End of the Hedge Fund? By Sebastian Mallaby December 18, 2008 For sheer toe-curling embarrassment, it may be a while before Wall Street does better than the Bernard Madoff scandal. Here was a rogue who practically telegraphed his unreliability by hiring a tiny, no-name audit firm, by reporting monthly investment results that never fluctuated and […]
Harry Markopolis first turned in Bernard Madoff to the S.E.C. in 1999. Later, in a scathing 2005 letter entitled "The World’s Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud," he outlines no less than 28 red flags about the Operation and suggests two possible scenarios for Bernard Madoff’s fraud, the highly likely one being that it was […]
This graph is of gasoline prices from 1979 to the present. In 2003, around the time that we went to war in Iraq, they started shooting up until midsummer this year when they plummeted. As we stood at the gas pump, we thought about dwindling oil reserves on Planet Earth, the Arabian Sheiks who are […]
Drop in consumer prices is most since 1932 By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch Dec. 16, 2008 U.S. consumer prices fell in November at the fastest rate since 1932, the darkest days of the Great Depression, the Labor Department reported Tuesday, as prices for energy, commodities and airline fares plunged across the country. The U.S. consumer price […]
Cheney Beckons Obama to the Dark Side By Dan Froomkin Washington Post December 16, 2008 Question: "But you’ve heard leaders, the incoming Congress saying that this policy has basically been torture and illegal wiretapping, and that they want to undo basically the central tenets of your anti-terrorist policy." Cheney: "They’re wrong. On the question of […]
am⋅biv⋅a⋅lence /æmˈbɪvÉ™lÉ™ns/ –noun 1. uncertainty or fluctuation, esp. when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things. 2. Psychology. the coexistence within an individual of positive and negative feelings toward the same person, object, or action, simultaneously drawing him or her in […]
Be the Change by Marc Ash … People always vote for change. Every vote is cast in the belief that it will make a difference, that things can change. But no vote ever brings about change… The election of Barack Obama may not guarantee change. but has already created that sense of empowerment. People walked […]
Obama: Review Finds No ‘Inappropriate’ Contacts With Blagojevich Update | 5:35 p.m. President-elect Barack Obama said Monday that an internal review has found his advisers were “not involved in inappropriate discussions” with Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich or his staff, but Mr. Obama has agreed to a request by federal prosecutor’s to withhold the review […]
Track Data Announces Addition of Bernard L. Madoff for Trade Executions Through Its myTrack Service Business Wire Feb 22, 2001 Track Data Corporation today announced that it has added Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC as another direct routing destination for stock trades placed through myTrack, its Internet-based online trading and market data service. "You […]
The Fed Who Blew the Whistle Is he a hero or a criminal? Michael Isikoff – NEWSWEEK …In the spring of 2004, Tamm had just finished a yearlong stint at a Justice Department unit handling wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies—a unit so sensitive that employees are required to put their hands through a biometric […]