I might have guessed that the entertainment industry would not allow the leftist policies of its political friends to be exposed as the cause of the financial meltdown. On October 8, just in time for the elections, we are going to get the equivalent of a “Michael Moore” account of the collapse. Here is the plot summary: From Academy Award® nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson ("No End in Sight"), comes "Inside Job," the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, "Inside Job" traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia. Narrated by Academy Award® winner Matt Damon, "Inside Job" was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.
On Monday, a district judge in Los Angeles will be asked to dismiss the S.E.C.’s case against Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO of Countrywide Financial and the eponymous hero of the “Friends of Angelo” program, which provided favorable loans to people in high places . So reports Peter J.
The essence of what makes fantasy popular is that it takes the reader out of his normal life into an extraordinary, value-laden, and highly
With American forces still in Iraq and the country frequently in a high state of terrorist alert, we go about our daily lives with a
Atlas Summit 2013 -- Energy is at the center of Atlas Shrugged, whether in the present with Wyatt Oil and Danagger Coal or in the future
Why should we acquiesce when governments take our money? We would be upset if thugs stole our wallets at gunpoint or thieves broke into our
I have always disliked that weird hybrid of fact and fiction known as the "docudrama." An inherently dishonest contrivance, it jumbles actua
if Martha Burk of the National Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO) has learned anything from her attempt to force the Augusta National..
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is proposing that, in the interests of “full disclosure,” companies should have to announce “the existence of studies in reputable scientific journals . . . that indicate potential significant hazards related to the entity’s products or operations.” So, in addition to being sued by the plaintiffs bar, a company and its executives will be sued by the SEC--or maybe prosecuted by a U.S. Attorney--for not having discovered and publicized the existence of a borderline amount of metal or carcinogen in their goods. There is a phenomenon at work here and elsewhere that deserves a name: It is a step-by-step process that purports to aim at the market’s perfection but in fact aims at its destruction, and of course it is possible only because people accept mistaken ideas about what tends to perfection, for example, full disclosure. My own belief is that the market would be a far safer place if companies disclosed much, much less public information--but permitted insider trading.
Yesterday, I noted Chrystia Freeland’s criticism of business journalists for explaining systemic economic events with tales about “malfactors of great wealth.” Freeland seemed to think that such journalists were motivated simply by the desire to attract an audience. But a broader focus shows that such muckraking journalism is but one small part of a much broader attack on businessmen, which I call the Great Media/Legal Rich-Hunt.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is not central to the concerns of the Business Rights Center. But it is worth following because of the legal, legislative, and regulatory consequences that are bound to follow. Alarming assessments of the spill are easy to come by. For the other side of the story, here are two more measured assessments: “ Our Real Gulf Disaster ,” by Lou Dolinar (published in National Review, August 30, 2010), and “ The Catastrophe That Wasn’t ,” by Paul Schwennesen (published at MasterResource.org). Full disclosure: I occasionally do some copyediting for MasterResource.
Those are not the kind of questions Landrum wants to be answering. “I’m looking for people who don’t need a lot of guidance,” he tells me...
I consider Bob Elliott a friend. We’ve traveled thousands of miles together. He’s made me laugh so hard I cried. Once, after he cracked a...
Jennifer Burns’s engaging new biography of Ayn Rand focuses on Rand’s political and social views and on her connection to the Right in
According to the American Cancer Society, an expected 1.5 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year, and around
As I no longer subscribe to the New York Times (I'll let Joseph Epstein explain ), I am late in discovering this astonishing essay by Chrystia Freeland, global editor at large for Reuters. According to Freeland's evidence, the allegation is going around that business journalists are too favorable to their subjects. In fact, it seems that this thesis is exemplified by three best-selling novels (called the Millenium trilogy ) written by a Swedish socialist who was himself a business journalist. (I confess that I had not heard of them, having given up on pop culture circa 1965.)
For three generations now, the rights of businessmen have been trimmed back--by regulation and prosecution--in order to make markets conform to the false ideal of "perfect competition." The great Galleon insider-trading case is but the latest example. Today, in the WSJ, Dennis Berman suggests that the 1000-point Flash Crash of last May 6 may have been a result of this process. He writes : "The May 6 'flash crash' was the culmination of 35 years of relentless stock-market reform."
David Segal begins his extended New York Times story on the SEC’s suit against Sam and Charles Wyly with several paragraphs denigrating
The first big win from SCOTUS’s “honest services” ruling. According to an AP story: “Former Westar chief executive David Wittig and his top strategy officer, Douglas Lake, were charged with conspiring to inflate their compensation from the Topeka-based company and taking steps to hide their actions. A third trial date for the men, who were forced out of Westar in late 2002, was pending.
On August 16, Judge Ellen S. Huvelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the SEC’s proposal to settle charges that Citigroup misled investors about certain investments in its portfolio. Gary L. Crittenden, Citigroup’s former CFO, and Arthur Tildesley Jr., former head of investor relations, were also charged. The firm agreed to pay $75 million, without admitting or denying charges. But Judge Huvelle asked why only the two named executives were included and, more generally, why current shareholders should have to bear the cost of the fine.
