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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?

more: Bidness, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, Gambling, Hedge funds, LOOTING (BY CORPORATIONS), LOOTING (BY HUMANS), Madoff, Mike Bloomberg, SCHMUCK

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Fossils still bite: Bernie Madoff and prehistoric snakes

Posted by Harkavy at 8:27 AM, February 5, 2009

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.

While I wait for my manservant to dress me, I'll also point out that the Times story "Daschle's Ambitions Collided, Friends Say" does little more than say what I already said yesterday. The Times was more polite.

Please click on these items. Pretty please...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

CNN: 'Toyota shuts down all but one assembly line'

N.Y. Post: 'BANKS' MONEY WELL SPENT'

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.

Newsday: 'Drilling leases on Utah land scrapped'

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.

N.Y. Daily News: 'Twins' rage: Coward could never face our father'

N.Y. Times: 'Senate Adds Homebuyer Tax Credit to Stimulus Bill'

N.Y. Post: 'O WARNS OF "CATA$TROPHE": URGES STIMULUS OK AMID MOUNTING RESISTANCE'

Wall Street Journal: 'Forget Golf: Street Junkets Get Junked'

CNN: 'Overseer calls for bank bailout makeover'

Special inspector general for Treasury's $700 billion financial sector bailout said program needs tighter regulation and a better investment strategy.

Financial Crisis Update: 'SEC Official Endorses Central Counterparty for Credit Default Swaps as Global Consensus Grows'

N.Y. Times: 'Daschle's Ambitions Collided, Friends Say'

N.Y. Times: 'Science Found Wanting in Nation's Crime Labs'

N.Y. Post: 'ON WALL STREET: WHO COULD LIVE ON $500K?'

Wall Street Journal: 'Study: 9/11 Lung Problems Persist Years Later'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Cops on hunt for suspect in brutal rape in East Harlem laundromat'

N.Y. Times: 'Boo Hoo in the Boardroom'

Wall Street Journal: 'Faith-Based Program Gets Wider Focus'

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.

N.Y. Post: 'AMAZIN' AMBUSH! SHAMSKY'S ANGRY EX POUNCES'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Cheney: Beware nukes'

Wall Street Journal: 'Gaza's Isolation Slows Rebuilding Efforts'

N.Y. Times: 'Societal Cost of Meth Use Is Gauged in New Study'

Bloomberg: '"Failed" Wall Street Forces Biggest Rewrite of Rules'

N.Y. Post: 'PLAYBOY'S ROCKER SCRIBE RIFFS ON STREET ROGUES'

N.Y. Daily News: 'The great Big Apple sports broadcaster debate'

N.Y. Post: 'SMOKING FEATHER OF FLIGHT 1549'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Lehman judge charged with hitting wife gets lawyer'

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."

Bloomberg: 'Soros Imitators Reap Riches in Financial Whirlwind on Global Macro Funds'

Forbes: 'Buffett Sinks Billions Into Swiss Re'

'Sandy Koufax, John Malkovich among Bernie Madoff victims as court filings are released'

From the Daily News:

...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]

Boston Globe: 'The whistleblower: Dogged pursuer of Madoff wary of fame'

U.S. News & World Report: '5 Things to Know About Whistleblowing'

Bloomberg: 'Madoff Said Only Brother Could Do Audit, Witness Tells Congress'

Whistleblower Lawyer Blog: 'Whistleblower Protections Added to Economic Stimulus Bill Passed by House'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Photo gallery: Madoff's victims'

N.Y. Post: 'DIVORCEE BIDS TO 'EX'-TEND MADOFF PAIN'

Whistleblower Lawyer Blog: 'Hedge Funds Face Regulation & Oversight by SEC--Will There Be Another Compliance Tool in Addition to IRS Whistleblower Program?'

Fortune: 'Did Madoff's feeder fund shop for friendly audits?'

Whistleblower Harry Markopolos testifies that Fairfield Greenwich switched auditors three times in three years.

AP: '[Massachusetts] pension fund fires 2 managers'

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.

N.Y. Daily News: '$1B of swindled funds uncovered, Madoff's alleged vics to get paid "in the near future"'

N.Y. Post: 'HOW SEC BOZOS BLEW IT: WHISTLEBLOWER RIPS DO-NOTHING FED "FLEAS"'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Car dealer hopes to say, "I Madoff with 100G"'

N.Y. Daily News: 'GM Omar Minaya says Mets will not go after Manny Ramirez'

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.

more: BODY COUNTS, Bidness, COLLATERAL DAMAGE, Celebs, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, Gambling, Hedge funds, INVESTIGATIONS (CONGRESS), LOOTING (BY CORPORATIONS), LOOTING (BY HUMANS), Madoff, Morning Reports, NY Times, SCHMUCK, Sports, WHISTLEBLOWERS

comments: 0

Tom cries 'Uncle'! Daschle's exit an embarrassing end to Obama's embarrassing decision to pick him

Posted by Harkavy at 8:37 AM, February 4, 2009

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...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

CBS: 'Bailed-Out Bank Nixes Lavish Vegas Junket: After Outcry From Capitol Hill, Wells Fargo, Which Got $25B In Taxpayer Money, Calls Off Gathering'

CBS: 'MySpace Boots 90,000 Sex Offenders: N.C. Attorney General Demands That Much Larger Facebook Follow Suit'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Obama puts salary cap on bailout businesses'

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.

N.Y. Post: 'VANISH CO-ED COMES CLEAN'

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama on Defense as Daschle Withdraws'

...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.

Brooklyn Paper: 'Macy's to Brooklyn workers: You're safe for now'

N.Y. Times: 'Despite Vow, Target of Immigrant Raids Shifted'

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.

Bloomberg: 'Obama to Limit Executive Pay at Companies Getting Aid'

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.

Bloomberg: '"Failed" Wall Street Means Biggest Rules Rewrite Since 1930s'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Blago's sideshow visits Late Show'

If David Letterman is the typical juror, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich should get ready for prison food.

N.Y. Post: 'PROTESTERS CRASH BASH TO BOO BLOOMY'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Tax would be curtains, Broadway tells Gov'

N.Y. Times: 'In Shattered Gaza Town, Roots of Seething Split' (Ethan Bronner)

The fighting in El Atatra tells the story of Israel's offensive, with each side giving a very different version of events.

Wall Street Journal: 'Stimulus Brings Out City Wish Lists'

Most cities want stimulus funds for roads and sewers. But others are using a kitchen-sink strategy, asking for neon signs or a frisbee golf course.

Wall Street Journal: 'Plans Emerge for New Troop Deployments to Afghanistan'

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."

N.Y. Daily News: 'Man with pigeons in his pants gets nabbed at airport'

N.Y. Post: 'BRUTAL BRONX THUG CAUGHT IN THE ACT'

Bloomberg: 'Clean-Coal Debate Pits Al Gore's Group Against Obama, Peabody'

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.

N.Y. Times: 'As Iraqis Tally Votes, Former Leader Re-emerges'

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.

Wall Street Journal: 'Time Warner Falls Into the Red'

N.Y. Post: 'MILLIONAIRES TOLD TO BITE SILVER TAX BULLET'

New Yorker: 'Another Country: James Baldwin's flight from America'

Bloomberg: 'Cohen's Hedge Fund Taxes Can't Fix Connecticut's Fallen Revenue'

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.

Bloomberg: 'Fortunoff Shuts Manhattan Store Amid Liquidator Talks'

N.Y. Post: 'EYE'M NOT SORRY: GUY WHO BLIND-SIDED DAVE DEFENDS AD SLAM'

Wall Street Journal: 'Iran's Report of Satellite Launch Stirs U.S. Concern'

Bloomberg: 'Citigroup Leads Hybrid Bond Drop on Bailout Concern'

N.Y. Post: 'JUDGE: GAY SPOUSE GETS ESTATE'

Wall Street Journal: 'Ticketmaster Is Near Deal With Live Nation'

Ticketmaster and Live Nation are close to an all-stock merger to form the world's dominant concert promotion, ticketing and artist-management company.

Wall Street Journal: 'Detroit Reels as Auto Sales Skid'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Dissed as kid, Spitz pimp cries'

N.Y. Post: 'COLUMBIA "THIEF" BUST'

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.

Wall Street Journal: 'Border-Fence Project Hits a Snag'

N.Y. Post: 'SHUTTERING NEWS FOR BRANDEIS HS'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Witness paints Mafia's image by the numbahs'

'Markopolos Blasts SEC for "Financial Illiteracy"'

From the Wall Street Journal:

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.

N.Y. Times: 'Witness on Madoff Tells of Fear for Safety'

House Committee on Financial Services: 'Assessing the Madoff Ponzi Scheme and Regulatory Failures' (Today's hearing, featuring Markopolos and government officials)

more: BODY COUNTS, Bidness, CHILDREN (LEFT BEHIND), COLLATERAL DAMAGE, Demos, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, HACKS, Hillary, LOOTING (BY HUMANS), Madoff, Morning Reports, SCHMUCK, THUMBS (DOWN)

comments: 2

Obama to bankers: 'It's a shonda!' (Or words to that effect.)

Posted by Harkavy at 9:41 AM, January 30, 2009

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.

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

N.Y. Times: 'Senators Approve Health Bill for Children'

A newly empowered Democratic majority brushed aside objections with a bill to insure four million children.

N.Y. Daily News: '23,000 JOBS FACE AXE'

15,000 teachers? Gone. Rebates for homeowners? Forget 'em. And that's just the tip of Mayor Bloomberg's shocking cuts.

Bloomberg: 'Hidden Bonuses Enrich Government Contractors as Taxpayers Pay $100 Billion'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Not again! 4-year-old disabled boy abandoned on bus'

A driver and matron were arrested Thursday after failing to drop a disabled child at school and then leaving him on the bus.

N.Y. Post: 'O SENDS ANGRY ME$$AGE'

President Obama delivered a blistering message to Wall Street yesterday, blasting the big-bucks bonuses doled out to fat-cat execs...

N.Y. Daily News: '15 yrs. for ma who killed, dumped baby'

N.Y. Times: 'Few Ways to Recover Bonuses to Bankers'

Wall Street Journal: 'U.S. Eyes Two-Part Bailout for Banks'

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."

Bloomberg: 'Investors May Pour Billions Into Tide Power as Obama, EU Push Green Energy'

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.

N.Y. Post: 'SURVIVORS' GILT: GIVE US MORE, US AIRWAYS PASSENGERS DEMAND'

N.Y. Post: 'THREE CANDIDATES KILLED AS ELECTION NEARS'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Workers waste no time erasing Blagojevich pictures, name from Capitol'

N.Y. Times: 'On His Way Out, Blagojevich Makes a Day of It'

On his final day as governor of Illinois, Rod R. Blagojevich was, by turns, furious, morose and full of gallows humor.

N.Y. Times: 'Suicides of Soldiers Reach High of Nearly 3 Decades'

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.

N.Y. Post: 'EX-COP SUIT IS FLUSHED'

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.

Bloomberg: 'Peres Says Israel's Ties With Turkey Unaffected by Erdogan Spat'

CNN: 'Alaska volcano "more energetic," scientists say'

N.Y. Post: 'ELIOT'S MADAM GETS 6 MONTHS'

N.Y. Post: 'ACCUSED PSYCH-CENTER RAPISTS DODGE JAIL TIME'

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...

Brooklyn Paper: 'City budget whiz says Bruce's Yards deal needs retooling'

N.Y. Post: 'DOORMAN'S COURAGE'

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.

Wall Street Journal: 'Gaza Tensions Erupt At Davos Session'

Bloomberg: 'DVD Plunge, Viewer Shift to NetFlix May Force Studios to Write Down Films'

N.Y. Times: 'U.S. Says Jailed C.I.A. Mole Kept Spying for Russia'

Bloomberg: 'Citigroup Guarantees Test Obama Pledge to Tell Public More on Bailout Risk'

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.

N.Y. Times: 'Bloomberg Will Seek Increase in Sales Taxes'

N.Y. Times: 'M.T.A. Planning to Spend Stimulus on Fulton St. Hub'

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.

N.Y. Times: '"Mourning" the M and R Subway Lines'

Transit advocates held a mock funeral to protest proposed service reductions on the M and R subway lines.

Wall Street Journal: 'Europe Basks as U.S.-Style Capitalism Draws Fire'

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.

N.Y. Times: 'Debate on Mayoral Control of Schools Is Renewed'

Onion: 'Blagojevich Claims Behavior Was Just Elaborate Plan To Surprise Patrick Fitzgerald With Senate Nomination on His Birthday'

N.Y. Times: 'Springsteen Promises High-Energy Halftime Show'

'BERNIE FACES BOOT'

From the Post:

Start packing, Bernie.

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.

N.Y. Times: '2 Banks to Send Madoff Trustee $535 Million'

Vos Iz Neias?: 'Manhattan Banks Find $500M in Madoff Accounts'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'Madoff's Lawyer Plays Both Sides of the Court'

Wall Street Journal: 'Ex-Merrill Executives Got Burned by Madoff'

Bloomberg: 'Madoff `Dull But Steady' Returns, Internal Probe Didn't Alarm Notz Stucki'

Notz, Stucki & Cie., a Swiss money manager, probed and later dismissed concerns about Bernard Madoff investments, which offered "dull but steady" returns.

more: Bidness, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, Forward, LOOTING (BY CORPORATIONS), LOOTING (BY HUMANS), Madoff, Morning Reports, SCHMUCK, THUMBS (UP)

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Caroline Kennedy and 'Daily News' columnist Michael Daly: The princess and the pea-brain

Posted by Harkavy at 9:36 AM, January 22, 2009

Michael Daly's column has to be a put-on. If it's not, then give him an "F" for fatuous.

In "Let's make Caroline Kennedy our special envoy to Washington," the self-serious Daily News scribe fights back his tears about Caroline Kennedy's withdrawal from the Senate appointment race and opines:

Maybe our mayor can now make her a kind of special city envoy to Washington in these difficult times ahead.

She will still have a deep connection with our new President, one of whose daughters now sleeps in Caroline's old room at the White House.

Christ, at least make sure she votes a few times before we make her our "ambassador."

I'm not attacking the Kennedys or rich people. Ever since Chappaquidick, Teddy Kennedy has worked hard in the trenches as a senator. And Jackie O took on big cultural battles, leading the successful fight to save and restore Grand Central Station.

Now we have a huge crisis on our hands. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers are being fired, and basic social services are being slashed, feeding a downward spiral.

There are a million fires that need to be put out — and I don't mean the problems faced by Carnegie Hall, which is slashing its schedule and budget. Yes, that's a shame, but stay away from that "cause," Princess Caroline.

Do some public service before you're anointed as our ambassador. If you have celebrity capital (and you do), then start spending it to help goad other rich New Yorkers (and there are still plenty of them) into helping their increasingly desperate fellow residents.

Do something noblesse before we oblige you.

As for Daly, one of his readers, hjo4, said it best in a cranky 7 a.m. post:

Special Envoy give me a break there are thousands of New Yorkers without the Kennedy name or connections who commit themselves to New York and NewYorkers whether it be our children in education, mentoring or being a role model or be it our Senior citizens they do this from their heart, they are the "unsung heroes" perhaps if you want to appoint a "Special Envoy" I suggest you turn an eye to one of those citizens I'm sick of people making those whose family fortunes was made questionably and off the backs of others still receive special treatment. Turn to the average Joe who does good deeds from their heart Those are the special envoys we need.

For news of other deeds, click on these items...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Bloomberg: 'Palestinians Sift Gaza's Rubble After Shelling for Pieces of Former Lives'

N.Y. Post: 'OBAMA A MAN OF ACTION ON DAY 1: JUGGLES MIDEAST CALLS, FREEZES STAFF PAY AND TOUGHENS ETHICS RULES'

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama Freezes Top Staff Pay'

President Barack Obama, on a busy first full day in office, announced a wage freeze for top White House staff, waded into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and prepared to issue executive orders Thursday -- including one to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year.

He also issued the strictest rules to date on lobbying activities for members of the administration and met with his national security team to begin the process of withdrawing troops from Iraq.

In an unusual moment that was not part of his team's extensive planning for day one, Mr. Obama also retook the oath of office. That came after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and then Mr. Obama, spoke one of the words out of order during the swearing in on Tuesday.

N.Y. Daily News: 'After 24 hours, change is real'

On his first full day, President Obama kept campaign promises by going after Gitmo and toughening ethics standards.

N.Y. Post: 'CAROLINE'S KAPUT'

N.Y. Daily News: 'HIL SEAT BLUES'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Let's make Caroline Kennedy our special envoy to Washington'

N.Y. Post: 'SHOT DOGS IN GUN NUT'S APT'

Bloomberg: 'Avril Lavigne, Radiohead Shift to YouTube as Illegal Downloading Persists'

Musicians and managers are turning to BlackBerry phones and YouTube videos to solve a problem that just won't go away: illegal downloads of digital tracks.

Crain's New York Business: 'Carnegie Hall shrinks schedule, slashes budget'

The landmark arts venue announced Wednesday that it will cut its upcoming schedule by 10% and slash its budget by $4 million.

Vanity Fair: 'Farewell to All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House'

N.Y. Daily News: 'MTA kickback susp eyed for shredding evidence'

Bloomberg: 'Obama Needs "Yes We Can" From Overseas to Help Lead World Out of Recession'

The U.S. led the global economy into its worst recession in at least a quarter century. Now the rest of the world is looking to Barack Obama to lead the way out. The trouble is, even the incoming commander-in-chief of the biggest economy can't do it alone.

N.Y. Post: 'SON OF "SCAM" IN YACHT "PLOT"'

N.Y. Post: 'KIDDIE CROOK AND SIBS IN SI HORROR HOUSE: COPS'

Vanity Fair: 'The Ultimate Bubble?'

Bloomberg: 'Nokia, Intel Slump Hammers Israeli Economy as Cease-Fire Curbs Rocket Risk'

N.Y. Post: 'ATLANTIC YARDS LOOKS TO $LASH TRANSIT UPGRADE'

Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project is in such financial upheaval that the developer is now trying to cut back on much-needed transit improvements, which he promised in exchange for approval for...

Wall Street Journal: 'China Fourth-Quarter GDP Confirms a Major Slowdown'

Harper's: 'Did Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program Really Focus on American Journalists?'

Wall Street Journal: 'Nationalization Fears Grow as U.K. Banks Struggle'

Wall Street Journal: 'What if Uncle Sam Takes Over Your Bank?'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Mother of little Adolf: No abuse here'

A Jersey mom who gave her three children Nazi-friendly names says she lost custody after being wrongly accused of abuse.

Wall Street Journal: 'Parsons Named Citi Chairman'

Wall Street Journal: 'Crisis Q&A: What "Bank Nationalization" Means For You'

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama Inauguration Sets Record for Private Jets'

Wall Street Journal: 'EBay's Growth Stalls as Shoppers Pull Back'

Wall Street Journal: 'Even in Test Form, Windows 7 Leaves Vista in the Dust' (Walter S. Mossberg)

...In my tests, even the beta version of Windows 7 was dramatically faster than Vista at such tasks as starting up the computer, waking it from sleep and launching programs.

And this speed boost wasn't only apparent in the preconfigured machine from Microsoft, but on my own Sony, which had been a dog using Vista, even after I tried to streamline its software. Of course, these speed gains may be compromised by the computer makers, if they add lots of junky software to the machines. Windows 7 is also likely to run well on much more modest hardware configurations than Vista needed....

Compatibility with hardware and software, which was a problem in Vista, seems far better in Windows 7 -- even in the beta. I tried a wide variety of hardware, including printers, Web cams, external hard disks and cameras, and nearly all worked fine.

I also successfully installed and used popular programs from Microsoft's rivals, such as Mozilla Firefox, Adobe Reader, Apple's iTunes, and Google's Picasa. All worked properly, even though none was designed for Windows 7.

Wall Street Journal: 'More Than X Marks the Spot'

A scholar studying graffiti culture watches for cops, invents a 'tag' and wields a spray can himself.

Crain's New York Business: 'Hudson Yards could be in jeopardy'

If negotiations fall through between the MTA and the Related Cos., the project may never be built.

'Madoff's Chosen People -- What Can and Can't Be Said Out Loud'

In a provocative HuffPost piece, Larry Gellman writes:

...My fellow Jews love to write and talk about how horrible Madoff is and how much damage he has done to the Jewish people. Some have even compared him to Hitler which is scary because it means that money has become so important today that someone who steals money and swindles people is comparable to a person who engineered the murder of six million people....

Reuters: 'Columbia says it lost $3 million tied to Madoff'

CNBC: 'Former Madoff Accountant Claims He Is a Victim Too'

Bloomberg: 'Santander's Madoff Sales Mean "Catastrophe" for Teacher, Vendor'

Banco Santander SA sold Bernard Madoff investments to a teacher and a street vendor, not just to wealthy private banking clients in Spain and Latin America.

Branch managers channeled customers with money from property sales or inheritances to private banking salespeople, lawyers for the investors said.

Bloomberg: 'Madoff Clients May Recoup More Losses Through Taxes Than Suits'

Bloomberg: 'Madoff Scandal May Lead to New Rules on Adviser Accountability'

more: Celebs, Featured, Madoff, Morning Reports, NY Daily News, REPORTERS (EMBEDDED), SCHMUCK, THUMBS (DOWN)

comments: 3

Blagojevich names Foghorn Leghorn to Obama's Senate seat

Posted by Harkavy at 3:27 PM, December 30, 2008

Comparing the coverage by the Times and Wall Street Journal.

Click above for a roundup of the best Blago jokes.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will name former Illinois AG Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat.

Read the mid-afternoon versions of that breaking story in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and it's no contest.

The news is that Blago is naming some Foghorn Leghorn guy to the Senate. You gotta hand it to Gov.-not-for-long Blagojevich; he's cleverly playing the race card by replacing a black senator with another black senator. That should blunt some critics. Maybe.

The race angle is for another story. What's relevant here is the WSJ's third graf:

The choice is likely to face intense scrutiny because the governor faces federal corruption charges. The governor appears to be thumbing his nose at critics who have said the process allowing him to choose Mr. Obama's replacement should be circumvented.

Compare that with the New York Times's second graf:

Mr. Blagojevich, who faces federal corruption charges including allegations that he tried to sell Mr. Obama's former senate seat for a high-paying job or money, had not been expected to try to fill the seat. As recently as ten days ago, his lawyer, Edward Genson, said he would not attempt to make an appointment, since Senate leaders had indicated they would not accept anyone whom the beleaguered Mr. Blagojevich had appointed.

The snooty Times thumbs its nose at phrases like "thumbing his nose." The Journal consistently beats the Times at analyzing the facts and giving us the gist in colloquial — or at least lively — English that pols and other crooks use when privately figuring out ways to screw the public.

The WSJ is the best daily in the city, obviously for business news, but also for political news. That's because you don't have to read very far into its stories to get the real skinny. After all, its audience is largely those people who skirt the line between being crooks or just barely legal (according to their own lawyers) sharks.

But even if you're not a shark or otherwise scheming just to make money from money, the Journal's still a great read. Sound, detailed, lucid reporting, with plenty of human-interest angles and vivid descriptions, even of callow business people. The paper's a cheap subscription and has a well-tuned website. Besides, it offers a good way for Americans who can't afford million-dollar apartments to try to understand the nefarious activities of those who can.

Considering that the country is falling into a major depression, you commoners (who, after all, will feel the brunt of it) would be better off reading the Journal than the Times. At least you'll get a more accurate and readable measurement of how far you'll fall.

Both papers, incidentally, are likely to still be publishing a year from now. The same can't be said of other papers.

more: Bidness, Blagojevich, Featured, NY Times, Obama Drama, PRESS, SCHMUCK, Spying, Wall Street Journal

comments: 9

A run on New York City's banks -- with guns. A run on sex manuals -- with guns in your pockets.

Posted by Harkavy at 8:35 AM, December 30, 2008

Tell me it's a coincidence that five banks were robbed in New York City in a single day, while banks overall reported rare quarterly losses.

Even the New York Times notes the eerie connection.

You mean that all-time schemer Bernie Madoff isn't the only crook in town? (See above video, because it's the last time you'll be hearing his Ponzi pitch.)

Even with 40,000 cops, the NYPD doesn't have enough crimefighters to round up all of the city's crooks. They didn't even nab Madoff; the goniff's sons turned him in.

So which crooks do you think the NYPD is scrambling to arrest: the common criminals who robbed other people's banks or the Wall Street investment bankers who robbed their own banks?

In other crime news, Fox notes that if you let your fingers do the talking — that means all of you — you're getting ripped off. From the Murdoch channel's "Text Rip-Off? Pricey Messages 'Cost Virtually Nothing' to Carriers":

In 2008, 2.5 trillion messages were sent from cell phones worldwide, up 32 percent from the year before, according to the Gartner Group and reported by the New York Times. But, what also rose in the last three years was the price — doubling from 10 to 20 cents per message while the industry consolidated from six major carriers to four.

Speaking of getting fucked, the New Yorker reviews the new edition of The Joy of Sex.

Don't grab your partner or your box of tissues yet. Anticipation is part of the pleasure, so for now, keep both hands on the keyboard and click on the following items ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

N.Y. Post: 'BONEHEADS CALL COPS ON SELVES'

New Yorker: 'Shaggy-dog Story: Upper West Side dog-napping terror'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'In Gaza Campaign, Israel Seeks To Change the Rules of the Game'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Ma charged with slaying son: I homeschooled to spare boy fat taunts'

A mother accused of beating her obese 10-year-old son to death told officials she homeschooled the boy to protect him from teasing and abuse, sources said.

