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Another corporate wizard wreaks destruction 

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

There is a myth, widely although not universally believed, that we don’t need politicians running this country, we need businessmen and business women. It matters not that successful businessmen (or women) rarely make good politicians, and have never made a great one. In fact, it appears to be universally true that if you have an organization whose mission is anything other than making money, a sure way to destroy it is to put a business person in charge. Consider what is happening to the American Red Cross. A few years ago they had to fire their chief executive because he did the hanky-panky. So, they brought in a businesswoman. How did that work out:

When Gail McGovern was picked to head the American Red Cross in 2008, the organization was reeling. Her predecessor had been fired after impregnating a subordinate. The charity was running an annual deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars.

A former AT&T executive who had taught marketing at Harvard Business School, McGovern pledged to make the tough choices that would revitalize the Red Cross, which was chartered by Congress to provide aid after disasters. In a speech five years ago, she imagined a bright future, a “revolution” in which there would be “a Red Cross location in every single community.’’

It hasn’t worked out that way.

McGovern and her handpicked team of former AT&T colleagues have presided over a string of previously unreported management blunders that have eroded the charity’s ability to fulfill its core mission of aiding Americans in times of need.

Under McGovern, the Red Cross has slashed its payroll by more than a third, eliminating thousands of jobs and closing hundreds of local chapters. Many veteran volunteers, who do the vital work of responding to local fires and floods have also left, alienated by what many perceive as an increasingly rigid, centralized management structure.

Far from opening offices in every city and town, the Red Cross is stumbling in response to even smaller scale disasters.

Via ProPublica

The linked article demonstrates pretty clearly that the Red Cross is failing in it’s core mission. Not only that, it’s also failing in it’s non-core mission: it’s losing money hand over fist. However, McGovern has made sure that those former AT&T colleagues of hers get their fat bonuses every year. The Red Cross has a great brand; it will take many years for McGovern to completely destroy it. In the meantime, unless someone (and she’s probably packed the board to make sure this can’t happen) steps in and stops her, she and her buddies can continue to grow rich off that brand, while the rest of us learn, disaster by disaster, that we can’t count on the Red Cross to ride to our rescue anymore.

As for McGovern, if her board ever does get around to firing her, she can always run for president. She could certainly fit into Carly Fiorina’s shoes.

Filed in Corporate Crime, Uncategorized | | Comments (0)

New London scores a court victory 

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

This will come as no surprise to many, but either I don’t read the New London Day closely enough, or the Day is falling down on the job. (Well, the Day is always falling down on the job) Anyway, today I read this:

A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

via ABC News

What enlightened city turned Mr. Jordan down? The City of New London! The little city right across the river from the agglomeration of neighborhoods in which I reside. I have no personal responsibility for the doings in New London, as I don’t even get a vote. Still, I feel a sense of shame. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see such a story coming out of somewhere in Alabama, but it breaks my heart to know that nearby New London (and who knows, maybe Groton has a similar rule) wants to put a cap on the intelligence that cops can bring to bear on difficult situations. Isn’t it nice to know, too, that such a policy essentially insures that there won’t be any smarty pants types rising to be chiefs of police.

The court’s decision was undoubtedly correct, legally speaking. Intelligent people have not yet been identified as a suspect class. That may very well change if one of the clowns running for President happens to get elected, but for now smart people can’t claim a history of discrimination. New London is out to change all that. 

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Deja vu all over again

Monday, December 14, 2015

Last week we saw shades of 2007 with both a hedge fund and junk bond mutual fund halting the ability of investors to withdraw funds. An additional credit hedge fund announced it is shutting down. The problem this time around is a dearth of liquidity (read buyers’ strike) for junk bonds. In 2007 the problem was subprime mortgage backed securities and related derivatives.

…

Suddenly last week, complacent investors in mutual funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and hedge funds invested in junk bonds awakened to the Will Rogers’ wisdom that: “I’m not as concerned about the return on my money as I am the return of my money.” There is now a stampede for the exits – and in some cases, no exit ramp.

The Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund, a mutual fund which is supposed to be able to meet daily redemption requests, announced late last week that it is freezing withdrawals of investor money until it is able to liquidate its $788.5 million in corporate debt and junk bonds (also known as “high yield” bonds). Reuters reports that “Third Avenue’s fund had nearly half its assets in below ‘B’ rated debt, compared to the peer average of just 12 percent, according to Morningstar Inc data.”

In addition, a hedge fund, Stone Lion Capital Partners, said last week that it is suspending withdrawals of investors’ money from its $400 million credit portfolio.

…

The question on everyone’s mind this week is if the junk bond market could trigger the kind of systemic contagion that unraveled the financial system in 2008. One major concern is just how large the perpetually blindfolded regulators have allowed this market to grow. Moody’s, the ratings agency, puts the high yield bond market at $1.8 trillion today, versus the $994 billion it represented at the end of 2008.

