Did VP Cheney Leave Behind Moles to Influence Obama Policy?

Seymour Hersh says yes!

Yesterday Seymour Hersh told NPR's Terry Gross, in and interview said that is the reason many administration insiders, who previously has said they would speak openly when Bush and Cheney were out and Obama was in, have, so far been reticent to be interviewed.

Excerpts from the interview:

“Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward,” asked Gross. “I’ll make it worse,” answered Hersh, adding that he believes Cheney “put people back” in government to “stay behind” in order to “tell him what’s going on” and perhaps even “do sabotage”:

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly

in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence.

Read the complete article in Think Progress here.

Global Warming - True of False?

Over 100 Scientists say No!

I am unconvinced by either side that the world is growing warmer. There are large bodies of evidence supporting both sides of the argument, although I believe the warming argument is stronger. I, for one, would like like to see a serious well-publicized debate featuring proponents of both sides dealing seperately with the questions;

1. Is the earth growing warmer?
2. If yes, what will be the costs and benefits of a warmer earth.
   
3. If yes, is man responsible?
4. If yes, can we stop it? Do we want to?
   
5. If yes, what will be the costs of stopping it? Are the costs worth the result?
   

I have found that wattsupwiththat.com offers some good information on the subject. globalwarminghoax.com also offers information but I am skeptical of the quality of the information provided on this site.

There is also compelling evidence that since about 2000 the earth has not grown any warmer. In fact, the IPCC predicted significant increase in temperature has not occurred. Are they wrong about other parts of their argement for Global Warming?

Well, the Cato Institute has just released a letter signed by over 100 scientists disagreeing with the widely accepted opinion that the earth is in the process of getting warmer. I never know quite how to evaluate what the Cato Institute produces, but that is for another discussion

Here are some excerpts from an article on the letter.

There is a letter to the President published by the Cato Institute that headlines [thanks to ICECAPand Dr. Patrick J. Michaels to alerting us to it];

“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.” — PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19 , 2008
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.

The letter is signed by over 100 scientists.

Climate Science wants to comment on the specific statements of science in the letter which is reproduced below:

“We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.^1,2 After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.³ The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.⁴ Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.”

Comments by Climate Science

• “Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.”

This is correct using the global average surface temperature. An effective analysis of this issue has been presented at the weblog http://rankexploits.com/musings/category/climate-sensitivity/. However, using the global average upper ocean heat content changes, the warming in the 1990s and early 2000s ended in 2003, so the more rigourous metric for global warming indicated “no net global warming” for 6 years.

• After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.

This is a correct statement which has been extensively discussed and summarized at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/category/climate-change; see also Chapter 2 in Pielke, R.A., Jr. and R.A. Pielke, Sr., 1997: Hurricanes: Their nature and impacts on society.

• The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.

This is a robust conclusion both on the global scale (e.g. see) and on the regional scale (e.g see and see).

The dismissive response on Real Climate and on Grist to this letter do not provide the objective scientific rebuttal to these science claims. This is unfortunate and is misleading policymakers, but, as we have learned and reported many times on at Climate Science and elsewhere (e.g. see and see), this is the way the IPCC and CCSP community deals with solid science that disagrees with their perspective.

The rest of this article can be read here.

The signatures on the letter can be read here.

Walgreens Offering Free Healthcare For Jobless, Uninsured

There really are good corporate citizens!

NEW YORK — Drugstore operator Walgreen will offer free clinic visits to the unemployed and uninsured for the rest of the year, providing tests and routine treatment for minor ailments through its walk-in clinics _ though patients will still pay for precriptions.

Walgreen said patients who lose their job and health insurance after March 31 will be able to get free treatment at its in-store Take Care clinics for respiratory problems, allergies, infections and skin conditions, among other ailments. Typically those treatments cost $59 or more for patients with no insurance.

Read the rest of this article on Huffington Post

Find the Walmart clinic near you.

Pictures of Your Body From the New Airport Security Scanner

Not really that sexy, is it?

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) undated handout image shows a composite of 4 separate scans, a female in the left two and a male in the right two, from a whole body scan machine, or millimeter wave machine being used at a security check point at the Salt Lake International Airport in Salt Lake City, Utah. The new machine developed by New York based L3 Communications is in use for the first time today by passengers and takes a whole body scan penetrating clothing. This is a pilot program by the TSA to test the machines in a live setting for the first time at Salt Lake International Airport March 10, 2009. REUTERS/TSA

Cartoon Time!

GM CEO, Rick Wagoner, Resigns Over Bail Out Dispute

GM Chairman Rick Wagoner's resignation prompted by Obama, analysts say

General Motors Corp. Chairman Rick Wagoner's surprise resignation was prompted by an Obama administration looking for political cover in its unpopular bailout of Detroit's automakers, analysts say.

Wagoner, 56, has apparently resigned effective immediately, although GM would not confirm his resignation Sunday night.

GM President Fritz Henderson was expected to succeed Wagoner as interim chief executive officer.

"I do think they need some political cover because of the political unpopularity of the loans," David Cole, chairman of the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research said about Wagoner's apparent forced resignation by President Barack Obama's automotive task force.

"The government has decided it cannot have a failure of an automaker," Cole said. "Offering the head of the CEO is something they can do to show that they're taking action."

Wagoner, who has worked at GM for his entire 32-year career, was named chief executive office in June of 2000. He added chairman to that title in May 2003.

His resignation comes as the Obama administration is set to announce Monday further actions to restructure GM and Chrysler LLC. Both automakers are being kept alive by a total of $17.4 billion in federal loans.

Read More the rest of this article at Michigan Auto

Jim Webb Introduces Dramatic Prison Reform Bill

25% of Worlds Prisoners are in US Prisons

It is time somebody is finally asking why, with so many of our fellow citizens locked away our streets are still unsafe and getting worse. Thanks to US Senator Jim Webb who, last week, introduced legislation aimed at forming a National Justice Commission, with and 18-month timeline to look for an answer.

Some excerpts from his introduction of the bill,

Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. The blue disks represent the numbers in 1980; the red disks represent the numbers in 2007 and a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues. . . .

In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to have proper counsel and other issues, but there are stunning statistics with respect to drugs that we all must come to terms with. African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all other elements of our society, about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison by the numbers that have been provided by us. . . .

Another piece of this issue that I hope we will address with this National Criminal Justice Commission is what happens inside our prisons. . . . We also have a situation in this country with respect to prison violence and sexual victimization that is off the charts and we must get our arms around this problem. We also have many people in our prisons who are among what are called the criminally ill, many suffering from hepatitis and HIV who are not getting the sorts of treatment they deserve.

Importantly, what are we going to do about drug policy - the whole area of drug policy in this country?

And how does that affect sentencing procedures and other alternatives that we might look at?

This approach is long past due. We must stop locking up so many of our fellow citizens in Crime Schools.

Read Jim Webb's floor speach introducing the legislation here.

Read Glenn Greenwalds commentary on Jim Webb and this legislation here.

El Nino study challenges global warming intensity link

Scientific American article questions link between El Nino and Global warming.

It is pretty much undisputed fact that El Nino are related to Global weather patterns. It is not as clear. The question is whether El Nino conditions cause or are the cause of changes in weather patterns. Which comes first the weather or the El Nino? Probably the El Nino because it precedes the weather changes. What is not clear is what precedes and causes the El Nino. A great deal more needs to be understood about the ocean, its currents, its temperatures and the overall impact of the ocean on environment and temperature.

One of the core arguments central to Global Warming is whether changes in atmospheric temperatures can have a substantive impact on ocean temperatures. Water and earth are denser than air and there is a lot of water and earth. There is also a lot of air. The argument is analagous to the question, "If you light a single candle in a mineshaft and keep it lit for a year, how much will the temperature of the surrounding rock change at the end of that year? A hundred candles? A thousand candles? A million candles?"