N.Y. Post: 'DON'T LET IT HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT: JETS BOOT COACH AFTER TURBULENT TENURE'

N.Y. Times: 'M.T.A. Gives More Details on Possible Fare Increases'

Gawker: 'Tom Cruise's Bomb-Proof Car Also Repels Thetans'

N.Y. Times: 'In Housing Fall, Breaking Up Is Harder to Do'

With homes worth less than their outstanding loans, some divorcing couples are battling not to get the house.

N.Y. Post: 'Grinch In Gift Pinch'

Note to good Samaritans: In New York, when looking out for one's fellow man, it is wise to also look out for one's luggage.

New Yorker: 'Laura Bush shops a memoir'

N.Y. Post: 'FURY AT DAD'S BIG LIE'

Furious family members are horrified that a Holocaust survivor concocted a story that the girl who became his wife saved him from starvation by tossing apples and bread over a concentration-camp fence.

Ken Rosenblat, the son of Holocaust hoaxer Herman Rosenblat, said he knew of the lie "for many years" but couldn't stop his 79-year-old dad from spreading it.

Wall Street Journal: 'Airlines Grab Cash Amid Crunch'

U.S. airlines are enjoying surprising success raising money, despite being largely unprofitable and saddled with poor debt ratings.

N.Y. Daily News: 'Eric Mangini's end with the Jets began with Brett Favre's arrival'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'Even With Aid, Groups Scramble To Cope With Post-Madoff Mess'

New York: 'That's a Whole Lot of Fanny Packs: 47 million tourists visited New York this year'

N.Y. Review of Books: 'Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption'

N.Y. Times: 'Meteorite Strikes, Setting Off a Tsunami: Did It Happen Here?'

Geologists have collected evidence indicating that something very big occurred in the waters near New York around 300 B.C., but convincing other scientists has been an uphill battle.

Jewish Daily Forward: 'Kosher Industry's Woes Reach a Poor Village in Guatemala'

N.Y. Daily News: 'She's no whiz with words'

Caroline Kennedy, who gave a flurry of media interviews on Friday and Saturday, revealed some cringing verbal tics that showed her inexperience as a speaker, experts told the Daily News.

Wall Street Journal: 'Afghan Roadside Bombings Rise Sharply'

N.Y. Post: 'ISRAEL'S "WAR TO THE BITTER END"'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'No Longer in Power, Free To Talk, Neocons Seek To Rewrite History'

Gawker: 'Like Uncle Teddy, Caroline Kennedy Doesn't Know Why She's Running'

N.Y. Times: 'Five Banks Are Robbed in Single Day in the City'

New Yorker: 'DOING IT: A New Edition of The Joy of Sex'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'Will Subway Riders Take a Stand?'

Wall Street Journal: 'Banks to Post Rare Quarterly Loss'

Banks and savings institutions in the U.S. appear headed for their first overall quarterly loss since 1990.

Jewish Daily Forward: 'Beyond Rick Warren's Invocation'

The Orthodox Union's Nathan Diament has some advice for Barack Obama. Writing in the New Republic, Diament -- the OU's public policy director -- urges the incoming president to do more than offer religious voters symbols, like an inaugural invocation by Rev. Rick Warren. Obama, Diament writes, has an opportunity to advance policies that are important to religious voters -- and he can do so without sacrificing Democratic Party principles on issues like abortion, gay rights, and school vouchers.

To that end, he suggests that Obama support programming aimed at reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies; ensure that religious schools and social welfare agencies can continue to receive federal funding, regardless of their policies on homosexuality, and make federal grants available to parochial schools expanding their pre-kindergarten programs or greening their campuses.

more: Bidness, Celebs, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, LOOTING (BY CORPORATIONS), LOOTING (BY HUMANS), Morning Reports, PRESS, SCHMUCK, SEX

comments: 1

Weekend at Bernie Madoff's

Posted by Harkavy at 12:21 PM, December 16, 2008

If only he had died before hatching his Ponzi scheme.

What few celebrations are still planned for International Human Rights Week, which is winding down and ends tomorrow, one thing is clear: Bernie Madoff isn't invited.

Nothing could be further from "human rights" than Madoff's scheme, short of his taking a machine gun and going berserk.

A shanda we're talking about. The Yiddish word for shame/scandal fits well — particularly the expression "a shanda fur die goy," which means doing something embarrassing to Jews where non-Jews can observe it.

Check out Laurence Leamer's enlightening December 12 piece on HuffPost, "Bernard Madoff and the Jews of Palm Beach," for more on this moneychanger who hung out in temples instead of being driven from them.

Don't call me a self-hating Jew. Jew-haters will relish this sorry episode; look for an outbreak of anti-Semitism, especially in Europe, which has such a strong history of it.

The rest of you can restrict your hate to Madoff, the exclusive-club guy who scammed his co-religionists in much the same way that Christian evangelists fleece their flocks. Few religions are immune: Muslims even blow themselves up for their "faith."

This Madoff situation is kind of the reverse of Weekend at Bernie's, the 1989 comedy in which the title character dies and a couple of employees prop him up to pretend to others that he's still alive.

Madoff, however, is no joke. The Wall Street goniff's shanda is crippling the world — including the crippled children treated at the hospitals that invested millions of dollars in his Ponzi scam.

Like the Long Island Jewish Hospital chain, which, as Newsday reports, lost $5.7 million. It was only that relatively small amount for the heavily endowed hospital, the paper says, because some schnook stipulated that the hospital invest his donation with Madoff.

Madoff's alma mater, Hofstra, placed him on leave from his post as a trustee. But Yeshiva University, here in the city, has made Madoff disappear. Bernie was a trustee there, too, but the school's webmeisters are frantically scrubbing all mention of him on the Yeshiva site.

That won't stop people from knowing that, as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (the Jewish establishment's main news wire) reports, Yeshiva was "hit hard" by Madoff's scheming:

Sources close to the university, the flagship institution of Modern Orthodoxy, told JTA that the school has lost tens of millions of dollars if not more. Y.U. released an official statement saying it would not officially address the matter at this time.

How embarrassing, especially fur die goyim, that Madoff was chairman of Yeshiva's Sy Syms School of Business. That's the same Syms whose clothing stores spout the slogan "An Educated Consumer is Our Best Customer."

That's the way Bernie Madoff must have seen it while he bilked his rich, well-educated investors.

more: BANKRUPTCY, Bidness, COLLATERAL DAMAGE, Education, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, Hedge funds, LOOTING (BY HUMANS), SCHMUCK, THUMBS (DOWN)

comments: 6

Indiana Jones and the Lost Billions, starring Bernie Madoff as the Grinch

Posted by Harkavy at 8:54 AM, December 16, 2008

We've always known that New York is the city of big liars. But if last week's blockbuster criminal complaint is true, then Bernie Madoff is the biggest liar in town.

And now that adds to the burden of Barack Obama. At least he's from the city of big shoulders. And he'll need them.

It is satisfying that Madoff is one of those annoying high-society mogul twits and that he has enveloped other rich goniffs in places like the Palm Beach Country Club.

It's like a bad Spielberg movie — and it is to Steven Spielberg himself, who also got taken.

But Madoff's assault on other rich people is only an amusing sideshow in light of the charities and other institutions that got suckered and are now shuttered because of his alleged Ponzi scheme. (Brilliant New York Post lede graf this morning: "He's the Grinch who stole ... everything.")

Wall Street's potholes are widening into one big chasm, thanks in part to such stupidity as pension funds letting Wall Streeters manipulate the money reserved for hard-working middle-class retirees. Yes, it's not only banks, hedge funds, and other rich people who lost millions. Fairfield, Connecticut, for just one of many examples, reports losses of $42 million in pension funds.

Maybe potholes is the wrong word. Wall Street's looking like tar pits that are hardening so suddenly that we can't even grab our shoes to throw them at crooks and pols.

On the other hand, now we hear that Dick Cheney calls the Guantanamo Bay prison "very valuable" and wants it to stay open. That's a great idea. Send Bernie Madoff and other Wall Street crooks there.

But at least environmentalists are getting good news about other valuable real estate. They just might have won a major victory with Obama's selection of Colorado senator Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior.

He's definitely no Stewart Udall — not even close — but for these times he'll do. Salazar has been engaged with the Bush regime's Bureau of Land Management in a bitter fight to keep the government from tearing up the Roan Plateau in western Colorado, a beautiful, massive area west of Aspen that sits over gas and oil shale.

For newsy, recent background, see Alan Prendergast's fine reporting (as always) in the Denver alt paper Westword. Last June, in "A Hot Summer on the Roan Plateau," Prendergast wrote:

It's official. The Bureau of Land Management announced Monday that it will auction gas leases on 55,000 acres on top of the Roan Plateau on August 14. And Governor Bill Ritter and Senator Ken Salazar, who've been battling the BLM plan for years, are more than a little exercised over the move.

Although it doesn't enjoy the protection of a national park or even a designated wilderness area, the Roan is one of the most biologically diverse areas in the state — a haven for black bears, mountain lions, peregrine falcons, rare plants and the world's purest strain of Colorado River cutthroat trout. But the plateau also sits on an estimated $22 billion worth of natural gas.

For a human's look at the Roan, a place you've never heard of, see Prendergast's "Raiding the Roan: Rich in wildlife and natural resources, the Roan Plateau survived the last energy boom. Will this one destroy it?"

Stewart Udall, by the way, is still alive. And as recently as last June, the still-sharp 88-year-old former Secretary of the Interior under JFK and LBJ told the New York Times's Timothy Egan that he was hopeful that the country was about to enter "a new era" of conservation.

Tragically, his brother, charismatic former congressman, presidential candidate, and shoulda-been-president Mo Udall, died a decade ago after a bitter battle against Parkinson's during which he clung to his congressman post for 12 years after he was diagnosed. However, Stewart's son Tom Udall is a senator-elect in New Mexico, and Mo's son Mark Udall is a senator-elect in Colorado.

As Egan wrote:

[F]rom Udall's long tenure as secretary of the interior for both Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson came a legacy of public land protection responsible in large part for so many wilderness areas just outside Western cities.

Now, the son also rises. And so does the nephew.

That is a family that helps relieve the bitter taste left in our mouths by Bernie Madoff and his clan.

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Times (U.K.): 'Head of IMF fears unrest without action on economy'

Violent unrest may be sparked around the world by a prolonged global slump unless governments act with greater urgency to jump-start stalled economies, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Monday.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn sounded a stark warning over the consequences of what he argued was weak and uncertain government reaction to the economic crisis. He used a hard-hitting speech in Madrid to single out eurozone nations over what he attacked as an inadequate response.

The broadside from the IMF's managing director came as fears over a protracted global recession, and political fallout, mounted after China said that its factories' output registered the weakest growth in almost a decade last month.

Register (U.K.): 'Nine in ten emails now spam'

Nine in ten emails are now spam with an estimated 200bn junk mail messages a day clogging up the internet, according to a new report by networking and security giant Cisco.

The US is the single biggest source of spam, accounting for 17.2 per cent of junk mail. Other big offenders include Turkey (9.2 per cent), Russia (8 per cent), Canada (4.7 per cent), Brazil (4.1 per cent), India (3.5 per cent), South Korea (3.3 per cent), Germany and the UK (2.9 per cent each). ...

The latest 2008 edition of Cisco's annual security report notes a 90 percent growth in threats stemming from legitimate domains, nearly double that recorded in 2007. Numerous mainstream websites were loaded with iFrames, malicious scripts that redirect visitors to malware-downloading sites.

The compromise of legitimate domains is all part of the bigger picture of increasingly sophisticated attacks which these days are usually tied to cybercrooks looking to turn a fast buck, rather than teenagers looking to make a name for themselves.

McClatchy: 'Even with gasoline prices down, Americans cut back on driving'

New Yorker: 'News You Can Lose'

The perfect storm is real enough, and it is threatening to destroy newspapers as we know them. ...

Times (U.K.): 'British banks losing billions to "one big lie" in biggest ever fraud'

The eye-popping scale of what is being billed as the world's largest swindle became apparent yesterday as wealthy investors and banks around the world emerged as the victims of Bernard L. Madoff. ...

Banks and investors around the globe announced probable losses of $19.5 billion in aggregate, although Mr Madoff has said that the figure could go as high as $50 billion.

Wall Street was still trying to digest the unprecedented scale of the fraud, news of which broke last week when the FBI announced that Mr Madoff, a pillar of New York society and a former chairman of the Nasdaq share market, had been arrested and charged. What had taken Mr Madoff years to set up had collapsed in less than three months.

