Issue #9 for galo gimenez
com
Danny Schechter: Homeowners "March"
Against Foreclosure
(The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed)
Submitted at 7/22/2008 9:34:54 AM
NACA's 5 Day DC Event Offers Help, And A
Way Forward
WASHINGTON JULY 20: Forty-five years ago
this summer I spent a day Marching on
Washington. Everyone remembers it as just four
words of the many uttered by Dr. Martin Luther
King: "I have a dream." After that march for justice
(and jobs), the organizers led by Bayard Rustin
returned to the Statler Hilton Hotel, now the
Capital Hilton, which was the event's headquarters.
Dr. King was there, and Malcolm X even dropped
by for a press conference of his own to warn that
non-violence was unlikely to lead to change.
It was August 28, l963, a day which is still
memorialized in the hotel's lobby. I was a civil
rights worker then, and a small fry organizer of that
historic mobilization. That night, I crashed in a
hotel room rented for SNCC, the Student Non-
violent Coordinating Committee.
Within five years, violence would claim the lives
of both Malcolm and Martin, and today, Dr. King's
children are, sadly, suing each other in part over
how best to monetize his legacy.
Today, I am back in that very same hotel,
although the name Hilton is better known now for
the antics of Baron Hilton's granddaughter Paris.
Over this past weekend, the hotel, just a few blocks
from the White House, was once again playing host
to a human rights battle, this time the fight against
foreclosures.
America's largest and most militant
homeownership organization, NACA, The
Neighborhood Assistance Corporation hired out the
grand hotel for five days, and brought 460 staffers
from 38 offices to Washington for a five day event
to demonstrate that their approach to stopping
foreclosures is superior to everything that is being
done elsewhere or proposed in Congress. They
reference "the dream" too, 45 years ago activists
wanted to claim it. Today they fight to save it.
NACA believes that making mortgages
affordable is the only way to stabilize at-risk
homeowners. They call on banks to restructure
mortgages, lower interest rates and replace
adjustable mortgages and ARMS with low fixed
rates for the long term.
To make its point, and serve the community,
NACA publicized an offer of free counseling and
advice for homeowners that included creating
modified and restructured loan proposals and
aggressively persuading lenders to accept them.
A solicitation was made in radio ads and through
direct mail. People with mortgage problems were
As Glaciers Melt, Can Artificial Ones Fill the Gap?
(WSJ.com: The Informed Reader -
WSJ.com)
Submitted at 1/31/2008 6:19:00 AM
Can artificial glaciers help compensate for the
disappearance of naturally forming ones? Scientists
and aid agencies are studying communities in
mountainous regions of India and Pakistan that
have a long tradition of assembling glaciers by
grafting together ice and snow masses, reports the
HP Printers
By Tesnick (Blog de Tesnick)
11/13/2007 - 7/22/2008
advised to make appointments on the NACA.com
website and bring their mortgage documents with
them. The event was a big and audacious gamble
by NACA's feisty CEO Bruce Marks.
Something amazing happened. Some
homeowners started arriving at 6:30 AM. Soon
lines stretched around the block. It was a march of
the We Don't Want To Be Homeless, "wearing
their troubles on their faces," as one NACA staffer
later observed. A million families face foreclosure
this year and many are trying to do something
before their lives go on the auction block. The
statistics are hard to wrap your head around; a
parade of real people can't be ignored.
By day's end, thousands of homeowners had
trekked through the NACA process which included
an orientation, the scanning of their documents into
the organization's proprietary mortgage software
and then one on one counseling in a ballroom
which had been transformed into a vast arena of
small tables, each with a HUD certified counselor
and a computer. The counselors help the
homeowners assess the affordability of their
mortgages and the prospects of their losing their
homes. They then draft sustainable budgets and a
plan.
With personal financial data in place, backed by
bank statements, mortgage paper and pay stubs,
they proposed affordable "solutions" to mortgage
servicers and banks. These call for cutting interest
rates and restructuring the mortgages at fixed rate
for 30 years. NACA negotiators emailed the
proposals to the finance companies and then
advocated for their new members.
Soon, emails started coming back from lenders
with letters accepting some of the proposals. I
spoke to some ectstatic homeowners who were
leaving after a frustrating day of waiting for new
deal that would allow them to save money and their
homes.
Officials from some banks and agencies dropped
by and marveled over this well organized, business
like and passionate first of a kind event. It clearly
showed the enormity of the foreclosure crisis and
the anger among so many homeowners who feel
victimized by the subprime ponzi scheme. It also
showed that there is a solution within reach if
lenders are willing to compromise. NACA may
take it on the road.
These people--old and young, some with
children, others in wheel chairs. came from as far
away as Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. They
were dignified and quiet, perhaps also frightened.
Many told me they have had trouble sleeping
because of worries about whether they could keep
their families together.
New Scientist. In these areas, glaciers serve as a
regular and reliable source of water in the growing
season. If their techniques can be verified, they
could bring stability to communities in areas where
climate change might have diminished glaciers,
crimping the water supply and lowering crop
yields.
According to legends, villagers in the Hindu
Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges that span
the India-Pakistan border areas have been building
feedjournal.
The event did rate some press attention, but, as is
often the case, drug related murders they night
before were, predictably, of more interest to most
local TV outlets. The CBS Evening News and Fox
News showed up. (Afterwards, the Fox cameraman
told me he was coming back with his own
mortgage documents.)
A Washington Post columnist had praised the
event the day before it happened, writing, "The
Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America
is doing something that should have been done a
long time ago.
Homeowners won't have to wait weeks for a
callback from their loan servicers. They won't have
to fret and fuss -- and in some cases cuss -- to get a
mortgage servicing company to listen to their pleas
to save their homes from foreclosure."