The following article from Scientific American shows the many kinds of input that are being studied to determing whether the Earth really is growing warmer.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Research showing an El Nino event in 1918 was far stronger than previously thought is challenging the notion climate change is making El Nino episodes more intense, a U.S. scientist said on Tuesday.

El Nino causes global climate chaos such as droughts and floods. The events of 1982/83 and 1997/98 were the strongest of the 20th Century, causing loss of life and economic havoc through lost crops and damage to infrastructure.

But Ben Giese of Texas A&M University said complex computer modeling showed the 1918 El Nino event was almost as strong and occurred before there was much global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels or widespread deforestation.

Read the entire article in Scientific American

Cartoon Time!

The Truth About Global Warming

Fact or Fiction?

Is Global Warming happening, are we responsible, can we stop it and is it worth the price to stop it?

I have been reading up on Global Warming for some time now. I have come to understand that opinions are not unanimous and there is a very serious need for us to more fully understand both sides of this very important argument.

I will be highlighting, along with some opinions of my own, both sides in the starting today. I will, of course, continue to post whatever tickles my fancy from the days news and commentary. news items.

I think yesterdays commentary by Cal Thomas of Tribune Media Services lays a solid groundwork for these discussions. Now, I do not always see eye to eye with Mr. Thomas. But in this case he is correct. A true dialogue in this very important issue is way over due.

Some excepts from the Cal Thomas article,

The Environmental Protection Agency has submitted a “finding” to the White House Office of Management and Budget that will force the Obama administration to decide whether to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If adopted, new laws and regulations will likely follow that have the potential to change our lifestyles and limit our freedoms. None of these laws and regulations will be preceded by debate, they will be imposed on us by fundamentalist politicians and scientists who have swallowed the Kool-Aid and declared global warming as fact; end of discussion.

On the Discovery Channel last week, Tom Brokaw hosted a special called “Global Warming: The New Challenge.” While promoting the piece, Brokaw declared, “There is a growing consensus that global warming is real and getting worse.” Actually, there is a growing body of opinion that global warming is a fraud perpetrated by liberal politicians and their scientific acolytes who want more control over our lives.

You know something is up when prominent apostles of global warming, especially former vice president and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, refuse to debate or discuss the issue with any scientist who takes a contrary view. Some religious fundamentalists impose various codes of behavior and dress on their adherents and threaten expulsion (if not death) for those who fail to acquiesce to their dictates. Is it not fundamentalist science to ignore any evidence that casts doubt on global warming? For a treasure trove of information that debunks the “science” of global warming visit www.globalwarminghoax.com.

In New York earlier this month, more than 600 scientists, economists, legislators, and journalists from many nations met for the second International Conference on Climate Change. Numerous presentations debunked with documentation what they called the pseudoscience and dictatorial intentions promoted by the UN, the European Union, and the Obama administration. If there was media coverage of the event, I missed it.

Read the entire article in World Magazine here.

Thursday Comics

"A Very Good Crisis" Says George Soros

Making Hay While It Rains

Soros is one of 25, top hedge fund managers from across Wall Street who have defied the credit crunch crisis to reap a total of $11.6billion (£7.9bn) last year.

George Soros, who predicted the global financial crisis twice before, was one of the few people to anticipate and prepare for the current economic collapse.

Mr Soros said his prediction meant he was better able to brace his Quantum investment fund against the gloabal storm.

But other investors failed to take notice of his prediction and his decision to come out of retirement in 2007 to manage the fund made him $US2.9 billion.

And while the financial crisis continued to deepen across the globe, the 78-year-old still managed to make $1.1 billion last year.

