Disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford stubbornly won’t give up his post. (We’re taking bets whether his wife will be standing by him when he does it.) (NYT) Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff goes to court today to receive his punishment, which will likely be a life sentence. (Bloomberg) Supreme Court Justice David Souter will decide his …
Andrew Stecker
Posts by Andrew Stecker
Countdown to Sanford’s resignation, day 3
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford isn’t leaving the headlines just yet. Turns out, he visited his mistress in Argentina on a taxpayer-funded mission. Here’s the real question: why does the governor of South Carolina need to take a “business development trip” to Argentina? (NYT) Not to be overshadowed in the news by someone with a …
A.I.G. releases a payment plan
A.I.G. fully intends to pay back the Federal Reserve Bank of New York … eventually. (NYT) First Spitzer, then Ensign, now Sanford. Politicians just can’t seem to keep it in their pants. (NYT) The auto industry isn’t out of the economic fog just yet. Toyota’s brand new president, Akio Toyoda, predicts two more tough years before a …
New York Times is on Pimco’s speed dial
On Sunday, The New York Times ran “Bill Gross of Pimco is on Treasury’s Speed-Dial,” a lengthy article on the cozy relations between PIMCO executives Bill Gross and Mohamed El-Erian and the Treasury Department. The piece had the confessional tone that is commonplace these days on the Times business page. To seek absolution for rapaciously …
Where’s PPIP?
For several weeks beginning in late March, Tim Geithner and others on the Rubin wing of the White House expended significant political capital convincing the listless business press and the broader electorate that PPIP, the taxpayer-subsidized toxic asset removal program, was the only way forward. Two months later, and without any PPIP toxic transfers, Geithner …
At confession on Friday night
The Times reports today on extensive financial ties between financial industry players including Citigroup and D.E. Shaw and leading Obama economic advisers Lawrence Summers and Michael Froman. Some in the media, ranging from this blog to Times columnist Frank Rich, have been sounding alarm bells for months about the cozy relations between the White House, …
A closer look at a toxic avenger
To paraphrase Paul Krugman, it looks like the zombies have won. Insolvent banks continue to roam the earth, sucking up unfathomable sums of taxpayer capital, provided to hedge fund intermediaries as nonrecourse loans. The scheme is designed to create inflated “auction” prices by incentivizing investors to over-bid on assets which carry almost no downside risk …
The Protégés
In earlier posts, we’ve highlighted Robert Rubin‘s network of protégés, who have assumed nearly every economic policy post of consequence in the Obama White House. In spite of his abysmal record of institutional leadership – Citigroup entered penny stock territory on Friday and Harvard, where Rubin’s influence as a member of the Corporation is unrivaled, …
Roberts’ reign
After spending the better part of five years running for office, a victorious John F Kennedy set out to realize the promises made in the course of his 1960 presidential campaign, which was built on the New Frontier theme. As William Domhoff recounts in The Powers That Be, while Kennedy was an expert campaigner, he …