I might have guessed that the entertainment industry would not allow the leftist policies of its political friends to be exposed as the cause of the financial meltdown. On October 8, just in time for the elections, we are going to get the equivalent of a “Michael Moore” account of the collapse. Here is the plot summary: From Academy Award® nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson ("No End in Sight"), comes "Inside Job," the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, "Inside Job" traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia. Narrated by Academy Award® winner Matt Damon, "Inside Job" was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.
On Monday, a district judge in Los Angeles will be asked to dismiss the S.E.C.’s case against Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO of Countrywide Financial and the eponymous hero of the “Friends of Angelo” program, which provided favorable loans to people in high places . So reports Peter J.
The essence of what makes fantasy popular is that it takes the reader out of his normal life into an extraordinary, value-laden, and highly
With American forces still in Iraq and the country frequently in a high state of terrorist alert, we go about our daily lives with a
Atlas Summit 2013 -- Energy is at the center of Atlas Shrugged, whether in the present with Wyatt Oil and Danagger Coal or in the future
Why should we acquiesce when governments take our money? We would be upset if thugs stole our wallets at gunpoint or thieves broke into our
I have always disliked that weird hybrid of fact and fiction known as the "docudrama." An inherently dishonest contrivance, it jumbles actua
if Martha Burk of the National Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO) has learned anything from her attempt to force the Augusta National..
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is proposing that, in the interests of “full disclosure,” companies should have to announce “the existence of studies in reputable scientific journals . . . that indicate potential significant hazards related to the entity’s products or operations.” So, in addition to being sued by the plaintiffs bar, a company and its executives will be sued by the SEC--or maybe prosecuted by a U.S. Attorney--for not having discovered and publicized the existence of a borderline amount of metal or carcinogen in their goods. There is a phenomenon at work here and elsewhere that deserves a name: It is a step-by-step process that purports to aim at the market’s perfection but in fact aims at its destruction, and of course it is possible only because people accept mistaken ideas about what tends to perfection, for example, full disclosure. My own belief is that the market would be a far safer place if companies disclosed much, much less public information--but permitted insider trading.
Yesterday, I noted Chrystia Freeland’s criticism of business journalists for explaining systemic economic events with tales about “malfactors of great wealth.” Freeland seemed to think that such journalists were motivated simply by the desire to attract an audience. But a broader focus shows that such muckraking journalism is but one small part of a much broader attack on businessmen, which I call the Great Media/Legal Rich-Hunt.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is not central to the concerns of the Business Rights Center. But it is worth following because of the legal, legislative, and regulatory consequences that are bound to follow. Alarming assessments of the spill are easy to come by. For the other side of the story, here are two more measured assessments: “ Our Real Gulf Disaster ,” by Lou Dolinar (published in National Review, August 30, 2010), and “ The Catastrophe That Wasn’t ,” by Paul Schwennesen (published at MasterResource.org). Full disclosure: I occasionally do some copyediting for MasterResource.
Those are not the kind of questions Landrum wants to be answering. “I’m looking for people who don’t need a lot of guidance,” he tells me...
I consider Bob Elliott a friend. We’ve traveled thousands of miles together. He’s made me laugh so hard I cried. Once, after he cracked a...
Jennifer Burns’s engaging new biography of Ayn Rand focuses on Rand’s political and social views and on her connection to the Right in
According to the American Cancer Society, an expected 1.5 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year, and around
As I no longer subscribe to the New York Times (I'll let Joseph Epstein explain ), I am late in discovering this astonishing essay by Chrystia Freeland, global editor at large for Reuters. According to Freeland's evidence, the allegation is going around that business journalists are too favorable to their subjects. In fact, it seems that this thesis is exemplified by three best-selling novels (called the Millenium trilogy ) written by a Swedish socialist who was himself a business journalist. (I confess that I had not heard of them, having given up on pop culture circa 1965.)
For three generations now, the rights of businessmen have been trimmed back--by regulation and prosecution--in order to make markets conform to the false ideal of "perfect competition." The great Galleon insider-trading case is but the latest example. Today, in the WSJ, Dennis Berman suggests that the 1000-point Flash Crash of last May 6 may have been a result of this process. He writes : "The May 6 'flash crash' was the culmination of 35 years of relentless stock-market reform."
David Segal begins his extended New York Times story on the SEC’s suit against Sam and Charles Wyly with several paragraphs denigrating
The first big win from SCOTUS’s “honest services” ruling. According to an AP story: “Former Westar chief executive David Wittig and his top strategy officer, Douglas Lake, were charged with conspiring to inflate their compensation from the Topeka-based company and taking steps to hide their actions. A third trial date for the men, who were forced out of Westar in late 2002, was pending.
On August 16, Judge Ellen S. Huvelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the SEC’s proposal to settle charges that Citigroup misled investors about certain investments in its portfolio. Gary L. Crittenden, Citigroup’s former CFO, and Arthur Tildesley Jr., former head of investor relations, were also charged. The firm agreed to pay $75 million, without admitting or denying charges. But Judge Huvelle asked why only the two named executives were included and, more generally, why current shareholders should have to bear the cost of the fine.