Others who have fared well:

Alpha Magazine's 2008 Top Moneymakers

1 - James Simons, Renaissance Technologies Corp, $2.5 billion
2 - John Paulson, Paulson & Co, $2 billion
3 - John Arnold, Centaurus Energy, $1.5 billion
4 - George Soros, Soros Fund Management, $1.1 billion
5 - Raymond Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, $780 million
6 - Bruce Kovner, Caxton Associates, $640 million
7 - David Shaw, D.E. Shaw & Co, $275 million
8 - Stanley Druckenmiller, Duquesne Capital Management, $260 million
9 - (tie) David Harding, Winton Capital Management, $250 million
9 - (tie) Alan Howard, Brevan Howard Asset Management, $250 million
9 - (tie) John Taylor Jr, FX Concepts, $250 million Profiles for hedge fund managers ranked 12 through 25 will be available tomorrow:
12 - James Chanos, Kynikos Associates
13 - Michael Platt, BlueCrest Capital Management
14 - Roy Niederhoffer, R.G. Niederhoffer Capital Management
15 - John Horseman, Horseman Capital Management
16 - Paul Touradji, Touradji Capital Management
17 - Henry Laufer, Renaissance Technologies Corp.
18 - Kenneth Tropin, Graham Capital Management
19 - (tie) Pierre Andurand, Dennis Crema, BlueGold Capital Management
19 - (tie) Christopher Rokos, Brevan Howard Asset Management
22 - (tie) Christian Baha, Superfund
22 - (tie) Christian Levett, Clive Capital
24 - William Dunn, Dunn Capital Management
25 - Andrew Hoine, Paulson & Co.

Read More of This Article in The Daily Mail

Larry, Curley & Moe Are Back - Soitenly!

Feature This!

Sean Penn (Curly), Jim Carrey (Larry) and Benicio Del Toro (Moe) are serious about starring in the tentativly upcoming Farrelly Brothers "Three Stooges", the movie.

The Farrelly Brothers, makers of There's Something About Mary; Dumb and Dumber; Kingpin; Me, Myself and Irene; Shallow Hal; Say It Isn't So; Stuck on You; Osmosis Jones; Fever Pitch and The Heartbreak Kid. have announced that Penn, Carrey and Del Toro will star in theirThe Three Stooges movie under the MGM umbrella. While there is still a lot of skepticism in Hollywood about whether this is for real or just an attempt to bolster MGM's wilting reputation, I, might actually pay to see this. Nyuck!, Nyuck!, Nyuck!

Read Larry Carroll's comments on this for MTV

Steele Planned Limbaugh Confrontation

Does anybody out there really believe this?

Speaking to CNN's Don Lemon, RNC Chairman Michael Steele says the recent confrontation with radio host Rush Limbaugh was all part of a "stratigic plan" to "know who says they're with me but really isn't."

"I'm very introspective about things. I'm a cause-and-effect kind of guy. So if I do something, there's a reason for it... It may look like a mistake, a gaffe. There is a rationale, there is a logic behind it," he said. "I want to see what the landscape looks like. I want to see who yells the loudest. I want to know who says they're with me but really isn't."

"It helps me understand my position on the chess board. It helps me understand, where, you know, the enemy camp is and where those who are inside the tent are," Steele added. "It's all strategic."

Rush Limbaugh is a Democratic Mole

How embarrassing it is to be me.

The more Rush Limbaugh says, the less seriously Republicans are taken. His constant rants serve only to keep the already converted happy. Meanwhile reasonable Republicans, who truly believe in small government, smaller spending and fair play, not the politics of hatred and exclusion grow frustratingly embarrassed to be seen as sitting at the same table with Rush Limbaugh.

When I lived in Bangkok we had a local obnoxious character who talked and even looked like Limbaugh. Bully; loud and greedy. He soon picked up the name Boss Hog. Eventually a
T-shirt appeared featuring a pig in a puddle of mud, "Arguing with me is like wrestling a Pig in the Mud. After a while you begin to realize the pig loves it."

One night after several months of trying to get a few impoverished food vendors off the public sidewalk in front of his newly purchased business (One of the highlights of Bangkok is the sidewalks packed with the odor of delicious inexpensive food) a couple of the vendors poured a bucket of pig poo over Boss Hog's bald head. Wonder whatever happened to Boss Hog? Nothing good, surely.