But when the event unfolded, exceeding
organizer's expectations, the Post did not bother to
send a reporter. The newspaper is right next door to
the hotel. Only z few of the media outlets contacted
bothered to show up.
Early next week, NACA will encourage its
homeowners to descend on Congress to
"encourage" their Senators and Representatives to
press bankers to restructure constituent's loans.
While congress debates bailouts, NACA saves
homes.
Early next week, NACA will encourage its
homeowners to descend on Congress to
"encourage" their Senators and They may be more
successful with bankers who know that getting
some payment is better than none, than with
posturing members of Congress who seem
paralyzed when it comes to helping people in need.
Last week, Bill Moyers featured journalist
William Greider who discussed, as Graig Gingold
reports, "the abject failure of the politicians in DC
to do what was called for to protect the public from
the predatory lenders."
He cites as evidence a headline from the
Washington Post: "Figures in Both Campaigns
Have Deep Ties to Mortgage Giants"
The battle lines are being joined, NACA, a
modern day David is taking on the mortgage
Goliath---and, so far, making progress Hopefully
the bloggers, gathered in their own convention in
Austin Texas, and other activists, will take notice
and realize there is more to politics than electoral
contests.
News Dissector Danny Schechter made the film
In Debt We Trust and has just finished a new book
investigating the crisis, Plunder to be published by
C o s i m o . C o m m e n t s t o
dissector@mediachannel.org
artificial glaciers for centuries – even using one to
stop the advance of Gengis Khan in the 13th
century. The artificial versions are far smaller than
regular glaciers, but can reach 800 feet in length.
Usually, the glaciers are built in rocky areas 14,800
feet above sea level. Villagers pack ice and snow in
the shadows of boulders. When winter arrives,
snow bridges the areas between the ice and, over a
few years, forms into a self-sustaining glacier.
2
Jeffrey Kluger: Cartoon Complexity
(The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed)
Submitted at 7/22/2008 9:25:31 AM
Never mind the nervous Nellies, I say kudos to
the New Yorker for its recent cover illustration of
Barack and Michelle Obama. The image of the
potential first couple as a Muslim and a terrorist,
fist-bumping in the Oval Office while an American
flag burns in the fireplace was just a crackerjack bit
of irony. The visual jujitsu the editors intended was
immediately evident. (We don't think these things
are true! We're just making fun of people who do!)
And as for anxious Democrats and other worriers
who suggest that maybe, just maybe, such a satiric
bank-shot with comedic backspin won't be quite so
clear to a broader audience--anyone outside the
Conde Nast building, for example--well, just look
at the record.
If political history shows us anything, it's that
subtlety and nuance always get through more
powerfully than a single picture or resonant sound
bite. To hear the fussbudgets tell it, you'd think that
Obama's opponents were already making hay out
of the fact that his middle name is Hussein or that
he donned traditional Ethiopian clothing while on a
state visit to Africa, even though Hussein is as
common as "Bob" in the part of the world where
Obama's father was born and politicians are forever
donning local costumes to please local hosts. You'd
think Democrats were already pounding John
McCain for allegedly saying that he wants the Iraq
war to continue for 100 more years, when all he
really said was that he doesn't much mind if a long-
term peacekeeping force remains in Iraq as long as
the shooting has stopped. You'd even think some
people still believe that Al Gore claims to have
invented the Internet, when what he did say was
that he took the legislative lead in creating the
organized Web that exists today--which he did--a
statement of fact no one would stoop to
misrepresent because, well, it just wouldn't be
sporting.
If this through-the-looking-glass world--in which
fair play and square dealing were the rules in
politics--really did exist, then the folks at the New
Deals of the Day: Will Congress Save Fannie
and Freddie This Week?
(WSJ.com: Deal Journal - WSJ.com)
Submitted at 7/22/2008 8:31:00 AM
Deals of the Day includes all the major news of
the morning related to mergers and acquisitions and
financing. For breaking deal news, turn to the
WSJ’s Deals & Deal Makers page, or click here to
automatically sign up for Deals Alert emails. The
Game
Da, we will buy you: This year has seen a spate
of merger activity by Russian firms on U.S. soil. [
WSJ] Mergers & Acquisitions
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer:
Yahoo’s agreement to appoint Icahn to its board
gives the activist investor a direct hand in any
decision about selling to Microsoft. The question is
whether Yahoo may come to regret its move.
Icahn’s saga with video rental chain Blockbuster
suggests a rocky road ahead for the new board. [
WSJ]
Related: Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft is likely to
emerge as a clear winner following the Icahn-
Yahoo accord. [ WSJ]
Blindsided: Roche’s $44 billion bid to gain full
ownership of Genentech took the staunchly
independent biotech company by surprise and risks
upsetting the highly successful — but delicate —
relationship the partners have developed over two
decades. Executives agreed to meet Tuesday to
discuss the offer. [ WSJ]
Unilever: The company sold Bertolli, one of the
HP RENUEVA EL CONCEPTO PERSONAL SYSTEM
By Tesnick (Blog de Tesnick)
Yorker really would have made a perfectly
defensible decision in running their cover. Nothing
wrong with editors indulging their puckish selves if
the 300 million of us sitting around the giant
Algonquin round table that is our nation are all in
on the joke. In the slightly more rough-and-tumble
world that actually exists, however, an election is
less an exchange of civilized badinage than of
rabbit punches, kidney jabs, and slanders so
shameless they'd make a Tammany hack blush.
And that presents problems.
