Hedge Fundie Who Made Homophobic Hillary Joke Holds Fund Raiser For Andrew Cuomo

Daniel Loeb, founder and chief executive of Third Point LLC, a New York-based hedge fund with a portfolio reported worth $14 billion, is holding a $5,000 a head fundraiser for Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The fundraiser will be held at Loeb's East Hampton residence on July 11. 

Loeb is quite a piece of work.

Loeb sits on the board of StudentsFirstNY and chairs Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy board.

He has given money to Cuomo before and was instrumental in helping Cuomo to push for legalized gay marriage in New York back in 2011.

But those are just the above-board descriptions of Loeb. 

The real Loeb is a vindictive, vitriolic sociopath who goes out of his way to destroy people.

Sounds like the perfect person to raise funds for Andrew Cuomo.

Loeb's reputation as a hedge fundie is that "he doesn't give a fuck" how he goes about making money.

Check out the whole Vanity Fair piece about Loeb I linked to above, but here's a little taste of how Loeb is perceived within the financial world:

A colleague who has known Loeb for decades says Loeb “can write the most obnoxious letters on the planet, make up shit—[because he does] not really care … whether or not you hurt people or don’t hurt people. You just don’t care. The only thing you care about is making money on their stock. . . . [His letters] were juvenile, sophomoric, and cringe-making. Horrible. If you’re a decent member of society you [don’t do] shit like that. But he did. That was his business strategy. He was very smart. Because other people—most of us—have certain values and certain norms, and there are certain boundaries we just won’t cross. And he just obviously doesn’t have those same kind of limitations. Never has.”

Loeb is also a hypocrite - he looked to manage some of the teachers pension fund as a hedge fund manager even as he worked as an education deformer to slash teachers benefits (from Vanity Fair piece linked above):

Loeb’s pugnacious side was also on view earlier this year when the powerful American Federation of Teachers—the nation’s largest teachers’ union—accused him of trying to solicit a chunk of the union’s $800 billion pension fund to manage while being an enthusiastic supporter and board member of StudentsFirst, a national organization that advocates, among other things, replacing teachers’ defined-benefit pension plans with defined-contribution plans. “Loeb has been soliciting the retirement money of public workers, then turning right around and lobbying for those same workers to lose their benefits,” Matt Taibbi wrote on his Rolling Stone blog. “He’s essentially asking workers to pay for their own disenfranchisement (with Loeb getting his two-and-twenty cut, or whatever obscene percentage of their retirement monies he will charge as a fee). If that isn’t the very definition of balls, I don’t know what is.”

Loeb got into it a bit with AFT President Randi Weingarten after she wanted a meeting with him:

When Randi Weingarten, the president of the A.F.T., learned that Loeb was giving a speech in Washington, at the April meeting of the Council of Institutional Investors, a nonprofit association of pension and endowment funds, representing more than $3 trillion of assets (where Loeb may well have intended to do a little soliciting), she suggested a meeting with him. “Given your strong support for StudentsFirst, an organization which is leading the attack on defined benefit pension funds around the country, I was surprised to learn of your interest in working with public pension plan investors,” she wrote.

Loeb agreed to meet with Weingarten, but in the end he canceled his speech and the meeting, saying that his plans had changed and he had to get back to New York. He offered to meet with her at another time. But that never happened. He also decided to give $3 million, instead of $2 million, to Success Academy Charter Schools, a network of 22 New York City charter schools, which many teachers see as undermining public education. “Rather than intimidate me, [the accusations of conflict of interest] had the effect of redoubling my commitment and making me realize how important our work is because these kids face such obstacles,” he told Bloomberg. Weingarten now says of Loeb, “He got very angry when Rolling Stone and others wrote about it, and he’s just been going after me ever since.” She says it was a shame that “he thought he was punishing me” by giving more money to charter schools, but “we should be working together” to improve education for all students.

Someone who knows Loeb asked him about his fight with Weingarten, and, the source says, Loeb replied, “She’s fucking with the wrong person.”

Dan Loeb is a vitriolic sociopath with no core values other than his own success and ego aggrandizement - sounds like a perfect fit for a Cuomo fundraiser.

But wait - it gets better.

You would think given Loeb's support for Cuomo's push to legalize gay marriage in New York, Loeb would be sensitive to homophobia, but you would be wrong about that:

Hedge-fund billionaire Daniel Loeb — one of the biggest and most feared investors on Wall Street and a vocal backer of same-sex marriage — posted a joke speculating about Hillary Clinton’s sexuality on his personal Facebook page.

“Dear Abby,” he posted May 9. “My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and when I confront him, he denies everything. What’s worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me. It is so humiliating. Also, since he lost his job 14 years ago, he hasn’t even look for a new one. All he does all day is smoke cigars, cruise around and shoot the bull with his buddies, while I have to work to pay the bills. Since our daughter went away to college he doesn’t even pretend to like me, and even hints that I may be a lesbian. What should I do? Signed Clueless.”

“Dear Clueless,” the post continues, “Grow up and dump him. Good grief woman! You don’t need him anymore! You’re running for President of the United States. Act like one.”

The anti-Clinton diatribe wasn’t Loeb’s own joke or words — it appeared to be a right-wing meme that has been circulating online since Clinton’s first run. The same faux “Dear Abby” column was also posted on the Facebook page of actor Kevin Sorbo, best known for his role as Hercules in the TV series “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.”

The resurfacing of the old attack on the Clintons this cycle — on the page of a prominent billionaire — indicates how ugly attacks could get if Hillary Clinton gets into the uncharted territory of a general election.

Loeb, who bundled money for Barack Obama in 2008 before turning on him and backing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012, has shown interest in a few of the GOP candidates this cycle.

...

 

Loeb promptly deleted the Dear Abby post after POLITICO contacted his office about it.

“This widely circulated, old meme ended up on my Facebook page inadvertently and as soon as I was informed of it, I took it down,” Loeb said in a statement. “ As a longstanding public supporter of gay and women’s rights, it does not represent my views.”

