Welcome! "What's Happenin'?" is a casual community diary (a daily series, 8:30 AM Eastern on weekdays, 10 AM on weekends and holidays) where we hang out and talk about the goings on here and everywhere.
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Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens, December, 2011, Photo credit: joanneleon
A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.
-- Amos Bronson Alcott
News
Robert Khuzami is the co-chair of the new Financial Unit (FU) task force.
So Why Hasn’t SEC Enforcement Chief Robert Khuzami Resigned? SEC Only Now Investigating CDOs Created on His Watch at Deutsche Bank
Why is there probably less here than meets the eye? For this investigation to be taken seriously, SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami would have to resign. He was the general counsel for the fixed income area at the time when the deals in question were undertaken (contra Der Spiegel, START was a program of synthetic CDOs, not just a single deal, just the Goldman Abacus trade that was the focus of an SEC lawsuit was actually just one of 25 Abacus trades). It would not be sufficient for Khuzami to recuse himself from this investigation. Staff would still be concerned about how the probe might affect their ultimate boss.
In addition, the fact that Paulson approached Deutsche Bank has been in the public domain since October 2009, when Greg Zuckerman’s book, The Greatest Trade Ever, was released. It discussed in detail how Paulson approached Goldman, Deutsche Bank, and Bear Stearns about constructing synthetic CDOs so Paulson could bet against the subprime market cheaply.
Masto is the Attorney General in Nevada.
Masto Raises Score of Questions Over Foreclosure Fraud Settlement
But the existence of an independent monitor doesn’t answer the host of questions that go well beyond the release of liability in the settlement. In fact, Nevada AG Catherine Cortez Masto saw fit to write up a list of 38 questions and send them off to the settlement negotiators. This suggests that the AGs got a very vague document, with a lot of trust given to the executive committee on the details. Masto, at least, isn’t comfortable with that. And she has plenty of reason to be skeptical.
[ ... ]
An Obama Administration official tried to downplay the Masto letter, saying that it only sought clarification on language rather than resistance to the settlement in general. I’d say that a 38-question letter raises more than just linguistic analysis. In fact, I know it, because here’s the letter.
Among other things, Masto questions whether there will be “geographic discrimination” involved in the settlement, wondering whether enforceable controls will be employed to prevent some states from making out better than others. Clearly this is a reference to the attempted California bribe of up to $15 billion out of the $25 billion total. [ ... ] essentially, she’s asking if this settlement effectively blesses bogus documents and ties the hands of the AGs who see them as fraudulent. That connects directly to the ongoing litigation in Nevada around mortgage documentation and the lawsuits against LPS.
In other words, Masto did her homework and saw this settlement as little more than a framework, without specificity on the release, the level of relief on a per-state basis, and the level of enforcement. [ ... ]
A lot of interesting things in this Marcy Wheeler piece about the savvy businessman.
Put Money within Reach of Jamie Dimon
After all, that money dates to 2004 and Dimon’s service on the FBRNY Board didn’t begin until January 2007. (Though I will note that Jamie Dimon and Iraq’s money overlapped at the FBRNY for a year.) Moreover, it was DOD’s responsibility to keep track of the money, not the FBRNY or Jamie DImon.
Still, I can’t help but notice that the announcement that we’ve lost almost $3 billion of Iraqi’s money (on top of the more than $100 million in cash that managed to walk out of Saddam’s former palace) came within a day of the time some are declaring the missing MF Global $1.2 billion has “vaporized.”
As the sprawling probe that includes regulators, criminal and congressional investigators, and court-appointed trustees grinds on, the findings so far suggest that a “significant amount” of the money could have “vaporized” as a result of chaotic trading at MF Global during the week before the company’s Oct. 31 bankruptcy filing, said a person close to the investigation.
We've known this for ages but maybe it will make its way into the mainstream news now that there is a renewed interest.
Commentary: Three female regulators' warnings about financial crisis were ignored
More people in positions of power — government regulators, especially — should have foreseen the subprime financial crisis coming.
They could have saved us from this mess.
But wait …
Three regulators did indeed ring warning bells — at the right time, in the right places, and loud enough for other banking and financial system overseers.
All three were women: Brooksley Born, Sheila Bair and Susan Bies.
Texas woman talks to President Obama in Google Plus 'hangout'
Jennifer Wedel was one of five people selected to take part in a live video chat Monday with the president through the "hangout" feature on Google Plus, the search engine's social networking site.
Wedel asked why U.S. companies were allowed to use a controversial program to hire high-skilled foreign workers when her husband, Darin, has similar skills and can't find full-time work. Darin Wedel lost his job at Texas Instruments about three years ago.
Obama was so intrigued by her situation that he asked Jennifer Wedel to send him her husband's résumé so he could look into the matter further.
And the Drones Start Patrolling Iraq, Again
Though I gotta hand it to this drone-happy Administration. I didn’t predict they’d have the tone-deafness of running these drones through the Department of State.
It says “State” right there in the name. How can you pretend to be conducting diplomacy between states when you insist on having your own robot air force (albeit unarmed) flying over theirs?
Syria forces retake Damascus suburbs; showdown at U.N.
A last-ditch bid by Moscow to broker talks between Assad's government and rebels foundered when the opposition refused to attend, citing the continued killing, torture and imprisonment of the president's opponents.
Washington said countries needed to accept that Assad's rule was doomed and stop shielding him in the Security Council.
"It is important to calculate into your considerations the fact that he will go," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday.
[ ... ]
"We are not surprised at the lack of wisdom or rationality of these statements and regret that they are still issued by countries that are used to making the Middle East an arena for their follies and failures," the state news agency quoted a foreign ministry source as saying.
Libyan militia leader sues former UK spy chief
Abdel Hakim Belhadj, who commands one of Libya's most powerful militias, is seeking damages from Mark Allen, who was director of counter-terrorism at MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency.
Belhadj and a second Libyan dissident, Sami al-Saadi, accuse Allen of complicity in torture, negligence and misfeasance in public office -- the wrongful exercise of his authority.
"We are taking this unusual step of preparing legal action against an individual as the documents we have in our possession suggest Sir Mark was directly involved in the unlawful rendition of our clients," said lawyer Sapna Malik, from the London law firm Leigh & Day, which represents Belhadj and Saadi.
An Oxford-educated Middle East specialist, Allen retired from MI6 in 2004 and went on to work for oil major BP and The Monitor Group, a global investment and consultancy firm.