There are few fields in which the increasingly
sophisticated science of simplexity--the study of
the way simple things can be improbably complex,
and complex things can be brilliantly simple--
applies more powerfully than in politics. The
Twainian dictum that a lie can make it around the
world before the truth even gets its boots on is
nothing compared to the light-speed fleetness with
which a simple idea takes hold in politics,
compared to the mud-footed slowness of a complex
one--something you'd think we'd have learned by
now. In 1976, Gerald Ford sank his own
presidential campaign when he declared that he
didn't think the East bloc was under Soviet
domination. Few rational people believed he had
really forgotten the ongoing, 30-year lockdown
Moscow had imposed on the Warsaw pact nations;
rather he was merely making the more nuanced
point that the democratic aspirations of those
countries couldn't be smothered even if their
political freedoms could be. Nonetheless, which
impression do you think stuck? In a debate four
years later, Jimmy Carter was asked the most
important issue then facing the world and he
answered nuclear proliferation, citing his 14-year-
old daughter Amy as the source of that idea.
Nobody truly thought that the President had
huddled with his child for policy guidance before
going out on stage, but rather that he was merely
reminding voters that the world we create today
will be left to our children tomorrow so we need to
listen to their hopes and fears. Now try making
these more subtle arguments when pundits are
hooting that Ford thinks Poland is a thriving
world’s bestselling olive oils, to Spain’s Grupo
SOS for €630 million. [ Times of London]
Diesel: The Italian denim brand bought a
majority stake in Viktor & Rolf, the Dutch fashion
brand. [ Daily Telegraph]
OZ Minerals: The group created by the merger of
Oxiana and Zinifex is eyeing takeover targets. [
The Australian]
Huawei: Silverlake Partners and Providence
Equity Partners have teamed up for a bid for the
Chinese technology company. Earlier this year,
Huawei was forced by U.S. regulators to kill its
plans to acquire part of 3Com. [ PEhub.com]
Financial Institutions
Dresdner Kleinwort and Morgan Stanley: The
two investment banks underwriting HBOS’s £4
billion rights issue took a £100 million paper loss
on the offering. [ Times of London]
Related: Hedge funds may have made more than
£1 billion from shorting shares in HBOS. [ The
Independent]
Fannie and Freddie: Treasury Secretary Paulson
expects Congress to approve a Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac bill this week. [ Bloomberg]
Richard X. Bove: The oft-quoted Ladenburg
Thalmann analyst is being sued by BankAtlantic,
which disagrees with his methodology in last
week’s “Who is Next to Fail” report. [ New York
Post] Buyside
GE: General Electric is joining with Mubadala,
an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund, to
democracy and Carter's got a teenager running the
NSC.
Ronald Reagan was the modern master of the
clean, lethal sound bite--the maestro of "There you
go again" and "Are you better off today than you
were four years ago?" The Bushes raised the stakes
--while lowering the game--with their toxic stew of
Willie Hortons and Swift Boats and John McCain's
nonexistent black child. But the sheer ability of the
simple--even if phony--idea to steamroll the
clumsy, complex one has been with us as long as
there have been elections.
It was into this environment that the New Yorker
released its Barack and Michelle cover, almost
certainly knowing that it would be used in
innumerable slanderous ways by innumerable
bloggers and other folks who wish Obama
something other than succcess in November. That
did both the candidate and the New Yorker itself a
disservice. In 2001, many people argued that Time
magazine ought to name Osama bin Laden as its
Person of the Year, since that year bin Laden
undeniably influenced world events for better or
worse more than any other person, which is the
historic criterion for the Person of the Year
designation. I have been a writer and editor for
Time since 1996, and though back then I was not
part of the Person of the Year discussions, I was
relieved when I learned we had chosen Rudolph
Giuliani as 2001's cover boy instead. I for one
didn't have the stomach to watch Time get villified
in the U.S. and feted in the Arab world for what
appeared to be an honor bestowed on a man who
had killed 3,000 Americans--feeling pretty
confident that our subtle for better or worse
explanation would not get heard through the din.
While the reaction to the New Yorker cover will
hardly be as passionate as all that, the magazine's
complex message will surely be simplified--and
misused--the same way. I hope that'll be worth the
laughs it got.
Jeffrey Kluger is the author of Simplexity: Why
Simple Things become Complex (and How
Complex Things Can Be Made Simple)
create an $8 billion commercial finance fund that
will invest in the Middle East and Africa. [
Bloomberg]
Hedge funds: Doing better than you think. Of
course. [ WSJ]
Inmarsat: Harbinger is suspending talks with
Inmarsat because of the lengthy regulatory process
involved, causing Inmarsat’s shares to tumble 9%.
[ Daily Telegraph]
Smooth transition: Wall Street firms handled the
SEC’s new short-selling limits, which took effect
Monday, relatively smoothly. [ WSJ]
All-Star Hedge Funds: Some 2007 stars are
having an encore year, defying skeptics who
questioned if they could keep going. [ WSJ]
Apollo: The private equity firm zigged when
others zagged. But now its bets on cyclical
industries have come back to bite it, writes John
Morris in this week’s edition of The Deal. [
TheDeal.com] People & Players
Ken Wilson: The Goldman banker will be a
formidable ally for Paulson in navigating the
current banking crisis. President Bush called
Wilson — an old business-school classmate —
pleading, “Kenny, your country needs you.”
Wilson, who was standing in line at the airport,
decided it would be obnoxious to call him Mr.
President in public, so he called him “George.”
This is how your political sausage gets made,
people. [ WSJ]
 3

Jonathan Schwarz: Looking Back: Rumsfeld

Privately Criticized Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki
As Inferior To Mass Murderers
(The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed)
Submitted at 7/22/2008 9:22:04 AM

There's no question Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-

Maliki has recently been giving the White House
and John McCain heartburn. On Saturday in an
interview with Der Spiegel he essentially endorsed
Obama's plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
Then did it again today, right after speaking with
Obama in Baghdad: After talks with Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday,
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki reaffirmed
that Iraq wants U.S. combat troops to withdraw
from Iraq by the end of 2010, a few months later
than Obama had proposed.