Via Wall Street on Parade

If it happens between now and the election, it will almost certainly put a Republican in the White House, a Republican sure to pursue policies that will not only make things worse, but will guarantee a repeat. The only bright side, and it’s fairly dim, is that the Democrats would likely be called back in 2020 to clean up the mess, which, if they are still controlled by Wall Street, they will promptly proceed to do as effectively as they did in 2009.

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Bernie should count his blessings

Friday, December 11, 2015

An analysis of network television news coverage reveals what supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders have long suspected; the three broadcast television networks are intentionally ignoring the Sanders campaign.

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters has the revealing details:

So in terms of stand-alone campaign stories this year, it’s been 234 minutes for Trump, compared to 10 minutes for Sanders. And at ABC World News Tonight, it’s been 81 minutes for Trump and less than one minute for Sanders.

via Politicus USA

I wouldn’t complain if I were Bernie (I just found out that he did). His message is getting through to the people who are receptive to it, since there are a lot more channels for information now than there were, say, 16 years ago. If the corporate media choose to ignore Bernie, it means they are passing up the chance to smear him. That may come all in their good time, but there does come a time when the public perception is set in stone, and it becomes much harder to change opinions, particularly in a time when people have so many choices of news sources. No doubt the corporations will someday squeeze the independent voices off the internet, but that hasn’t happened yet. So Bernie is lucky that the Sunday morning shows or whatever are ignoring him. They are losing their chance to shape the narrative about him, and when they get around to doing that they may find it’s too late.

Filed in Media, Uncategorized | | Comments (0)

Why am I not jittery?

Monday, December 7, 2015

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

Franklin Roosevelt

What a quaint notion.

I’m told by the New York Times that Obama recently addressed a “jittery” nation. I read elsewhere that more than half of us now want to get ourselves into a another quagmire in the Middle East, because doing so will apparently ease our jitters.

Apparently, we get jittery if Muslims use automatic weapons to kill us, but when white males do so we say a few prayers, bemoan the omnipresence of mental illness, and promptly forget about it. Not a single jitter, really, and yet the victims of the white male are just as dead as the victims of the Muslims, and they die so very much more often.

I’m not at a total loss to explain my own lack of jitters. At least I have a theory. My spouse shares my affliction. We speculated, (alas, I have no scientific basis for this), that our jitter level is directly proportional to our consumption of non-print media. That consumption being zero, we are not exposed to the constant barrage of media coverage of these events, the subtext of which is that we should all be very jittery indeed. Fear itself is now a very good thing. We are encouraged to be fearful by the media; law enforcement types; politicians (mostly Rs, but some Ds); and presidential candidates of only one stripe. We are an impressionable people. Who are we to question such a consensus? If they say we should be jittery, then we do as we are told, despite what math may tell us about the odds of being killed by a Muslim as opposed to, say, a white male. If that means taking precisely the actions most likely to increase killings by Muslims (the white male killings will go on of course, but that’s just background noise), then we must take that action now. After all, what could go wrong?

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This country is going bananas

Friday, December 4, 2015

So today I went to my bank (Chelsea Groton, a local bank that is not too big to fail) to deposit a check. All the tellers were wearing a button that notified me that it was okay to say “Merry Christmas” to them, as they wanted to keep Christ in Christmas. The probability is that they had no choice in the matter, so I said nothing, other than to wish the teller “Happy Holidays” when I left. The buttons were provided by the Knights of Columbus, which one must imagine is an organization stocked almost solely by aging white males who are spending their golden years watching Fox News.

This war on Christmas stuff is yet another, and to my mind a significant sign, that this country is going bananas. Apparently, Christmas is not endangered by rampant commercialism, but it is endangered by the recognition that there are non-Christians in this country who deserve consideration.

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Cognitive dissonance

Friday, December 4, 2015

In case you are not familiar with the term, “cognitive dissonance” is defined as follows:

In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.

via Wikipedia

So here’s something akin to cognitive dissonance. Today I received an email from Joe Courtney telling me he voted to restrict people on the terrorist watch list from getting guns. I’ve differed with Joe on a couple of things lately, see here and here, but I’m totally with him on this one. Also, totally against him. How’s that for dissonance?

I’m totally with him because in any rational world the proposed legislation makes perfect sense, though it of course only scratches the surface so far as what’s needed by way of gun control.

But I’m totally against him because the terrorist watch list is stocked full of people who aren’t terrorists, and moreover, never were. They are denied any due process or method to clear their names. There’s a legal term for the process used to put people on the list: arbitrary and capricious.

Not surprising, is it? This is the U.S. in the age of paranoia after all.

So, is it fair to single these “terrorists” out? Probably not. Are the Republicans being hypocritical for failing to do so in this instance? Is there any doubt? They’d be happy to vote to put them all in concentration camps, but take away their guns? Never!

