Saturday, June 07, 2003
Hinky had a nice dinner last night, in the East village, at a great sicilian kitchen. Eggplant, and olive salad. Best olives we eaten in 5 years, maybe ever. But, you can't know the name or location of the place. Trade secret.
The man from the east showed us the spot before his departure from hinky nyc. But we are sure he is eating just as well (better really) especially when we are told about his pasta with lobster sauce dinner, after a swim one of the world's most beautiful beaches, just before the tourists get there with the long boats to enjoy their Cinzano moments, all at the same time. There is on guy who "doesn't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows" as they say (to see who says go to, http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/subterranean.html)
What is hinky today? In case you haven't figured it out by now, this is something of a nypost.com echo blog, so look at the headlines there, and you'll find a guy who scammed 73 million dollar from the investing public while being watched by the FBI. While an informant, he scammed millions, and millions... . Hinky as hell.
But this grifter has nothing on the white collar three card monties who scammed BILLIONS from wall street, and the investing pubic, fiduciaries and their trustees while the government let Rome burn to the tune of 8 Trillion Dollars. It looks like cooked books at Rite Aide too, along with Xerox and the finding that hinky Bernie the bouncer turned CEO cooked hinky Worldcom's books to the tune of 11 billions of dollars. Monday's report will have detail about Bernie's role. Meanwhile, Worldcom emerges from Bankruptcy as MCI... go fig.
It's not as if we are against massive capital allocations to research and product developement to promising new technology that can improve the state of things around the world. But looking at the money raised by wall street, and the fees "earned" for doing it... let's just say we hope they spend it somewhere nice, where the sun is hot, and the drinks are cheap, and the water gives them the shits. We are talking about those white collar three card monties who helped the investment gurus to America's future on "new paradymes" and major efficencies (along with the means for cheap labor in the world's jungles, high unemployment at home, and vast increase in personal debt per person). You know, merge two companies, fire half the staff, and give yourself an outsized raise and take company loans, jets, housing and meals; then divorce your first wife with a generious package, marry the sex pot whose rent you've been paying in the big city and host a 35th birthday party for the new meat on the Island of Sardina, where the man from the east gets her in the washroom while you are at the airport picking up your college buddies.
Meanwhile, we are noticing a little heat on Walmart, you know the giant drain that sucks dollars down a pipe to china, where millions can enjoy the factory floor instead of planting rice, or keeping pigs from drinking from the duck pond. Forget the millions of insuance policies Walmart takes out on its low level employees, where they legally make millions off their deaths while giving families of these employees a nice sympathy card (maybe), and forget their hillybilly, union busting, brainwash Este program; now they are putting sleeves on magazines that offend certain customers... so they are doing a 7/11. You know, clean up your news stand so customers think your good guys, while you wipe out the pay scales for working people, making minimum wage the maximum wage in many parts of America. I guess it's found (please, just call him, "Sam") was right... on some level, we are all dead wood, except him and masterminds bullshitters like him. You know, drive a broke ass pickup for 20 years, source cheap shit from China, sell it in a warehouse built on toxic brownfields that sell for .20 cents per acre, hire people well below the going rate, wait for the economy flow out your massive drain; but have a bank account bigger than many county's GDPs. Oh yeah, give generiously to some traitor to run for office who will pass laws that give the little guy the biz. Fuckin heros, raising the standard of living all over the world with American credit cards.
Hinky 2:15 PM
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Friday, June 06, 2003
well, it's been a long time since we rock and rolled... but since our last hinky communicque (sp?), the german bankers are talking about racing the dollar down to the bottom of a bad town-- sorry Globe. If the German reduce lending rates, then the Euro could slip relative to the dollar; but Al Greenspan called a market turnaround-- that is the real hinky news. The Chairman of the Fed called a bottom for a market built upon sand. Sand, you know, the broken promises, false claims and absurd illusions of the 1990's. "New paradymes," of the freshly minted MBAs who are washing cars now, or flying around to the world's beaches talking about how the next wave of Wireless technology just might have them farting through silk again. After all, Al Gore's internet age is the way it is supposed to be, right? So the Fed, is participating in the market now. Be affraid, be very affraid.