So it's worth looking back at the Bush
administration's private views of Maliki, as stated
by Donald Rumsfeld back in 2006.
For the recent New York Time story on the close
government ties of TV military analysts, the paper
pried loose tons of internal Pentagon records never
meant to see the light of day. Buried in the pile was
a recording of Rumsfeld having lunch with many
of the Pentagon's analysts in December, 2006 just
before he was replaced by Robert Gates. (The large
.wav file is available here.)
One section of the recording goes like this:
UNIDENTIFIED ANALYST #1: This is really
off the record, but do you think that this implemented, and you felt good about it. The WMD and Al-Qaeda ties to the media.)
government can survive -- the unity government -- fellow who proceeded Maliki [Ibrahim al-Jaafari] But that may merely have been the prelude. The
or they're eventually gonna have to go to an was like a windsock. You know, he was the last Bush administration was able to briefly install
authoritarian one like came out of [South] Korea, guy he talked to, and we're still off the record. Allawi as Iraq's Prime Minster in 2004. Soon
Syngman Rhee, was really an authoritarian leader. Q: We heard that windsock terminology over afterward, Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker
The eleven years I was supporting commander in there from somebody else. provided convincing evidence that, just before
Korea, the president was an Army major general in RUMSFELD: Oh man, he was something. Yes, taking office, Allawi had personally shot seven
civilian clothes and they had their highest growth he's a hell of a -- a very pleasant guy, but good Iraqi prisoners.
rates and did the '88 Olympics and they finally grief, the last guy he talked to. This fella [Maliki] is Yet as bad as Allawi was, the South Korean
handed it over. The real question is, and we all better than the one before, but he's not Syngman dictator Syngman Rhee was far worse. According
hope the unity government [inaudible], but it's very Rhee. to recent reporting by AP, Rhee, who took power
difficult. For anyone familiar with Ayad Allawi and in 1948, supervised the slaughter of over 100,000
RUMSFELD: It is very difficult. You look at it Syngman Rhee, the casual admiration Rumsfeld South Koreans in the space of a few weeks.
and there isn't anyone smart enough to know the expresses for them is like a punch in the stomach. Indeed, Allawi and Rhee seem almost
answer to your question. The hands of both Allawi and Rhee are covered indistinguishable from Saddam Hussein. But then,
UNIDENTIFIED ANALYST #1: I think the with the blood of their countrymen. Rumsfeld never had any real problems with him
answer's they can't, but how you do get that right Allawi was a member of Saddam Hussein's either.
person? Baathist Party during the sixties and seventies. [The secret dictator handshake]
RUMSFELD: I mean, Allawi had steel up his Seymour Hersh quotes an American intelligence BONUS: Allawi's successor and Maliki's
backside. official as saying "Allawi helped Saddam get to predecessor as prime minster was Ibrahim al-
UNIDENTIFIED ANALYST #2: Fallujah. power"; Hersh also reports that a high level Middle Jaafari. Jaafari is the one whom Rumsfeld refers to
RUMSFELD: And he wasn't well liked and East diplomat told him that Allawi was part of a as a "windsock." In what must have come as quite a
wasn't perfect. He'd leave the country for long Baathist Party hit squad that murdered dissenters in surprise to the Bush administration, Jaafari was a
periods and stuff. He was not as attentive as he Europe. (After a falling out with Saddam in the mid fervent admirer of Noam Chomsky.
needed to be, it strikes me. But good lord, in terms -seventies, Allawi lived in England and ended up originally posted at the Tiny Revolution
of dealing with him, he was terrific. He could make channeling false information about Iraq's purported
a decision and he would kick some fanny to get it

Informed Reader Signs Off

(WSJ.com: The Informed Reader -
WSJ.com)
Submitted at 2/1/2008 8:09:00 AM
We have had an exciting — and informative —
year bringing you what we thought was some of
the best in journalism from sources around the
world. We are retiring Informed Reader in order to
focus on other journalistic pursuits, but we didn’t
want to leave without highlighting a few stories
from the past year that were especially compelling,
amusing or provocative:• Texas Monthly told us
about the trouble brewing in the nation’s sewers.
• Fast Company’s Charles Fishman explored the
environmental costs of bottled water.
• National Geographic traveled to some of the
Page-One Extras for Thursday, Nov. 15
(WSJ.com: Online Today - WSJ.com)
Submitted at 11/14/2007 11:08:00 AM
Merrill Taps NYSE’s Thain as CEO
countries that recycle wealthy nations’ electronic
waste, with sometimes dangerous consequences.
• The Atlantic reported on how the spread of
DNA testing has led to some nasty paternity
surprises.
• BusinessWeek exposed how some companies
are luring the poor deeper into debt; and reported
on the elite tech support available to c-suite
executives.
• Thinking “outside the box” and brainstorming
blindly might be a big waste of time, consultants
suggested in Harvard Business Review.
• Streetsblog prompted us to ask whether cyclists
should run red lights, while Salon reported on how
street kids can be more violent than they look.
• The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s music critic
Question of the Day: Which will be in the best
shape five years from now: Citigroup, Merrill
Lynch or NYSE Euronext?
Don’t Be a Square at the Post Office — There’s a
wondered if the time had come to sanction mid-
symphony applause.
• Harper’s Ken Silverstein went undercover to
find out how Washington lobbyists do business.
• Vanity Fair unmasked the preppy, Ocean’s 11-
obsessed college kids who staged a rare-book heist
• The L.A. Times exposed problems with U-
Haul’s safety record, while the Chicago Tribune
wrote about the slow regulatory response to toys
with small magnets.
• The New Yorker punctured the myth about
profilers of serial killers.