Washington Post: 'Obama Picks Chicago's Schools Chief For Cabinet'

[It is a little unnerving that George W. Bush's Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings (great name!) has praised the guy, Arne Duncan, as a "kindred spirit." — Harkavy]

N.Y. Times: 'Kennedy Seeks to Prove Qualifications for Senate Bid'

McClatchy: 'Bush shoe incident caught Secret Service flatfooted'

N.Y. Post: 'The Most Hated Man in New York: Bernie Madoff Skulks From His Manhattan Penthouse'

Register (U.K.): 'China "bans" BBC's Chinese website'

McClatchy: 'Probe finds politics drove endangered species decisions'

Politics corroded Bush administration decisions on protecting endangered species nationwide, federal investigators have concluded in a sweeping new report.

Former Interior Department official Julie MacDonald frequently bullied career scientists to reduce species protections, the Interior Department investigators found.

N.Y. Times: 'Legal Hurdle in Blagojevich Case: A Crime, or Just Talk?'

L.A. Times: 'Madoff debacle hits region's Jewish community'

Wall Street financier Bernard L. Madoff's alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme appears to have extended deeply into Southern California's Jewish community, with millions of dollars in losses tallied Monday by charitable organizations, Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and a foundation bankrolled by director Steven Spielberg. ...

The more than 30 organizations and individuals around the world identified so far as victims of the alleged deception are a diverse lot. But the disclosures by Southland Jewish organizations suggest a so-called affinity scam, in which members of a perpetrator's ethnic or religious group are targeted.

N.Y. Times: 'Giant Wall St. Fraud Leaves Charities Reeling'

Aspen Daily News (Colorado): 'Conservation groups ask Obama for oil shale reversal'

Conservation organizations are asking President-elect Barack Obama to reverse the Bush administration's efforts to speed oil shale development in western Colorado, eastern Utah and southern Wyoming.

Twenty-one local, regional and national organizations are asking the incoming administration to withdraw the Bush administration's last-minute rules governing oil shale development and wait until after the results of a research and development program are known.

They accuse the Bush administration of "rushing development of a commercial oil shale leasing program in a manner that solely benefits industry -- at the expense of taxpayers and sound policy." ...

Environmentalists are looking to the Obama administration to be a closer ally on their issues than the Bush administration, which they criticized for rolling back protections for public lands and easing energy exploration.

They have been asking Obama's transition team to reexamine a range of public lands issues, from drilling on the Roan Plateau to protections for roadless areas.

McClatchy: 'For Congress, auto executives are "lemons," too'

more: BANKRUPTCY, Bidness, CHILDREN (NOT LEFT BEHIND), COLLATERAL DAMAGE, Cheney, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, Hedge funds, LOOTING (BY HUMANS), Morning Reports, NY Post, Obama Drama, PRESS, SCHMUCK

comments: 0

Another rich putz gets bailout money

Posted by Harkavy at 9:40 AM, December 11, 2008

Desperate after a season of utter failure from their bullpen bailout corps, the Mets have traded for J.J. Putz.

It's not our fault that he pronounces his name "puts." This is New York City. Maybe he's not a jerk, but P-U-T-Z is "putz."

And the former Seattle relief pitcher's numbers back that up. He'll make $5 million in 2009 and — while the city will be suffering through a full-on depression in 2010 — he'll rake in $8.6 million.

The guy pitched 46 innings last season, so at that rate the Mets will be paying him about $100,000 an inning.

That makes him Putz with a capital P.

There could be a bright side to this deal. Now that he's a Met, stores will carry New York baseball jerseys adorned with his name. If Bloomberg wanted to do something other than try to make us stop smoking, he could require any Wall Street execs whose companies are receiving bailout money to wear those "PUTZ" jerseys.

All jokes are wearing thin ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

N.Y. Daily News: '17,000 kids have no school library'

More than 17,000 students in at least 42 schools in the poorest sections of the Bronx lack library access due to budget cuts and overcrowding, the Daily News has found.

N.Y. Times: 'Massacre Unfurls in Congo, Despite Nearby Support'

The Age (Australia): 'Flaccid economies lead to lay-offs in Europe's brothels'

Now 40 brothels in [the small Czech town Dubi] have shrunk to just four — the others have turned into golf shops or goulash restaurants.

"Two or three years ago, we would get 1,000 men coming here for sex on a Friday night, which is a lot for a town of 8,000 people," said Mayor Petr Pipal. "The one good thing about the economic crisis is that it has impacted so severely on the sex trade."

Jan-Phillip Buergermann, a brothel owner in Frankfurt, said: "I have offered free Viagra, free porn and cut the rates of the girls by 40 per cent, but business is down 45 per cent — it's really terrible."

N.Y. Post: 'COPS SLAY "BAT" DAD IN BX.'

A Bronx father defending his stepdaughter's honor was shot to death by a plainclothes cop after he ignored repeated orders to freeze and came at the officer with a raised baseball bat, the NYPD said yesterday.

The wife and stepdaughter of victim Alex Figueroa, 40, witnessed the bloodshed Tuesday night and disputed the police account, saying ...

Bloomberg: 'Foreclosure Storm Will Hit U.S. in 2009 as Loan Changes Fail'

N.Y. Times: 'Carbon Dioxide (No SUV's) Detected on Distant Planet'

Times (U.K.): 'Tesco slashes prices 50 percent in pre-Christmas sale'

UK's biggest supermarket will axe prices tomorrow, fuelling speculation it is losing cash-strapped shoppers to rivals.

N.Y. Times: 'Scandal Is an Early Test for Obama Team'

Register (U.K.): 'Is filming someone in the street a breach of privacy?'

A 40-year-old woman is suing a Croatian TV station after it filmed her in public and then featured her in a documentary about obesity. Gordana Knezic was shopping in Zagreb and did not know that she was being filmed, Ananova reports.

N.Y. Times: 'Officials Say Jackson Was "Candidate 5" in Blagojevich Case'

Washington Post: 'Candidate 5 Stumps for Senate Seat From Hot Seat' (Dana Milbank)

Move over, Client No. 9. The capital has a new man of mystery: Senate Candidate 5.

Not since Eliot Spitzer did his business at the Mayflower Hotel has there been so much excitement over an unnamed person in a federal criminal case. Client 9 may have paid for sex, but Candidate 5 was willing to pay for a Senate seat -- or so claimed Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to the feds.

The guessing game didn't last very long yesterday before Candidate 5 more or less outed himself. ...

The son of the civil rights leader performed all the usual rituals for a man suddenly in the middle of a scandal. He professed his innocence ("I am not a target of the investigation"), his humanity (he choked up while speaking of a supportive text message from his sister), his willingness to cooperate with "the hardworking men and women of the United States attorney's office," and, of course, his refusal to take questions on advice of counsel.

N.Y. Post: 'METS LAND PUTZ, SHIP HEILMAN IN 3-TEAM TRADE'

Times (U.K.): 'Cholera ravages population weak with hunger in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe'

Times (U.K.): 'Mugabe: "There is no cholera in Zimbabwe"'

Washington Post: 'Nobel Winner to Energy Dept.'

Physicist Steven Chu chosen as energy secretary; Browner, two others get climate posts.

Scotsman (U.K.): 'PM mocked for "we saved world" gaffe'

Gordon Brown was mercilessly mocked yesterday by MPs after a blundering boast that he had "saved the world."

The Prime Minister was defending his economic rescue plan before MPs during Prime Minister's Questions.

A red-faced Mr Brown was shouted down by heckling MPs and was forced to sit down until the Speaker of the Commons could restore order.

N.Y. Daily News: 'Federal prosecutors eye N.J. capo from Genovese family in 2005 trial rubout'

Washington Post: 'Bailout Clears House, Faces Hurdles in Senate'

Bill speeding $14 billion to domestic automakers next goes to Senate, where approval is dicey; many in GOP doubt aid will save Detroit.

Washington Post: 'Chuck E. Cheese, Beer and Violence'

Washington Post: 'Illegal Workers in Chertoff Home'

Secret Service missed cleaning firm's illegal workers at Homeland Security Secretary's home.

Register (U.K.): 'Bollywood to remake The Italian Job: "Lots of singing and dancing"'

Washington Post: 'Gates: More brigades to Afghanistan by summer'

Washington Post: 'U.S. Troops Mistakenly Kill Six Afghan Policemen' (Candace Rondeaux)

U.S. Special Forces troops in southeastern Afghanistan killed six Afghan policemen and wounded 13 Wednesday in an incident that Afghan and U.S. officials said was a case of mistaken identity.

The Age (Australia): 'Strikes and violence: Greece paralysed'

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Real motherfuckers: AIG still hands out bonuses

Posted by Harkavy at 8:47 AM, December 10, 2008

Just like during the last Great Depression, a Bonus Army is forming.

Not the one formed 76 years ago by disgruntled veterans setting up camp in D.C. to demand respect and money.

This century's Bonus Army consists of Wall Street execs.

While Wall Street CEOs make a big show of eschewing bonuses and dropping their stated salaries to zero, they're still giving one another bonuses. They've just changed the name to "retention program."

This is far less funny wordplay than Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's referring to Barack Obama as a "motherfucker," a factoid I culled yesterday from the graft complaint against the governor.

Take AIG, the giant insurer that got some of the first bailout money and is still in freefall. Seeking Alpha notes this morning:

The latest installment in the farcical story of the black hole that is AIG(reed) (AIG) is that they have managed to chalk up another $10bn in losses.

It must be time for another trip to that luxury spa. They have some neck with news that managers are getting retention payouts topping $4 million! Where is the oversight? Who is minding the purse strings on behalf of Joe the Plumber? Maybe one of the key challenges for the future will be to prevent monstrosities like AIG from becoming "too big to fail" as the alleged economies of scale are dwarfed by the staggering costs of bailout nation.

Investment News gives the straight version:

American International Group Inc. will award 38 of its executives with as much as $4 million each as part of a retention program, according to a letter from chief executive Edward Liddy.

Employees with salaries between $160,000 and $1 million can receive between $92,500 and $4 million in retention pay, according to a Dec. 5 letter Liddy sent to Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Cummings did not take the news well, writing a nasty letter back to Liddy, as the AP notes:

"I remain concerned, as do many American taxpayers, that these retention payments are simply bonuses by another name," Cummings wrote in the letter, which was in reply to Dec. 5 letter correspondence from AIG.

"Concerned" is, in this case, letterspeak for "so pissed off that blood is spurting from my eyeballs."

Instead of retention for these Wall Streeters, how about detention?

And not in the California spa where AIG execs relaxed after they got their $85 billion bailout money.

Now, while I have you detained ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Wall Street Journal: 'Panel to Criticize Handling of Bailout'

The panel overseeing the Treasury Department's $700 billion financial-rescue fund is expected to release a report Wednesday that is highly critical of the government's handling of the bailout, people familiar with the matter said. It will also press the Bush administration to act more aggressively to prevent foreclosures. ...

The Treasury Department has faced a steady drumbeat of criticism about the way it has handled the first half of the $700 billion fund, which Congress authorized in October to help stabilize the financial system.

Congress could move to block Treasury's access to the remaining $350 billion portion of the fund, a prospect government officials fear could send financial markets reeling. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.), said Monday that Treasury would have to commit to using a large amount of the money to help prevent foreclosures in order to satisfy him. He said it would still be a tough sell with other lawmakers.

Wall Street Journal: 'Governor Is Arrested on Graft Charges'

... The arrests came after a highly publicized investigation that has been continuing for more than five years and has helped pull Mr. Blagojevich's approval rating as low as 13%, so weak that even before Tuesday's arrests, there was talk of impeachment.

The government alleged Mr. Blagojevich was considering appointing himself to the Senate to avoid impeachment, resuscitate his career and make corporate contacts that would pay off after leaving public office. He also believed, the government claimed, that he would have greater leverage to rehabilitate his reputation and consolidate his power base for a possible run at the presidency in 2016.

Register (U.K.): 'Facebook ignores huge security hole for four months — and counting'

N.Y. Post: 'PECKER'S BONDS BIND: AMI CHIEF NEAR BANKRUPTCY AFTER MISSING DEADLINE'

Wall Street Journal: 'AIG Faces $10 Billion in Losses'

AIG owes Wall Street's biggest firms more than $10 billion in speculative trades that have soured, raising questions about how the insurer will be able to raise funds to pay off the debts.

N.Y. Post: 'LABOR BANKS ON IT: SERVICE UNION EYES ORGANIZING FINANCIAL WORKERS'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Workers' hero falls from grace' (Juan Gonzalez)

Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois showed up at Republic Windows and Doors to proclaim support for 250 workers who refused to leave the factory after the bosses shut it down.

The next time Blagojevich appeared in public, it was in a federal courtroom, accused Tuesday of trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat and other of acts of brazen corruption.

Here was Blagojevich, a one-time prosecutor, a man who rose to the highest office in this state as a so-called reformer, caught on FBI wiretaps in one astonishing shakedown after another.

