bidness
mikethemadbiologist | May 3, 2009One of the disturbing trends over the last decade, give or take, has been how ethical behavior has become synonymous with "a conviction overturned on appeal." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's ethical. With that, I give you Matthew Yglesias (boldface mine; italics original):
They're not actually saying that what they did was right. Rather, they're saying that it was selfish but also legal. ...one is within one's rights, under certain circumstances, to insist on one's ability to inflict suffering on vast numbers of people in order to make more money for your rich self and…
mikethemadbiologist | April 13, 2009From The NY Times' Frank Rich comes this amazing tidbit about Obama economic advisor Larry Summers:
I was less shocked by the White House's disclosure of Summers's recent paydays than by a bit of reporting that appeared deep down in the Times follow-up article on that initial news. The reporter Louise Story wrote that Summers had done consulting work for another hedge fund, Taconic Capital Advisors, from 2004 to 2006, while still president of Harvard.
That the highly paid leader of arguably America's most esteemed educational institution (disclosure: I went there) would simultaneously…
mikethemadbiologist | April 12, 2009I've been meaning to get to this topic after it came up in Obama's 'online' press conference. For me, the argument in favor of legalization is that it would weaken organized crime and that legalization of other popular activities has done so in the past (more on that in a moment). Of course, for some reason, one can't discuss this without describing one's drug using history and beliefs, so here they are:
I don't smoke pot. I have no interest in doing so--I don't have any interest in smoking cigarettes either. Because I have a very good sense of smell (sadly, this is the sense that has…
mikethemadbiologist | April 11, 2009Matt Taibbi says everything I've been thinking regarding Wall Street compensation (but better):
Here's the real problem with people like Jake DeSantis. Throughout this whole period, they never were able to connect the dots -- to grasp the fact that when they skimmed a million here or a million there off the great rivers of capital that flowed through their offices, that that money came from somewhere, from someone. To them, it wasn't someone else's money, it was just money, and why shouldn't they have it?
...For a guy like this, his worth as a human being is wrapped up in buying a bag of…
mikethemadbiologist | April 9, 2009There's been a lot of discussion over Obama economic advisor Larry Summers' economic ties to Wall Street (7.2 million such ties in 2008 alone). What I don't get is why Obama sees the need to keep him around.
Yes, Summers is an asshole. He was an asshole at Harvard, and I don't see why he would have changed. Yes, he's a corrupt asshole, but we already knew he was getting paid millions by a hedge fund. But what I don't get why Obama considers him to be essential. Consider these speaking fees:
GIANT BAILOUT SECTOR
Goldman Sachs: $202,500 (two speeches)
Citigroup: $99,000 (two speeches)
JP…
mikethemadbiologist | April 6, 2009There's increasing trouble brewing for Obama economic advisor Larry Summers. In 2008, while everyone knew he would play a big role in either Clinton's or Obama's administration, he pulled down $5.2 million from a hedge fund--for working one day a week. But you see, we have it all wrong (italics mine):
Mr. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and Harvard president who is now the chief economic adviser to President Obama, earned nearly $5.2 million in just the last of his two years at one of the world's largest funds, according to financial records released Friday by the White House.…
mikethemadbiologist | April 4, 2009...I'm sure this will work out just fine:
The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.
Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.
The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly…
mikethemadbiologist | April 2, 2009Isn't that like "Pedophiles for Childrens' Welfare?" From The Nation, your healthcare has a new special friend:
....Rick Scott is the man who best embodies the spirit of the current conservative opposition. The name may not exactly be a household word, or it may ring a faint bell, but Politico recently reported that the millionaire Republican would be heading up Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR), a new group that plans to spend around $20 million to kill President Obama's efforts at healthcare reform.
Having Scott lead the charge against healthcare reform is like tapping Bernie Madoff…
mikethemadbiologist | March 30, 2009It's a trite saying to "follow the money", but, in the case of Senator Evan Bayh's (D-Goldman SachsIndiana) decision to oppose serious mortgage readjustments on foreclosed properties ("cramdowns"), it seems to fit. Here's the background on Bayh's opposition to cramdowns on foreclosures:
Senate debate on legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgage terms for troubled homeowners will be postponed until after the spring recess in April, according to a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev...
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., initially was forced to pull the bill (HR…
mikethemadbiologist | March 29, 2009At this point, diversity in the Obama administration means you've never worked for Goldman Sachs. Meet the newest Obama nominee, Gary Gensler for head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (italics mine):
Gensler helped create this financial crisis when he was in the Treasury Department back in the Clinton era, when bipartisan cooperation with Wall Street lobbyists was all the rage. Sanders gets right to the point: "Mr. Gensler worked with Senator Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the…
mikethemadbiologist | March 28, 2009I've argued before that nationalizing financial institutions the way the Obama Administration has done is incredibly stupid. If you're going to nationalize chunks of the economy, get some people who are partial to doing so. Which brings me to this little story from the New Deal era:
...a special bonus New Deal version of how to deal with rude letters from corporate types--in this case, the chiefs of the New York Stock Exchange, asked by the SEC to reorganize in light of recent events.