Well back to Boss Rush. Following is an excerpt from Rush's latest rant.

"The standard of living has increased in places where there are basic free markets," Limbaugh said. "Where there aren't, of course the standard of living has declined, such as Zimbabwe... now run by Robert Ogabe. Ah -- it's Mugabe. I was confusing him with a well-known Kenyan named Barack Ogabe. This is Robert Mugabe."

Read more and see the video on Huffington Post here.

$1 Billion More of Madoffs Hidden Assets Located

Send Over Another Billion!

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A court-appointed trustee has located more than $1 billion of jailed swindler Bernard Madoff's assets, his house in France could be seized and U.S. prosecutors are cooperating with a British agency that investigates organized crime, a court heard on Monday.

Read the rest of this article on Reuters here

Books Will Never Be the Same!

How the Kindle will change the world

The Kindle is not better than a printed book in all situations. You wouldn't want to read an art book, or a picture book to your children on one, or take one into the tub (please). But for the past few weeks, I've done most of my recreational reading on the Kindle—David Grann's adventure yarn The Lost City of Z, Marilynne Robinson's novel Home, Slate, The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the New York Times—and can honestly say I prefer it to inked paper. It provides a fundamentally better experience—and will surely produce a radically better one with coming iterations.

Read the rest of Jacob Weisbergs article in Slate Here

Cuomo Brings Home the Bacon!

Andrew Cuomo Gets $50 Million in AIG Bonuses Back

Mr. Cuomo said he was working his way down a list of A.I.G. employees, ranked by the size of their bonuses, and had already won commitments to pay back $50 million out of the total $165 million awarded this month. But in a reversal of the stand he took last week, he said he did not intend to release any names.

A spokeswoman for A.I.G., Christina Pretto, confirmed that employees had been agreeing to give back their bonuses, and said there had also been “a handful of senior-level resignations.” She said the company expected more resignations.

This bore out the predictions of A.I.G.’s chief executive, Edward M. Liddy, that if employees had to give back their bonuses, they would probably resign. In remarks to a House Financial Services subcommittee last week, Mr. Liddy expressed concern that such resignations would make it harder for A.I.G. to wind down its portfolio of derivatives, currently worth $1.6 trillion. The company wants to minimize losses while exiting the derivatives business.

Read the rest of this Article in the New York Times

AIG Pig With Lipstick Still a Pig!

According To Reuters, AIG is changing the sign at its New York Headquarters to AIU Holdings in order to "distinguish these well-capitalized businesses from AIG," said a spokesman.

Read the complete Reuters story here

AIG's $315 Million Shadow Man

Are there no other photographs of this man?

Article

by

Doug Hardin

I was researching an article about Joseph J. Cassano, the architect of AIG's disastrous plunge into default-credit swaps. You know? The guy who broke AIG's bank, got paid $315,000,000 and then got fired last March, with a $1,000,000 per month consulting fee from AIG.....Just to keep him available in case they had any questions like, "Where's our money!"

I thought a photo would give me a better feel for the man so I turned, as I do in times of need, to Google. With Google, photos are a cinch. Punch in a name and lots of related pictures appear. However, not so easy with our Mr. Cassano, it seems.

Up popped these 4 totally different faces, all specifically identified, by various sources, as AIG's Joseph Cassano. All from major news sources, and a few less than major.


Will the real Joseph Cassano please take one step forward?

I easily eliminated this Joseph Cassano because he looked older than Mr Cassano's reported 52 years. Besides he is actually Maurice R. Greenberg, former CEO of AIG.

I next eliminated this man because he is actually Martin Sullivan, who succeeded the above Maurice Greenberg as CEO of AIG. Bloomberg News , however says this man is Cassano

Identified as Cassano on MyObama.com

Not real sure who this is. Sort of looks like Fuld, former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Definitely not Cassano.

Cassano, according to New York Times, Evening Standard, Daily Mail and CNN .