• And New Scientist exposed how the earthworm
has become a global menace.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your
comments.
Surcharge
See photos from Mr. Friedman’s visit to the
Buffalo postal processing center.
4
Rob Kall: McCain to New York Times: Dammit
My Friend, Can't You See? I Am Right,
Obama's Wrong. Let Me Repeat...
(The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed)
Submitted at 7/22/2008 9:20:49 AM
Senator McCain is beginning to show us what a
McCain presidency will look like and it ain't pretty.
It's creepy.
Not surprisingly, the right wing echo chamber is
demonstrating what it will act like, with its latest
clueless demonstration, proving that Fox News and
the Drudge Report are good at what they do --
echoing talking points and delivering messages --
but short on the goods when it comes to even
getting what it means to function as a journalistic
operation.
Earlier this week, Obama sent the New York
Times an op-ed ahead of a speech, one that
contained new ideas and information. The New
York Times opted to run it.
McCain sent a print version of what we've been
seeing on TV since Obama started on his massively
successful, slam dunk overseas tour. The McCain
piece was a poorly written, painfully repetitive
recitation of his anti-Obama, "I was right on the
surge and he was wrong and won't admit it" rant. I
was going to say talking point but it's no longer just
a talking point. McCain looks desperate and
frustrated when he launches into his tirade how,
and annoyed that "we" are not getting it, not
lapping up his bromides and understanding how
Wachovia-Golden West:
Another Deal From Hell?
(WSJ.com: Deal Journal - WSJ.com)
Submitted at 7/22/2008 9:54:00 AM
While Goldman Sachs Group banker Ken
Wilson– call him “Kenny” only if you are
President George W. Bush–takes up his new job as
an adviser to Hank Paulson, former Paulson adviser
and fellow Goldman alum Robert Steel has his
hands full at Wachovia.
The North Carolina bank today posted a net loss
of $8.66 billion–compared with net income of
$2.34 billion last year–and took $6.1 billion of
write-downs. It also slashed its dividend to just five
cents a share from 37 cents. Associated Press
A lot of this pain can be traced back to
Wachovia’s errant 2006 acquisition of mortgage
lender Golden West Financial. The entire market
value of Golden West–which Wachovia bought for
$25.5 billion–has nearly disappeared. Even on the
day the deal was announced in May 2006, investors
hated it so much that they slammed $1 billion out
of Wachovia’s market value. At the time,
Wachovia had a market cap of $90.2 billion and
predicted that with Golden West its combined
market cap would be $117 billion; today
Wachovia’s market cap is hovering around $25.87
billion, or just a little more than Wachovia paid to
acquire Golden West. Wachovia this year procured
a capital infusion of around $8 billion because of
that pain. Wachovia’s net slid last year to $6.3
billion from $7.7 billion in 2006, mainly because of
bad loans made by Golden West. Former Wachovia
CEO G. Kennedy Thompson(left) lost his job last
month in large part because of the fallout. And
Wachovia’s stock price today–cover your eyes–was
a piddling $12.24 at the open, or just about a
quarter of the 52-week high of $53.10 in
September.
Considering all these signs, it may be time to
enshrine Wachovia’s acquisition of Golden West
Financial as a Deal From Hell.
Taking on the mantle of “Deal From Hell” isn’t a
right he is.
The problem is, his message is now falling on
ears that have been updated. It's an old, stale
message that doesn't seem to be working. Right on
Surge, Obama Wrong. Yadda yadda yadda.
So what?! He's been right on how to get out and
Maliki has repeatedly confirmed that this is what
the Iraqis want. Oh? You say Maliki doesn't know
what he wants or what the Iraqis need?
Just imagine what a president this kind of
inability to let go, this obtuse, stuck, inability to
recognize the fact that the situation has changes,
that the vectors in play have changed. McCain
seems imprisoned within his brittle inflexibility,
stuck with his limited range of ideas. Look
familiar? It should. It's the G.W. Bush modus
operandi sans a pitbull Dick Cheney type to drive it
through.
Even the right wing echo chamber players who
are having fun thinking they are beating up on the
New York Times don't get it that their attacks,
while they may play to their usual Kool-Aid
marinated base, are clearly seen as clueless by any
and all of the players in the real media, in the real
journalistic world -- both publishers and writers
alike.
I publish a medium sized website and routinely
encounter rank amateurs who declare that their
freedom of speech is violated if their poorly written
casual affair; it is a difficult-to-achieve level of
shame inspired by Robert Bruner, dean of the
Darden School of Business at the University of
Virginia, and his book, “Deals From Hell: M&A
Lessons That Rise Above the Ashes.” Bruner’s
requirements for consideration included destruction
of market value; financial instability; impaired
strategic position; organizational weakness;
damaged reputation; or violation of ethical norms
and laws. Another Deal From Hell, for instance, is
Sprint’s disastrous merger with Nextel.
Wachovia/Golden West now seems to qualify, if
only because of the “destruction of market value”
criterion.
It seems a harsh housewarming for Steel, now
Wachovia’s cleanup man. But Steel at least didn’t
have to engage in the usual new-CEO ritual of
castigating the work of his predecessors. Instead,
Wachovia Chairman Lanty Smith wore the hair
shirt in today’s earnings announcement. Smith
called Wachovia’s results “disappointing and
unacceptable.” Investors would be hard-pressed to
argue. He went on to explain, “While to some
degree [these results] reflect industry headwinds
and weaker macroeconomic conditions, they also
reflect performance for which we at Wachovia
accept responsibility.”
Contrast Lanty’s take-one-for-the-team mentality
with John Thain’s testy rebuttal to a question on
last week’s Merrill Lynch earnings call. Thain
sharply corrected one analyst who asked about the
CDOs packaged by “you guys” at Merrill with this:
“First of all, I take exception to the ‘you guys’
comment. I did not create any of these CDOs.”