Slate: 'Unsolicited Advice for David Gregory' (Jack Shafer)

Instead of dissipating, the cult of Tim Russert has only swollen in the six months since his death. One measure of the cult's staying power has been the media's incessant speculation on who would replace him as host of Meet the Press. ...

The media fuss wasn't so much about the importance of who was good enough to sit in Russert's chair but--like the over-coverage of Russert's death, funeral, and memorial service--another demonstration of the Washington press corps's extraordinary high regard for itself.

N.Y. Post: 'OBAMA WHITE HOUSE IS IN FOR A NASTY SURPRISE'

So, the president-elect thinks the economy will get worse before it gets better. As refreshing as his candor is, Barack Obama really doesn't understand what he's up against. ...

Unless the incoming president quickly gets his act together we are going to be hearing the word "depression" a lot next year and he will — in a very short period of time — be as unpopular as the guy leaving the job.

Washington Post: 'A Perfect Storm? No, a Failure of Leadership'

Slate: 'The Slate Bailout Guide: An interactive cheat sheet on the trillions of dollars in federal rescue packages'

Washington Post: 'Pakistan Detains Extremist'

House arrest of suspected terrorist leader Masood Azhar draws scoffs from U.S. and Indian officials.

For the second time in a decade, suspected Pakistani terrorist leader Azhar was placed under house arrest yesterday after being linked to attacks in India. His detention, announced by Pakistan's Defense Ministry, was intended to show the country's resolve in hunting for the organizers of last month's deadly rampage in Mumbai.

Yet in the U.S. and Indian capitals, the news of Azhar's arrest drew mostly scoffs. As officials in both countries noted, Pakistan never bothered to charge the Kashmiri extremist when it detained him in connection with a deadly attack on India's Parliament in December 2001. A Pakistani judge freed him 11 months later.

Jewish Journal: 'The Los Angeles Bagels'

... From John Peter Zenger until Sam Zell —have those names ever appeared in the same sentence before? — press owners have maintained that their mission is to do well while doing good, to turn a profit while also living up to their democratic responsibilities. Many of them have figured out how to do both: partly by subsidizing the stuff we need to be good citizens by selling us the fun and fluff we want; partly by deploying journalists' storytelling skills in order to turn essential information into compelling must-reads.

To Sam Zell, however, running the [Los Angeles] Times, as well the other papers he bought when he acquired the Tribune Co., isn't a public trust, and its stewardship doesn't include serving the public interest, no more than would running a bagel joint.

N.Y. Times: 'Investors Buy U.S. Debt at Zero Yield'

When was the last time you invested in something that you knew wouldn't make money?

In the market equivalent of shoveling cash under the mattress, hordes of buyers were so eager on Tuesday to park money in the world's safest investment, United States government debt, that they agreed to accept a zero percent rate of return.

Legal Times: 'Obama Transition Team Pushing for Secret Legal Memos'

A senior Justice Department official said today that "99.8 percent" of the department's work with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has gone smoothly. The 0.2 percent snag: The department has reservations about granting the team's request to review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs.

The opinions, some of which have been released to Congress in redacted form, contain the legal rationale of the NSA's warrantless spying program and the CIA's detention and interrogation policies, among other intelligence initiatives.

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Print and the pauper

Posted by Harkavy at 8:15 AM, December 9, 2008

Almost all newspapers have existed primarily to make money, and there's nothing wrong with that because journalists can function very well when their companies are profitable, even if the profits aren't shared equitably, which they never are.

Now, though, newspapers don't make nearly the profits that they once made. You really can get through your day without reading one. So the panicky dead-tree companies no longer consider you readers. You're "customers."

The award for the worst newspaper deal in recent memory goes to real-estate mogul Sam Zell's doomed and debt-laden purchase of the Tribune Co. less than two years ago.

And now the company's flagship paper wins the award for the worst headline of the year. This morning's note from Chicago Tribune publisher Tony Hunter about the company's descent into bankruptcy court carries this hed: "Chicago Tribune focused on serving customers"

Note the passive voice. Note the dullness, the stupor. This should inspire confidence in its "customers."

Hunter's publicists still inserted some journalism into the embarrassing item: the hackneyed phrase "perfect storm," which is the 21st century version of "mistakes were made":

We have experienced the perfect storm — a precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy has coupled with a credit crisis, making it extremely difficult to support our debt.

This is something that happened to the Tribune Co.? Even that aside, the story has the stink of death. And you could consider it suicide. As the Wall Street Journal's consistently sharp Heidi N. Moore pointed out yesterday afternoon:

No one thought the buyout of Tribune Co. would work — and it didn't.

The fact that Tribune Co. has hired Lazard as its adviser for a potential Chapter 11 filing ranks among the least surprising potential bankruptcies ever.

This was a storm that Zell created for himself by taking on mountainous debt to purchase the long-ailing and mismanaged multimedia company.

At first blush, it looks as if Newsday lucked out. Only a short time ago, the Tribune unloaded Newsday to Charlie Dolan's Cablevision monopoly, which outbid Rupert Murdoch.

You know the economy and the newspaper industry are in the toilet when it's a good thing that Charlie Dolan is your owner.

Heralding other news items ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

McClatchy: 'School health experts warn of growing hunger'

The recession is accelerating a disturbing trend in which more kids have early diabetes, hypertension and other health problems previously confined to adults. The number of children under 6 who sometimes are forced to go hungry has doubled in recent years to 8 percent of all youngsters.

Telegraph (U.K.): 'September 11 suspects will confess in court'

In a note sent to the presiding judge, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants declared that they wished to confess to planning the 2001 assault on New York and Washington. ...

"We don't want to waste time," he told the judge.

According to the note, the five men do not trust their lawyers — appointed by the US military — and want to withdraw any pending motions filed on their behalf.

But with US President-elect Barack Obama opposed to the military trials — known as commissions — the case is unlikely to survive the new year.

N.Y. Post: 'LAWSUIT OVER MARLEY'S GUITAR'

Telegraph (U.K.): 'Men under threat from "gender bending" chemicals'

Scientists are warning that manmade pollutants which have escaped into the environment mimic the female sex hormone estrogen.

The males of species including fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles have been feminised by exposure to sex hormone disrupting chemicals and have been found to be abnormally making egg yolk protein, normally made by females, according to the report by Chem Trust, environmental group.

N.Y. Post: 'PARKS DEPT.'S HIDDEN-TIX TRICK ON LUXE METS BOX'

McClatchy: 'Florida mystery: Who's buried at school known for abuse?'

Convinced 32 unmarked graves at the Florida School for Boys are the bodies of boys abused and killed decades ago, four former residents of the school are demanding the governor and state and federal attorneys investigate. The men learned of the graves six weeks ago when they were invited to dedicate a plaque at the school.

Globe and Mail (Toronto): 'No U.S.-style housing collapse in Canada: Royal Bank'

Canada's housing sector is entering what RBC Economics calls a "cyclical downtown," but says the risk of a U.S.-style meltdown is remote.

RBC senior economist Robert Hogue says many factors that triggered the U.S. housing collapse are either absent or of much lower significance in Canada.

He says the housing market is expected to hold up even as a sluggish economy threatens income growth and erodes consumer confidence.

Mr. Hogue says the sub-prime business remains marginal, banks are stable and households are generally not overstretched financially.

Wall Street Journal: 'U.S. Could Take Stakes in Big Three'

Congress and the White House inched toward a financial rescue of the Big Three auto makers, negotiating legislation that would give the U.S. government a substantial ownership stake in the industry.

N.Y. Post: '"HATE" BASH IN BROOKLYN'

Globe and Mail (Toronto): 'Should terminally-ill businesses get their bailouts?'

The full-court press by Detroit Three auto lobbyists for taxpayer money has fostered strong feelings across our country. B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell staked out his province's position that massive job losses in the forestry sector merit government help just as much as Ontario's auto sector. Fearing for their own jobs, Canadians employed in the services, retail, construction and other sectors ask why workers who earn much more than they do should be subsidized - and why mismanaging bosses should be bailed out. ...

Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of any G8 country and is the only member going into the global meltdown without a structural deficit. Despite the gloom and doom espoused by panicky politicians, our economy is performing relatively well, so we haven't been forced into the desperate ad-hoc measures seen in the United States. While our country does have the financial capacity for well-placed temporary fiscal stimulus, spending taxpayer money in the wrong places will weaken rather than strengthen the economic future of Canadians.

Globe and Mail (Toronto): 'Cheap, reliable, popular'

As unlikely as it sounds, the Big Three Detroit auto makers might look to Romania for inspiration on how to reinvent themselves.

Romania is a struggling Eastern European country that gets little attention in the rest of Europe, or anywhere else. The country's industrial base is in rough shape, though slowly improving as it creeps into the European Union fold. But it has one industry that stands out as an international success story - car making.

Romania's Automobile Dacia is one of the few high-growth car businesses in the otherwise ailing global auto industry. The brand's French owner, Renault, couldn't be happier. The Dacia is a genuine low-cost car that rolls out of the factory near Bucharest with a fat profit margin.

The machine sells well throughout Europe, and elsewhere, because it is not a jalopy pieced together with 40-year-old parts from Warsaw Pact trucks. The Dacia's engineering and drivability, if not visual appeal, come close to the standards of the latest Renault cars.

Chicago Tribune: 'Chicago Tribune focused on serving customers'

Wall Street Journal: 'Dark Days for Mall Dynasty Built on Debt'

N.Y. Times: 'Lawyer Is Accused in Massive Hedge Fund Fraud'

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U.S. to GM CEO: Take a hike

Posted by Harkavy at 8:29 AM, December 8, 2008

Before Congress finally bails out the Big Three automakers, GM CEO Rick Wagoner may bail.

Actually, that's not correct. Wagoner is about to be thrown out of the car.

Wait, that's not exactly right, either. It's not his fellow passengers from Detroit who are pushing him out, it's people on the outside dragging him from the stalled vehicle.

As the Wall Street Journal reports in "Outside Pressure Grows for GM to Oust Wagoner":

General Motors Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner is coming under increasing pressure from outside the company to resign as part of any broad bailout of the auto maker by the federal government.

On Sunday, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), a supporter of emergency loans for Detroit, suggested Mr. Wagoner should go if the government follows through and provides billions of dollars to help the auto giant restructure and return to profitability.

"I think you've got to consider new leadership," the senator said on the CBS talk show Face The Nation. A Dodd aide said later the senator's demand for change would not be a "condition written into the" rescue package coming together on Capitol Hill, and draft legislation prepared by top Democrats doesn't make that explicit requirement. But Mr. Dodd's displeasure was clear. "If you're going to restructure, you've got to bring in a new team to do this," he said. "I think [Mr. Wagoner] has to move on."

Meanwhile, one of the country's biggest media corpses, the Tribune Co., is about to file for bankruptcy.

Moving on ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Agence France Presse: 'Pakistan arrests 15 over Mumbai attacks'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Puppies save three-year-old boy lost in freezing Virginia woods'

Wall Street Journal: 'Prime Mumbai Terror Suspect Arrested in Pakistani Raid'

Houston Chronicle: 'Barbara Walters rounds up the most fascinating people'

Atlantic: 'Behind Mumbai'

... It is clearly possible that the terror rampage had its origins outside India, aimed as they were at international rather than Hindu targets. But in a least one sense it doesn't matter. For the attacks will aggravate a growing fault line between Hindus and Muslims within India itself.

India is home to 154 million Muslims, the third largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. Tolerable inter-communal relations are the sine qua non of Indian stability and ascendancy. India has more to lose from extremist Islam than arguably any other country in the world.

New Yorker: 'Risk Factors' (George Packer)

A legacy of the Bush Administration is that America can no longer sweep in and impose a solution on a crisis. The answers for Pakistan lie largely in its own hands ...

Wall Street Journal: 'Outside Pressure Grows for GM to Oust Wagoner'

N.Y. Post: 'CITY COPS PREP FOR "MUMBAI": MACHINE-GUN TRAINING'

Wall Street Journal: 'Thain Spars With Board Over Bonus at Merrill'

Merrill Lynch & Co. chief John Thain has suggested to directors that he get a 2008 bonus of as much as $10 million, but the battered securities firm's compensation committee is resisting his request, according to people familiar with the situation. ...

The difference of opinion between Mr. Thain and directors who hired him just a year ago is part of the bigger debate about compensation practices at Wall Street firms. Many blame Wall Street for fueling the credit crisis that dragged the U.S. economy into recession, and the giant paychecks that are routine at many Wall Street firms have received deepening criticism as the government extends aid to banks and securities firms.

Financial Times (U.K.): 'Video gaming defies retail gloom'

The video game industry appears to be alone in bucking a retail recession as consumers turn to fitness workouts, musical jam sessions and fantasy worlds to take their minds off the credit crunch.

Microsoft has reported November as its biggest sales month in Europe for the Xbox 360 console - sales rose 124 per cent on a year ago. In the US it announced its best Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, with sales up 25 per cent on the year.