By process of elimination, this must be him. Apparently, only one current photos is passed around, cut, cropped and edited by those who believe is actually Cassano, the man who pocketed $315,000,000 and walked away, leaving behind the ruins of AIG.

This photo is reported to be him standing outside his London digs. Cassano worked out of AIG's London office. Hey! I thought all these all these guys were on Wall Street?

NBC, CBS and ABC had absolutely nothing that I could find. Or perhaps they were as confused as I was.

Campbell Brown at CNN tried to make it interesting by making a video report and moving the photo around. Good try with that, but not convincing. You can watch the video HERE.

Time tried to make the best of a bad situation,
touching up the original for their Rogues Gallery edition.

Nobody can dodge a camera forever. I must have missed something. There had to be another photo somewhere. I decided to backtrack for a missed clue.

Aha!

Cassano is second from the right.

I just hadn't looked close enough. Finn Times, an Irish news service had him in an AIG group shot. I had looked, but missed Cassano. Same as man in red, I believe, but a few years, and several Bail Outs younger.

This is the man that has kept us all awake nights?

I thought Buddy Holly was dead.

Oh Boy!

The Man Behin AIG's Credit-Default Swaps

The man behind AIG's Credit-Default swaps was Joseph J. Cassano who worked out of the London office of AIG and headed up AIG's Special Products Division, which is where the whole mess started. The following information is from Wikipedia. As you know Wikipedia is sort of a public forum and can be edited by contributors. Consequently, any information found on Wikipdia should be taken with a grain of salt and the statements indidually varified. However, I did quite a bit more research on Mr. Cassano and found nothing that contradicts the following.

What does Joseph Cassano look like? I have no idea. I tried to locate a photo of him. I found several photos labeled Joseph J. Cassano but several of them were actually Martin Sullivan, the former CEO of AIG. One, that was in a major newspaper that was too old for a 52 year old man and another that looked just too much like a fake on CNN. Amazing! Several usually reliable news networks and all with totally different photos of Cassano? What does Cassano really look like?

Cassano grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where his father was a policeman. He earned a political science degree from Brooklyn College in 1977. He worked at investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert during their junk bond phase.

In 1987, AIG hired Cassano as one of the first ten people in the Financial Products unit, as Chief Financial Officer.^[3] In 1994, Thomas R. Savage appointed Cassano as head of the Transaction Development Group. Cassano rejected the 1998 proposal by J.P. Morgan to package credit-default swaps on Broad Index Secured Trust Offering (nicknamed Bistros). Cassano considered these collateralized debt obligations a key event: "It was a watershed event in 1998 when J.P. Morgan came to us, who were somebody we worked with a great deal, and asked us to participate."^[4]

Before he was forced to retire in March 2008, Cassano received $315 million: $280 million in cash and an additional $34 million in bonuses.^[5] An initial $1 million-a-month consulting fee was later canceled.^[6] According to Matt Taibbi,

In fact, Cassano remained on the payroll and kept collecting his monthly million through the end of September 2008, even after taxpayers had been forced to hand AIG $85 billion to patch up his fuck-ups. When asked in October why the company still retained Cassano at his $1 million-a-month rate despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization, CEO Martin Sullivan told Congress with a straight face that AIG wanted to "retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had." (Cassano, who is apparently hiding out in his lavish town house near Harrods in London, could not be reached for comment.)

In the wake of the scandal, United States regulators and the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office began investigating Cassano's dealings to determine whether they were just excessive and risky, or criminal.^[7]

Cassano was a political contributor to the campaigns of Chris Dodd , Barack Obama and the Republican Representative Nancy L. Johnson ^[8]

The original Wikipedia biography, with references can be found here.

AIG - Unintended Consequences

I watched the Sunday news shows this morning. Well, all but George Stephanopoulos, poor guy, who keeps getting moved around my timezone to accommodate sports.

No less than three of the guests and two of the panel participants, after stating the, now fashionable, preamble of "Now I hate anything to do with AIG, but........" pointed out that we must be cautious of "Unintended Consequences" in our actions on the AIG bonuses.