Related Links:
Medlin + Duke + Ole ‘Wachovia Way’ = Robert
Steel
Dear CEO: Capital Infusions May Not Save Your
Job. Sorry.
Wachovia and Golden West: A Good Idea at the
Time
articles are rejected. Sorry. You have the right to
speak or write hackneyed or badly written pieces.
We don't have to publish them. Real media
operations realize that. Faux media are so
accustomed to accommodating the people and
organizations they serve that they demonstrate their
cluelessness with their smarmy remarks and
indignation that McCain's repetitive hack writing
was rejected.
I give the New York Times extra credit for NOT
publishing the McCain piece. It might have sold
some extra papers, but it would have definitely
NOT been up to the standards the New York Times
holds for writing. You can read it, here, on the
Drudge Report. Ironically, now that the piece of
writing has become news as an object, it would be
appropriate to publish it, but not as an op-ed,
instead, as the document that was rejected.
Of course, it is totally unrealistic to think that the
right wing echo chamber organizations (I am loath
to call them media) will ever actually report that
this is actually another blunder by McCain and his
handlers. It will be interesting to see if the more
moderate media -- the big three networks and CNN
will follow MSNBC in mocking the indignation
that Fox News and the Drudge Report have
demonstrated.
Cross-posted from OpEdNews.com
Roche-Genentech:
Acquire Globally,
Finance Locally?
(WSJ.com: Deal Journal - WSJ.com)
Submitted at 7/21/2008 4:21:00 AM
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Holdings may
find it tough going to get Genentech directors to
accept an $89-a-share bid that offers a premium of
just 8.8%. But Roche can take comfort that,
whatever the deal does get done at (should it get
done), at least financing shouldn’t be hard to find.
Roche has said it will pay for the acquisition with
a combination of cash on hand and proceeds from
the sale of debt. This year, the European debt
capital markets have been relatively strong and
active for healthy companies and have taken
shallower hits than in the U.S. In Europe,
investment-grade companies–those with solid
credit ratings–are issuing debt at roughly the same
pace as last year. Issuance of investment-grade debt
has fallen only 3% in Europe, according to data
provided by Banc of America Securities analyst
Michael Hecht.
While total European debt issuance is down 24%
to $1.2 trillion this year, that compares to a 41%
decline in the U.S. Most of the pain in the
European debt markets came in riskier securities,
like high-yield and asset-backed securities. High-
yield issuance is down 62% while ABS issuance
has dropped off 82%.
The drop-off has hurt some banks while helping
others. The market shares in European fees of
many homegrown European banks–including
Royal Bank of Scotland, Italy’s UniCredit, UBS of
Switzerland and HSBC Holdings of the U.K.–have
jumped, while those of Lehman Brothers Holdings,
Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs Group and
Citigroup have fallen. Deutsche Bank has had the
steepest one-year slide in share in its fees, at 1.9%,
according to Hecht.
Roche hasn’t said which banks will provide it
with financing for its bid.

XM-Sirius: Regulatory
Approval Is for the Weak
(WSJ.com: Deal Journal - WSJ.com)
Submitted at 7/22/2008 10:47:00 AM
The American pragmatist philosopher William
James advised readers who fervently wanted a
quality to act as if they already had that quality.
“Belief creates the actual fact,” he said.
XM Satellite Radio Holdings and Sirius Satellite
Radio may have taken that classic advice to heart.
The two companies Monday started preparing a
bond offering to finance their merger– a deal that,
as you may remember, is hung up in probably the
most torturous regulatory approval process of all
time. No matter. XM tapped J.P. Morgan Chase,
Morgan Stanley and UBS to sell $400 million of
bonds to refinance outstanding debt related to the
deal. Associated Press
XM plans to use the proceeds from the offering
to finance some of its outstanding debt, which has
“change of control” puts that allow investors to
cash in when the company merges. XM and Sirius
agreed in February 2007 to merge.
The offering can be unwound if the deal isn’t
consummated. Still, the move is a bold indication
of confidence on XM’s part that the merger will go
through.
But, back at the Federal Communications
Commission ranch, there is a significant amount of
regulatory flailing. The Deal’s Ron Orol reported
that the two swing voters on the five-person
commission–Republican Commissioner Deborah
Taylor Tate and Democratic Commissioner
Jonathan Adelstein–are putting up a fight and
demanding fines for XM and Sirius. (You can read
Deal Journal’s take on where the Commissioners
stand in last month’s post, XM-Sirius and Five
A Global Warming Skeptic Is
Challenged
(WSJ.com: The Informed Reader -
WSJ.com)
Submitted at 2/1/2008 5:11:00 AM
Global warming hasn’t stopped, as a prominent
science writer claimed recently in the New
Statesman, a generally liberal British weekly. In
fact, the pace of climate change has accelerated,
and saying otherwise misleads readers and gives
unnecessary ammunition to conspiracy theorists,
declares Mark Lynas, the magazine’s
environmental correspondent.
Mr. Lynas takes on a controversial article by
David Whitehouse published online by the New
Statesman in December (we wrote about it here).
Mr. Whitehouse, a former longtime science
journalist for the BBC who holds a Ph.D. in
astrophysics, said that while carbon emissions are
clearly rising, temperatures increases have leveled
off since 1998. The latest temperature readings
suggest that the prevailing scientific wisdom about
global warming is incorrect, Mr. Whitehouse
wrote, a view that prompted a heated debate on
HP MediaSmart Connect
By Tesnick (Blog de Tesnick)
Submitted at 6/19/2008 8:12:00 AM
Con el habitual diseño sobrio pero muy elegante,
HP ya ha informado del lanzamiento de su nueva
apuesta por llevar contenido digital al salón de
casa. Hablamos del HP MediaSmart Connect, que
fue presentado en el pasado CES 2008, pero que no
ha sido hasta ahora cuando hemos conocido su
precio y especificaciones.