The "widely circulated, old meme" ended up on his Facebook page "inadvertently"?

Add "full of shit" and "bald-faced liar" to the other descriptions of Dan Loeb like "sociopath...who doesn't give a fuck."

This is the guy Cuomo's allowed to host a $5,000 a head fundraiser for him.

Says an awful lot about Andrew Cuomo, doesn't it.

There are protests scheduled for the fundraiser by some labor groups.

Quid Pro Cuomo Rakes In Hollywood Cash In Return For Tax Breaks For Movie, TV Companies

Albany remains a cesspool of corruption and Governor Andrew M. Cuomo sits right in the middle of it:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who added $2.1 billion to an incentive program for the movie and television industry, has collected almost $900,000 in campaign contributions from Hollywood since taking office in 2011. 

Cuomo, who lured NBC’s “The Tonight Show” back to New York City from Los Angeles, collected $121,600 from Comcast Corp. (CMCSA:US) and its NBCUniversal unit, campaign-finance records show. Paramount Pictures Corp. Chairman Brad Grey gave $35,000, while Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (6758) Chief Executive Officer Michael Lynton and nine other executives donated a combined $45,200. Paramount’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Sony’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” are among productions that took advantage of New York’s tax-credit program, the most generous in the U.S.

“What makes this industry more special than any industry that would invest here if you paid them to do it?” said E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for New York State Policy in Albany, which opposes government subsidies. “The difference is, well, it’s high-profile and it’s really glamorous. And oh, incidentally, it’s run by people who are really savvy, generous political givers too.”

Cuomo, a 56-year-old Democrat, who ran for governor vowing to clean up Albany’s pay-to-play culture of corruption by limiting contributions, has instead reaped the benefits of a system that allows individuals to give as much as $150,000 per year -- and even more through limited-liability corporations. Federal prosecutors are also probing the Cuomo administration’s effort to stymie investigations by an anti-corruption committee he created and then disbanded before its term was finished. 

Cuomo took millions from overseas gambling consortia and expanded legalized gambling in the state.

He took hundreds of thousands from the real estate industry and handed out millions in tax breaks to his real estate industry donors.

And he took nearly a illion bucks from Hollywood and has handed them $2.1 billion in tax incentives.

Why isn't this criminal in prison?

How is this any different than convicted former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell who took money and gifts from donors in return for favors?

In Cuomo's case, he's getting money in return to bludgeon his political opponents and maintain his power and political office.

And remember, this is just the stuff we know about - you can bet there's a whole bunch more under wraps that we don't know about yet.

The More Money These Philanthropists "Give Away," The Richer They Get

In case you missed this news:

NEW YORK: Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the wealthiest living US entrepreneur, with an estimated net worth of $80.2 billion, according to Wealth-X.

The list of 10 billionaires was dominated by "technopreneurs" as six of them made their fortunes from technology or technology-related businesses, including Gates, Larry Ellison of Oracle and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The 10 entrepreneurs are collectively worth $407.4 billion, accounting for about 20 per cent of the total ultra-rich wealth in America, according to Wealth-X, the global wealth intelligence and prospecting firm headquartered in Singapore. The combined market capitalisation of these 10 individuals' primary companies is $1.7 trillion, which means they have created wealth that's four times what they themselves are worth.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett, who at 83 is also the oldest person on the list, was ranked second with an estimated wealth of $64.2 billion.

 Buffett was followed by Ellison of Oracle with a net worth of $48.2 billion and businessman and Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg with $33.7 billion.

Sheldon Adelson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, was ranked fifth with a net worth of $32.8 billion, while Google's Larry Page was placed sixth with a net worth of $31.3 billion.

 Zuckerberg, 30, is the youngest person on the list and was placed seventh with a net worth of $30.9 billion, followed by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com (8th, $30.5 billion); Google's Sergey Brin (9th, $30.1 billion) and Carl Icahn (10th, $25.5 billion).

All the self-made entrepreneurs on the list are active in the world of philanthropy, and six of them have joined the Giving Pledge, a campaign initiated by Gates and Buffet to encourage the world's most affluent individuals to pledge at least half of their fortunes to charity, the Wealth-X report said.

How is it that so many of these "philanthropists" who have taken the "Giving Pledge" to "give away" at least half their fortunes before they die keep getting richer and richer even as they engage in their so-called "philanthropy"?

It seems the more money they give away, the more money they accumulate.

Odd, isn't it?

If Teachers Were Like Goldman Sachs Traders...

Thanks Uncle Mikey and Auntie Carmen - a $1,000 bucks (which is actually more like $863 after taxes and union dues)*:

Dear Colleagues,

As you come to the end of this school year we both wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for all your hard work and dedication. We both know from experience how difficult the work you do is, and we take great pride in the thousands of people in New York City Public Schools who work hard each and every day to try to fulfill the dreams and hopes of over one million students. We want you to know you have our respect and our thanks.

We wanted to do more than tell you we appreciate your hard work - we wanted to take action to show you. So we have taken the first step in implementing the financial component of the recent collective bargaining agreement between the United Federation of Teachers and the New York City Department of Education which provides for a one time ratification bonus of $1,000 (pro-rated for part-time employees) to be issued to any member who was on payroll as of the date of ratification, June 3, 2014. We are pleased to inform you that pending the ratification by the Panel for Educational Priorities on June 24th, for most school-based UFT staff this payment is going to appear in either your direct deposit account on June 25th, or in a check delivery scheduled for June 26th. Other UFT staff such as nurses and therapists should receive this payment on July 3, and part time F status staff should be receiving their pro-rated portion on July 10.

We hope you enjoy the summer and return refreshed and ready for the next school year. We have much to work on together, including efforts around enhanced professional development and dedicated time for parent engagement, and we look forward to working together on these and many other initiatives next year. Thank you for your work this year to provide a quality education for all of our students to keep them on the road to success.