For those of you not watching before; this fellow used to run the world's economies by sending messages with the amount of papers he held in his suitcase on the way to congress. Since he got married, the riskless rate of return on American bonds made it more attractive to spend whatever money you were going to invest (hahah) for retirement on BUD, drinking the principal and collecting the deposit for the bottles a more attractive investment returns. Now he is calling market bottoms, as the dollar slides at home, like some old style hinky wall street chief hack at some hinky second tier bank, making a statement from his celler offices on lower broadway: "Buy low and sell high, before the rush." Meanwhile a court ruled that former Xerox executives have to pay back the get to the tune of 22 million for overstating earnings to their hinky sucker accoutants which created hinky market support for their busted out business plan that in reality was not working at the time, unless you define a good business as giving the copiers away, and taking tax deductions and lying to the investing public about it. That should teach them, right? Well, the trouble is that the 22 million dollar fine, is about Xerox's bill for fuel each year for their corporate jets. We are sure it's a joke up the coastline on route 95, and on the upper east side between 45th and 72nd streets. Is it going to convince Joe grab a Latte to put what little money he has back into stocks at a time when insider selling has reached a record level (now that so many insiders shares are free to trade)? Oh yeah.. by the way, the company is paying the bill, not the three card monties who robbed the banks without guns.
"Mr. Allaire agreed to pay a total of $8.6 million in the settlement, Mr. Romeril's total came to $5.2 million, and former CEO G. Richard Thoman agreed to pay $6.8 million. The amounts included sums the SEC called disgorgement of their ill-gotten incentives and stock proceeds. But Xerox said the executives would be responsible only for the smaller civil penalties -- $1 million each for Messrs. Allaire and Romeril. The company said it is required under its bylaws to indemnify the executives for legal fees and disgorgements, which the company said amounted to $24.5 million. A spokeswoman said Xerox was in discussions with its insurance provider about reimbursements."
What's hinky? Again: "The company said it is required under its bylaws to indemnify the executives for legal fees and disgorgements, which the company said amounted to $24.5 million. A spokeswoman said Xerox was in discussions with its insurance provider about reimbursements."
Okay?
The SEC, in it's understaffed, low budget Micky Mouse helium voice stated: "The message is that we're going to go after those involved in shaping the tone at the top, who are engaged in financial fraud," said Paul Berger, an associate director of enforcement at the SEC. "This was a particularly egregious fraud." Okay guys, you really got them now.
We are not even going to mention the interior decorator turned billionannaire who they are parading around as a poster child for a clean street. We predict that her fine will be the economic equivalent of buying cheese burger for that Joe grab a low fat frozen yogart. The money is gone; lets hope these hinky white collar three monties spend it where it is needed is all we can hope; and that does not include horse farm in Bedford, NY, or a boat slip in Greenwitch, CT.
Having said all that: the unemployment figures really take the hinky cake this week, as Crudele's nypost.com readers already know. But if you read the reports in the major media, you would not, where you might have heard:
"And they're off!
In true Belmont-Stakes fashion, stocks jumped out of the starting gate Friday morning, after a pair of jobless figures showed the labor market might not be as weak as economists thought.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 107.63, or 1.2%, to 9148.93 in early morning trade, while the Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 31.43 points, or 1.9%, to 1671.51.
U.S. nonagricultural companies cut 17,000 jobs in May after holding steady in April, the Labor Department said early Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC had forecast a decline of 25,000 jobs. April's figure had originally been reported as a drop of 48,000 jobs.
The nonfarm payroll and hourly earnings number were both better than expected. Kenneth Tower, chief market strategist for CyberTrader, said the news has "the effect of throwing gas on what was already the 'I missed the rally!' phase of this rally," and sending the market higher."
This is a mild way to shout FIRE in a croweded Movie house, that is on fire.