US industry sales are up 25 per cent so far this year, according to the NPD research firm. Game sales in October rose 35 per cent on 2007's total. The rises are in spite of a strong 2007.

McClatchy: 'How Obama will govern: Strong team will test his skills'

Washington Post: 'Democrats Working on New Plan for Auto Aid'

Legislation would give automakers at least $15B in emergency loans early next week; Dodd says GM chairman Richard Wagoner "has to move on."

McClatchy: 'Mystery phone call put Pakistan and India on the brink of war'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Veterans praise President-elect Barack Obama's decision to hire Eric Shinseki'

McClatchy: 'Closing Guantanamo a minefield of critical steps'

McClatchy: 'Obama criticizes Bush response to housing foreclosures'

Washington Post: 'Tribune May File for Bankruptcy'

Media giant Tribune Co., saddled with billions in debt since it became a privately held company last year, has hired bankruptcy advisers, according to its flagship newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.

The Chicago-based company owns a coast-to-coast empire with television stations and newspapers in most of the nation's largest cities. Its holdings include the Los Angeles Times; cable television super-station WGN in Chicago; the Baltimore Sun; and WDCW-50 in Washington, the CW affiliate. The company even owns the Chicago Cubs.

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The Daily Flog: Hell freezes over; we're officially in a recession

Posted by Harkavy at 8:25 AM, December 2, 2008

Ten years ago, you might have thought that we'd tumble into a depression when hell freezes over.

So it's troubling news today on two fronts: Government economists confirm that, yes, we're in a recession and have been in one for quite a while.

And, contrary to what scientists once thought of a young Earth that was hot as Hades, that hell could very well have been ice-cold.

As the New York Times points out this morning in one of its regular, sweeping science stories about events millions of years ago:

Geologists now almost universally agree that by 4.2 billion years ago, the Earth was a pretty placid place, with both land and oceans. Instead of hellishly hot, it may have frozen over. Because the young Sun put out 30 percent less energy than it does today, temperatures on Earth might have been cold enough for parts of the surface to have been covered by expanses of ice.

The only American who was alive back then, Senator Robert Byrd, couldn't be reached for comment on the Times's assertions.

Adding to this morning's chill is the saga of Plaxico Burress, who mistakenly thought that happiness is a warm gun and instead found himself and his career in the chilly Tombs.

Make sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot. Keep your hands on your computer ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

AP: 'Panel warns biological attack likely by 2013'

McClatchy: 'Economic researchers say recession started a year ago'

No kidding. What's been obvious for months became official Monday: The recession is here. In fact, it's already a year old.

ABC News: 'In New Role, Clinton's Former Experience Won't Help Much'

When running against now President-elect Obama in the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton asked voters who they would want in the White House answering an emergency call at 3:00 a.m.

The voters resoundingly chose Obama to be on the receiving end of that phone call. But with her nomination Monday to become secretary of state, the Democratic senator from New York will likely be the one dialing the phone and waking the president with news of an international incident.

Clinton made an effort during the campaign to portray Obama as inexperienced on matters of foreign policy, while touting her own thin credentials during her time spent as first lady.

Washington Post: 'A National Security Team That Looks Like the Nation' (Al Kamen)

N.Y. Post: 'PLAX IN COURT AS MIKE TAKES SHOTS: DEMANDS JAIL TIME, RIPS GIANTS AND HOSP IN COVERUP "OUTRAGE" '

The Giants, the NFL and the prestigious New York-Cornell Hospital shamefully shielded Super Bowl hero Plaxico Burress from cops after he shot himself in the leg with an illegal handgun at a nightclub, Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD fumed yesterday.

Wall Street Journal: 'Delinquent Mortgages Set to Nearly Double in 2009'

McClatchy: 'Florida, banks halt foreclosures for 45 days'

N.Y. Times: 'When Hell Cooled Down'

Geologists now think Earth quickly became a cool place of land, seas and perhaps even life.

McClatchy: 'Obama's "team of rivals" also has some rival ideas'

Obama's future national security adviser quite possibly voted for McCain. His future secretary of state once said the United States should consider the "obliteration" of Iran, a country Obama has advocated talking to. His future defense secretary directed the military's surge in Iraq, which Obama opposed. Can Obama possibly rein in so many diverging views?

N.Y. Times: 'Officials Vow to Act Amid Forecasts of Long Recession'

Wall Street Journal: 'China Fears a Reverse Migration'

China's roaring industrial economy has been abruptly quieted by the effects of the global financial crisis. A wave of reverse migration to rural areas has the potential to shake the stability of the world's most populous nation.

Washington Post: 'Automakers Assemble Make-or-Break Case: Executives Return to Congress to Plea for $25 Billion in Loans'

McClatchy: 'Dozens killed, scores wounded in spate of Iraq attacks'

Wall Street Journal: 'Goldman Faces Loss of $2 Billion for Quarter'

Wall Street Journal: 'New Strategy Drives Obama Picks'

New Yorker: 'Hendrik Hertzberg hums a tune about the "Clinton people" '

N.Y. Post: 'BUS DRIVER SLAIN'

A deadbeat passenger who boarded a Brooklyn bus without paying became enraged when he was denied a free transfer yesterday — and then fatally stabbed the driver as horrified passengers looked on, police said. "The driver said, 'I can't [give the transfer],' and then a moment later, the guy pulled something out of his pocket and ...

N.Y. Post: 'REP. SAYS "NO THANKS" TO HILL SEAT: NITA OUT, MALONEY IN'

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Putting Hillary Clinton in her place -- and that doesn't mean the State Department

Posted by Harkavy at 8:27 AM, November 18, 2008

Keep hiring those Clinton administration veterans, Obama. The more of them you hire, the less likely that Hillary Clinton will be named Secretary of State.

If Barack Obama does appoint her Secretary of State, he would no longer be the agent of "change." He would just be small change.

It's Obama's dime, but maybe he's simply protecting his party base and trying to assuage Congressional Democrats by making nice with her. This allows Hillary to save face — which is the most important thing in the world to her, anyway — by now accepting another post in the new administration, perhaps ambassador to the U.N.

And making it seem that it's solely her decision to not become Secretary of State.

Maybe Obama has already filled his quota of Clinton vets, and there's simply no room for Hillary. Unlikely.

More likely: Obama and his troops are simply playing the public and press by strongly intimating that Hillary will get the job while at the same time spreading the word that hubby Bill's unsavory post-presidential globe-trotting would disqualify her from the post.

It could be America's good fortune that Bill Clinton has been such a smarmy international greed hog since he left the White House. This morning's New York Times story, "Many Dealings of Bill Clinton Under Review," smacks of a clever game of "leaks" by Obama's crew to the establishment press:

Mr. Clinton’s postpresidential life as a globe-trotting philanthropist, business consultant and speech-giver poses the highest hurdle for Mrs. Clinton to overcome if President-elect Barack Obama chooses to nominate her as secretary of state, according to aides of the Clintons and Mr. Obama.

The Obama transition team is focused on the wide array of Mr. Clinton’s postpresidential activities, some details of which have not been made public. This list includes the identity of most of the donors to his foundation, the source of some of his speaking fees — he has earned as much as $425,000 for a one-hour speech — and his work for the billionaire investor Ronald W. Burkle.

Propping up that suspicion of the Obama gang's sophisticated game-playing is that the future chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has in fact been always closer to Obama than to the Clintons.

Emanuel's close friendship with David Axelrod (a close friend of Obama's) matters more than Emanuel's previous ties to the Clinton Administration. Emanuel is Obama's guy, not the Clintons' guy.

And at least at the U.N., Hillary's shortcomings as a diplomat wouldn't matter too much, because she wouldn't be the person in charge of setting foreign policy.

Putting her at the U.N. would keep her out of D.C. and let her keep a New York base. In D.C., she would be overwhelmed in importance by Obama's Chicago-based gang. And she wouldn't be hovering around D.C. as a publicity- and power-seeking distraction to Obama.

On the East River, she would be the No. 1 tugboat captain. And her celebrity could even be a boon at the U.N., where the top officials from each country focus mainly on schmoozefests while U.N. bureaucrats work hard at the actual and important tasks of trying to peacekeep and feed people and issue global warnings about global warming.

Even with all her weaknesses, Hillary's presence at the U.N. could help repair relations with the rest of the world because she would be following such Bush regime schnooks as John Bolton (who is opposed to the very existence of the U.N.) and John Negroponte, former destabilizer of Latin America way back in earlier GOP administrations.

Even someone as querulous as I am would be an improvement over either of them.

"Change" does not include putting Hillary Clinton in charge of the vast machinery of the powerful State Department. Another Clinton schmuckfest is not what the voters wanted.

And why would Obama appoint his chief rival in the party to such a powerful post, unless he's merely keeping his seat warm for a future Hillary stab at the presidency?

That seems highly unlikely. After all, he won the presidency by scooting past the Democratic Party's anointed candidate and seizing the nomination. What does he really owe the party except to keep peace within it so that he can get his legislative agenda through?

In other words, now is not the time for him to piss off Democrats in Congress.

Doesn't make sense to make Hillary the Secretary of State. OK, OK, maybe I don't make sense either. But I'm not the person who has vowed to "change" things. I never promised you a new Rose Garden.

Foreclosing on this one-way conversation and moving on . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Slate: 'Obama's New Toy: Snazzy new technology isn't enough to bring transparency to the White House'

Haaretz: 'Israeli official: U.S. can halt Iran nuclear program with dialogue'

McClatchy: 'Eco-urinals' problem: they're complicated (and they stink)'

Barack Obama's election as U.S. president and the world financial crisis present an opportunity to halt the Iranian nuclear drive through diplomacy, Military Intelligence head Amos Yadlin said Monday.

Iran, for example, has been stung by lower global oil prices in recent months.

Bloomberg: 'U.S. Auto Chiefs Renew Aid Push With Passage in Doubt'

McClatchy: 'Company that bungled Baghdad embassy repeats in Gabon'

Haaretz: 'Killing of crime boss Alperon seen as "earthquake" for Israel underworld'

Haaretz: 'Study: Israeli bank not obliged to return cash to Holocaust victims' heirs'

McClatchy: 'Gasoline prices have plunged. So why is no one cheering?'

Slate: 'The Subprime Good Guys: These mortgage lenders loan to poor people, strengthen communities, and are still making a profit. How do they do it?

Slate: 'Five Million Dead and Counting: The disaster in Congo is all the more tragic because it was utterly avoidable'

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama Hires More Clinton White House Veterans'

N.Y. Post: 'GRANNY BEATER A BEAST: DA'

more: Demos, Featured, Hillary, Morning Reports, Obama Drama, PRESS, SCHMUCK

comments: 4

Daily Flog: Tally woe! Fears on voting machinery, machinations

Posted by Harkavy at 8:52 AM, October 22, 2008

In the final countdown to the presidential election, many Americans may actually hit zero, thanks to predicted failures of new voting machinery and rules.

This just leaves the curtain of the voting booth open for the machinations of GOP operative Hans von Spakovsky and his ilk.

Not only anti-Democratic but also anti-democratic, Von Spakovsky used to be on the Federal Election Commission, but he kept pissing in the voter pool and was finally forced out.

That doesn't mean he's not actively practicing voter fraud while railing against it. See Rolling Stone's new piece by Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, "Block the Vote."

For more Hans brinkmanship, see my late 2007 stories "The GOP's Hounding of Voters" and "Hans Off Our Elections!"

And don't forget fixer Karl Rove, who's now larval in the Fox News cocoon. Tell me he's not about to weave some webs to trap voters.

Even without those two goniffs, big problems loom for the quadrennial attempt at democracy. It's so scary that even the British are on the side of the colonists. They're running around our countryside with warnings of none if by land, zero if by sea. Today's Guardian (U.K.) plays it up big, in "Ballot debacle predicted for November 4":

A "perfect storm" could be building for US election day on November 4 because of a combination of sky-high voter interest, new ballot machines and a shortage of poll staff, the independent Pew group warned yesterday.

The Washington-based group set out a long series of problems still facing the US despite reforms aimed at avoiding a repeat of the 2000 and 2004 debacles.

Extracted from the report (PDF) at Pew's electionline.org, here's a lengthy passage — lengthy because it's important:

[Voters] will encounter an election system that, while significantly changed since 2000, is in many respects no less settled after nearly eight years of debate and change.

Many of the old machines, laws and procedures that were blamed for the problems in 2000 are gone. But new machines, laws and procedures have themselves raised questions that continue to fuel controversy and concern as November approaches. Yet the biggest challenge in 2008 may not be changes to the system but the potentially record number of voters prepared to use it.

For nearly eight years, policymakers, election officials, and advocates have upgraded the plumbing of the nation’s election system — replacing some sections while patching and plugging others — all in the hope of keeping Americans and their votes flowing smoothly.

In two weeks, however, voters will crank the pressure sky high.

