From The Washington Times :

An analysis conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics found that Madoff and his wife, Ruth, gave the bulk of their campaign contributions to Democrats. The couple donated $238,200 to federal candidates, parties and committees since 1991, and Democrats received 88 percent of those donations.

Madoff gave $11,400 to nine Republicans in the same time period. None of them is in office now. Former Rep. Jack Fields of Texas received the most - $5,000. Other recipients included former Sen. Alfonse D´Amato of New York, former Rep. Vito Fossella of New York and former Rep. Michael Oxley of Ohio.

And people wonder why one of the truisms of a progressive blogger is that mainstream media has always tilted to the right if not to the hard-right.  read more »

Y'all know that the crap we're seeing with AIG is intrinsically related to Bernie Maddoff's ponzi scheme, right? If you're still not sure, check out Lucinda Frank's amazing scoop over at The Daily Beast : Maddoff Employee Breaks Silence:

The employee says he only saw the 17th floor, where the fraudulent Investment Advisory operation was located, about two times. He noticed the out-of-date computers and the old-fashioned dot-matrix printers that printed out paper with green and white stripes. The computers he saw were about 15 years old, including one system that “is not even around anymore—miles away from modern Windows technology. And the statements I've seen from victims don’t look like my statements from Fidelity. They had primitive typefaces, as though they had been typed on a typewriter. Nobody sends statement like that, so maybe it was done to create the illusion of old-fashioned transparency.”

He learned that those who staffed the 17th floor were less than knowledgeable, often uneducated, often appeared incompetent. “There was this one guy, who had worked there his whole life who generated the statements but he would often not get them out on time.”

Looking back, he speculates that the faked statements were essentially done manually. He thinks two people did research as to what a blue-chip stock historically traded for and a similar price was chosen and the fake trades entered into a computer, the statements printed out and sent to unsuspecting clients. “I wonder whether everyone’s statements were basically the same, just varied a bit, because if they weren’t that would be a lot of work for the employees down there.”

Dot matrixes? Are you kidding me?!?!?!

BTW, talk about 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon : He's one of Maddoff's victims!

Also of note:  read more »

There, I said it.

I am fully aware that as a feminist I should be wagging my finger at Spitzer for the rest of his life for his stupidity and hypocrisy. You know what, though? I don't give a shit these days given how Wall Street is taking down the whole country with them.

To be honest, I miss Elliot Spitzer the Attorney General more so than the Governor. No offense to Cuomo who is doing a somewhat decent job. I just sigh whenever I read a column like this one:

But wait a moment, aren't we in the midst of reopening contracts all over the place to share the burden of this crisis? From raising taxes --income taxes to sales taxes-- to properly reopening labor contracts, we are all being asked to pitch in and carry our share of the burden. Workers around the country are being asked to take pay cuts and accept shorter work weeks so that colleagues won't be laid off. Why can't Wall Street royalty shoulder some of the burden? Why did Goldman have to get back 100 cents on the dollar? Didn't we already give Goldman a $25 billion capital infusion, and aren't they sitting on more than $100 billion in cash? Haven't we been told recently that they are beginning to come back to fiscal stability? If that is so, couldn't they have accepted a discount, and couldn't they have agreed to certain conditions before the AIG dollars --that is, our dollars-- flowed?

The appearance that this was all an inside job is overwhelming. AIG was nothing more than a conduit for huge capital flows to the same old suspects, with no reason or explanation.  read more »

From AIG bonus checks may be taxed at up to 100%, says Sen. Chuck Schumer:

"They should voluntarily return them. If they don't, we plan to tax virtually all of it," New York Sen. Chuck Schumer declared on the Senate floor.

"To those of you getting these bonuses: be forewarned, you will not be getting to keep them."

Cuomo, in a letter to Congress, said he had learned that 11 AIG executives who got retention bonuses of over $1 million no longer even work there.

In total, Cuomo said, the top 10 bonus recipients at AIG shared a combined $22 million, 73 got more than $1 million and the most handsomely paid got a whopping $6.4 million.

Schumer called it "Alice in Wonderland business practices" to give bonuses to executives at a firm that lost nearly $100 billion last year and had to be rescued with $170 billion in taxpayer money.

"It boggles the mind," he said.

Isn't Schumer adorable when he gets all outraged?

So answer me this, because I feel like am missing something here : Where was he when TARP was being written up? What exactly did he do to ensure that the books of these financial institutions saw the day light and came under the scrutiny needed to prevent this kind of chicanery?

And for that matter, where was he along with the whole NY State Congressional delegation all these years? What were they doing to make sure Wall Street was accountable for their gains in good times and in bad?

This is not a rhetorical question. You guys know more about the trappings of the NY politicosphere way more than I do. Was he really a crusader?  read more »