Sincerely,



Meanwhile back at Goldman Sachs: 

Here’s an instant classic for the Out-of-Touch Banker genre: a former Goldman Sachs mortgage bond trader clears $30 million in the decade following his college graduation, racks up an $8.25 million bonus in a single year, and sues because he thinks he deserves another $5 million.

Meet Deeb Salem, the G.S. alum who now works at the hedge fund GoldenTree Asset Management but once helped Goldman shed its toxic assets by betting against its clients and, as his lawyer boasted to the New York Post, shorting the mortgage market in 2006. Salem is suing his former employer, alleging that he had every right to expect a $13 million bonus in 2010.

Much of the drama focuses on Salem’s 2007 self-evaluation, which eventually made its way into the public record thanks to a 2011 Senate investigation into the bank’s habit of betting against its own clients. Salem alleges that he was punished for his honesty (the bank, perhaps upset that his review provided Congress with ammunition, warned him in 2010 for “extremely poor judgment”). But it also rewarded him with an $8.25 million bonus. The previous year, he had received a $15 million bonus—more than Goldman Sachs C.E.O. Lloyd Blankfein.

Don’t get the wrong idea about Salem, though. It’s not just the money that bothers him—it’s the filial shame he faced after telling his mother that he would be taking home a full $13 million in 2010.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority tossed out Salem’s case (one panelist called his claims “bullshit”), and he has since asked the New York State Supreme Court to intervene. The judge in the case has sealed the documents pending a hearing in the fall, according to Bloomberg News.

Salem believes he could have made much more had he left the firm earlier, and the scary thing is, he’s probably right—his group at Goldman brought in more than $1 billion a year during the period between 2007 and 2010. He was something of a star in a world where moving crappy products faster and more ruthlessly than your competitors yields billions of dollars of profits. But, as Goldman’s lawyer, Andrew Frackman of O’Melveny & Myers, said at a February arbitration hearing, Salem “made a ton of money.”

“He’s not entitled to more money simple because he would like to have been paid more,” Frackman said. “If that were the case, you’d have traders and bankers in here every day of the week.”

“Let’s be very clear: I was one of the most sought-after investment professionals in the mortgage industry,” Salem told the panel at the same hearing. He also compared himself to Michael Jordan in self-evaluations, writing, “I am as competitive as Michael Jordan. . . I want to win every time and I want to steamroll the opposition.”

Even Jordan would have to stand in awe of this guy’s ego.

Enjoy your $863 bucks after taxes and union dues, teachers...

* See comment here.

Maybe Somebody Should Look Into Bloomberg's Bribe Money?

Buzzfeed:

One of Mike Bloomberg’s signal accomplishments in New York City was reversing the flow of corruption. In the old days, and in every other city in the world most days, favor-seekers bribe politicians — with cash in envelopes, with legal contributions, or with political support. In Mike Bloomerg’s New York, the mayor bribed you, buying the silence or cooperation of individuals, cultural organizations, and social service groups with hundreds in millions of dollars spent on small personal favors — a legal payment here, a medical procedure there — and charitable contributions.

Bribery is still bribery, whether it's old school bribery with the bribes going to the politicians or the new school/Bloomberg school bribery where the mayor bribed people into silence and/or cooperation.

Alas, Bloomberg hasn't been exposed as the crook he is.

Perhaps it has something to do with some of those bribes heading into the hands of journalists as they roll onto the Bloomberg News/Bloomberg Views/Bloomberg Businessweek payroll.

Perhaps it has something to do with Bloomberg's fellow media owners of the Times, Post, Journal, News, et al. not wanting to expose a fellow plutocrat.

Either way, Bloomberg spent hundreds of millions if not more bribing people into silence.

And we'll never know how many people were on his payroll or just what was left unexposed or unchallenged because of all his largesse.

Wingnut Attack On De Blasio

De Blasio Wins! Exciting! How soon until streets of NYC look like scenes from 'The Warriors'? pic.twitter.com/FMxIpbhdM1
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) November 5, 2013

In actuality, the city is already crime-ridden:

Bill De Blasio Has Private Meeting With Rupert Murdoch And Mort Zuckerman

Danger! Danger!

Democratic mayoral nominee Bill de Blasio attended a private meeting with a number of leading New York City business figures yesterday.

Among them were Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of both News Corp. and its sister corporation, 21st Century Fox (who has taken a particular interest in trying to reshape public education); Robert Thomson, the chief executive of News Corp.; and Mortimer Zuckerman, the wealthy real-estate magnate who also owns the Daily News and U.S. News & World Report.

Several sources with knowledge of the meeting confirmed the attendance of de Blasio and all three top media figures but stressed that other businesspeople were also in attendance. The total headcount was around "a couple dozen," one source said.

The purpose of the meeting, as well as where it took place, is unclear. A spokesman for de Blasio's campaign declined to comment, as did spokespeople for Zuckerman and News Corp.

But it was held one day before de Blasio spoke to a larger collection of the city's leading business titans, at a breakfast this morning hosted by the Association for a Better New York. The city business-leadership group has been described by de Blasio as the "lion's den." De Blasio is advocating a tax hike for the wealthiest New Yorkers and the reduction of tax breaks for corporations.

As I wrote earlier today, de Blasio didn't get where he is by being some intransigent commie pinko Sandanista

He got there by being an expedient politician.

How much do you want to make a bet the sell-out for all those leftie promises he made during the primary campaign became official at the meeting with Zuckerman, Murdoch and the other business criminals today?

Education Nation Should Invite Carrianne Howard To Talk About How Wonderful Lloyd Blankfein's Art Institutes Are

Raging Horse does an excellent job of pointing out who NBC should have invited for their corporate education reform-slanted Education Nation propaganda-fest this year.

Alas, NBC isn't much interested in having anybody on that stage who won't carry water for the corporate education reform agenda, so they only invited deformers like Michael Bloomberg, Jeb Bush, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, et al. to this year's Education Nation.