Este equipo es la apuesta de HP con sus
televisores MediaSmart pero sin pantalla. Es lógico
pensar en esta opción pues mucha gente ya cuenta
con su propio televisor y no necesita más que el
Angry Men.)
According to Orol, both Tate and Adelstein
allege that XM and Sirius have committed
numerous infractions of FCC rules and must be
fined before their deal can be approved.
Here are the three major violations XM and
Sirius have committed, according to Orol:
1. Tate and Adelstein maintain that the wireless
devices XM-Sirius use to transmit audio signals
from satellite radio devices to car radios are
noncompliant with FCC limits. These devices have
been interfering with terrestrial radio, he said.
2. They worry about hundreds of XM-Sirius
antennas they say either aren’t in FCC approved
locations or are emitting signals that are too strong
and violate agency rules.
3. They complain that Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin
promised to build an interoperable radio the agency
ordered when the commission created the Satellite
Digital Audio Radio System. It hasn’t reached the
market.
Connoisseurs of broadcast mergers will recognize
a lot of these concerns align with the same
concerns that the National Association of
Broadcasters has about the deal. (So much so that
wags have dubbed the NAB as the National
Association of Satellite Radio Killers.)
Of course, as Sun Tzu would say, the enemy
fights hardest when it is cornered. The fact that the
commissioners are pushing for fines may be an
actual indication of faith that the merger will go
through. Otherwise, it is difficult to see why they
would bother. Related links:
XM and Sirius Get Downgraded. Yippee!
XM-Sirius and Five Angry Men
XM-Sirius: Still No End in Sight
New Statesman’s Web site and elsewhere.
That Mr. Whitehouse’s article opened the door to
climate-change skeptics is unfortunate, says Mr.
Lynas, because the analysis was fundamentally
flawed. Mr. Whitehouse relied erroneously on year
-to-year temperature changes instead of long-term
averages. Many variables cause temperatures to
fluctuate widely over the short term. To calculate
climate change by starting with a very warm year
— 1998, in this case — is a form of scientific
cherry-picking, says Mr. Lynas.
There is an overwhelming consensus with the
scientific community that the planet is getting
hotter as a result of human activities, says Mr.
Lynas. To halt steps to combat climate change
simply because not everything about it is known
could be catastrophic. Even if the 99% of scientists
who support global-warming findings are proved
wrong, shifting away from fossil fuels — which are
a finite resource with many other drawbacks —
would hardly be ruinous.– Wendy Pollack
receptor de medios.
Así, con el HP Mediasmart Connect obtenemos
un equipo que se coloca junto a nuestro televisor
para mostrar en él imágenes, vídeo y música
almacenado en nuestro ordenador o disponible en
la red. Viene con acceso directo a servicios online
que nos proporcionan sitios para ver o subir fotos
(Snapfish), alquilar películas (CinemaNow) o
escuchar la radio por Internet (Live365). No se
dispone de conexión directa a Internet, por lo que
por la información dada por HP, no se podrán ver
por ejemplo vídeos de Youtube, un error común de
algunos de estos dispositivos.
5
Links for
Wednesday’s paper,
Nov. 14
(WSJ.com: Online Today - WSJ.com)
Submitted at 11/13/2007 11:43:00 AM
Holiday Sales, Sure — But Don’t Expect Steals
Question of the Day: When will you start your
holiday shopping?
Gates Foundation, China to Fight AIDS
Read a Q&A with Bill Gates on AIDS prevention
in China
Veteran Weighs In on Tackling Bad Loans
Talking Business: Join a discussion about
bankers’ judgments.
Wal-Mart’s Net Rises 7.9% on Tight Control of
Costs
Read a transcript of Wal-Mart’s conference call,
plus track holiday retail sales news.
For Greenberg’s Attorney, Loyalty Trumped
Payouts
Law Blog: Read more about law, business and
the business of law, with updates throughout each
business day.
Why BofA Didn’t Flag Its Hit
Subpar Scorecard: See a chart of companies
blaming the credit crunch for poor earnings.
Cancer Survivors Find Support
Read poetry written by cancer survivor Don
Winslow.
HP Dreamcolor: 1
billón de colores
en tu pantalla
By Tesnick (Blog de Tesnick)
Submitted at 6/19/2008 8:21:00 AM
Partiendo de la base que el ojo humano puede
percibir ondas visuales en el espectro de onda que
va de los 380 a los 740 nanómetros, y que la
cantidad de colores que somos capaces de
identificar ha sido estimada por científicos en una
cifra superior a los 10 millones, cabe preguntarse si
no será demasiado lo del HP Dreamcolor, creado
en conjunto con los exigentes cerebros tras
DreamWorks Animation.
Es un display LED de alta precisión cromática
para profesionales con una profundidad de 30 bits,
lo que daría como resultado una paleta de —
aproximadamente — un billón (1.000.000.000.000)
de colores; eso es unas 64,5 veces de lo que puede
representar tu fiel y querido monitor casero. Por
ende, los rojos, verdes y azules serán
decididamente más profundos, los negros cuatro
veces más oscuros y los blancos tendrán mayor
precisión de ajuste. Guau.
Si quieres darle un toque extra de color a tu vida,
puedes hacerlo por USD$3.499 (CLP$1.744.601,
2.275€). Tras el salto un par de fotos comparativas
entre un LCD estándar y el Dreamcolor, para que
veas la diferencia.
