos is set to testify before a House committee Wednesday, and 311 pages of his written testimony became public Tuesday evening.
In what's obviously a P.R. move, Citigroup says it's looking into pulling out of a $400 million marketing deal with the New York Mets.
Here's the current situation: Citigroup is supposedly on the hook to pay $400 million to the Mets for the naming rights to the unwarranted new stadium. Meanwhile, Citigroup, which has reported $28.5 billion in net losses since 2007, according to the Wall Street Journal, received a $45 billion bailout last fall from Henry Paulson's Wall Street giveaway TARP program.
Here's a better idea: Make the bank stay in the ill-fated scheme it can no longer afford, but force it pay the $400 million to the public — not the Mets — to help offset the billions in bailout money the public's already given the bank.
You're going to point out that the Mets would howl at having to give up that $400 million? Of course, but the team should have no reason to bitch. As my indefatigable stadium-expert colleague and Field of Schemes author Neil deMausepointed out January 14 on Runnin' Scared, the public's paying for $371.5 million of the new stadium.
So make the team give us back our money.
Of course, neither the team nor Citigroup will reimburse us. But it doesn't hurt to suggest it.
And don't think it's cynical to call this Citigroup maneuver to supposedly try to pull out of the naming deal a P.R. move. This morning's Journal story starts off with the idea that the bank is "eager to quell the controversy over how lenders are using government bailout money." The story adds:
In a statement Monday, Citigroup said that "no TARP capital will be used" for the stadium -- referring to government funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. But as it revisits the pact, Citigroup is essentially acknowledging that the volatile political climate could make it untenable for the bank to proceed with the deal.
Such liars the bank officials are. Technically they wouldn't be directly transferring TARP money to the Mets to pay for the stadium rights, but so what? Same public funds, different pocket.
Meanwhile, what a shrewd marketing move for the Mets: Name your team after the bank that's laying off thousands of people and getting bailed out by taxpayers who are so beleaguered that they can't even afford tickets to the games.
Speaking of naming rights that didn't cost us anything (at least for the names): Paulson's top aide at handing out the bailout money, Neel Kashkari, and the scamster named Bernie who made off with billions of other people's money.
From the New Yorker's "Your Eustace, 2009," the mag's annual contest for the best new version of Rea Irvin's classic cover, this entry (one of 12 winners — and my favorite) is "Eustace, the Undead New Yorker," by David Cook of Suwanee, Georgia.
Further proof of the schizophrenic media culture: Despite the widespread political correctness that infects discourse on numerous topics, Governor David Paterson keeps getting hammered because his eyes don't work right.
Israel's ever-increasing crackdown on Arabs (the most ludicrous new idea is an Israeli-controlled 30-mile-long tunnel connecting Arab enclaves ) is the
apartheid that dares not speak its name — at least most of the U.S. media don't dare speak of it.
But Paterson continues to get blistered because of his bad eyesight, which he can't help and which, after all, doesn't make him a more hapless and mediocre accidental governor.
A hospital trade group and a health-care union yesterday released a bizarre new attack ad -- using a sightless man wearing sunglasses to slam legally blind Gov. Paterson for budget cuts.
"Why are you doing this to me?" the unidentified patient asks Paterson halfway through the 30-second spot, funded to the tune of $1 million a week by the Greater New York Hospital Association and Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union.
To some observers, the blind man's role in the statewide attack ad against Paterson's plan to cut health care by $3.5 billion seems too personal by even Albany's standards for no-holds-barred budget battles.
On the other hand, Paterson does seem to have blinders on when it comes to the outrageous Wall Street bonuses. As the Gothamist noted in mid-December, before Barack Obamascolded Wall Street:
In what continues to be a familiar story of cat and mouse in politicians pointing the finger as to where funds aren't coming from, Governor Paterson yesterday claimed the state lost hundreds of millions in tax revenue because less big Wall Street bonuses are being given out this year.
Nothing personal, but what Paterson fails to see is that the state loses far more gelt by not taxing hedge fund goniffs' pay.
New York City hedge funds earned $20 billion to $39 billion last year, far outstripping the profits of Wall Street banks and demonstrating how outdated the city's tax system risks becoming, a new study said on Tuesday.
A hospital trade group and a health-care union yesterday released a bizarre new attack ad - using a sightless man wearing sunglasses to slam legally blind Gov. Paterson for budget cuts.
"Why are you doing this to me?" the unidentified patient asks Paterson halfway through the 30-second spot, funded to the tune of $1 million a week by the Greater New York Hospital Association and Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union.
Gov. Paterson yesterday warned that the politically popular plan to impose higher income taxes on the wealthy would cost New York jobs and drive people out of the state.
The Obama administration is considering government guarantees for home loans modified by their servicers, seeking to stem the record surge of foreclosures that's hammering U.S. property values.
UBS AG, the Swiss bank under investigation for allegedly helping wealthy Americans evade taxes, hired more than 200 brokers in the U.S. in the fourth quarter as it sought to counter client defections.
Citigroup is considering the possibility of backing out of its marketing deal with the New York Mets amid concerns about how recipients are using TARP funds.
The relative calm in Iraq in recent months, combined with the drama of the US elections, has managed to distract attention from the catastrophe that is rapidly overwhelming Western interests in the part of the world that always should have been the focus of America's response to September 11: the al-Qaeda and Taliban heartlands on either side of the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday proposed the construction of a 30-mile tunnel that would connect the northern Gaza Strip with the southern West Bank, thus enabling freedom of movement between the two disjointed Palestinian territories.
While stumping on the campaign trail before students at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, Barak said it was possible to dig the tunnel, which would remain under Israeli sovereignty while the Palestinians would maintain authority over the corridor's traffic.
How can we navigate through the information landscape that is only beginning to come into view? The question is more urgent than ever following the recent settlement between Google and the authors and publishers who were suing it for alleged breach of copyright.
The ringleader of a gang of racist thugs that went on an election-night rampage on Staten Island pleaded guilty to federal charges yesterday and told a judge he was drunk and angry about President Obama's victory.
Israeli Arabs committed treason by protesting the country's offensive in the Gaza Strip last month. Hamas should be dealt with the way the U.S. handled Japan in the last days of World War II. Egypt, at peace with Israel since 1979, actually plans to attack.
These are just some of the recent comments made by Avigdor Lieberman, whose party could become the third-largest bloc in parliament following Israel's Feb. 10 elections, polls show.
Lieberman's jump in popularity may boost the coalition- building efforts of front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, while undermining prospects for peace with the Palestinians. Netanyahu's lead over Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's ruling Kadima party has grown as Israel's war in Gaza raised voter concern about security.
Harry Markopolos, the Boston-based investor-turned-investigator who for years warned regulators that Bernard Madoff was running a huge Ponzi scheme, has received pitches to appear on television shows, make movies and write books elaborating on his experience.
But rather than enjoy a sense of vindication, Mr. Markopolos says he is miserable. He has trouble sleeping and is haunted by the apparent suicide of Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, a French money manager found dead shortly after Mr. Madoff's Dec. 11 arrest on fraud allegations.
Although a colleague of Mr. de La Villehuchet's says he doesn't know of any warning, Mr. Markopolos says he told Mr. de La Villehuchet as well as investors at other firms that he thought Mr. Madoff was a fraud. He regrets that he couldn't persuade many of them.
Part of the reason he didn't press his warnings: Fear of retribution by Mr. Madoff, says Mr. Markopolos. A lawyer for Mr. Madoff declined to comment.
You won't see edgy Bernie Madoff-related work like this in U.S. mainstream papers, but New York's own Jewish Daily Forward, as always, is up to the task of covering Jewish politics and news with a minimum of politically correct tiptoeing.
Above, an excerpt from Eli Valley's "The Shonda!" in the Forward.
Valley, sort of the Jewish version of R. Crumb, touts his work as "Ethnocentric Parochialism for the Whole Family!"
See Valley's profile on Jewcy.com, where I just discovered that, like me, he's a huge fan of noir-era cinematographer John Alton. No wonder I like Valley's work so much.
For more Madoff-related news that's not of the cartoonish persuasion, go to the end of this post for my daily Gelt Trip aggregation.
But first, please note that Barack Obama isn't being so politically correct either. Now in charge of a generally conservative country long dominated by profligate financiopaths, the nation's first black president is chewing out Wall Street bankers and generally acting like some kind of goldurned liberal.
Watch your back, my brother. And tell the Secret Service to do the same.
Top economic officials are discussing new efforts to help banks while trying to mitigate the cost to taxpayers. Obama stepped up his attacks on these banks, calling Wall Street bonuses "shameful."
Three decades ago, engineer Peter Fraenkel created an underwater turbine to use river power to pump water in Sudan, where he worked for a charity. Civil war and a lack of funding stymied his plans. Now, his modified design generates electricity from tides off Northern Ireland.
At least 128 soldiers killed themselves last year, as the Army suicide rate surpassed that for civilians for the first time since the Vietnam War, according to Army statistics.
A former cop seeking line-of-doody disability pay for breaking a finger on an overflowing toilet is spit out of luck, an appeals court ruled yesterday.
Three workers accused of raping underage girls at an acclaimed upper Manhattan psychiatric treatment center have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor endangering charges and will do no prison time...
He chased down a lunatic serial stabber in Times Square, and lived to tell a jury about it yesterday.
"I don't know if it was more heroic or stupid," former W Hotel doorman Adam Szpiler, 32, said of his bravery after testifying against accused knifeman Kenny Alexis, charged with attempting to murder three tourists and a cook in a 13-hour rampage in the summer of 2006.
U.S. government guarantees on securities totaling $419 billion for bank bailouts provide an early test of President Barack Obama's pledge to be open with taxpayers about what they have at risk in the credit crisis.
The M.T.A. expects to spend $497 million in federal stimulus money to complete the stalled and over-budget Fulton Street Transit Center in Lower Manhattan.
Add another voice to the chorus of city officials who say that the city should renegotiate its deal with developer Bruce Ratner, whose Atlantic Yards mega-project is in jeopardy due to the economic crisis.
Accused Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff's luxurious penthouse apartment -- where he currently whiles away the hours under house arrest -- could soon be up for sale, the Post has learned....
[Real-estate] brokers have been invited by lawyers working for Irving Picard, the trustee appointed by a federal bankruptcy-court judge to oversee the liquidation of Madoff's Manhattan investment firm.
Picard presumably would use any sale proceeds to help pay back, at least somewhat, Madoff's creditors.
Because he must remain inside the two-story apartment as a condition of his $10 million bail, Madoff will be in awkward proximity to brokers when they eyeball its four bedrooms, at least five bathrooms, kitchen and library.
Notz, Stucki & Cie., a Swiss money manager, probed and later dismissed concerns about Bernard Madoff investments, which offered "dull but steady" returns.
Slapping Wall Street upside the head, Barack Obama lambasted the billions of dollars in bonuses the Street's bankers handed out to themselves while they simultaneously ask taxpayers for handouts.
Just another example of how much Obama sounds like the anti-Bush.
Mincing no words and obviously referring to this morning's unusually edgy Times story, "What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses," Obama called the bonuses (which he rounded off to $20 billion from $18.4 billion) "shameful" and said that "now is not the time."
He added that he will bring that message directly to Wall Street.
In "Taliban resurgence pushes troops to change tack,"Al Jazeera's Josh Rushing joins U.S. troops on the frontline in Afghanistan. Watch this and then ask yourself: Why isn't this as freely available on your cable as CNN or Fox News? And yes, you've heard Rushing's name; he's the former Marine flack during the Iraq invasion who was featured in the documentary Control Room and then defied the Pentagon by talking about his experiences with Al Jazeera. Now he works for Al Jazeera.
Unlike Wall Street's short-sellers, I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but capitalism is not dead, despite the moaning and groaning from Davos to D.C.
The International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economy will come to "a virtual halt." No, not yet and not for everybody. For evidence, see "What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses" in the Times:
Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.
That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller.
While the payouts paled next to the riches of recent years, Wall Street workers still took home about as much as they did in 2004, when the Dow Jones industrial average was flying above 10,000, on its way to a record high.
On the other hand, you can say that capitalism is in trouble, judging by the surprisingly cynical, lively tone of Ben White's above story.
Yes, the fact that the bonuses sharply fell indicates trouble on Wall Street. But the main thing it indicates is that the bonuses in past years have been staggeringly unconscionable and are now falling back to being merely unconscionable.
In any case, Barack Obama, the nation's first Kenyan-Kansan president, has already used his bully pulpit to preach social responsibility and rail against greed. Looks as if he might have to summon these Wall Street gangsters to the basketball court and posterize them. You know, add them to his In-Your-Facebook.
And you can just ignore the caterwauling by Capitol Hill's Republicans about Obama's stimulus plan. Even the Wall Street Journalreports that corporate types look favorably on Obama's package.
For those of us accident victims bleeding after being run over on Wall Street or gasping for breath at the foot of Capitol Hill, that stimulus package can't come too soon. The depression is finally hitting home: I almost dropped my laptop when I heard that profits earned by my Sony baby daddy dropped by 95 percent. Poor little laptop overheats as it is.
If yours still works (and if you're reading this, it is), click on these items...
Astroland Park's popular Rocket won't be blasting out of Coney Island after all. City officials confirmed yesterday that the park's longtime operator, the Albert family, has donated...
Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval for an $819 billion economic plan as Democrats sought to temper their own differences.
It takes a special kind of thief to get Morgy this mad. Manhattan's gentlemanly district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, yesterday needed a pair of profanities to describe a big-shot...
The seven defendants in the deadly assault on Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, are accused of assaulting or attempting to assault a total of eight other Latino men.
The wealthy Upper West Side woman charged with bilking $80 million from Fortune 500 firms is complaining that she can't live without her Rolex, Warhol and MontBlancs...
George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's special Middle East troubleshooter, was chairman of a law firm that was paid about $8 million representing Dubai's ruler in connection with a child-trafficking lawsuit.
The impact of the $819 billion economic stimulus package will be felt within weeks once the final version becomes law, but estimating its effectiveness is far more complex.
...the bank suddenly began pulling its millions out of [funds that invested with Madoff] in early autumn, months before Mr. Madoff was arrested, according to accounts from Europe and New York that were subsequently confirmed by the bank. The bank did not notify investors of its move, and several of them are furious that it protected itself but left them holding notes that the bank itself now says are probably worthless.
Bernie Madoff is whining to anyone who'll listen that he's being held captive in his palatial penthouse and unable to traipse around the Big Apple as he did before being busted for running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, a source familiar with the scam artist told the Post.
"I'm a prisoner in my own house!" Madoff fumed. "I can't go anywhere! I'm stuck here all day!"...
In recent days, The Post has learned, private contractors have been moving at the request of federal authorities to install wiretaps on Madoff's apartment phones and computers.
"If he surfs the Web or makes a call, it's going to be tracked," a source said.
MSNBC captured Schumer's spiel today about the Madoff scandal.
Today's Senate Banking Committee hearing on the Bernie Madoff scandal was a perfect chance for pols to grab at the golden ring of video clips, and it looks as if the winner was...New York's own Chuck Schumer!
If you missed the dog-and-pony show, you didn't miss much new in the way of news. But the New York Times live-blogged it and noted Schumer's shtick:
10:27 a.m.: Elephant in the room: Senator Charles E. Schumer calls the fraud "a punch in the gut" to the financial system and castigates the S.E.C. for its failure to uncover the scheme. He likens the actions to a giant elephant standing in a small room next to the S.E.C. for decades and "not only did they not see the elephant, they didn't even smell the peanuts on his breath," Mr. Schumer says.
Pretty good, Chuck, but what about the taste of Madoff in your own mouth?
Madoff and his family have given tens of thousands of dollars to Schumer's election campaigns, according to Federal Election Commission records, but I guess those small amounts weren't enough to prompt him to conduct due diligence on Madoff.
You have to wonder, though, how Schumer couldn't have known, or at least suspected, that Madoff was a goniff. After all, Schumer has deep, deep ties in the city's Jewish establishment. The state's senior senator probably knows a goodly number of Madoff's investors by name, and Madoff, as we know, was a staunch Democratic Party fundraiser during the very time that Schumer has controlled a large part of the party's campaign treasure chest.
But today's hearing gave Schumer a chance to tsk-tsk, and he ran-ran with it.
Aside from Dick Cheney's hunting partners, has there ever been an easier target to hit than Bernie Madoff?
Check out this smarmy explanation by the Obama White House's tech crew of its new website.
Barack Obama's version of the official presidential website, whitehouse.gov, is deeply troubling and downright scary.
So far, it's nothing more than puffery. Even under the Bush-Cheney regime, the site included not only the expected puffery but also easy-to-access news and transcripts and schedules and photos — a record of the presidency, even with George W. Bush's malaprops.
I've e-mailed the site, but have received no response. Seeking explanations elsewhere, I see that the Atlantic's Megan McArdlenoted earlier this week:
You'll be pleased to know that the new site is very smart looking. Unfortunately, that sleekness has been achieved by tucking even more of that unsightly information out of the way, where it won't mar the vista.
Just where it's tucked away is unclear. The fact that it's tucked away is more than annoying; it's a creepy display of propagandizing.
It's refreshing to have a brother in the White House. But Americans didn't elect a Big Brother.
Maybe there's another site that has that basic, necessary presidential info on Obama's White House. There had better be, or all his talk about "transparency" will truly be transparent.
Memo to Obama: Spare me the site's touted "blog" and give us the damn news and info.
Moving on from the government of record to the paper of record: The New York Times is ignoring not only other papers, as usual, but is showing a bald display of excessive ass-kissing of its new sugar daddy, Mexican robber baron Carlos Slim.
Freely admitting that I'm even whinier than usual, I'll point out that it's typical of the New York Times to pretend that other media outlets don't exist: Today's piece "Correction Officers Accused of Letting Inmates Run Rikers Island Jail" is heart-rending in its saga of brutality, but my colleague Graham Raymanbroke the scandal long ago in his slew of "Rikers Island Fight Club" stories.
On the other hand, the Times isn't even promoting its own past stories. The paper's radically altered coverage of its impending bailout by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim shows that the paper knows where its bread is buttered.
The very next month, September 2007, the robber baron started purchasing shares in the Times. [CORRECTION: Actually, Slim didn't start purchasing Times shares until September 2008. Thanks to reader Karl Werner-Bailey (see his comment below) for catching my error. My apologies. My careless error tarnishes, not demolishes, my point, but I have to face the facts that I'm having a bad day.]
Two months later, in December 2007, the paper's ball sack had already ascended out of view — suddenly Carlos Slim was no longer a "robber baron." In "A New Breed of Billionaire,"Landon Thomas Jr. wrote:
The global wealth boom has created a new breed of billionaire in once-destitute countries, and a number of them are using their wealth to push for social changes....
Carlos Slim Helú, the telecommunications entrepreneur in Mexico who is worth more than $50 billion, has pledged billions of dollars to his two foundations that will aid health and education.
In May 2008, the Times revealed in an out-and-out puff piece that Slim isn't another reclusive robber baron but is rather a "shy" guy. From the paper's "When Shakira Calls, Even the Shy Appear":
The Mexican telecommunications billionaire Carlos Slim Helú does not seem to like appearing in public, but he apparently could not resist an invitation from the Colombian pop star Shakira and about a dozen other Latin music stars.
Fast-forward to January 2009, and Carlos Slim is no longer so shy, but he's even more philanthropic: He's about to bail out the financially ailing Times itself, as Andrew Sorkin's "Billionaire Seeks Deal in Times Co." noted:
Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican billionaire, is near a deal to invest about $250 million in The New York Times Company, helping to shore up the publishing company's struggling finances...
Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Slim, who already owns 6.4 percent of the Times Company, would invest $250 million in the form of 10-year notes with warrants that are convertible into common shares, these people said.
As part of Mr. Slim's investment, which resembles a loan, he is expected to get a special annual dividend, perhaps as high as 10 percent or more on this investment, these people said.
The January 16 Times story, which didn't mention its own earlier portrayal of Slim as a "robber baron" (though other media outlets regularly still mention that critics call him that) admitted that the paper intended to keep the deal hush-hush:
It is unclear what motivated Mr. Slim's investment, first reported by the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. He approached the Times Company in November, people briefed on the discussions said, offering to make a sizable investment. He never sought a governance role and did not express interest in influencing the company's operations, these people said. The talks were intended to be private.
Yeah, the billionaire "seeks deal in Times Co." It's the Times that was desperate for a deal.
You're unlikely to see the paper refer to him as a "robber baron" or "monopolist" these days.
While I place a call to the admirable Mr. Slim to get my own bailout, click on these items...
A delivery van jumped the curb on a bustling Chinatown street yesterday and plowed through a group of preschoolers as they strolled single file holding a walking rope while returning from a library - killing two of the youngsters and critically injuring another. The freak accident occurred at around 11:30 a.m., when the driver of the gray van...
...Under intense pressure from Wall Street to keep subscribers as the economy sags and competition intensifies, many carriers are bent on retaining customers even if it means offering big price breaks.
The dean of discipline at Cardinal Hayes HS has been arrested for allegedly fondling a 19-year-old student in his office, where he purportedly said, "I love you . . . I can take you someplace...
Law enforcement sources said the 25-year Hayes employee took the young man out of a class Jan. 13, and brought him to his office, where he allegedly unzipped the student's pants and began fondling him.
Some major companies are boosting the value of top executives' retirement plans by using a generous formula when converting a pension into a single payment. The practice can increase a pension's value by 10 percent to 40 percent.
New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating Merrill Lynch's eleventh-hour bonus payments....Merrill Lynch executives, led by John Thain, accelerated bonuses to employees before Bank of America could interfere with the payouts...
Cuomo has taken issue with Thain's actions before. Late last year, he criticized Thain's request for a $10 million bonus as "shocking" and wrote a letter of protest to Merrill Lynch's directors....
Mayor Bloomberg blasted Gov. Paterson's $121 billion budget proposal as "unfair" and "outrageous" yesterday, and said its cuts would result in tax hikes and...
As the credit crisis has worsened, more seniors have turned to federally insured reverse mortgages to tap home equity and, in some cases, to prevent foreclosure.
While still a very small share of the borrowing market, demand for these mortgages climbed in 2008 as credit tightened and retirement savings plunged. The market is expected to grow significantly as loan amounts increase and baby boomers with inadequate savings tap their home equity to fund retirement. Consumer groups, however, warn that fees are high and the cash sometimes is misused.
Here's one guy you wouldn't want to face on Iron Chef! A hot-blooded sushi chef got so mad during a road-rage incident on Staten Island Wednesday that he whipped out his...
Federal Reserve officials are likely next week to stick closely to their approach for handling the financial crisis, despite internal divisions about some of their tactics.
Federal agents raided two small Pennsylvania defense contractors that were given millions of dollars in federal funding by Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the defense appropriations committee and one of the most powerful men in Congress.
New York Times Co. is nearing a deal to sell a portion of its Midtown Manhattan headquarters in the latest of a string of recent efforts to reduce its debt load....
Times Co. has $1.1 billion in debt and $46 million in cash and a substantial amount of debt maturing over the next couple of years. With print advertising declines accelerating across all newspapers, Times Co. has been forced to consider a number of options to free up cash.
The company in November cut its dividend by 75% and is trying to sell its stake in the company that owns the Boston Red Sox and the team's Fenway Park. Earlier this week Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim agreed to invest $250 million in the company in return for senior unsecured notes with detachable warrants convertible into common stock.
Chrysler and Fiat both showed signs of trouble days after announcing an alliance. Fiat said its debt soared and Chrysler disclosed costly sales incentives.
The Times as Jimmy Cagney and the reader as Mae Clarke. It's about time.
A banner day for the New York Times.
Newspapers that don't go out for blood are worthless. The Times often should be itself flayed because it so often doesn't take full advantage of its tremendous resources and usually undeserved clout and instead exudes arrogance and condescension.
This morning, however, its reporters slapped on their fedoras and got the goods, and their editors snapped out of it, rolled up their Brooks Brothers sleeves, and laid it on us.
Like Jimmy Cagney shoving a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face in The Public Enemy (1931), Ethan Bronner's "U.N. and Red Cross Add to Outcry on Gaza War" calls a war a war and shoves the details into your face during your breakfast before you have time to take your first sip of coffee:
International aid groups lashed out at Israel on Thursday over the war in Gaza, saying that access to civilians in need is poor, relief workers are being hurt and killed, and Israel is woefully neglecting its obligations to Palestinians who are trapped, some among rotting corpses in a nightmarish landscape of deprivation.
You can see that Bronner's piece doesn't fiddle around with the paper's usual stiff, officious lede followed by some boring, pseudo-analytical claptrap about how something affects decision-makers.
Bronner's second paragraph is the kind of thing you usually see as the lede of such a story:
The United Nations declared a suspension of its aid operations after one of its drivers was killed and two others were wounded despite driving United Nations-flagged vehicles and coordinating their movements with the Israeli military. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called for an investigation by Israel for a second time in a week after the more than 40 deaths near a United Nations school from Israeli tank fire on Tuesday.
The paper's still not up to speed on the fact that many Jews, both here and in Israel (particularly in Israel), are angrily opposed to the war on Gaza.
The peace movement among Jews gets prominent play in the vibrant Israeli press and in other outlets around the world. But not in the U.S. media.
Enough of the negative stuff about negative stuff: The Times does deserve another kudos or two or three: Another example of today's fired-up Times is a Paris dispatch from veteran Alan Cowell, "Gaza Children Found With Mothers' Corpses":
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it had discovered "shocking" scenes -- including small children next to their mothers' corpses -- when its representatives gained access for the first time to parts of Gaza battered by Israeli shelling. It accused Israel of failing to meet obligations to care for the wounded in areas of combat.
Years ago, Cowell did a bang-up job writing such pieces day after day for the Times from apartheid-era South Africa. Now he's filing stuff about apartheid-era Israel.
Even the paper's editorial page this morning took off its kid gloves, dismissed its manservants and maids, and unleashed a sneer or two at its fellow Establishment members. Labeling the confirmation hearing for the new Secretary of Health and Human Services a "cuddly welcome for Mr. Daschle," the editorial board climbed down from the pedestal it has built for itself and started punching at the incoming Obama regime:
...The hearing before a Senate health committee was mostly a love-fest as senators from both parties expressed admiration for their former Senate colleague....
Unfortunately, the hearing did not tell us much at all about how the incoming Obama administration intends to pay for its emerging health care programs or how, for all of his smoothness at the hearing, Mr. Daschle will deal with the very real and very big differences his team has with Republicans on this and other vital issues.
Instead, the senators avoided asking such tough questions, and Mr. Daschle bent over backward to reassure Republicans that he would not try to ram anything too unpalatable down their throats....
A welcome dose of cynicism instead of the expected deadly dull civility and caution.
Yes, there are still some nits to pick in the Times, but this morning the paper emits a louder buzz than usual.
Tally-ho! Release the hounds! The paper usually acts more like C. Montgomery Burns hounding the beleaguered folk in Springfield. This morning, it's dogging a newspaper's proper targets.
While you're wiping the grapefruit off your face, click on these items, front-loaded this morning only with other Times pieces, most of which have surprisingly hard-hitting, newsy ledes...
The federal investigation that prompted Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico to withdraw his nomination as commerce secretary offers a rare glimpse into a long-simmering investigation of possible bid-rigging, tax evasion and other wrongdoing throughout the municipal bond business.
Three federal agencies and a loose consortium of state attorneys general have for several years been gathering evidence of what appears to be collusion among the banks and other companies that have helped state and local governments take approximately $400 billion worth of municipal notes and bonds to market each year.
You won't find the word "war" in this morning's lede story in the New York Times on Israel's bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
Is the Times afraid of offending New York's Jews, especially the right-wing Jewish establishment? Is it fearful of provoking a slew of accusations from that hawkish establishment that the paper is antisemitic? Probably.
But that's nuts. The word pops up several times in the city's main Jewish newspaper, the Daily Forward, which is definitely not a lefty publication.
For example, the Forward's lede story this morning is from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (the Chosen People's wire service), for whom Dina Kraft writes:
Just as in the summer of 2006, when the northern part of the country huddled in bomb shelters during the Second Lebanon War and the rest of the country carried on with its business, a new war has come that affects Israelis — at least in part — according to geography.
Practically all of the U.S. mainstream press goes through gyrations to avoid calling what's going on in the Middle East a "war."
That's why if you want to read the un-P.C. skinny about the current war between Arabs and Jews and about the complex, murky, often slimy world of American-Israeli politics, you have to read the Forward. Or at least the press in other countries.
