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Category Archives: Corporate Crime

Obama’s Legacy

Saturday, February 23, 2013

It is an unfortunate fact that Barack Obama will not go down in history as another Franklin Roosevelt, though the times and circumstances conspired to give him the opportunity, had he grabbed for it. We forget that he started his presidency with commanding majorities in both houses; but failed to use them to take decisive […]

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Always look on the bright side of life

Monday, February 18, 2013

Here’s what you call mixed good news, about which I intend to follow the Python’s advice: WalMart executives are freaking out over lousy sales, according to this article in Business Insider. After a disastrous January, one WalMart exec wrote in an email that February sales so far are a “total disaster,” according to a Bloomberg […]

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Shameless muckraking at the Times

Sunday, January 20, 2013

According to the New York Times, the recent “fiscal cliff” deal was a good deal for drug maker Amgen: Just two weeks after pleading guilty in a major federal fraud case, Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology firm, scored a largely unnoticed coup on Capitol Hill: Lawmakers inserted a paragraph into the “fiscal cliff” bill that […]

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Yet another installment of “What Could Go Wrong?”

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

I just finished Robert Sheer’s book, The Great American Stickup, which traces the roots of the current economic crisis back to the early 90s, when a bi-partisan (isn’t bi-partisanship great?) group of scam artists, including Phil Gramm and his wife Wendy on the R side, and Robert Rubin and Larry Summers on the D side, […]

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Beggars can be choosers

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

What a great country! Beggars can be choosers, provided, of course, that they’re rich enough. Fresh from paying back a $182 billion bailout, the American International Group has been running a nationwide advertising campaign with the tagline “Thank you America.” Behind the scenes, the restored insurance company is weighing whether to tell the government agencies […]

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Bankers are different than you and me

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Imagine, if you will, that you were the plaintiff in one or more lawsuits. Imagine that you submitted evidence to a court knowing that it was fraudulent, or, upon learning it was fraudulent, failed to make the court aware of that fact. Now imagine that just about everyone knew what you’d done or were doing, […]

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Speaking of Socialism

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Apropos the previous post, there are some areas in which we are the victims of a sort of perverse creeping loser socialism. It’s a national disgrace, but rarely mentioned. One of those rare mentions occurred today. The New York Times is now running a multipart series about the fiscal impact of tax “incentives” that are […]

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All Hail the Job Creators

Friday, November 30, 2012

A bankruptcy judge has approved bonuses for the job creators who successfully steered Hostess into bankruptcy. The update on the sale of the company’s brands comes as Hostess seeks approval in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York in White Plains, N.Y. to give its top executives bonuses totaling up to $1.8 […]

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History Repeats Itself

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Sad but not surprising news out of Bangladesh: MUMBAI — More than 100 people died Saturday and Sunday in a fire at a garment factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, in one of the worst industrial tragedies in that country. It took firefighters all night to put out the blaze at the factory, Tazreen Fashions, after it […]

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The rich are different than you and me

Thursday, October 18, 2012

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” But to be fair, both rich and poor are barred from insider trading. Federal prosecutors want Rajat K. Gupta, once one of the world’s most prominent businessmen, to […]

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