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Who’s the greatest grifter of them all?

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

The evil stepmother’s magic mirror would have a tough time with this question, but I think Mike Huckabee is making a strong run for the title. He has branched out beyond politics in his hucksterism:

Last year, a man named Brian Chambers announced a world-changing advance: An international research organization called the Health Sciences Institute had found an incredible cure for cancer hidden in the Book of Matthew. For just $74, you, too, could discover the secret.

That was the breathless pitch emailed to hundreds of thousands of Huckabee’s followers in January, beneath a “special message” from the Republican presidential candidate trumpeting “important information.” Upon closer inspection, the divine remedy—eating fewer carbs—was never recommended by St. Matthew. Chambers is not a doctor, and the studies on starvation diets he cited make no mention of “cures.”

via Mother Jones

If it’s true that there’s a sucker born every minute, Huckabee seems to want to make sure that there’s a dead sucker for every newborn. You would think he’d have a vested interest in keeping them alive, inasmuch as once they’re dead, he can’t grift them anymore. Okay, I know that Carson has also been flogging quack cures, and it’s arguably worse when he does it, given that he really is a doctor, incredible as that may seem. Still, Carson is a relative newcomer. Huckabee is a seasoned veteran, so right now, he’s my candidate for greatest grifter of them all.

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A tiny point of light

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

George the first promised a thousand of them, but they never seem to have appeared. However, there’s one point of light about this story, documenting some shady corporate entities funneling money into Jeb! Bush’s PAC:

In February, a limited liability company called TH Holdings LLC donated $100,000 to Right to Rise, the super-PAC supporting Jeb Bush’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination. That’s not extraordinary; quite a few LLCs have donated to the super-PAC, which has so far raised more than $103 million. But TH Holdings is a special case—one that represents the worst-case scenario in the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape: untraceable corporations shoveling untraceable cash into the political system. Beyond this six-figure contribution, the company appears to have no history of doing business anywhere. And its incorporation records reveal no owners, managers, or officers.

The article goes on to detail a number of other examples of shadow corporations donating money to the Bush campaign.

So where’s the point of light? Well, at least so far as the examples cited in this article, the money is all going to Jeb!, which means it might as well have been flushed down the toilet. He’s going nowhere. If Trump doesn’t get it, it will be Cruz, who may very well be getting dark money contributions of his own. But these days, you take your points of light where you can get them.

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All together now: Just a disturbed loner

Saturday, November 28, 2015

From the New York Times:

Officials from both law enforcement and Planned Parenthood said they did not know whether the group’s Colorado Springs center had been specifically targeted. But the attack carried echoes of other violent assaults on abortion providers, and it prompted the police in New York City to deploy units to Planned Parenthood clinics in the city.

But we know, don’t we? If you’ve seen pictures of the building, you know that the words “Planned Parenthood” were written in letters about 10 feet high. You also know that Planned Parenthood has been the target of a vicious smear campaign organized from the beginning by the Republican Party, which has made charges that have been found to be bogus by investigations all over the country. There is a clear and direct line from these vicious and unfounded attacks and this incident in Colorado. We all know that.

So I ask you, WWTRD (What would the Republicans do?) if the situation were somehow reversed, and the Democrats had, let’s say, accused the NRA of being the criminal’s lobby and enabling terrorism, after which Wayne Lapierre met an oh so delicious and ironic fate?

Let’s first put aside the fact that the Democrats charges would have been true and the scenario itself unlikely (as this one was not). That’s irrelevant to this discussion. The Republicans would immediately blame Democrats, Obama first and foremost. The lines of attack would have been coordinated. Every Republican would be making statements that were variants of an agreed upon theme, and despite the fact that in this scenario the Democrats would have no moral responsibility, they would all immediately assume defensive crouches. Their response, if any, would be entirely uncoordinated, consisting mostly of mumbled half apologies.

That’s what would happen, more or less. So here’s a prediction about the Democratic response to this Republican inspired massacre. A few lonely voices will point out the connection. They will be met with a furious Republican counter-attack, both from the Republicans themselves and Fox News. Other Democrats will remain silent. The white male shooter will be written off as a disturbed loner. The lying attacks in and out of Congress on Planned Parenthood will continue, until the next disturbed loner comes along.

UPDATE: Well, good for Bernie:

In a statement, Sen. Sanders said, “While we still do not know the shooter’s motive, what is clear is that Planned Parenthood has been the subject of vicious and unsubstantiated statements attacking an organization that provides critical health care for millions of Americans. I strongly support Planned Parenthood and the work it is doing and hope people realize that bitter rhetoric can have unintended consequences.”

Via Politicus

Not quite as specific as I’d like, we really need to make it clear that it’s Republicans doing this, and lets not presume the stuff about “unintended consequences”.

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