Credule has been hammering the Labor Department's hinky new math this week, pointing out how they are revising the calculations every month now, resetting them to say what will keep the markets meandering. This 6.1 unemployment rate is straight hinky droppings; it's pure Thatcher economics, where they count the jobless to suit their political ends. Let's hope it's for the good of our Entertainmentocray. You know, set a goal, go for it, reset the goal, make it (or just miss), and there we are again, all lined up watching the Champion leaders from Business, Government, and Hollywood who run things at the World Wide Economic Olympics.
I think if America does enought of these transaction.. you know barrows enough, and devalues the dollar enough, we can shake out all the weak sister banking systems around the world who don't want to play ball our way... and maybe it will shake out more than a few of these Cleptocracies like Saudi Arabia, Syria, N. Korea and Columbia to the point where Frankenstien sees the fire, and goes back into his hole instead of trying to run America poolside from some resort in France. But what about the cleptos who have been underwriting Al Gore's dreams here at home? 6 months at Club Fed, where they rub elbows with drug kingpins looking to launder their "earnings" in the next big thing?
Here is a poem by a Wall Street lawyer who worked at and survived 911 at the WTC:
American underwriters sell
Stat Banks, Telecomunications,
Oil, Chemicals and whole economies
By romancing finance minsiters
And bank regulators; securitize
Your woeful lending, privatize
Your fatty underperforming assets;
Then borrow freely, from the bankers
At most favorable rates, basis points less
than underdeveloped nation's debt
I have correspondence from the dead in
My office, covered in ash; and Outlook
Lists persons and places and companies
That no longer exist.
-Eugene Schlanger, Esq.
Hinky 11:53 AM
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Sunday, June 01, 2003
Funk that. My wildeyed friend from coast sends me chilling links from time to time, but since i am using netscape, you'll have to load them yourself. I can't fine the insert hyperlinks button on this browser.
Here are her hinky findings linking Enron to 9/11:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0206/S00029.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/
Compelling stuff, if only because the lawyer who is unearthing these hinky relationships worked in government, and appears expert at conspiracy research, or as George senior called it, playin "who shot Jack". The hinky girl from the left coast is one of those who work to stay ahead of the information curve, so you'll be hearing more about these alligations at some point; or maybe they will go away, like the stories about Clinton's black son, or the rumors aout drug money he took to get in office.
When the hinky girl from the left coast sends us things like these, we realize that maybe we are not really digging up the really really hinky stuff that is being put out by those who do not get the kind of exposure that the wall street journal, or the new york post give reporters. But, given the conditions, there appears to be more than enough hinky stuff to reflect on in the mainstreet media.
Take the current account for example; that's America's bill for buying all the hinky shit we import from jungle manufacturing plants around the earth. The bill is paid in treasury bills, notes, and bonds, typically; and it's also paid in fannies, ginnies and other higher yielding paper when there isn't much treasury paper to go around. But that should not be a problem soon enough. Something tells me that the government will be printing more bills notes and bonds soon enough, because businesses are busted, and consumers are all but consumed with debt, which leaves the government to pay the return on the the dollars that our trading partners want invests somewhere.
It's confusing, yes. But simple. The dollar is sliding now, because our bill with these partners is historically high-- say 500 billion dollars (it's 2000 percent higher than 1969 when we paid for things with gold, and french water was only drunk in France.) And as these partners are putting their local money into the Euro, the dollar is slipping., which should raise prices and wit this damn hinky DEFLATION that is making everything dirt cheap for the 4 people who can still afford to buy anything that isn't food, soap, painkillers or TP. Meanwhile, Jack Walsh, who just retired from GE was on the TV (which they own), with a reassuring tone-- the sliding dollar is good for America because we can export things to countries that have the buying power to buy things that are Made in America. But I'm thinking that leaves handguns and maybe Cigs. for export, since the last 20 years have been about pulling up stakes and sending American manufacturing, with its jobs, over seas where labor, and regulations are cheapo.
Meanwhile, a woman was raped on 29 street last night, and three people were shot around town. An inmate was stabbed to death outside his cell on Rikers. Lawyers are protesting the police mishanding evidence related to the shooting of the African at Chelsea storage, and a group of kids smashed a guy in the face with a bottle on the corner of 14th and 7th avenue last night.
I'm beat. See youse when I call ya.
Hinky 9:28 PM
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