... the matter of reorganization was referred to the Exchange's Law Committeee--in other words, to Richard…
mikethemadbiologist | March 27, 2009While I think Bernie Madoff is a real slimeball (what Jew steals from Elie Wiesel?), putting him in super-maximum security is ridiculous:
Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff is being held in a super-max wing of the Manhattan federal lockup - a unit so tough it drives hardened criminals mad, the Daily News has learned.
It's known as 10 South.
Located on the 10th floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the high-security wing has housed the city's toughest mobsters and most bloodthirsty terrorists.
John A. (Junior) Gotti was there, as well as his archrival, Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo.
On 10…
mikethemadbiologist | March 26, 2009The reason the AIG bonuses are upsetting isn't the amount of the bonuses--although the bonuses are larger than the entire National Endowment for the Arts budget--it's the complete impotence of and cooptation of the government by the financial sector (yes, we need banks and a financial sector, but they are means, not ends). So I'm thrilled to read this about Treasury Secretary Geithner's chief of staff:
Obama noted that he was quickly developing policies to prevent future AIG-like catastrophes.... Noting that he and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) had each introduced legislation on this front in…
mikethemadbiologist | March 22, 2009Always listen to the Mad Biologist. By way of Joe Windish at The Moderate Voice, we find out, just as I predicted, that the pork lobby would claim we don't know enough about the MRSA ST398 problem:
Livestock scientists call the opinion piece "highly speculative", and point to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statements on MRSA that say most if not all cases of MRSA come from person to person contact, not person to animal. The column also does not define this strain as one that is found on any swine farm in the vicinity of Camden, Ind.
"They are making a huge leap…
mikethemadbiologist | March 21, 2009By way of Jesse Taylor, imagine that you had $16,000 of bills due to an appendectomy:
If it's not paid in fourteen days, it'll go to collections. (Keep in mind that my yearly budget, courtesy of the law school, is a little over $15,000.)
I call the hospital, and am told that the claim was submitted to my old insurance company and denied because I was not covered on the date of service. I cannot do any sort of low-income write-off plan unless I cancel my health insurance and am denied from both Medicare and Medicaid. Even then, it's conditional.
I call the insurance company and was told…
mikethemadbiologist | March 19, 2009Always listen to the Mad Biologist. By way of Joe Windish at The Moderate Voice, we find out, just as I predicted, that the pork lobby would claim we don't know enough about the MRSA ST398 problem:
Livestock scientists call the opinion piece "highly speculative", and point to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statements on MRSA that say most if not all cases of MRSA come from person to person contact, not person to animal. The column also does not define this strain as one that is found on any swine farm in the vicinity of Camden, Ind.
"They are making a huge leap…
mikethemadbiologist | March 17, 2009In the midst of all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the death and cooptation of business journalism inspired by John Stewart's skewering of Jim Cramer, it's important to remember one thing: that's the business model. Or to put it another way, the customer is always right.
If you ever read the biotech press, which is a subset of the larger business press, there is an obvious, inherent structural bias. The biotech press will never critique the fundamentals of the biotech industry as a whole. It will criticize individual approaches or companies. But it will almost never ask…
mikethemadbiologist | March 15, 2009Because AIG is paying bonuses to the division that created a lot of Big Shitpile (italics mine):
The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.
Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be…
mikethemadbiologist | March 9, 2009Currently, I'm working on a post about funding and how it's led to employment problem in science....
Meanwhile, this bit about illegal short selling is jaw dropping. I have no idea of this very long article (pdf) is in tinfoil helmet territory or not, but, if it's at all accurate, it looks like Jim Cramer of CNBC is using his media perch to help friends profit from short selling stocks:
The story begins when a very highly respected journalist and business editor for the Columbia Journalism Review, Mark Mitchell, decides to look into allegations made by the CEO of Overstock.com, that some…
mikethemadbiologist | March 3, 2009Remember when Obama Commerce Secretary nominee Republican Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) decided not to take the job on account of Gregg's unwillingness to join an administration that was fiscally irresponsible. Well, there might have been something else involved:
Sen. Judd Gregg, President Barack Obama's former nominee for commerce secretary, won taxpayer money for redevelopment of a shuttered Air Force base where he and his brother had invested in commercial property, an Associated Press investigation found.
Gregg, R-N.H., has personally invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Cyrus Gregg'…