Even Diane Ravitch was only invited to sit in the audience, an outrageous insult to not only Ravitch but to every teacher in this country who has been slammed and smeared by corporate reforms like Klein, Rhee, et al.

But of all the corporate education reform-friendly guests NBC did invite, I find Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein the most outrageous.

You see, Goldman Sachs, in addition to being the most evil corporate entity on the planet, owns 41% of the parent company of the notorious for-profit swindle college, the Art Institutes.

Bloomberg News published a devastating expose of the Art Institutes and Goldman Sachs back in 2010 that found degrees from the Art Institutes essentially worthless, debt levels incurred by students at the schools extremely high.

They use the story of Carrianne Howard, a young woman who graduated from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and now makes her living as a stripper, to show just what a scam the school is (that's Howard pictured above, with her Art Institute diploma):

Carrianne Howard dreamed of designing video games, so she enrolled in a program at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, a for-profit college part-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Her bachelor’s degree in game art and design cost $70,000 in tuition and fees. After she graduated in December 2007, she found a job that paid $12 an hour recruiting employees for video game companies. She lost that job a year later when her department was shuttered.

These days, Howard, 26, makes her living in a way that doesn’t require a college diploma: by stripping at the Lido Cabaret, a topless club in Cocoa Beach, Florida. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she says. “I’ve got a worthless degree. It’s like I didn’t attend school at all.”

...

Carrianne Howard, the Florida student, didn’t borrow for her education. Instead her parents paid roughly $70,000 in tuition bills. Her mother, an airline data analyst, and her father, a computer engineer, sold their California home and moved to Virginia after her father lost his job and her mother retired. They used money from the sale to pay for tuition, and her parents are now struggling financially, Howard and her mother say.

Howard grew up in Valencia, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, and became drawn to video gaming during high school. One afternoon in 2004, an Art Institute ad popped up on her PC.

“I was as excited as can be,” she says. “I thought it was a dream come true.”

She and her mother toured the Fort Lauderdale campus, a bright, modern three-story building flanked by reflecting pools and palm trees. Her tour guide “just made it sound really exciting and a lot of fun, like I was going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Howard says.

EDMC schools train representatives to make “no promise, implication, or guarantee” about employment, Muller says.

A couple of years into her studies, Howard says she grew disenchanted. Some classes consisted largely of playing video games, she says. She wanted to drop out but her mother insisted she finish because the family had spent so much already. She graduated in December 2007; in March 2009 she lost her first job, at GameRecruiter, a Fort Lauderdale-based gaming industry employment agency where she was making $12 an hour. Marc Mencher, GameRecruiter’s president and CEO, says she was let go only because he closed down her entire department, and calls her “an exceptional performer.”

She may be struggling to find work in part because of inadequate preparation from the Art Institute’s gaming department, Mencher says.

“It’s a weak program because it’s understaffed,” says Mencher, who serves on the Art Institute’s national advisory board for gaming programs. “I personally feel the students aren’t getting their money’s worth.”

After Bloomberg Businessweek asked EDMC for comment, Mencher sent a follow-up e-mail, saying that although the Art Institute is “not perfect and they have issues like any organization,” it is “an excellent program built on input from respected industry professionals along with local employers.” It has an “outstanding placement” record for graduates, he said.
Lido Cabaret

Howard applied for dozens of jobs, not only in gaming but also in grocery stores and nursing homes, mostly for minimum wage, she says. In October 2009, Howard turned to adult entertainment by doing paid Web chats. In March she started dancing at Lido Cabaret, earning $400 to $1,000 a week, she says.

She now hopes to save enough to go back to college and get a business degree. As she considers returning to school, Howard also helps run an anti-Art Institute website, where she has collected more than 70 names in a petition to send to the U.S. Education Dept.

The private, nonprofit Florida Institute of Technology, where Howard would like to enroll, won’t accept any of her credits from EDMC, according to spokeswoman Karen Rhine, because the Art Institute doesn’t have the kind of accreditation the traditional college requires. In its school catalog and other documents, the Art Institute “does not imply or guarantee” that credits will transfer to other universities, says EDMC’s Muller.

At 1 a.m. on a recent weeknight, Howard finished a shift at Lido. “This is what I do,” she says. “When I’m in here, I try not to think about the Art Institute.”

NBC ought to add Carrianne Howard or any of the other students who graduated from Art Institutes with a worthless degree and tens of thousands in debt to talk up the school.

But instead they invite banker criminal Blankfein instead.

In the past, they have had the CEO and head criminal of the University of Phoenix at Education Nation.

This year, the executive VP from Apollo Group, the owner of the University of Phoenix, will be there.

So every year, NBC doesn't miss a trick to not only invite every corporate deformer they can think of to sell the corporate deform agenda, but there's always a for-profit college criminal shill on the panel as well.

But no Diane Ravitch, no Anthony Cody, no Karen Lewis, no Susan Ohanian, no Lois Weiner, no actual working teachers who don't carry the ed deform message

And no students from one of these for-profit scam schools like Art Institutes or University of Phoenix to tell the audience how much debt they carry as they work at Starbucks or Applebees or, like Carrianne Howard, a strip club.

NBC's Education Nation ought to come with a scammer alert on the bottom of the screen.

The entire "symposium" is nothing but propaganda for the corporate education deform movement and for the criminal for-profit school industry.

Business Leaders Speak To New Yorkers About Common Core

Buried near the bottom of the NY Times article on the Common Core tests is this doozy:

New York’s bleak scores could prompt unease among elected officials who have staked their reputations on rising test scores. 

“For educators and parents who aren’t crazy about testing to begin with, one can understand why they feel like they’re being subjected to bait-and-switch,” said Frederick M. Hess, an education policy scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. 

On Thursday, a group of prominent New York business leaders, hoping to stave off the resistance to the Common Core standards, will release a letter urging New York policy makers to move forward with the new standards.

Will some of the prominent business criminals, er, leaders work for JP Morgan Chase?

