Remember last week when Barney Frank
announced a hearing March 20 with Attorney General Eric Holder, bank regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission as witnesses to discover what their plans are to prosecute irresponsible and in some cases criminal behaviors.
He isn’t looking for names, Frank said, but “I do want all the people with enforcement power, state and federal, in that room.” …
They heard him. NYT reports that, “Spurred by rising public anger, federal and state investigators are preparing for a surge of prosecutions of financial fraud. …” As Holder mulls whether to form a federal task force or just support state AGs having at alleged fraudsters, the new budget sends more resources his way for either or both purposes. White-collar-crime specialists are prepping too:
One defense lawyer said he expected to argue that either his clients did not understand the financial instruments they were marketing, or were not adequately warned of the dangers by underlings.
“We’ll all sing the stupidity song,” said the lawyer, who said he feared that speaking publicly by name would deter potential clients. “We’ll all sing the ‘These guys never told me’ song.”
Ah, which reminds me that what Peter J. Henning laid out yesterday, Bloomberg confirms today: Bernie Madoff would rather eat it all himself than strike a plea deal obligating him to help the feds pursue any alleged co-conspirators singing “He never told me.”
Madoff’s ploy may work better than whatever Jim Cramer comes up with next. He was so arrogant as to boast on videotape in 2006 that manipulating the stock market is “a fun game … a lucrative game … very satisfying.” Hedge-fund managers should always indulge in it, he said, because “the SEC doesn’t understand it” and no WSJ (or CNBC) “bozo” will pick up on it: they’re just there to be used. Heeeeere’s Jimmy:
Uhhhh, maybe you‘re not best situated to throw around “bozo,” Cramer? The word could have reasonably occurred to Kevin Drum whilst contemplating the buyers who doubled Citigroup’s share-price in response to a memo by its CEO this week. See, Kevin figures the bond market is telling Citi’s story better — and there, it sounds anything but good.
“Insurance? Banks don’t need no stinkin’ insurance!” said Congress. And so . . . “The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.”
What a time for TheCunningRealist to pop up and ask, “Anyone seen any recent calls for Social Security private accounts?” (Psst: Checked your pre-paid college plan lately?)
If all this is just TOO FRICKIN’ MUCH for you, maybe you’d rather focus on what Sy Hersh describes as Dick Cheney’s “executive assassination ring” — or espionage-defendant/Chas Freeman-foe Steve Rosen’s lawsuit against AIPAC (woo — that’ll upset all manner of applecarts if they don’t buy him off settle) — or Bristol Palin’s first-ever smart move — or Justice David Souter’s remark about the “sort of annual intellectual lobotomy” he faces as a SCOTUS term begins.
Or maybe you’ll stay focused on the Masters of the Universe. In which case: torch or pitchfork, what’ll you have?
From McClatchy:
Cramer will be on The Daily Show tonight.
And I’ll be lookin’ for the tape tomorrow — yumola!
1 torch please.
Madoff has pled, and I trust NYT will eventually tell us more than that “he then answered questions about how he sustained a 20-year fraud whose collapse erased as much as $65 billion that his customers thought they had in their accounts.”
No ruling on bail yet.
Oxford couple has close call with Alabama shooter:
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20090312/NEWS01/90312006
Yeh, Plexix, looks like the AP picked up the Eagle‘s story from yesterday.
Madoff’s bail revoked.
WaPo:
For the first time I’ve seen, TPM seriously booted this — they had a Breaking News banner up claiming “FBI Raids Home of Obama Appointee” (linked to a Ben Smith story at Politico), and then corrected it to “FBI Raids DC City Office of Obama Appointee.” But it’s still misleading: Kundra quit there to start his new job on
FebMarch 4.That Souter piece is magnificent. He’s a genius, and humble! Rare combination, found only at the tip-top of the IQ charts.
CNN News is draped all over Bernie Madoff’s plea and his immediate incarceration. I mentioned several days ago that an attorney I once hired for one of my staffs later married a niece of Madoff, and that I hoped his name wouldn’t get dragged into this. Dragging has commenced. CNN mentioned him — Eric Swanson — this morning as an “SEC regulator” who might have some complicity in the Madoff swindle.
Say it ain’t so, Eric.
Ben, I fear the dragging-in started much earlier. Try his name on NYT’s search box — that marriage featured in the first Madoff stories, as I recall.
Continuing to demonstrate her excellent sources, Laura Rozen (who broke the Freeman-appointment story) now has the closest account of its denouement.
If a 17-yr-old girl sends a nude picture of herself via text messaging to her boyfriend, should she be convicted on child porn charges and have to register as a sex offender?
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2009-03-11-sexting_N.htm
That is apparently the law. I wonder what the lawyers here think about that….
It’s crazy, Plexix, at 14. Remember being a teenager? This is not what these laws were supposed to address.
Agreed, 3rdSouth. But we have always been a country with puritanical sex laws, haven’t we? When I was 18, I had sex with my long-term 17-yr-old girlfriend…..she might have been in her late 16th year, I can’t recall. Does that make me guilty of statutory rape? I don’t know the law on that one, but probably.
You need to check the applicable statute of limitation before you go to ‘fessing, Plexix, at 16. I once heard the late Sheriff Harry Lee of Jefferson Parish admit to some Viet Nam activities in a military classroom in a manner that caused the Moderator to say, “Wait! Wait! Wait! I’m sure you’re speaking figuratively or metaphorically or in jest because if what you just said were taken literally it would be an admission to a war crime for which there is no statute of limitation.”
“Dear Mr. President, do your best”. This, from a Coral Springs, FL 4th grader in a book being prepared for President Obama, speaks for many of us.
GG, thanks. The best thing I have read all day.
Lotus @ 13 – I have to wonder at the logic of Freeman and Blair. After all, any time the DNI put out a report that was less than gushing toward Israel there was bound to be the sort of accusations they feared, no matter who worked on the report. No doubt, some mid-level manager with an Arabic sounding name would be dragged out. The important thing is the information, and that it is credible. That’s something that’s been sorely lacking in this process the last few years.
On the Souter quote, I know how he feels. Sometimes traveling is the only time I get to read a book, at least one that’s not related to something I’m writing or working on at the time. He’s right about civics classes, too, although it’s pretty apparent lately that the folks who take them don’t take them all that seriously.
It’s pretty slim pickin’s for good news these days, MrS @19, so I am eternally trying to latch on to a bright spot here and there.
Is that why you call yourself Glitter, Glittergirl?
regarding my comment @2. I was wrong. Cramer will be on TDS tomorrow night.
I guess, confounded at #23. I’m always looking for a little glitter to “spruce up the place”.
sounds like a good idea GG.
Did I say she was 16? Clearly I meant she was 17. Or 18.
But doesn’t that show how ridiculous our sex laws are sometimes? A 12th grader – who may be 18 – dating and having sex with an 11th grader is very common and there’s nothing wrong with it. It happens all of the time. Everywhere. But the fact that it is potentially illegal, and could send someone to prison for a long, long time and then have to register as a sex offender for the rest of their lives – and of course ruin their lives – is absurd.
Likewise, convicting a 17 year old girl on child porn charges because she sent a picture of her boobie to her boyfriend via text messaging is wrong.
Agreed, Plexix, and I’m feeling old because nobody’s sent me a “sext message” and I’ve had this cell phone here for several weeks.