I absolutely agree with that sentiment, but I just couldn't stop myself from wondering how it is that identical phrases all seem to take flight within hours of each other, across network divides and party lines. Why is that?

Californias Gays Once More Into The Breach!

Lets hope they take the election process more seriously this time and come ready for a fight. Their opponents sure will.

The sponsors of a second ballot measure seeking to repeal California's ban on same-sex marriage have been cleared to start collecting signatures

Read the complete article here.

Krugman says AIG Bonus Punishes Innocent Sets Guilty Free

Exactly my point!

"It's not the way you should make policy -- it's clumsy, and it will punish some innocent parties while letting the most guilty off scot-free." But, Krugman adds, "But -- there wasn't much alternative at this point. And for that I blame the Obama people."

You can read the entire article from Huffington Post Here

Common Sense on the AIG Bonus Horizon?

This AIG employee bonus situation has gone hook out of hand. The entire World economy and International Economic Fleet is foundering, in the midst of a perfect storm on the foggy shoals of Financial Collapse. Meanwhile, the Congress, Pirates in Charge, appear totally focused on auditing crew salaries below.

How much longer can we hope that, down in the bilge, the few remaining crew, who have not yet jumped ship with their share of the loot, continue to man the complex and delicate machinery of algorithms and intertwined cross-collateralized agreements essential to bailing out the ship?

It matters not a Parrot on a Pirates Shoulder, that they were, even in the best of times, an overpaid, self obsessed and irresponsible crew, partying away along with the Pirates in Charge, Congress, up on the bridge. What matters is that they are still down there sweating to keep AIG and the rest of our fleet afloat. Congress, of course, having no idea how the pumps actually work see their job as limited to issuing demerits for past behavior. Maybe later, but let's save the fleet first.

This whimsical sea ditty will not be complete until I tell you that, back in the days of fair winds, warm sunsets and bottomless Rum barrels, the crew welded their anchor chains together with all kinds of interlocking agreements, default swaps and cross-collateralization. Nobody quite remembers doing it or why, but the whole fleet is now inextricably bound together. If one goes, they all go.

When several on the bridge commented on this complex binding together project, “Does anybody understand what all this is about? Should we be looking into it? Or maybe supervising it?” they were shouted down, “Shaddup, me hearties. The crew knows what they're about. We've no business mucking about in crew matters. Argh!”.

So, now if more than a few boats founder the entire fleet goes down as well. Down, down, down to Davies locker, the good along side the bad.

While congress searches for anybody but themselves to walk the plank, they might also consider returning the perpetual annual bounty of $4,700 they awarded themselves, just three short months ago for their sterling efforts in steering a course straight onto dangerous shoals. “Yo Ho Ho and Barrel of Pork, me maties.”

Finally there appears some glimmer of hope on the horizon as David M. Herszenhorn reports this morning in the New York Times. “Obama Uneasy About Tax on Bonus”

The White House stopped short on Friday of endorsing legislation to severely tax bonuses paid to executives of companies that accepted taxpayer bailout funds.

Administration officials said instead that President Obama would assess the potential effect of the bill that emerged from Congress on efforts to stabilize the financial system.

The article goes on to say.

The chief executive of Citigroup, Vikram S. Pandit, sent employees a memorandum Friday saying, “The work we have all done to try to stabilize the financial system and to get this economy moving again would be significantly set back if we lose our talented people because Congress imposes a special tax on financial services employees. It would affect countless number of people who will find it difficult, if not impossible, to pay back the bonuses that they earned.”

Meahwhile,

Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Financial Services Committee, introduced another bill on Friday to curb bonuses. His measure would bar bonuses not based on merit for as long as a company owed bailout money to the government.