Depending on your political or gastronomic persuasion, order another bagel or sfiha and click on these stories...
A high-ranking Israeli delegation was scheduled to arrive in Egypt to discuss the possibilities of a cease-fire in the Jewish state's 12-day assault on the Gaza Strip.
Online personality tests have helped retailers to automate hiring. But the tests are also creating a culture of cheating and raising questions about their fairness.
Department of Labor, please hold. A rush of out-of-work New Yorkers overwhelmed the state's unemployment system yesterday, forcing the program's automated phone banks and...
...Public campaigns have been launched on behalf of Jonathan Pollard, the Navy analyst who was sent to jail for spying on behalf of Israel, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a leading neoconservative and former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. Jewish philanthropist and former junk-bond king Michael Milken had his application for pardon submitted by Washington bigwig Ted Olsen.
Satyam Computer Services Ltd. Chairman B. Ramalinga Raju Wednesday resigned admitting to falsifying company accounts and inflating revenue and profit figures over several years, sending the company's shares plunging 78%.....
Satyam's clients include General Electric Co., General Motors Corp., Nissan Motor Co., Applied Materials Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and Sony Corp.
Forty-five percent of Americans want Gov. Paterson to name Caroline Kennedy to replace Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a poll released yesterday.
Ten days before his arrest, Bernard Madoff received $250 million from a man who helped give him his start on Wall Street, a move that shows how the investment manager tried to raise cash to stave off his firm's collapse.
Mr. Madoff received $250 million around Dec. 1 from Carl Shapiro, a 95-year-old Palm Beach, Fla., philanthropist and entrepreneur who is one of Mr. Madoff's oldest friends and biggest financial backers, according to people familiar with the matter.
Former SEC exec Meaghan Cheung, who oversaw a 2006 probe of swindler Bernard Madoff's firm, defended herself yesterday against claims that she and others blew it by not uncovering his huge...
New York University lost as much as $94 million when a hotshot money manager, against the school's wishes, invested the cash with swindler Bernie Madoff, its lawyers told a judge yesterday...
Your own private Idaho.
When you can no longer afford even a night out in Boise, Idaho, your country's in deep financial trouble.
In a clever immorality tale about 21st century capitalism, the Wall Street Journal tells us this morning that people in the Intermountain West are having to give up meet and potatoes. Like many other families throughout the country, the average-American Capp and Muir families have had to stop spending and start saving.
No more nights out in downtown Boise. The Capps now have to stick close to their suburban home. But — the bad news keeps piling up — they've had to sacrifice cable TV! And they have teenagers in the house! (Memo to the parents: If you can't afford to put meat on the table, at least serve your kids Robot Chicken.)
Don't feel sorry for these hinterland families. The fact that they're desperately trying to save their money, instead of going into more debt, spells doom for the rest of us. By trying to extricate themselves from their own mess, they're just making it worse for all of us...and for themselves. Screwy, huh? Here's the explanation, per Evans's story:
As layoffs and store closures grip Boise, these two local families hope their newfound frugality will see them through the economic downturn. But this same thriftiness, embraced by families across the U.S., is also a major reason the downturn may not soon end. Americans, fresh off a decadeslong buying spree, are finally saving more and spending less — just as the economy needs their dollars the most.
Usually, frugality is good for individuals and for the economy. Savings serve as a reservoir of capital that can be used to finance investment, which helps raise a nation's standard of living. But in a recession, increased saving -- or its flip side, decreased spending -- can exacerbate the economy's woes. It's what economists call the "paradox of thrift."
It's more like a "Cash-22." I mean, you finally start acting responsibly, saving money instead of piling up even more outrageous credit-card debt and purchasing gizmos and gewgaws that relentless advertising has brainwashed you into lusting after, and that's bad for you, your family, and the country? More from Evans:
U.S. household debt, which has been growing steadily since the Federal Reserve began tracking it in 1952, declined for the first time in the third quarter of 2008. In the same quarter, U.S. consumer spending growth declined for the first time in 17 years.
That has resulted in a rise in the personal saving rate, which the government calculates as the difference between earnings and expenditures. In recent years, as Americans spent more than they earned, the personal saving rate dipped below zero. Economists now expect the rate to rebound to 3% to 5%, or even higher, in 2009, among the sharpest reversals since World War II.
The truth is that our economy demands that you continue acting like suckers by trying to live beyond your means. And when you stop being a sucker — like when you're laid off and you don't have a choice because you have to start saving your money to pay your bills and plan for the hard times — then you're blamed for not being a good citizen.
Oh well, Wall Street's worse-than-usual greed may have caused this problem, but we New Yorkers can be part of the solution. Bailouts of Wall Street haven't worked, so why not try to rescue some other downtowns?
Road trip to Boise!
Now that you know that the real goniffs are yourselves instead of people like Bernie Madoff, you're free to click on the following news items...