Online Exclusives for
Thursday, Nov. 15
(WSJ.com: Online Today - WSJ.com)
Submitted at 11/14/2007 11:08:00 AM
Fiscally Fit: It’s open enrollment season again —
Terri offers advice on how to avoid common
mistakes.
Tech Diary: What do people think about the new
high-tech GPS computers that have been installed
in New York City taxis? Andy Jordan rides along
for an evening with a Cyndi Lauper-loving cabbie
to find out.
On the Block: Postings and slideshows on
Sotheby’s sale.
Auto Show Tracker: Reports from the floor of the
LA auto show, including slideshows, video and
audio reports.
6
How the U.S. Gave Iran the Upper
Hand
(WSJ.com: The Informed Reader -
WSJ.com)
Submitted at 2/1/2008 4:47:00 AM
The U.S. government so badly mishandled the
findings on Iran’s uranium-enrichment program
that the world now faces a far greater risk of
nuclear-weapons proliferation, the Economist says.
In a cover story some two months after U.S.
intelligence services concluded that Iran had halted
its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, the British
newsweekly says the report undid five years of
painstaking diplomacy aimed at keeping the bomb
out of Tehran’s hands.
Tablet PC HP TX2500
By Tesnick (Blog de Tesnick)
Submitted at 6/19/2008 8:15:00 AM
HP nos presetenta su nueva Tablet PC y es la
actulizacion de la TX2000. La nueva gama es la PC
HP TX2500 con la exclusividad de procesador
AMD Turion 64 X2.
Entre otras caracteristicas de la Tablet PC HP
TX2500 tenemos:
• 4GB de memoria RAM DDR2.
• Tarjeta gráfica ATI Radeon HD 3200 y de
160GB a 320GB en disco duro.
• Unudad óptica han incluido una lectora
Transistors on paper become a reality
(Engadget)
Submitted at 7/22/2008 9:51:00 AM
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets Check it, nerds. A
team over at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa has
reportedly figured out a way to use paper (yes,
paper) as an interstrate component of a Field Effect
Transistor (FET). In testing, the group "fabricated
the devices on both sides of the paper sheet," thus
causing the paper to act as the "electric insulator
and as the substrate" simultaneously. Remarkably,
results showed that performance actually rivaled
that of best-in-class oxide thin film transistors,
giving revived hope for the realm of disposable
devices like paper displays, labels, intelligent
packaging, tracking tags, etc. The findings are
scheduled to be published this September, after
Links for Thursday’s paper, Nov. 15
(WSJ.com: Online Today - WSJ.com)
Submitted at 11/14/2007 11:08:00 AM
Economists in Poll Expect Credit Turmoil to
Continue
Dig into an interactive graphic charting the
results of the survey and download the full
findings.
Games Backers Play Up Green
Read more coverage of China’s preparations for
the 2008 Olympic Games.
HP Touchsmart
By Tesnick (Blog de Tesnick)
Submitted at 6/19/2008 7:58:00 AM
HP, el primer fabricante mundial de ordenadores,
se ha adelantado a la competencia. Cuando la
industria miraba hacia otro lado -los miniportátiles
baratos-, HP se ha destapado con un ordenador
doméstico, con apariencia de televisión plana, que
entra por los ojos, el Touchsmart, el toque
inteligente, un aparato para el hogar con una
pantalla que se maneja con el dedo y preparado
como un televisor. Empezará a venderse en
septiembre en España por 1.399 euros. Un anterior
Touchsmart, de 19 pulgadas, más pesado con la
unidad de procesamiento en la peana salió el año
pasado pero no se vendió en España.
Why not applaud what might be an olive branch
from Washington toward its longtime adversary?
The problem is that the intelligence estimate played
down Iran’s ability to produce uranium, which the
authors call the toughest skill in bomb-making. The
design and engineering work needed to turn fissile
material into weapons, the focus of the National
Intelligence Estimate assembled by 16 U.S.
agencies, would be relatively easy to hide, and to
restart. No one knows how much progress Iran
achieved toward building a nuclear warhead before
2003.
Electric MINI hitting
US streets in summer
2009
(Engadget)
grabadora de DVD±RW de doble capa con Submitted at 7/22/2008 9:29:00 AM
tecnología LightScribe.
• Pantalla de 12,1 pulgadas con resolución de Filed under: Transportation
1280×800 píxeles. Not that electric MINIs are anything new, but
• WiFi 802.11g y opcionalmente 802.11n. unless you were willing to pay for all the mods
• Altavoces Altec Lansing. yourself, procuring one wasn't exactly simple.
• Trae 3 puertos USB. Now, however, we're hearing that MINI itself will
• Entradas de audio. be bringing scads of these buggers to American
• VGA streets in the summer of 2009. Yeah, like, one year
• Ethernet. from right now. MINI USA VP Jim McDowell was
• Entrada del dock de expansión. the source of said statement, though he didn't
• Lector de tarjetas SD y ExpressCard. mention whether all of them would be reserved for
California or if they would be available sold out
nationwide. Hey MINI, we'd say you've got a hit on
your hands. Read| Permalink| Email this|
Comments
HP iPAQ 914
By Tesnick (Blog de Tesnick)
Submitted at 6/19/2008 8:11:00 AM
HP Photosmart C8180
By Tesnick (Blog de Tesnick)
Submitted at 6/19/2008 8:20:00 AM
which we're sure any firms interested in taking this
stuff commercial will be putting their best foot
forward.
[Via Scientific Blogging] Read| Permalink| Email
this| Comments
Good News for Professionals Who Want to Work
at Home
The Juggle: Sue Shellenbarger on her personal
experience with working from home.
Inside a Salon That Serves the Logo-Phobic
Video: Get an inside look at Yuta Powell’s
boutique.
On a Roll, Without the Stones
Listen to clips of“Charmed Life” and“Too Many
Cooks.”