The US Supreme Court has rejected Conrad Black’s request for bail, so he stays in jail pending appeal.
The former media mogul, and prominent right-winger, is currently serving a 6½ year sentence for stealing from his company.
Category: Schadenfreude
The “Tanned One” Charged with Securities Fraud
Here’s hoping that you get a really ugly cell mate, dude!
The Securities and Exchange Comission has charged the former CEO of Countrywide Mortgage, Angelo Mozilo, with securities fraud for insider trading.
Basically, he, former COO, David Sambol, and former CFO, Eric Sieracki, are accused of misleading investors about how crappy their lending standards were until they dumped their own stock.
This is not a criminal proceeding, but one hopes that it moves to that.
Geithner Underwater, Will Rent Out New York Home
Timothy Geithner bought his home in Westchester County, New York for $1.650 million 5 years ago, and now cannot sell it for $1.575, so he is looking for a renter, at about $7,500 a month, which figures out to be about 80% of his mortgage and taxes.
Of course, I could be wrong, and it could be that Mr. Geithner is figuring on leaving Washington, DC sooner rather than later, and does not want to sell the house under those circumstances.
Certainly, if I were in his shoes, I might be concerned that my DC sojourn would be peripatetic.
Schadenfreude: That is Not a Natural Skin Color Edition
It looks like former Countrywide Mortgage CEO Angelo Mozilo is going to be sued by the SEC for, “insider trading and failing to disclose to shareholders the risks the company was running”.
At this point, it appears to just be a civil suit, but it appears to me that this is the first step toward a criminal prosecution.
Needless to say, this is a development that puts me in a Nelson Munz state of mind.
The SEC cannot put Mozilo in jail, but a separate federal criminal probe of Countrywide, begun last year, is continuing, one of the people familiar with the SEC case said.
…..
The agency’s staff also is recommending fraud charges against other former Countrywide officials, according to one of the people familiar with the probe, who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In the old days, following the excesses of the 1920s, one of the big players did his jail time, and spent the rest of his life earning a modest living running a farm.
If that were to happen to people like Mozilo and Miliken, it would be a good thing, because it would deter those who would be like them.
Tom Friedman, Suck on This: Part III
18 months ago, the Bucksbaum family, the owners of the General Growth Properties mall chain were worth about $4 billion dollars.
Following GGP’s bankruptcy, it’s $25 million, and Tom “Suck on This” Friedman is much more exposed to the downsides of that flat world that he espouses.
Connecticut Treasurer Calls for BofA CEO Lewis to Be Removed from Board
CT state treasurer Denise Nappier, who is responsible for managing the state pension funds, which hold a significant stake in Bank of America, is calling for the CEO Ken Lewis to be kicked off the board, along with, “lead director O. Temple Sloan and chairman of the governance committee Tom Ryan.”
She is not calling for his removal, but rather separation of the rolls of chief executive and chairman of the board of directors, and other significant shareholders are in agreement.
There is a shareholder meeting in 8 days, so this should get interesting.
Pass the popcorn.
BTW, doesn’t Mr. Lewis take an awful picture? He looks mean, spiteful, selfish, and egotistical all at once.
He seems to look that way in all of his pictures….Maybe that’s the real him.
Bankruptcy Updates
The Department Store Chain Gottschalks twill be filing for liquidation, and mall developer General Growth Properties has managed to put off bankruptcy, for a while at least.
I think that it is likely that GGP will go chapter 11, at which point, Thomas Friedman, whose wife is a Bucksbaum, the family that owns the developer, may have to downsize his lifestyle….I’m so sad for him (not).
Finally, the Sun-Times Media Group has filed for bankruptcy, and before you start wringing your hands over how these are dark days for newspapers, note that Conrad Black and His Evil Minions™, most notably David Radler, looted the company, and have gone to jail for doing so.
In a way, it’s a microcosm of what is wrong with the news business: Bankers take over from journalists, generate fantastic profit margins by destroying journalism at these institutions through draconian cuts, and then they walk away, leaving bleached bones.
Norm Coleman May Go To Jail
There has now been testimony that Nasser Kazeminy, a close friend of Norm Coleman instructed his CFO to pay $100,000.00 to Coleman’s wife’s insurance agency for nothing in the way of services.