Because the same NY Times that reported business leaders are worried that New Yorkers will balk at the Common Core after this test epiphany is reporting JP Morgan Chase is under criminal investigation in two states for fraudulent activity around subprime mortgages.

Maybe some of these business leaders work for Bank of America?

If so, that would be interesting because the New York Times reports that BoA is being targeted by both the SEC and the DOJ for defrauding investors by selling worthless or greatly overvalued investment products.

Perhaps Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corporation will be one of those business leaders?

If so, he's due to explain before Parliament why he turned a blind eye to corruption and bribery in the newsrooms of his British papers even as his company faces lawsuits in the U.S. over hacking and a DOJ investigation into violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

We fetishize "business leaders" in this country.


But who cares what "business leaders" say about the Common Core?

Many of these people are criminals anyway.

Many of them stand to make money off education reform.

These people don't send their kids to any schools that will be using the Common Core.

It doesn't matter a whit what "business leaders" think.

Check that:

Maybe it does matter.

If "business leaders" think NY State should do something, then it behooves us to do the very opposite.

Just ask all of those Goldman Sachs customers robbed by the Vampire Squid of Wall Street.

Crooks At Reuters Run Con Game

From Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone:

Hilarious corruption story hit the news wires this week. It's actually a two-part joke.

Part one is that Thomson Reuters got slapped in the face by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for its absurd practice of selling early access to the results of the consumer confidence survey it conducts each month in conjunction with the University of Michigan.

It turns out that in recent times, if you paid them an extra subscription fee of a few thousand dollars a month, Thomson Reuters would allow you access to the Consumer Confidence data a full two seconds earlier than the rest of its subscribers – at 9:54:58 a.m., as opposed to 9:55:00 exactly.

Thomson Reuters suspended the activity at the request of Schneiderman, who released a statement about this humorously brazen effort at the systematic sale of inside information. From the L.A. Times:

The consumer confidence data can move financial markets, and Scheiderman's office said "that two-second advantage is more than enough time for these traders to take unfair advantage of their early access to this information as they execute enormous volumes of trades in the blink of an eye."
“The securities markets should be a level playing field for all investors and the early release of market-moving survey data undermines fair play in the markets,” Schneiderman said Monday.

The two-second head start allows high-speed traders to plunge into the markets en masse and retreat all the way back again before most of the world sees this market-altering economic data. From a CNN report a few weeks ago:

In the milliseconds before the survey is released to other paying clients at 9:55 a.m. ET, trading volumes can soar up to 20 times their normal levels. By 9:54:59 a.m. ET, long after computers have acted on the number, volumes have already returned to normal.

As my friend Eric Salzman joked, the two-second head start is a scheme taken straight out of The Sting, where the "hook" was early access to the results of an out-of-state horse race. All that's missing is Robert Shaw placing his bet: "Five hundred thousand dollars to win. Lucky Dan!"

I say this all the time, but it bears repeating:

It's all rigged.

Everything - rigged.

Democrat For Education Reformer Whitney Tilson Actually A Republican

No surprise here:

Hedge fund operator Whitney Tilson, described his support for Lhota in a recent edition of his email newsletter. After citing a portion of Lhota’s June education address that expressed strong support for charter schools, Tilson wrote, “I spent an hour with Joe a couple of months ago and was very impressed.” He donated $175.

To be frank, the "Democrat" part of "Democrats For Education Reform" has always been jive.

The real name of the group ought to be "Corporate Criminals For Privatization Of Public Education."

I know, I know - not as CCPPE not as catchy as DFER.

But it's certainly more accurate.

The reality is, Tilson gives to both Democrats and Republicans, but there is common ground always between all the candidates he gives money and support to, no matter what letter is after their names - they're all happy to continue the privatization game Tilson and his hedge fund criminal friends want continued.

They're As Crooked As The Clintons

Sure Weiner wants to fight for the middle class:

A fierce advocate for her husband, Ms. Abedin was among the final holdouts two years ago who insisted that Mr. Weiner hang onto his Congressional seat, even as the cascading scandal sent allies scurrying and prompted Democratic leaders, including Representative Nancy Pelosi and President Obama, to abandon him.

She married Mr. Weiner in 2010 at a ceremony where Mr. Clinton presided and the groom was teased about his future in Gracie Mansion. In recent months, she has been eager to end a difficult period of social exile during which she and her husband were virtually absent from the public eye — and Mr. Weiner’s access to influential circles was often tied to his wife’s close connections with the powerful world of the Clintons.

The couple live in a spacious Park Avenue apartment owned by a Clinton donor. And it was at a Clinton Global Initiative conference last fall that Mr. Weiner, who at the time was something of a recluse, made one of his few public appearances, drawing stares among the A-list invitees.

In late March, days before he revealed his interest in running for mayor, Mr. Weiner joined his wife and the Clintons in the Dominican Republic for a beach weekend with the fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, who owns a villa there. The former congressman mingled with a boldface crowd that included Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his girlfriend, Diana L. Taylor.

These are people with no principles, no scruples and no morals other than "How do we advance our careers and cash in as much as we can as quickly as we can?"

In that, the Weiners are just like the Clintons.

How did the Clintons, who  had a modest savings and owned no property when Bill first ran for president in 1992 become so wealthy anyway?

Housing Market Bubbles Up Again Thanks To Wall Street

I'm sure this will all end well:

MIAMI — Big investors are pouring unprecedented amounts of money into real estate hard hit by the housing crash, bringing those moribund markets back to life but raising the prospect of another Wall Street-fueled bubble that won’t be sustainable.

Drawn by the prospect of double-figure profit margins on rents and the resale of homes whose prices plummeted in the crash, hedge funds, Wall Street investors and other institutions are crowding out individual home buyers.

If the chain of easy credit and dangerous leverage that started on Wall Street fanned the housing bubble and eventual crash, some analysts find it disturbing that major investors are the ones snapping up the bargains — and eventual big profits — left in its wake.

