The SEC has subpoenaed them, and the state of New York has filed fraud charges against them.
Someone has been a very bad boy.
Month: August 2008
Auto Maker Meltdown News
GM, Toyota, Ford, and Chrysler and Nissan took huge US sales hits, were down year over year by double digits in July, while Honda was down by about 3%, and Nissan was up by 8%.
GM got hit particularly badly, they posted a $15.5 billion loss.
China eases Internet restrictions for foreign journalists
Economics Update
Well, the official unemployment rate climbed to a 4 year high, 5.5%, and total number of jobs fell by 51K, the 7th straight monthly drop in a row, in July.
We’re in a recession. Get over it.
Manufacturing actually did a bit better than expected in July, it was flat, though much of that was military and exports driven by a weak dollar, but I’ll take what I can get.
In the monoliner insurance follies, we have good news for AMBAC, they paid Citigroup $850 million to get out of a $1.4 billion guarantee on some collateralized debt obligations (CDO).
It’s being reported as good news for AMBAC, which says something about the qualities of said CDOs.
As bad as the job news was, it was better than expected, so the dollar strengthened in international trading.
In energy, the employment report drove oil up too, though retail gasoline is back below $3.90/gallon. Woo hoo!!
Zimbabwe Update
Well, we now have a report that Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe offered Morgan Tsvangirai the vice presidency, a position with no powers, in negotiations….What I expected.
It’s no surprise then that there are reports that the negotiations are deadlocked, though talks are supposed Zimbabwe’s crisis talks to resume Sunday.
One interesting development is that Botswana is threatening to boycott of the summit of the next Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit if Mugabe is allowed to attend, which indicates, I think, some level of dissatisfaction with Thabo Mbeki’s mediation efforts.
An unfortunate development is that Mugabe is considering stopping a court action on disputed parliamentary seats:
Fearing an imminent court defeat that would further increase MDC’s parliamentary majority Robert Mugabe’s military junta is considering a law forbidding the courts to invalidate his defeated Zanu (PF) party’s victories in 60 constituencies facing legal challenges, official sources say.
The MDC is challenging the results of the March 29 elections in 60 constituencies, where they say electoral fraud, violence and intimidation of voters compromised the returns.
These are not the actions of a man, or a party, willing to negotiate in good faith.
One final note, they have dropped 10 zeros off the currency, meaning that a 10 billion Zimbabwean dollar is now 1 new Zimbabwean dollar, to deal with inflation, but with inflation running at something like 15,000,000%, it will not help for long.
This may finally be what takes Mugabe and his cronies down.
McCain’s Campaign Co-Chair Tied to Corrupt Lobbyist
Stephen Payne, who was caught on tape selling access to the White House, and tied to McCain’s senior foreign policy guy, has now also been tied to his campaign co-chair, and major fund raiser, Fred Zeidman.
He was a senior member of, Payne’s efforts lobbying on behalf of corrupt autocratic oil rich regimes.
Another day, another bit of Republican slime.
Military Stonewalling on Rape
This is a serious problem, but ordering your top official on sexual abuse to ignore a Congressional subpoena only makes it look like you are trying to cover up the problem….because you ARE covering up the problem.
The only real question is whether this is a systemic problem with the military, or an artifact of the military being broken by Iraq.
Still the statistics, 41% of female veterans saying that they have been raped and an 8% prosecution rate, are mind boggling if only half accurate.
Trust GOP to Favor the Forces of Evil, Comcast Edition
The FCC took a vote to order Comcast to stop throttling internet applications.
What is interesting is the pressure that Republicans put on FCC chairman Kevin Martin to vote for Comcast having the right to throttle applications.
Here is a question for you, “Are the Republicans f%$#ing insane?!?!?”
Seriously, I can think of no entity in American life more universally loathed than the cable companies, and the Republicans were going on record supporting these folks?
Karadzic: Holbrooke Promised No War Crimes Trial
Between a Karadzic and Holbrooke, I won’t venture a guess on who to trust, as I’ve never believed that Holbrooke’s casual slip about Valerie Plame was unintentional.
Holbrook could have promised this, or he could have not promised this, or he could have said it in a private moment with no intention of following through with his promise.
I don’t know, but I do not trust Richard Holbrooke.
Our Friends in Pakistan
Well, it looks like our friends in the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, helped plan the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.
I believe that there is a serious need to reevaluate our relationship with Pakistan, and make it a bit more conditional.
Ft. Detrick Scientist Targeted in Anthrax Probe, Commits Suicide
His name was Bruce Ivins, and it appears that his arrest was imminent.
More important than the possibility, and no evidence has been presented, that the Anthrax mailer has been identified is the question about who lied to the press about the presence of Bentonite in the spores.
Not only was this completely untrue, there were none in the samples, but it was used to point a finger at Iraq, which, unlike the US, used Bentonite in its bio-weapons program.
Glenn Breenwald has a rundown of how the press, ABC in particular, were used to finger Iraq for the Anthrax by mentioning non-existent Bentonite.
Who were the government sources who were lying to the press? Was Bruce Ivins one of them? Was this a part of a concerted effort to gin up support for the attack on Iraq?
Maybe the Smiler Can Share a Cell With the Shrub in the Hague
Because it is now clear that US intelligence operatives were torturing detainees at the British base of Diego Garcia.
Tony Blair, pack your toothbrush.
McCain Loses the Wall Street Journal
We have a straight news story that calls out his hypocrisy
RACINE, Wis. — Sen. John McCain continues to slam rival Barack Obama for wanting to raise taxes on Social Security, even as he periodically explains that he might be willing to do the same.
Pretty amazing. They are actually checking out what he says.
Then there is a columnist who literally asks, “Is John McCain Stupid?” and says that “This isn’t a flip-flop. It’s a sex-change operation.”
And he loses Howie “Mr. Conflict of Interest” Kurtz, whose wife is a Republican consultant, when he describes McCain as having, “gone tabloid“.
IAEA Approves Inspection Regime with India
So now various countries’ nuclear power industries have a green light to enter into business arrangements with India for civilian nuclear power.
My emotions are mixed on all this, because I don’t see how this won’t benefit their nuclear weapons program.
On the Never Ending OOXML Wars
Well, first, and least important is the appearance on Wikileaks of a document on the fast track process which seems to imply that the fast track approval of the Microsoft® OOXML document standard was improper.
Someone with more knowledge than me needs to check it out though, it’s only 2 pages.
Of more note, is that Microsoft® will natively support ODF in Office. The head of Griffin Brown, the organization nominally in charge of maintaining the ODF standard thinks that this will relegate OOXML to second place status, but I’m more inclined to believe that this is an attempt to “embrace and extend” (damage) ODF to the maximum degree possible.
McCain’s Brain Owned by Achmed Chalabi
This time, it’s his chief foreign policy guy, Randy Scheunemann, who Achmed Chalabi, Iranian agent, corrupt banker, and general con man calls a “Close Friend.”
As Lionel Beehner puts it, “What puzzles me is his long and distinguished résumé of being wrong on pretty much every major foreign policy issue of our time.”