Now the Star-Tribune has obtained a March 19 deposition from the lawsuit that first surfaced the scandal. The deposition is from B.J. Thomas, the chief financial officer of the company that paid out $75,000 to a firm where Laurie Coleman worked as a consultant — even though he found no evidence of actual work.
Thomas was asked: “In that conversation that you had with Mr. Kazeminy, did he tell you, quote, United States senators don’t make sh#$, close quote? Or words to that effect?”
Thomas answered: “Yes, sir.”
Kazeminy is boned, unless he roles on Coleman, and Coleman is a rat, so you gotta figure so is Kazeminy.
Pass the popcorn
Return to Your Undisclosed Location
This appears to be what House Republicans are saying to Dick Cheney, and I agree with them.
They think that he’s so unpopular that he costs them political capital (probably true), while I feel that even if it is to the advantage of the Democratic Party, the man is such a cancer on public discourse that he should never again be given a seat on the Sunday morning shows.
Still, it leaves me amused
Madoff Stays Locked Up Pending Sentencing
His bail was denied.
Schadenfreude
Former Merrill execs invested in Madoff funds.
I know that it’s a mark of failure that I derive pleasure from these folks losses, and yet I derive pleasure from these folks losses.
Why David Paterson Less Popular than a Case of the Clap
And maybe even less popular than Dick Cheney, according the the latest Marist poll, 26% favorable, with the poll showing him being trounced by Andrew Cuomo in the primary, and being soundly beaten by Rudolph Guiliani in the general.
I think that his slime campaign against Caroline Kennedy is a part of this, but his bleatings about how you can’t raise taxes on the rich, or they will leave the state, is what really put people over the edge.
His argument is, of course, completely absurd. No one lives in in New York, or at least no one lives in New York south of Albany, because it’s a low cost place to live.
What’s interesting here is that there are a lot of conservatives in New York, particularly in Long Island and upstate, and there is a long tradition of conservatism in those areas, and they hate him too.
I think that this is significant because people are finally beginning to understand that keeping taxes low on rich folk buggers the rest of society (without lube).
After 30 years of soak the poor (and middle class) tax policies, people are finally starting to get it.
As for what looks like a soon to be former Governor Paterson, who missed this shift, and looks like he might be crushed by it, the great Gary Larson put it best:
Jim Bunning Hints that He May Resign
It’s an open secret that the Republicans do not want Jim Bunning to run for reelection in 2010, and it appears that the former hall of fame pitcher has said in private conversations that he will quit the Senate and allow Democratic Governor Steve Beshear to appoint his successor if the party establishment tries to push him out.
If he quits, with or without Franken, and with or without a successor, the Dems have cloture without a single Republican vote.
Heh.
Smart Politics, and True
In 1993, Bill Clinton went after Rush Limbaugh, and it proved a failure.
Between people claiming that it was in assault on free speech, and the absolutely bizarre spectacle of a sitting president going after a political shock jock, it flopped.
Well, times are different now, and the Republican party really does take its marching orders from him now, and there’s also the fact that he’s a drug addict and a sex tourist too, and that he’s no longer the new flavor of the week.
So, Democrats are bring up Rush again, but they are not going after him, so much as they are Rush Limbaugh is the intellectual voice of the Republican party.
This makes a lot more sense, because Rush Limbaugh can be relied to say something mind numbingly scary to 70% of the American population on a weekly, if now daily basis.
Unfortunately, the ‘Phants can’t walk away from him, because those 30% dead enders are something like 70% of the Republican party, just note Rep Phil Gingrey’s (R-GA) abject apology to Rush after he made a fairly innocuous comment defending the House and Senate leadership, and Limbaugh sicced His Evil Minions&trade on him.
It was reminiscent of the confessions at Stalin’s show trials, and Rush Limbaugh now owns the Republican party.
Pass the popcorn.
Schadenfreude, Sweet Schadenfreude
Goldman Sachs partners are being forced to borrow money to cover margin calls on their shares:
Several Goldman Sachs partners have leveraged their Goldman Sachs stock to buy alternative investments such as hedge funds & private equity, and they have done so through their Goldman Sachs brokerage accounts.
But Goldman stock has declined in value by more than 50 percent since last spring, meaning that Goldman Sachs is in the awkward position of making margin calls on its own partners, who can’t meet those calls because their alternative investments are underwater and they don’t have enough cash on hand.