“There is the possibility that Wall Street and the banks and the affluent 1 percent stand to gain the most from this,” said Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant based in Deerfield Beach, Fla. “Meanwhile, lower-income Americans will lose their opportunity for the American Dream of building wealth through owning a home.”

Real estate executives say institutional investors — who in some cases are bidding on hundreds of homes a day — account for as much as 70 percent of sales in some Florida markets. Over the past two years, analysts say, they also have accounted for a majority of purchases in other parts of the country where housing prices are rebounding sharply.

The influx of investors may explain why home prices have been rising in parts of the country most affected by the housing crash, despite high jobless rates and relatively few new mortgages being issued by lenders. In the past year, prices have risen 23 percent in the Phoenix area, 15 percent in Las Vegas, 9 percent in Tampa and 11 percent in Miami, according to the Case-Shiller home-price indice. Nationally, prices are up more than 8 percent over the past year.
 
“I don’t know whether things are as good as they seem to be. A lot of properties are being occupied by institutional investors, not the end-user,” said Scott Kranz, co-principal of Title Capital Management, a firm that helps big investors scout, buy and manage homes in Florida. “The end-user would need to see a great increase in jobs, availability of mortgage money and a loosening of the reins that have been holding them back. But all the economic indicators are that we are not at that point.”

And of course as the housing market tightens and the rental market tightens, prices go up for both rentals and sales.

Too bad there are no jobs to sustain those kinds of levels.

This housing bubble ended so well last time that you have to ask, what could possibly go wrong this time?

One more example of how the 1% screw the rest of us.

Can You Imagine If The Wall Street Criminals And Hedge Fund Crooks Were Treated The Way Beverly Hall And The Atlanta Teachers Are Being Treated?

I thought $7.5 million dollar bail amount for former Atlanta School Superintendent Beverly Hall seemed a little high.

Turned out I was right:

Dr. Hall negotiated her $7.5 million bond — considered a largely punitive figure set by the grand jurors, some of whom argued for it to be $10 million — down to $200,000. She was allowed to use her signature to cover $150,000 of it, with the rest to be paid in cash, said David Bailey, one of her lawyers. She will pay only 10 percent of that, and most of it will be refunded, he said. Dr. Hall arrived at the jail to be processed around 7:30 p.m., surrounded by her lawyers. It was unclear how long she would be there.

Lawyers for the defendants, saying they were baffled by what appeared to be a lack of coordination between District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr., the jail and the courts, were working to try to reduce the amount of bond set for teachers who had no criminal records and to keep them from spending time in jail. 

One of the first to arrive was Theresia Copeland, 56, who had been testing coordinator at a southeast Atlanta elementary school. She walked into the jail about 7 a.m. and was booked on a $1 million bond on charges of racketeering, theft and making false statements. 

“We’ve never had anything in education like this,” said Warren Fortson, a lawyer for Ms. Copeland and two other teachers. 

“Al Capone, I understand, didn’t have to post a $1 million bond,” he said. “I don’t think a Cobb County grandmother needs $1 million to secure her.” 

Later, Ms. Copeland’s bail was reduced to $50,000. Others also secured reduced bonds. Only one educator was still under a $1 million bond by Tuesday evening, said a spokeswoman for the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, Tracy Flanagan. 

 And I figured the powers that be felt safe to go after these teachers and administrators because they are all black.

Turns out I was right about that too:

While defense lawyers worked to have their clients freed, a group of black clergy members and former educators spoke out, calling the charges and the bail extreme and an indication of a deeper, long-simmering racial divide in the city and the state. 

The Rev. Timothy McDonald, a spokesman for the group Concerned Black Clergy, noted that the investigators were white and the accused were largely black. 

“Look at the pictures of those 35,” he said. “Show me a white face. Let’s just be for real. You can call it racist, you can call it whatever you want, but this is overkill. We have seen people with much deeper crimes with much less bond set.” 

35 black educators, accused of a cheating scandal, receive ridiculous bail postings while the men at Goldman Sachs who knowingly sold toxic, worthless CDO's to their customers, then shorted those same CDO's and made money coming and going, remain free and clear.

Oh, and most of those men were white.

Rich and white.

Funny how that is - the rich, white bankers and traders who nearly brought the economy down in '08, the men who stole billions, remain free and clear while the black educators who allegedly cheated with their students' state tests in order to keep their jobs are given ridiculous bail amounts until the state is finally shamed into lowering them.

Jim Crow lives.

From Detroit To Cyprus To NYU - The Bankers Own It All

Light posting for a few days, but two good pieces before I go:

Glen Ford: From Detroit to Cyprus, Banksters in Search of Prey

Michael Hudson: Solution to Student Debt is to Get the Banks Out of the Education Business

Why Doesn't Bloomberg Go To Jail With Him?

John Haggerty was ordered to jail today to start serving his sentence for defrauding the Bloomberg campaign back in 2009 to the tune of $1.2 million dollars:

John Haggerty was convicted in December 2011 of second-degree grand larceny and second-degree money laundering charges.

Haggerty was found guilty of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mayor Bloomberg that was supposed to go toward an Election Day poll watching operation.

The political operative instead used the money to buy a house.

Prior to his court appearance Tuesday, Haggerty had been out on bail pending an appeal.

He will spend at least 16 months behind bars and have to pay Bloomberg $750,000 in restitution.

Meanwhile the man who used Haggerty's Independence Party to launder money and skirt campaign finance laws - Mayor Michael Bloomberg - has not been held accountable at all for his crime.

Funny how that is.

Microsoft And News Corp. Both Under Investigation For Bribery Of Overseas Officials

First News Corp. and the Wall Street Journal was investigated for allegedly bribing Chinese officials.

Now Microsoft is under similar investigation:

SEATTLE — Federal authorities are examining Microsoft’s involvement with companies and individuals that are accused of paying bribes to overseas government officials in exchange for business, according to a person briefed on the inquiry.

 The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have both opened preliminary investigations into bribery accusations involving Microsoft in China, Italy and Romania, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is a confidential legal matter. 