Come on people. The remaining AIG employees oversee a very leaky $2.7 Trillion ship welded by contract to the other ships in the Financial Fleet. Only the technicians who built and understand this very complex machine are going to be able to safely dismantle it. Many of them will be out of work when they finish untangling this mess. Jobs may be tight elsewhere, but not in this sector. These people get job offers daily that actually offer a future. Do we really want to lose these people and replace them with people willing to work for a lot less and the sure prospect of working themselves out of a job? If so, I have a few laid off truck drivers and a welder or two who could sure use the work, but are way too too smart to walk into this mess, especially if Congress is going to second guess every move.

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Why Do They Call It a Ponzi Scheme?

Basically, it's a pyramid scheme: rob Peter to pay Paul. It is named after a man named Charles Ponzi who was born March 3, 1882 and died January 18, 1949.

Ponzi was an Italian immigrant to the United States who became one of the greatest swindlers in American history. His aliases include Charles Ponei, Charles P. Bianchi, Carl and Carlo. The term "Ponzi scheme" is a widely known description of any scam that relies on a "pyramid" of "investors" who contribute money to a fraudulent program. He promised clients a 50% profit within 45 days, or 100% profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeem them at a higher face value in the United States as a form of arbitrage.

[The simultaneous purchase and sale of the same securities or commodities in different markets to profit from unequal prices.]

Ponzi was probably inspired by the scheme of William Miller, a Brooklyn bookkeeper who in 1899 used the same pyramid scheme to take in $1 million.

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Who says American Auto Giants Can’t Make Good Cars?

Buick, a GM Company, and Jaguar, a Ford company until recently, have just been awarded have just been awarded the highest awards for Vehicle Dependability. Jaguar and Buick tied for first, beating out former #1 Lexus, now in #2).

Other top awards went to Toyota, Mercury, Infiniti, and Acura. Suzuki, Volkswagen, and Land Rover.

So, what’s the Big Ruckus about? Turns out Ford, whose F150 just won the Car and Driver Bet Pickup award have been steadily improving their brands for the last 10 years, but just can’t seem to shake the old time image. Their fault for making sloppy cars, indeed.

But, their current problem is not sloppy cars. It is the image of sloppy cars compounded by being an un-shrinkable monolith in a shrinking car market. High fixed overhead, high wages, extremely high medical and separation obligations to ex-employees and waayyyy to many ironclad contracts with distributors and dealers.

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So, Whatever Happened to Ozone Holes, 5 Minute Suntans and DNA Mutants?

Not too long ago we were led to expect serious damage from ultraviolet radiation breaking through holes in the protective ozone layer in Earths Atmosphere. We were going to get serious sunburns from 5 minutes exposure and could expect massive DNA mutations from radiation and increased cancer rates.

Well, looks like we dodged that, thanks to the Montreal Protocol, we dodged that disaster by our fast reaction times in banning PCP, aerosol cans and other ozone damaging chemicals.


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Flying Car Actually Flies ---- For 37 Seconds!

The Terrafugia Transition car/plane may seem like a concept straight out of Back to the Future II or The Jetsons, but researchers want to prove that it's for real.

The Massachusetts-based company's part-car, part-airplane flew for 37 seconds before successfully landing on the runway. The Transition apparently leans towards being a "roadable aircraft" that is an airplane capable of being driven on the highway.

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Eric Claption Wrote "Take a Look at Yourself"

Yesterday I watched some excerpts of the grilling of AIG Chairman Edward Liddy. Liddy, a highly successful executive, was willing to step in and try to stop the hemoraging of cash at AIG due to the almost 1.4 trillion Dollars in potential exposure as a result of Credit Default Swaps issued by AIG to lenders. Liddy agreed to do this for an annual salary of $1.

So, I was particularly angry yesterday watching the Liddy hearing. Here is a real smart guy, who had nothing to do with creating the problem, working for $1 a year getting grilled like a criminal because he was honoring legally binding contracts set by his predecessors. And who was grilling him? The same guys who voted against oversight of AIG two years ago and awarded themselves a $4,700 annual salary increase last December as the rest of the economic world came crumbling down.

Who are these guys?