Now those partners are being forced to borrow money—millions of dollars—to meet Goldman Sachs’ own margin calls.
(emphasis mine)
That’s some yummy schadenfreude….Until you realize that, even if completely wiped out, they are still worth millions….sigh.
Schadenfreude
It appears that George W. Bush is having problems raising money for his presidential library, and has asked Karl Rove and his dad, George H.W. Bush to help get the necessary 5500 million to start construction.
…$500 million….For the two books that he’s read in his life?????
Whiskey tango foxtrot?
Michael Steele Caught in Corruption Probe
Hmmmm….It appears that his 2006 Senate campaign paid $37,000 to Brown Sugar Unlimited, a catering company run by his sister.
OK, that is unseemly, why is it likely illegal? Because the company had filed to dissolve 11 months before the payment.
There also appear to be questionable money transfers, which pissed off the Maryland Republican Party, and significant payments to a law firm for work never done.
How did the Washington Post find out about this?
The U.S. attorney’s office inadvertently sent the confidential document, a defense sentencing memorandum filed under seal [for Alan B. Fabian who was being prosecuted under unrelated fraud charges], to The Washington Post after the newspaper requested the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum.
Which seems to me to be a hit job, and the motivations could be:
- A disgruntled ‘Phants in the Maryland party.
- A disgruntled prosecutor, who wanted the investigation to proceed.
- It could just be a hit from someone who just does not like Steele.
Note, however, that the US Attorney is still a Republican appointee, so if it’s a hit, it’s an internecine affair.
People Make a Living At This???
Let me rephrase: Really Stupid People Make a Living At This???
Because it appears that Pajamas Media, a sort of Blogads for right wingers blew through its venture capital, and has told its bloggers that it is dumping them, because the next big thing is, “Internet television called Pajamas TV,” for which even stupider people will actually pay to listen to right wingers with faces made for radio.
The soon-to-be former members of Pajamas Media, such as Jeff G. of Protein Wisdom, are in full whine:
What this means is that as of April 1, I am officially out of work. So save going to a pay model, this site will likely have to shut down.
Small price to pay for helping PJM pick up an audience and credibility during its “formative years.”
I do this blog mostly to make regular notes for my annual newsletter (it’s about 5% of the content), and I’ve gotten a bit of money from Google ads, a $107.24 check in October, and I’ve been blogging since May, 2007.
The idea that someone could make a living at this is just a complete mind f%$#.
H/T TBogg, for letting me know that, “Nobody could have anticipated that Pajamas Media would sucker the rubes and then destroy teh intertubes.”
The Best William Kristol New York Times OP/ED Ever
Or at least the best 6 words in one of his columns, “This is William Kristol’s last column.”
The Times did not renew his contract.
Unsurprising, as his columns, hell, his first column, generated a fairly large number of corrections for misstatements of basic fact.
He will be moving to the Washington Poat, where he will be doing a monthly column, as opposed to his weekly column at the Times.
It’s a better fit for Kristol. Any paper that publishes Charles Krauthammer doesn’t worry about whether facts stated by their columnists has a basis in reality or truth.
My Heart Bleeds Borscht
It appears that no one wants to hire people whose last job was as one of Bush’s Evil Minions™:
As President-elect Barack Obama’s team transitions into the federal government tomorrow, President Bush’s political appointees will be locked out, and in these tough economic times many of them are scrambling to find new jobs. High-ranking White House loyalists have deluged Washington headhunters with pleas for jobs. Corporations and nonprofit organizations have stopped hiring. With the GOP out of power, jobs on Capitol Hill are scant and K Street lobbying firms have trimmed their golden parachutes.
So this is the new reality: Instead of boasting to friends and colleagues of new jobs in goodbye e-mails, many longtime Bush aides have offered home phone numbers and Gmail and Yahoo e-mail addresses as their new contacts.
“For Republicans, the inn is full,” lamented veteran GOP operative Ron Kaufman, a close White House adviser to former president George H.W. Bush and an executive at Dutko Worldwide. “You have lots of folks in the House and Senate on the streets and 3,000 administration appointees on the streets at a time when the job market is shrinking anyways. It’s just not a fun time.”
You know, Republicans claim to hate the federal government and DC culture. So just go home.
This has been your daily dose of Schadenfreude.