An open seat for the White House, fueled by deep partisan, geographic, race and class divisions on issues at home and abroad, is about to result in a likely record number of voters turning out to vote on (and increasingly before) Election Day.

The question is no longer exclusively "will the system work?" Rather, it is "can the system handle the load?"

Nevertheless, vote early and vote often. And all you college grads out there: You might as well go to the polls because the job of democracy may be the only one available. From this morning's Wall Street Journal:

"For '09 Grads, Job Prospects Take a Dive"

College seniors may have more trouble landing a job next spring than recent graduates, as employers trim their hiring outlooks in response to the slowing economy and financial-sector turmoil.

Employers plan to hire just 1.3% more graduates in 2009 than they hired this year, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

That's the weakest outlook in six years and reflects a sharp recent downturn. Just two months ago, a survey by the same group projected a 6.1% increase in hiring.

Wi-Fi it. Go ahead and order another triple-shot frappucino, go back to your table, and see if anything clicks . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

AP: 'US airstrike kills 9 Afghan soldiers at checkpoint'

N.Y. Daily News: 'RNC spends thousands on dresses, make-up for Sarah Palin & family'

N.Y. Post: 'GOP'S SHOCK "TERROR" ATTACK: MAILING TARGETS OBAMA'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Pound tumbles as Bank head cries recession'

Wall Street Journal: 'Joe the Plumber and GOP "Authenticity": It's hard to reach out to workers while cracking down on unions' (Thomas Frank)

N.Y. Times: 'Some Cut Back on Prescription Drugs in Sour Economy'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Cyber-attack theory as al-Qaida websites close'

Wall Street Journal: 'Gay Marriage in Peril in California'

Wall Street Journal: 'U.S. to Ask Analysts if Lehman Misled'

Wall Street Journal: 'Recession Fears Pummel Futures'

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama Opens Double-Digit Lead: New Poll Shows McCain Ceding Ground on Taxes, Values; Palin Loses Shine'

Wall Street Journal: 'Iran, Qatar, Russia Form Gas Alliance'

Wall Street Journal: 'McClatchy's Advertising Woes Mount'

Wall Street Journal: 'Network Audience Keeps Eroding: Upswing in Delayed Viewing on DVRs Isn't Likely to Offset Prime-Time Declines'

more: Demos, Featured, GOP, Guardian (U.K.), HACKS, Karl Rove, PRESS, SCHMUCK, VOTING, Wall Street Journal

comments: 0

Dead presidents in Africa and on Wall Street

Posted by Harkavy at 3:20 PM, October 21, 2008

Still no word on whether Equatorial Guinea's dictator, Teodoro Obiang, is alive or dead.

Last week, it seemed that one of the world's most notorious despots — also a valued customer of the Bush-connected Riggs Bank in D.C. — was finally dead.

This story in Kenya's Daily Nation immediately surfaced: "Equatorial Guinea president denies rumours of his death."

Classic.

But that story was based on the word of the dictator's aides. And some of Obiang's aides have been known to torture prisoners with stinging ants, so, you know, not everybody on his staff might be trustworthy.

The president himself has still not surfaced.

Unlike on Wall Street, where millions of dead presidents have surfaced — stuffed into the pockets of the bankers who sparked the financial meltdown.

Today's Wall Street Journal points out that Merrill Lynch's "head of strategy," Peter Kraus, is leaving after less than two months on the job with a "buyout bonanza" of at least $10 million — and maybe $25 million — in his pocket.

When melting-down Merrill was swallowed up by Bank of America, thousands of Merrill workers were sure to be fired. But a clause in Kraus's contract kicked in. The WSJ story notes:

He isn't affected by a provision in the government's rescue plan that curbs executive compensation, a person familiar with the situation said. Those restrictions cover the CEO, chief financial officer and three other highest-paid executives of the firm.

Many other Wall Street execs have buyout clauses that kick in when control of the companies they work for changes hands. So Kraus won't be the only one walking away with all those dead presidents.

We can only hope that Kraus is not going into "public service." Not that he wouldn't make out like a bandit if he chose to.

When Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson quit in 2006 to become Treasury Secretary, he had to rid himself of his Goldman stock. After negotiating with his own company on a settlement, he walked away with a cool $110 million for his shares and options — don't think for one second that Paulson had spent much to obtain those shares; like other Wall Street execs, he got most of them just handed to him.

That deal gave him the experience he needed to figure out how to curb executive compensation during the bailout.

more: Bidness, DESPOTS, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, Hank Paulson, LOOTING (BY CORPORATIONS), PRISONERS (COWERING), SCHMUCK, Wall Street Journal

comments: 0

Daily Flog: Wall Street's little piggies don't want to go mark-to-market; meanwhile, more huffing and puffing

Posted by Harkavy at 10:49 AM, October 2, 2008

The Senate grabbed hold of the Cash for Crash bill and finally came up with a workable version — one that may work for the Wall Street crapshooters but likely not for the rest of us, who are simply loaded dice in the palms of their hands.

Part of the complex maneuverings supposedly aimed at keeping the country from sliding into Great Depression II revolves around "mark-to-market accounting" of the assets that Wall Streeters have played with to the point of, literally, no return.

Yeah, like you, I have only a hazy understanding of this. Those who are financially alliterate are welcome to read this morning's New York Post story "PIGGY POLS IN HOG HEAVEN WITH PORK-PACKED PACT." Daphne Retter's funny, funky take brings a little light to an otherwise dark day of journalism:

Here, little piggies!

Congressional deal-brokers yesterday slopped a mess of pork into the $700 billion financial rescue bill passed by the Senate last night — including a tax break for makers of kids' wooden arrows — in a bid to lure reluctant lawmakers into voting for the package

Stuffed into the 451-page bill are more than $1.7 billion worth of targeted tax breaks to be doled out for a sty full of eyebrow-raising purposes over the next decade.

More to the point of your financial future and such no-longer-arcane topics as mark-to-market accounting, lower your eyebrows, peer through this morning's financial fog and try to grab for this guidepost: Bankers and conservative Republicans (including former anti-populace populist Newt Gingrich) favor the abandonment of mark-to-market accounting rules. To which auditors, big investors, and consumer groups reply, "Are you out of your friggin' minds?"

Think of it like the nursery rhyme that goes, "This little piggy went to market . . .", and add some huffing and puffing by wolves that may eventually knock down millions of American homes.

In the present case, these little piggies went to mark-to-market, and now they want to remove that accounting rule so they can instantly wipe out their losses on the books and resume playing their Neverland gambling games with our money.

In essence, the new Senate version of the bailout bill would let Wall Streeters lie even more about the value of the assets they're trading and set us up for a rerun of the Enron scandal.

That should help things.

Or maybe the financial system is so fouled up and so wedded to its inherently corrupt trading instruments and practices that abandoning mark-to-market accounting really would help restart the credit markets and protect you from foreclosure.

Scary.

And where has Wall Street's mayor, Mike Bloomberg, been in all this? I pointed to Bloomberg's culpability on September 23, and now the New York Times is dipping its toe into the topic. The Times, of course, is making excuses for him. See this morning's "Mayor’s Stewardship Is Mixed, Fiscal Experts Say."

Enough on Bloomberg and more on the important mark-to-market piece of the corporate-bailout bill below, but first . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Wall Street Journal: 'Fed Considers Rate Cut as Recession Fears Mount'

Slate: 'How to Debate a Girl, and Win' (Dahlia Lithwick)

BBC: 'Tanzania disco stampede kills 19'

N.Y. Times: 'Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way'

Jurist: 'Ohio to proceed with absentee voting after courts rule on registration requirements'

N.Y. Times: 'Surveillance of Skype Messages Found in China'

N.Y. Post: 'MOB-CORPSE DIG'

N.Y. Times: 'Studios Sue to Bar a DVD Copying Program'

Wall Street Journal: 'Bombs Hit Shiite Worshippers in Baghdad'

N.Y. Post: 'B'KLYN GIRL, 15, NABBED IN GRISLY DEATH OF COUSIN'

Wall Street Journal: 'Analyzing the "Twelve Tribes of Politics" '

McClatchy: 'What's in that Senate bill? Something for everyone.'

Agence France Presse: 'Enron-era accounting reforms blamed in financial crisis'

Far Eastern Economic Review: 'The Great Crash of China'

Back to the dust-up over the new bailout bill's endorsement, in effect, of abandoning mark-to-market accounting:

Over at consumerwatchdog.com, John R. Simpson issues a fire-and-brimstone warning: "New 'bailout' tactic would let fat cats cook books."

Stirring the pot, today's Wall Street Journal story "Momentum Gathers to Ease Mark-to-Market Accounting Rule" explains things pretty well. Elizabeth Williamson and Kara Scannell craft a succinct lede:

The banking industry and a band of lawmakers have used the scramble to salvage the financial-markets rescue plan to give new life to an industry push to avoid billions in further write-downs with the stroke of a regulatory pen.

It would just further cloud matters for me to try to paraphrase this, so here's how Williamson and Scannell lay it out:

A proposal contained in the revised financial-rescue bill the Senate considered Wednesday reaffirms the Securities and Exchange Commission's existing authority to suspend "mark-to-market" accounting. The language was meant to send a message to the agency to re-evaluate the issue.

The practice, adopted in the aftermath of the savings-and-loan collapse in the 1980s, pegs the value of assets to their current market price, rather than the price paid for them. Banks have complained the strict application of mark-to-market rules has forced them to write down billions of dollars worth of mortgage-related securities, intensifying the squeeze in the credit markets.

Critics of the proposed changes to the "mark to market" rules say gains created by easing the rules would be illusory and would delay resolving genuine doubts about the value of mortgage assets that has caused the recent crisis in confidence.

As Bloomberg's Jesse Westbrook reported Tuesday, conservative Republicans might very well have supported the House version of the bailout bill if the SEC had suspended mark-market accounting rules.

For background, see "Auditors Resist Effort To Change Mark-to-Market," in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, in which Judith Burns wrote:

U.S. accounting firms, which had been silent on the $700 billion financial-rescue package rejected by the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday, are opposing congressional efforts to scrap mark-to-market accounting rules. . . .

Some House members advocate scrapping mark-to-market accounting altogether as a way to help lenders holding mortgage loans and securities whose value have fallen sharply. Consumer groups have balked at the idea, and accounting firms are about to jump in as well, fearing such a change could deceive investors about the value of troubled loans and mortgage-backed assets.

Let the staggeringly diverse gaggle of opponents of abandoning mark-to-market accounting speak for themselves. This is what they told the WSJ's Burns and Bloomberg's Westbrook:

• "It's just bad for investors," said Beth Brooke, global vice chair at Ernst & Young LLP, in Washington, D.C. "Suspending mark-to-market accounting, in essence, suspends reality."

• "It's absolute idiocy," said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. "Allowing companies to lie to investors and lie to themselves is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem."

• "Suspending the mark-to-market prices is the most irresponsible thing to do," said Diane Garnick, who helps oversee more than $500 billion as an investment strategist at Invesco Ltd. in New York. "Accounting does not make corporate earnings or balance sheets more volatile. Accounting just increases the transparency of volatility in earnings."

Still unclear? In NPR's "Senate OKs Bailout Package, House to Vote Friday," Dina Temple-Raston tries to explain:

Although senators approved the bailout plan, lawmakers aren't out of the woods yet. Conservative Republican members of the House are still calling for some sort of mandatory insurance program that financial firms would be required to buy, but it is unclear how the program would work.

They have also asked for the Securities and Exchange Commission to suspend mark-to-market accounting rules and instead require bank regulators to assess the real value of troubled assets.

Mark-to-market accounting essentially allows Wall Street firms to value (or "mark") the assets in their portfolio based on current market prices. The problem, critics say, is that under that accounting rule, sliding home prices affect not just the value of mortgages that are defaulting but of all mortgages — and therefore, of all mortgage-backed securities.

That, in turn, affects how much capital firms are required to have on hand to cover their debt exposure. And to raise that capital, firms end up having to sell other assets — which drives the price of those assets down, too. In other words, they say, mark-to-market accounting can lead to a downward spiral.

House Democrats have been opposed to both a change in mark-to-market accounting rules and to the insurance provision. It is unclear how they will work out those differences or how much the House will tinker with the bill when they get it. That said, the sense on the Hill is that everyone wants to get the vote behind them, key lawmakers say.

That's reassuring that our lawmakers — like pro athletes and philandering pols — want to pull out the hackneyed reasoning to say that all they want to do is get their past mistakes "behind them." In real time, however, the train is still hurtling down the track toward us.

Daily Flog: Deep inside AIG -- the profits of doom

Posted by Harkavy at 11:44 AM, September 17, 2008

Startling data about past money-making on AIG's misery, but first . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

L.A. Times: 'Move over, Al Gore: John McCain invented the BlackBerry'

IRIN: 'SOMALIA: "When you are hungry you will eat anything that does not eat you" '

CNN: 'Oil rallies as Wall Street gets a lifeline'

Salon: 'Sarah Palin's wasteful ways'

Slate: 'Fannie Mae and the Vast Bipartisan Conspiracy'

N.Y. Post: 'Rich Uncle: Feds "Buy" Insurance Giant AIG in $85B Rescue'

N.Y. Post: 'Mets' Division Lead Goes Up in Choke in D.C.'

N.Y. Post: 'Barbra At Her Woozy Best'

Slate: Hitchens: 'Pakistan is the problem: and Barack Obama seems to be the only candidate willing to face it'

Onion: 'Palin Unveils 9/11 Firefighter Cousin, Reformed Lesbian Niece, Naturalized Mexican Half Brother'

On the heels of yesterday's stunning bailout (N.Y. Times story) of giant insurer American International Group, you'll be reading stories about how the billionaire status of its former CEO (and still major shareholder) Maurice "Hank" Greenberg has taken a beating because of the recent precipitous drop in AIG's stock price.

Like yesterday's laughable New York Post story by James Covert:

As the company he built teeters on the brink, former American International Group boss Hank Greenberg can't insure his own financial health.

The 83-year-old billionaire, who left AIG in 2005 amid an accounting scandal, has lost more than $6 billion in the past week, and is on the verge of losing his billionaire status altogether as AIG shares continue their free-fall.

Save your sympathy. What you're unlikely to read is that Greenberg, a pal of Henry Kissinger's, already bailed himself out before the Fed bailed out AIG. By the way, Greenberg didn't just "leave" AIG's boardroom "amid" a scandal. He was forced out and then was formally accused of fraud by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. (See CNN's May 2005 story for details.)

I know it's hackneyed to say "profits of doom," but it is what it is. (Oops, I did it again.)

This is how the other half of 1 percent of the richest Americans live:

SEC records reveal an incredible (only to us commoners) string of transactions since Greenberg's ouster in which he and his personally controlled entities realized hundreds of millions of dollars from selling their AIG stock.

Let's assume that Hammerin' Hank didn't know that his company's bubble was about to burst.

AIG is still (or was still, until you bought it) Greenberg's company despite his being forced out of the CEO job in 2005 because of alleged shenanigans for which he's still under investigation by the SEC and New York's current attorney general. It's still his company because he still controls the biggest chunk of shares in AIG, which is the world's biggest insurer.

As of July 15, 2008, three years after his ouster, one of Greenberg's other companies, his privately owned Starr International, still held 228 million shares of AIG. So it looks as if he really has taken a beating to his multibillionaire status. For instance, at 9:12 this morning, AIG's share price had fallen to $2.17. Last year at this time it was trading at about $70 a share.

But ever since his ouster, he and Starr have been selling gigantic chunks of shares for astounding proceeds, upwards of $20 million a day — day after day during some months.

Now, I'm not saying that this is unusual behavior on Wall Street. In fact, this kind of schmuckery is the norm, but it's almost never pointed out in mainstream news outlets.

Here's a timeline that you probably won't see elsewhere in the initial coverage of your latest bailout of rich people and their companies:

June 2007: AIG sues ex-CEO Greenberg and Greenberg's ex-CFO for $1 billion in damages "stemming from accounting troubles" on Hammerin' Hank's watch. MarketWatch's Peg Brickley writes at the time:

[The complaint] was filed in a lawsuit started in Delaware's Court of Chancery by AIG shareholders angered at the high cost of dealing with regulatory probes of sham transactions, financial restatements and securities class actions, who felt AIG executives should be held to account.

August 2007: AIG calls its exposure to subprime debt "minimal."

September 2007: Greenberg and his Starr International continue their immense sell-off of AIG stock, which is still priced at $66 or $67 a share.

The following figures are from SEC filings for Greenberg's transactions, through Starr, of AIG's shares. (See Yahoo's compilation.) They're listed by day, shares of AIG owned by Greenberg's Starr International and sold to stupid investors, and sale proceeds — I call them profits because Greenberg had paid either comparatively little or nothing to acquire those shares):

Sept. 4: 400,000 AIG shares sold, $26.4 million profit.

Sept. 5: 900 shares sold, $59,000 profit

Sept. 18: 400,000 shares sold, $26.6 million profit

Sept. 19: 800,000 shares sold, $53.9 million profit

Sept. 20: 300,000 shares sold, $20.1 million profit

Sept. 21: 300,000 shares sold, $20.1 million profit

Sept. 24: 275,400 shares sold, $18.5 million profit

Sept. 25: 324,600 shares sold, $21.8 million profit

Sept. 26: 300,000 shares sold, $20.1 million profit

Sept. 27: 300,000 shares sold, $20.2 million profit

Sept. 28: 300,000 shares sold, $20.2 million profit

Total for just that month? Close to a quarter of a billion dollars. (And that doesn't even count Greenberg's proceeds on his own sales of AIG stock. I'd give you those figures but my calculator overheated.)

October 17, 2007: Starr's profit-taking on AIG shares suddenly stops, according to the Yahoo compilation of SEC figures, only two weeks before AIG is about to reveal its third-quarter financials to the rest of Wall Street.

November 2007: Commentators are already turning really sour on AIG's stock, in part because of AIG's secrecy. At the same time, AIG management insists that things are hunky-dory despite its insuring the companies that are ensnared in the mortgage crisis.

For instance, TV loudmouth Jim Cramer, who often refers to himself in the third person, writes on the afternoon of November 7, 2007, a Wednesday:

Don't buy AIG, Jim Cramer said Wednesday on CNBC's Stop Trading! segment. . . .

Cramer said the stock . . . can't be bought ahead of Wednesday evening's earnings report because investors don't know how big the losses are going to be on AIG's portfolios of subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations and the like. What's worse, Cramer added, is that there's no reason to believe investors will have any more clarity after tonight's report.

And what is AIG's report that night? The AP's Madlen Read tells us the next day, on November 8, 2007:

The world's largest insurer may not have invested as much in mortgage-backed assets as the world's biggest banks, but American International Group Inc.'s exposure to the rocky credit and housing markets was enough to dampen its third-quarter profit.

Losses in AIG's investment portfolio, credit-swap portfolio and mortgage-insurance business added up to about $1.4 billion, and caused net income to fall by 27 percent compared with last year's third quarter.

Back in August, AIG called exposure to subprime debt "minimal." On Wednesday, it maintained that despite some losses due to mortgage-backed bonds, its exposure to the debt remains "high quality," with "substantial protection." . . .

Shares fell $1.70, or 2.9 percent, to $56.20 in after-hours trading when the report was released. They had plunged almost 7 percent to close at $57.90 in regular trading Wednesday.

December 13, 2007: Jim Cramer isn't buying AIG's line — or its stock. He writes:

AIG . . . has been adamant that it hasn't been affected by the recent slew of bad loans, but to say it is not enough. [T]he company needs to show it by disclosing its information.

December 20, 2007: Hank Greenberg himself exercises his options to acquire 3.7 million shares of AIG. The same day, his Starr International entity disposes of 4.8 million shares of AIG in a non-open-market transaction.

September 16, 2008: Wall Street finally has enough information on AIG. The government panics and bails out the company, saying it has to do it to prevent a global financial collapse.

If you own shares of AIG that you bought at $70 per and are now worth $2 per and want to sell them, you might try calling Hank Greenberg. He may still have enough cash to bail you out.

more: AP, BANKRUPTCY, Bidness, CNN, FINANCIOPATH, Featured, Housing, LOOTING (BY CORPORATIONS), LOOTING (BY HUMANS), Morning Reports, NY Post, NY Times, SCHMUCK

comments: 1

Daily Flog 7/31/08: Shoot for the cops before they shoot you

Posted by Harkavy at 8:23 AM, July 31, 2008

Running down the papers:

Post: 'DRAG 'NET: NYPD WELCOMES CRIME WEB VIDEO'

Terrific hed, and so's the story:

Call it BlueTube.

Witnesses with video or photos of criminal activity will soon be able to upload their evidence directly to the police.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly yesterday urged citizens to eliminate the middleman — and the Internet — and share their footage with New York's Finest.

"Within the next two months, people will be able to send video and text straight to 911 to increase flow of information," Kelly said.

His appeal would include any evidence of alleged police misconduct, like the embarrassing videos that surfaced in the past week.

Only problem is that you send video to the NYPD, the cops open a file on you.

This is a clever P.R. move by the cops because the footage is going to be shot anyway, and maybe those who shoot it will hand it over to the cops first and won't immediately run with it to the press or post it themselves, thus reducing the risk to the NYPD of uncontrolled bad publicity and giving Kelly time to craft the right response to incriminating videos.

Times: 'McCain Tries to Define Obama as Out of Touch'

A full-throttled effort by the McCain campaign to create a negative narrative about Barack Obama is being coordinated by veterans of President Bush's 2004 bid.

Call that "news"? It's effective propaganda by the McCain campaign, at very little cost. The McCain/Bush "veterans" now don't have to do this at all, because the Times has already embedded the phrase "negative narrative about Barack Obama" in voters' brains.

Post: 'BARACK THE BIMBO': MAC ATTACK AD PAINTS OBAMA WITH BLOND BRUSH

Carl Campanile and the paper's headline writers show the Times how it's done:

John McCain launched a cheeky attack ad yesterday, mocking Barack Obama as the world's "biggest celebrity" who is as qualified to be president as blond bimbos Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Sources tell me that the word "bimbo" is not in the New York Times style guide.

Times: 'A New Generation of Republicans in Alaska'

William Yardley's below-average piece, inexplicably promoted as a "top story":

For the first time in four decades, politics in Alaska is a brand-new game for both Republicans and Democrats because of the indictment of Senator Ted Stevens, the state’s longtime Republican patriarch.

So friggin' what? Ted Stevens's scandalous stuff with an oil industry exec is interesting. But does this "new generation of Republicans in Alaska" have any impact on whether Alaska's wilderness will be further plundered by the oil industry? Not a peep about that issue in this story.

Post: 'PLAYTIME FOR JULIUS "SEIZER" '

Straining on the toilet of non-news news, the Post dumps this hed on us, after two straight days of brilliance about the "Rockefooler." Clever but forced, and it's based on this lede, which admittedly is pretty damn good on a relatively insubstantial piece of news:

Clark Rockefeller was a faker in every way possible.

The man of mystery, who's being sought for plucking his young daughter off a Boston street and disappearing with her in New York, masqueraded in real life as a blueblood Rockefeller - but in his spare time, he dabbled in the fantasy world of acting.

Rockefeller donned armor to portray Mars, the Roman god of war, in a 2005 performance in the town of Cornish, NH. Sword in one hand, shield in the other, he stole the show in The Masque of the Golden Bull, during which he was surrounded by a bevy of beautiful actresses.

Fresh angle, but flimsy. Yeah, this guy's an ersatz Rockefeller. Nelson Rockefeller showed what it takes: Word after his 1979 death at age 70 was that he died in the saddle with a 26-year-old chickie, though that's never been absolutely proven.

Now that was a real superman. This phony guy on the lam is just a Clark Went.

Daily News: 'Depressed during holidays, Clark Rockefeller spoke of kidnapping'

The Daily News shows the Post how not to do it:

Eccentric millionaire Clark Rockefeller was so crushed when his ex-wife moved overseas with his beloved 7-year-old daughter that he told pals last Christmas, "I may have to kidnap her."

Here's a grin, though. Above the hed, there's this line:

Do you know Clark Rockefeller? Have you seen him? Email us.

Post: '$25M SUIT: HO-LOVIN' HUBBY GAVE ME STDS'

Dareh Gregorian's lede:

A Manhattan woman has filed a $25 million lawsuit against her allegedly hooker-loving husband, charging he gave her sexually transmitted diseases that ruined her life.

Such an eloquent oral report.

Times: 'Democrats Call for Contempt Charges Against Rove'

Grossly understated headline. It implies some sort of press conference. No, it was an actual, formal vote by a powerful House committee:

Democrats on both sides of the Capitol assailed the administration’s handling of the Justice Department yet again on Wednesday, and a House committee recommended contempt charges against Karl Rove, who was President Bush’s top political adviser.

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 20 to 14, to cite Mr. Rove for defying its subpoena to testify in an inquiry into improper political meddling in the department.

It doesn't matter that it was strictly along party lines. That's a big step for the ordinarily lily-livered top Demo leadership to move beyond press conference whining to an actual vote.

On the other hand, what's kept them? I've been holding Rove in contempt for several years, and so have many others.

more: CHILDREN (NOT LEFT BEHIND), FINANCIOPATH, Featured, HACKS, INVESTIGATIONS (CONGRESS), Karl Rove, LOOTING (BY CORPORATIONS), McCain, Morning Reports, NY Daily News, NY Post, NY Times, OFFICIALS (NAMED), Obama Drama, RACE, SCHMUCK, Spying, VOTING

comments: 0

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