Microsoft’s practices in those countries are being looked at for potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a federal law passed in 1977 that prohibits American companies from making payments to government officials and others overseas to further their business interests.

...

Microsoft joins a list of about 100 other companies under investigation at present related to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to Mike Koehler, a professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Law and the author of a blog, FCPA Professor, about the anticorruption law. Because companies have such a strong incentive to settle cases of this sort, they rarely end up going to trial. 

Fines in these corruption cases can run into the tens of millions of dollars. In 2008, Siemens, the German engineering conglomerate, signed an $800 million settlement with the Justice Department and the S.E.C. to end an investigation into accusations related to the law.

So glad that NY State is going to hand over confidential data and information about children to these companies.

I'm sure they'll only do upstanding things with that data and info.

The Damage Is Done

From The Guardian:

Experts warned that even if the levy on deposits below €100,000 was axed entirely, it would not be enough to restore confidence in the bank guarantee system put in place across the eurozone.

"The craziest thing about the Cyprus announcement is the huge potential cost of undermining the spirit of the bank deposit guarantee for what is a small saving in the overall scheme of European finances. Even if policymakers row back from taxing small depositors in Cyprus, the damage has been done," said Tristan Cooper, analyst at the fund managers Fidelity Worldwide.

They can try and undo the damage all they want.

It's baked in now.

When the shit hits the fan, they burn depositors before they burn bond holders.

A commenter on The Guardian story writes:

Disgusting theft of peoples savings by the EU. The bail out - like all the bailouts - does not go to the cyprus - it goes straight to the creditors i.e. other banks. Ordinary people are being robbed in order to preserve their profits and bonuses. The talk of money laundering is pure smokescreen - a huge proportion of the money flowing the city of london is dodgey.

This is the sort of shit that corrupt dictatorships pull - how much longer are we going to let the bankers and their political puppets ravage our societies?

A very good question.

How much longer are we going to let the bankers and their political puppets ravage our societies? 

Bank Run In Cyprus

Everywhere you look lately, you see stories about how the economy has turned around. 

The Dow is at an all-time high, first time jobless claims are near a post-recession low, the real estate market is beginning to boom again, foreclosures are falling sharply.

And yet, you have a thing like this:

ATHENS — In a move that could set off new fears of contagion across the euro zone, anxious depositors lined up at cash machines in Cyprus on Saturday to withdraw money hours after European officials in Brussels required that part of a new 10 billion euro bailout must be paid for directly from the bank accounts of ordinary savers.

The move — a first in the three-year-old European financial crisis — revived fears that bank runs could be set off elsewhere in the euro zone, especially after a top European official on Saturday declined to rule out similar measures on depositors in countries beyond Cyprus. 

Under an emergency deal reached early Saturday in Brussels, a one-time tax of 9.9 percent is to be levied on Cypriot bank deposits of more than 100,000 euros effective Tuesday, hitting wealthy depositors — mostly Russians who have put vast sums into Cyprus banks in recent years. But even deposits under that amount would be taxed at 6.75 percent, meaning that Cyprus’s creditors will be taking money directly from pensioners, workers and regular depositors to pay off the bailout tab. 

“What the deal reflects is that being an unsecured or even secured depositor in euro area banks is not as safe as it used to be,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, an economist and European specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “We are in a new world.”

Market Oracle puts this in some perspective:

Overnight last night, the Eurogroup (Eurozone executive committee) negotiated a deal for a bailout of the banking system in Cyprus. As part of the deal, a one-time, one-off levy on depositors was agreed: deposits below €100,000 are subject to a 6.75% levy, while those over €100,000 are subject to a 9.99% "fine".

While none of the timing is surprising - late Friday, early Saturday is always the ideal time to push such measures down people's throats -, neither did it come as a surprise that a bank run ensued as soon as those few Cypriot banks that do business on Saturday mornings, opened their doors.

This had been foreseen, of course. And so capital controls had been set up beforehand. In this case, limited deposit withdrawals and a full suspension of internet banking. The justification for all this can be found in the large amounts of Russian - allegedly black market - deposits in Cyprus. But while that may be presented as justification, it's by no means not where the potential fall-out will halt.

After all, what's to say that what can be done to depositors in Cyprus' banks, cannot just as easily be repeated for Greek, Italian, Spanish ones? If the EU wasn't yet scared enough of Beppe Grillo and his still surging popularity, now would be a good time to start being afraid. While everyone's focus is on the Russian mob, nobody (just read the press reports today) talks about the law-abiding Cypriots who see their hard earned savings wealth forcibly taken from them. Nobody but the likes of Grillo, that is. Who said earlier this week that (northern) Europe would drop Italy like a stone once German, French and Dutch banks have shed their risky Italian assets.

Besides, if you think the Russian deposit holders are fatally wounded right now, think again. They've seen this coming for at least 6 months, they've had all the time they need to move assets around, and, if anything, will simply use this decision to launder a lot of capital, and happily pay a 10% fee for the honor.

Cyprus is small, and the hope is that hardly anyone will notice what happens there, or be interested. But throughout the Eurozone over the past five years, deposit guarantees have risen, in a so far pretty successful attempt to prevent bank runs. Overnight, that model has now been thrown out with the bathwater. And all of Europe should be wary of what happened. A precedent has been set, and what's good for the goose fits the gander.

Not that German, French, Dutch depositors will lose sleep right this moment, but then that's precisely the idea. The EU core nations have so far been able to convince their citizens that they are rich and their economies recovering, and everything's under control. Moreover, the story that Russian criminals get a 10% haircut goes down well among the respectable citizenry. What happens if and when Italy or Spain need a bailout like Cyprus is not even considered. But maybe that's not so smart.

The Cyprus bailout was ostensibly executed to "save the Eurozone”. And it was presented as a one-off. But so was Greece and its forced haircuts for investors. You can only have so many one-offs and remain credible. European economies are all still deteriorating, though admittedly there are a few choice German numbers that are not all bad. But there can be no doubt that pressure on the EU/Eurogroup to step in again in some country will arise some time soon. Will that country's depositors leave their money in the bank when that threat becomes real, or will they take it out? What would you do now the Cyprus example is in place?

