Duvalier: Give frozen assets to Haiti relief funds

If he is to be believed, this would be a nice gesture. Unfortunately, Duvalier hasn't been known for his nice gestures. CNN:

An American attorney representing Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier said Saturday that the former dictator returned to Haiti in hopes of recovering millions frozen in Swiss bank accounts and channeling them through a U.S. intermediary to help rebuild his troubled homeland.

In the past, Duvalier has attempted to personally claim the $5.7 million in a bank account belonging to a family foundation. But attorney Ed Marger said the highly controversial and polarizing former leader now wants to use the money to help Haiti, devastated a year ago by a massive earthquake.

"He doesn't want the funds for himself," Marger told CNN. "He wants a transparent entity to release the funds."

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NY Times: 'Olbermann’s MSNBC exit was weeks in the making'

From the Media Decoder blog at the New York Times on Saturday:

On Thursday, NBC’s news division staged an elaborate presentation for advertisers, seeking to sell commercial time in NBC’s news programs over the next year. All the members of MSNBC’s prime-time lineup spoke at the lunch with one exception: Keith Olbermann, the network’s biggest star.

For the last several weeks, Mr. Olbermann and the network have been in negotiations to end his successful run on MSNBC, according to executives involved in the talks who requested anonymity because the talks were confidential. ... Friday’s separation agreement between MSNBC and Mr. Olbermann includes restrictions on when he can next lead a television show and when he can give interviews about the decision to end his association with the news channel.

The executives involved in the discussions confirmed that the deal carries limitations for Mr. Olbermann in terms of when he can next work on television, though he will be able to take a job in radio or on any forum on the Internet. The deal also prohibits the host from commenting publicly on the deal, the executives confirmed. ... None of the executives who discussed the deal would reveal the exact length of the restrictions.

The article quotes free-speech law professor Marvin Ammori as questioning the move and saying via email that "Comcast’s shakedown of NBC has just begun."

Comcast denies any involvement and says it has pledged "not interfere with NBC Universal’s news operations."

So, who you gonna believe — your lying eyes? Or that nice cable provider you send all that money to?

GP

NOTE FROM JOHN: Sure, the exit was planned weeks ago - that's why Keith said Friday night that he was told Friday would be his last show (and making it sound like he was JUST told), and that's why Keith didn't even tell anyone he was leaving until his last show was on the air. None of this sounds like a deal that was worked out weeks ago. Though, note the quote: weeks in the making. You could argue it was months or years in the making, if you want to talk about souring relationships.

And yes, the restrictions on when Olbermann can next go on the air are sickening. I suspect, and hope, NBC/Comcast paid Olbermann millions to keep him off the air. But as consumers, and politically aware Americans, it's disturbing as hell that NBC and Comcast just required one of the top voices of the left, if not its top voice on television, to STFU for the foreseeable future. It only makes the move by NBC and Comcast look all the more political, and worse, partisan. Read the rest of this post...

More than half of insider trading defendants avoided prison

It would be interesting to see a breakout of men version women. One of the examples in the article is a woman who had one of the most severe sentences. And looking back, as wrong as Martha Stewart may have been, her jail sentence always struck me as unusually extreme compared to the punishment of others. The Galleon story has always struck me as being a bit odd as well. It does look odd that a dark-skinned CEO is being targeted over $45 million. Yes, it's a lot of money but pocket change compared to the trillions lost by Wall Street.

At a higher level, how it is that insider trading cases have been met with punishment yet the bigger players on Wall Street have walked away even stronger after crashing the global economy? There's something fundamentally wrong with the system that allows and excuses this. Bloomberg:

Almost half of the 43 defendants who were sentenced in Manhattan federal court in the past eight years for insider trading avoided a prison term, with many never seeing the inside of a jail cell because they cooperated with prosecutors.

Nineteen who were sentenced since 2003, or 44 percent, weren’t incarcerated, an analysis of court cases by Bloomberg showed. Of the remainder, the average defendant got a prison term of 18.4 months. The greater the profit made on illegal trades, the longer the sentence. The longest term was 10 years. Danielle Chiesi, who pleaded guilty yesterday for her role in the Galleon Group LLC hedge fund insider-trading scandal, faces between 37 and 46 months in prison.

Since 2009, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan has stepped up insider-trading prosecutions, charging more than 30 people in three overlapping rings. Of the three defendants sentenced so far in the Galleon ring, the average sentence has been 17 months. The nationwide investigation has implicated hedge funds, technology companies and so-called expert- networking firms.

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WikiLeaks: If Palin comes to Australia, she will be sued

Funny how some people take offense to what many consider to be death threats. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Most of today's guests on the Sunday shows are members of Congress, so expect a heavy does of State of the Union preview. Expect to hear much about the dominant issue: where everyone is sitting. Yes, that's another ridiculous issue that has consumed way too much time already. But, it gives the pundits and DC reporters something to salivate over.

ABC has the three Senators who've already announced their retirement: Conrad, Hutchison and Lieberman. CBS should be particularly painful with Schumer and McCain.

CNN is the exception. Candy Crowley's featured guest is Colin Powell.

The full lineup is here. Read the rest of this post...

The Supremes - Baby Love

1964? Wow.

We're cleaning up after the big surprise party which was a success. Our 87 year old neighbor was completely shocked that our friends from Canada flew in for the party. She had surgery on her knee in the autumn after falling so she often can only stay for an hour or so because the knee starts to hurt. Last night she was having so much fun, she forgot about it until the end of the evening.

I steamed the lobsters this year and must say, I prefer cooking them that way rather than boiling them. We had an incident when the first person picked up their lobster at the table and "it moved." She thought it was still alive and screamed bloody murder and had half the table fearing a lobster attack and the other half, laughing hysterically. After the lobster and the cheese course, we finished the evening with a galette des Rois. It's a special cake that has almond paste inside that is typically eaten at Epiphany. The traditional cake up here is different from the version seen in Louisiana (and the south of France) that is more like brioche with icing. (Both are delicious.)

Now back to the cleanup and then a bike ride, since it's a sunny day. Read the rest of this post...

UK seriously reviewing break up of largest banks

It's incredible to think this is not even on the agenda in the US. The bank rescue in the US and UK showed that the banks were "too big to fail" and now we're stuck with an even greater concentration in the banking system. Late this past week there were even discussions about shoveling Freddie/Fannie business over to the "too big to fail" banks in the US. It's bad for the system and bad for taxpayers. Not that anyone really cares about the general public taxpayers these days. The Guardian:

In only his second public statement since being appointed by the government last summer to review the structure of the banking industry, the former Bank of England economist Sir John Vickers also spelt out the need for holders of bank bonds to suffer losses when banks run into difficulty, and his commission's view that the new capital adequacy plans for the financial sector – Basel III – do not go far enough.

Vickers's much-anticipated remarks came amid an acceleration in talks between high street banks and the government to commit to lending between £160bn and £180bn to businesses this year. Discussions about disclosing more information on top pay are also continuing. The aim is to conclude negotiations with the banks before next week's high-level summit of business leaders and economic policymakers in Davos.

Vickers told his audience today that he wanted to consider "whether, and if so how" structural reforms to the banking industry could work alongside existing plans to bolster bank capital and create "recovery and resolution plans" to cope with crises. He indicated that the new rules from Basel, which could require banks to hold three times as much capital as they presently do, will still not be sufficient to ensure banks hold reserves that can be used as a cushion in the event of collapse.

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