As European diplomats sought a cease-fire, Israeli troops poured into Gaza City, expelling residents and shooting militants. Meanwhile, Israeli troops suffered casualties from so-called "friendly fire."
New Yorkers who consume five or more drinks in one sitting face increased risk of HIV and other STDs, according to a new study from the city Department of Health.
Though never charged with a crime, Muhammad Saad Iqbal spent six years in American custody, during which he says he was secretly taken to Egypt and tortured.
A JetBlue passenger who was forced to cover up a T-shirt that read, "We will not be silent" in Arabic and English before boarding a cross-country flight won a $240,000 settlement from...
Patrick Littaye, 69, [co-founder of Access International Advisors,] invested all of his own money with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC last year, enticed by the firm's positive returns as other hedge funds slumped. His error was compounded because he borrowed money to increase the return on his investment, leaving him with $4 million in personal debts, Littaye said in telephone interviews from Jan. 2 through Jan. 4. He declined to specify the amount he had lost.
"I'm going to sell everything I have and start over," Littaye said from Brussels, adding that he planned to subsist on his French social security payments. "For Access, we'll go to our investors over the next couple of weeks and we'll see what they think of us."
Littaye's partner, Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, chose a different course. The 65-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer of Access was found dead Dec. 23 at his office in New York. Villehuchet killed himself after it became clear he wouldn't be able to recover the funds he and his clients invested with Madoff...
The sons of Bernard Madoff, who is accused of orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme, told prosecutors last week that their father violated a court-ordered asset freeze by mailing them jewelry, watches and other items, his lawyer said.
In a further sign of the sheer enormity of Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme, on Monday a count-appointed trustee announced it had mailed claim forms to 8,000 former customers--an irate army of investors that is still only a fraction of the total number who may have been defrauded.
Waltz With Bashir, a movie that sprang from a previous Israeli invasion of Lebanon, won Best Picture from the National Society of Film Critics. A free Madoff Watch T-shirt to the reader who suggests the best title for the first movie spurred by Israel's current invasion of Gaza.
On an overseas trip while Rome burns, Mike Bloomberg is acting as if term limits remained intact and he couldn't run for another term.
The mayor's in Israel, having a "blast," as the Post puts it, during the invasion of Gaza.
While the rest of the city's inhabitants are facing an onrushing New Depression, Bloomberg is occupied with the occupiers. Focusing primarily on getting his aides to make sure he stays alive, the mayor's not exactly concentrating on the crisis back home. How does a New York City mayor keep schools, health clinics, transit service, and libraries from being slashed? He dunno.
It has been a year of record misery: the largest bankruptcy, bank failure and Ponzi scheme in U.S. history; $720 billion in writedowns and losses by financial institutions; $30.1 trillion in market valuation wiped out.
A proud father wanted the best for his daughter on her wedding day, but the fairy-tale event turned into a $100,000 fiasco that ended with the blushing bride kneeling over the toilet vomiting...
A Long Island couple whose wedding celebration evaporated in a cloud of carbon monoxide is still furious over unpaid expenses for the ruined reception...
In the past year, The New York Times Co. has slashed the dividend it pays investors by 75%, cut the companywide head count by 8%, raised the newsstand price of the flagship paper while merging its sections, and consolidated two New York area printing plants into one.
Big steps, but apparently not big enough. The world's foremost newspaper brand ended 2008 with its stock price down more than 60%. To raise $225 million to pay down long-term debt, the company is planning a sale-leaseback of part of its Renzo Piano-designed headquarters. It is also actively shopping its minority stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team.
Like every other newspaper publisher, the Times Co. is grappling with an unprecedented collapse in print advertising and a dramatic slowdown in online ad growth. In the first nine months of 2008, revenues fell 7%, to $2.2 billion. Meanwhile, net income--which was boosted in the year-earlier period by the sale of the company's broadcast unit--plunged 92%, to $27.3 million. The company, which has roughly $1 billion in debt, is negotiating with lenders over the more than $600 million in loans that are coming due this year and next.
If you hunger for a good snicker and you're somewhat of a news junkie, what's better than a concise roundup of the best Bernie Madoff news stories — the good parts, the adjectives, the apoplexy?
Look no further than a December 22 court document in the case of another Ponzi schemer and Democratic Party fundraiser, Norman Hsu.
The Clinton pal is facing trial in Manhattan Federal Court, but his lawyer is pleading for at least a 60-day delay to let the publicity about Madoff subside. Too prejudicial to Hsu, the lawyer argues.
Hsu's lawyer has a point. As the court papers indicate, the Madoff scandal even prompted the New York Times to proclaim that the country has been "engrossed in an orgy of scandal."
Not sure whether the Times would even know an orgy if it saw one, but yes, we have been getting fucked. No, we haven't been enjoying it.
Reading about it is a lot safer than letting someone like Madoff or Hsu touch you in a "bad" place — like your wallet.
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