Don't worry, the economy is turning around.

Ignore the signs from abroad.

Law-abiding Cypriots having their money taken forcibly from them late Friday/early Saturday?

That could never happen here.

Go back to sleep, America.

You're government has it all under control.

You're safe, and so's your money - if you have any.

Just keep spending.

Run up those credit cards again.

Buy that house you've had your eye on.

It's all turned around and everything's swell in Barack Obama's Bank of America, er, United States of America.

Bloomberg Caught Secretly Funneling Tax Money To Real Estate Cronies

From Juan Gonzalez in the NY Daily News:

The Bloomberg administration secretly funneled more than $9 million in city property taxes to the Hudson Yards project on Manhattan’s far West Side without informing the City Council, a Daily News investigation has found.

That $9 million is on top of $234 million the mayor gave the Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corp., the private group spearheading the new 50-block district by extending the No. 7 subway line to 34th St. and 11th Ave.

This money could have gone to regular city services but went instead to a favored project of the real estate industry.

And while Mayor Bloomberg’s aides at least negotiated the bigger subsidy with the Council, they never disclosed the $9 million they allocated to Hudson Yards from the property taxes of buildings that existed before the project began.

The Olivia, for example, is a luxury building on W. 33rd St. built in 2000, five years before Hudson Yards. Yet the Olivia’s $6.7 million property tax is now subsidizing the project, finance records obtained by The News show.

Then there’s the Glass Farmhouse on W. 37th St. Converted into luxury condo lofts in 1998, its nearly $1 million property tax is also going to Hudson Yards.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, whose district includes Hudson Yards, was surprised to learn about this arrangement. “ It is important that these payments are done in a transparent way,” Quinn said.

What's worse, the Hudson Yard Project Bloomberg pushed so heavily is lagging in development and thus needing more tax money to shore it up:

Scores of hotels, office buildings and apartment buildings would quickly sprout in the area, City Hall predicted .

But the Council also reluctantly agreed to subsidize possible shortfalls in the project’s revenues during the early phase.

Eight years later, new development is drastically below projections, and the bill for city subsidies keeps growing. Last year, Hudson Yards took in just $27 million in taxes from “new construction” but had to pay $114 million in debt service.

That’s why Bloomberg has repeatedly asked the Council for subsidies for the bonds.

And just how did Bloomberg get away with secretly funneling tax money from older buildings in the area to fund the project?

City Hall did not disclose until now that $9 million of the paltry $27 million in revenue actually comes from pre-Hudson Yards buildings like the Olivia and the Glass Factory.

“There was never any discussion of involving buildings built before 2005 in paying for Hudson Yards,” said Joe Restuccia of the Clinton Housing Development Co.

The city included revenues from such buildings if their permanent certificate of occupancy was issued after January 2005, said Deputy Budget Director Ray Orlando.

The Olivia and the Glass Farmhouse got temporary certificates when they opened, but took years to get permanent ones — a loophole City Hall used to hand their tax payments to Hudson Yards. The city must pay any project shortfalls, Orlando said.

But a subsidy openly agreed to between City Hall and the Council is one thing; secret subsidies that mask Hudson Yards problems are something else.

It's a joke that Comptroller John Liu has had his political career essentially destroyed by campaign finance fraud allegations involving his aides when Bloomberg secretly routes tax money to a project run by his real estate cronies and nothing happens to him.

In fact, this isn't the first time Bloomberg has funneled tax dollars to his real estate cronies at Hudson Yards, as Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News reported back in December 2102:

Private developers were supposed to pay for the grand Hudson Yards project on Manhattan’s far West Side, but right now taxpayers are being made to finance an ever-growing bill for the development.

The Bloomberg administration paid $234 million during fiscal year 2012 to a city-created development group that oversees the huge new commercial and residential complex, one of the mayor's most ambitious projects.

City Hall quietly earmarked most of that money — $155 million — to the Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corp. in late June, because the group has not been generating enough revenue to pay the annual interest due on $3 billion in bonds it issued.

Hudson Yards Corp. floated those $3 billion in bonds to pay for an extension of the MTA’s 7 subway line to 34th St. and 11th Ave., plus a new boulevard that will run between 10th and 11th Ave. Initial plans by Bloomberg’s aides called for private developers to pay enough money in fees, air rights, and taxes to Hudson Yards Corp. to pay back the $3 billion in bonds.
 

But when the City Council approved that plan in 2005, the Council also agreed that if revenues from private developers were not sufficient to pay debt service in the early years, the city would make up the shortfall.

In fiscal 2012 alone, six years after the project started, the city transferred $79 million to Hudson Yards Corp. from the general budget to make up for anemic revenues from developers. That’s nearly double the $42 million it paid in 2011.

Then in June, in the midst of final budget negotiations with the Council, Bloomberg aides added another $155 million to help Hudson Yards Corp. make up for even bigger revenue shortfalls expected for both 2013 and 2014, a city official with knowledge of the transaction said.

“Consistent with the city’s general approach to managing its budget and debt service, the city decided to make a grant to HYIC at the end of FY (fiscal year) 2012 to pre-fund future (interest) costs,” David Farber, spokesman for Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corp., or HYIC, said.

And that's not all the money the public is forking out.

This column reported last December that an analysis by the city's Independent Budget Office found nearly $160 million of additional “infrastructure projects” related to Hudson Yards that Bloomberg’s people have buried in the budgets of other agencies.

All the rosy predictions have not materialized of a new commercial district springing up in the Hudson Yards area once a new subway got underway.

So much money going to subsidize Bloomberg's real estate cronies - some of it without the knowledge or approval of the City Council.

No wonder Bloomberg wants to cut $260 million from city schools even if a judge refuses to allow Cuomo to cut $260 million in state education aid.

Bloomberg wants to funnel that money to his real estate and business cronies.