|||Hinky|||

Friday, May 23, 2003

t
25th Hour
turned out to be a good picture. That’s what my grandparents used to call movies, “the pictures”. My parents say “movies,” which is pretty typical. And in nyc, a lot of windbags say, “film,” which the speaker an instant straight man for all sorts of jokes about how full of shit it sounds. But sometimes, someone uses the word “film,” to talk about the blue lighting that shine east against the night from LA. I like that last bit a little too much, the way those jackasses like to hear themselves say “film” I think. Highly hinky revelations here.

But what’s really hinky are those Rockefeller laws that courtside hinky gadfly Spike Lee took aim at with his picture, 25th Hour, without all that rah rah rah overstatement on which he built his reputation. It addresses something that has been hinky in nyc for a long time: Drug sentencing, which became harsh when Nelson Rockefeller (Rocky) ran for gov in the 1960’s-70’s. He wanted to prove he was tough on crime, so he made sentencing harsh for drug dealing, which paradoxically made the value of drugs greater, as risks of long sentences grew, so too did the rewards for taking them. These laws put the drug dealer in the same cell- block as the raping, molesting, robbing and murdering kind for long stretches of time, and it’s that injustice at which the Spike’s picture takes aim without really beating you over the head, like Rev. Al.

Drug dealing became the category of crime the eclipsed all others for return on a crooks time and effort—the money became large, eclipsing everything really, except for grand scale white collar crime, maybe. There was that ex banker in the late 1980’s who claimed the two trades were linked by the huge cash flow that drug trafficking generated finding its way to wall street, and the 100s of web sites who are following these topics the way America used to follow baseball, click here:

The Laundrymen: Inside Money Laundering,...
Click here: The Narconews.com
and here

With white collar crime, the rewards are great, but what’s more the risks of harm or doing real time are less. Nevermind how much damage it does to the each American citizen when the economy ripped and torn with each new “innovation” that puts capital in service of shame services, unneeded products or bad ideas. Hey, who is really hurt, right? To compare Drug dealing for return on a crook’s time and effort to White Collar crime, you’ll have to factor in years of schooling to qualify as a genuine white collar three card monty player, such as the great Gatsby of wall street, inside trader Ivan Bosky, or one of these hinky fellows such as the ex-military guy at Enron, or the ex boxer at Worldcom, or the gang at Anderson Consulting, or the guy with the boat collection at Healthsouth, who have been on parade more recently, as Mr. Greenjeans keeps worrying about “decreased inflation”.

Then, you have to add up all the time and effort it took for these guys to become expert at some hinky company, hinky consulting firm, hinky investment bank, hinky accounting firm or hinky law firm, to learn the tricks of the trades. Then, there is the time and expense of the actual caper, planning, hiring hinky MBAs to set up shop and employees who are either kept in the dark, overpaid to keep quiet or bullied into keeping their mouths shut about monkey biz at the company. Then there is the finding and hiring of hinky accounting firm to cook your books using new graduates who know so little that the judge will go easy on them. Same with the hinky investment bankers who use trainees to count the beans wrong, or in a misleading way so the money will flow into the leaking bucket. And finally the same for the hinky law firm, who will use junior associates blinded by pressure and ignorance and old bandits blinded by having seen sausages and laws being made to tell the monties what to shred, how to act and to set up road blocks for the various authorities as well as the press, if anyone ever finds out or questions a footnote in the public documents.

Hinky 11:50 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Thursday, May 22, 2003

Hello.
Do you ever wonder how both the bond and the stock markets can rally, and still leave you with less at the end of a year than you had at the start? Hint: what is the biggest market in the world? What is traded more than anything, and makes the value of all the trading in stocks and bonds look tiny? That's right, you know it, but you just can't see it, even if it's right in your pocket. The dollar is declining, and it's value is slipping to overseas currencies, and so the markets are up, say 6 percent on the year, but the dollar is down, 20% because it floats, and so we move on, boats against the hinky current, borne back again and again...

Hinky SARs in China, Mad Cow to the north, Terrorism in Saudi Arabia, and Yale, and semiconductors rally. Microsoft trades 55 million shares per day. Tech springs eternal; alas, hope remains a thing with feathers, as the dollar is sold all over the world in favor of the Euro, and the Yen is weakend by the Japanese bankers, to keep their crazy prices just in line enough with America's so the money keeps flowing that way, and the cars keep soaking America's highways, until everyone has three pair, like designer frames. The money is going out to sea, hours of work, time spent in exchange for something to put away for a rainy day, somewhere safe that nobody will be tempted to touch, gone. Smoke.com, and the multimillionnaire Attorney General wants to be Gov. Can it get any worse? And the eterinal answer for which hope helps-- of course it can.

Hinky 9:54 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Spitzer leaked that he might be running for office... another Dewey, or just a hinky, who made 22 million dollars in the market before doing something about it.

Hinky 7:55 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

25th Hour stinks so far, it's new on the rental rack at blockbuster; we're about 30 minutes in. Level orange terrorist alert, unemployment, and the city is looking to cut out rent control. One good thing for all the reasons that run counter to what you'd think. Another bank robbery yesterday.

The money is moving off shore, and the dollar is worth less and less, and they couldn't put humpty together again. Omlettes for everybody!

Hinky 9:49 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Vitamin store hype. What don't they package: today we saw special vitamins for prostates, menopause, baldness and several other maladies. The FDA deregulated vitamins, and the public is supposed to know better. Saint John's Worts.

Today, hinky saw an old man fall backward and hit his head hard. We ran for help; a crowd gathered, and everyone watched as he started gasping for air. The security guard stood there with us, with his walkie talkie. Useless. Why aren't they trained to save a life? Why? Becuase the job would have to pay more than 10 dollars per hour. The took forever to get there, and he laid on the marble in gran central like a fish out of water, turning red, gasping, eyes crossed. Homeland security.

Hinky 10:37 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Monday, May 19, 2003

English shareholders of GlaxoSmithKline, PLC turned down a pay package increase for their CEO! Now your talkin. The Wall Street Journal reports: "It is believed to be one of the first times in United Kingdom corporate history that shareholders rejected a company's proposals over executive pay." Now that might not make up for all the horse shit and overvalued efforts of these Baby Kaboomer white collar hustlers over that last 15 years, but it's a start. Even if it is in England.

The wsj.com also pointed out the background of this fight: "In November, the drug maker proposed giving Mr. Garnier an £18 million-plus benefits package (about $29.2 million). The company argued that its CEO -- who earned about £7 million in 2001 -- should receive remuneration in the same range as his higher-paid U.S. peers. But shareholders protested, and the company backed down." That's American, leading the way in too much pay what is widely believed to be work.

Meanwhile, US debt is approaching the 6.4 Trillion debt limit, which require Congress to up the among of paper the country can float to pay the light bills. What's more hinky than this broke economy? Well, maybe the 19 percent increase in subway fair beating and bank robbiers in nyc; but then again, maybe not.

Hinky 9:08 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations