Showing posts with label Citigroup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Citigroup. Show all posts

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Our Disinformed Electorate

Our Disinformed Electorate

December 12, 2008

by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Brooks Jackson


We saw more aggressive fact-checking by journalists in this election than ever before. Unfortunately, as a post-election Annenberg Public Policy Center poll confirms, millions of voters were bamboozled anyway.

More than half of U.S. adults (52 percent) said the claim that Sen. Barack Obama’s tax plan would raise taxes on most small businesses is truthful, when in fact only a small percentage would see any increase.
More than two in five (42.3 percent) found truth in the claim that Sen. John McCain planned to "cut more than 800 billion dollars in Medicare payments and cut benefits," even though McCain made clear he had no intent to cut benefits.
The first falsehood was peddled to voters by McCain throughout his campaign, and the second was made in a pair of ads run heavily in the final weeks of the campaign by Obama.

These aren’t isolated examples. One in four (25.6 percent) of those who earned too little to have seen any tax increase under Obama's plan nevertheless believed that he intended to "increase your own federal income taxes," accepting McCain's repeated claims that "painful" tax hikes were being proposed on "families." Nearly two in five (39.8 percent) thought McCain had said he would keep troops in combat in Iraq for up to 100 years, though he’d actually spoken of a peacetime presence such as that in Japan or South Korea. Close to one in three (31 percent) believed widely disseminated claims that Obama would give Social Security or health care benefits to illegal immigrants, when in fact he would do neither.

We’re not surprised. As we wrote in "unSpun: finding facts in a world of disinformation," the same thing happened in 2004 when majorities of voters believed untrue things that had been fed to them by the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

One reason is obvious: Political ads run thousands of times and reach far more people than articles on FactCheck.org. On our best day, we were read by 462,678 visitors. By contrast, the Obama campaign aired two ads claiming that McCain planned to cut Medicare benefits a total of 17,614 times at a cost estimated to be more than $7 million – which is several times more than FactCheck.org's entire annual budget.

There are deeper reasons as well. We humans all have a basic disposition to embrace our side's arguments and reject or ignore those offered by an opponent. Our polling reflects that. After taking differences in age, race, gender and education into account, Republicans were still 4.4 times more likely than Democrats to believe that Obama would raise taxes on most small businesses, and Democrats were 3.2 times more likely than Republicans to believe that McCain would cut Medicare benefits. Simply put, partisanship trumps evidence.

This also helps explain why so many people accept the most preposterous claims circulated by chain e-mail messages and ignorant or irresponsible bloggers. Our poll found nearly one in five (19 percent) falsely think Obama is a Muslim, and even more (22 percent) find truth in the claim that he’s nearly half Arab. Republicans were 2.8 times more likely than Democrats to buy the Muslim claim, and just over twice as likely to swallow the half-Arab notion.

This is "group think" in action. We humans tend to marry, date, befriend and talk with people who already agree with us, and hence are less likely to say, "Wait a minute – that’s just not true."

Consultants also dupe us by exploiting our partisan preconceptions. People tend to believe Democrats are more likely than Republicans to raise taxes, so McCain was pushing on an open door when he repeatedly claimed Obama would raise taxes on ordinary voters, and not just the most affluent. By the same token, Obama found it easy to sell his bogus claim that McCain planned to cut Medicare benefits by 22 percent, because Republicans have a reputation as opponents of social programs.

Voters aren’t highly knowledgeable about government to begin with. Our poll shows that nearly one in three (31 percent) think Congress or the president, not the Supreme Court, have the final call on whether laws are constitutional. Nearly one in 10 (9.9 percent) think Republicans still control the House of Representatives, even though they’ve had two years to catch up on results of the 2006 elections.

And voters, once deceived, tend to stay that way despite all evidence. Nearly half in our poll (46 percent) agreed that Saddam Hussein played a role in the attacks of September 11, even though no solid evidence has ever emerged to support this notion.

None of this bodes well for the future, in our view. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns that systematically disinform the public can only make the task of governing harder for the eventual winner. But are we discouraged that our efforts didn’t prevent this? Not at all. If we hadn’t tried, it might have been worse.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. Brooks Jackson is director of the APPC project FactCheck.org. They are co-authors of "unSpun, finding facts in a world of disinformation."

The Annenberg post-election poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, which interviewed 3,008 adults in the continental United States by telephone from Nov. 5 through Nov. 18, 2008. The margin of sampling error for the complete set of weighted data is ±2.3 percent.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Fortune magazine ranked Mozilo as the 13th-highest-paid male executive in 2006,

Big Payday Awaits Chairman After Countrywide Sale
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 12, 2008; Page D01

Angelo R. Mozilo has pocketed $410 million in salary, bonuses and stock-option gains since he became executive chairman of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial in 1999, according to the executive compensation company Equilar.

Now, the man at the center of the national mortgage crisis stands to collect an additional $112 million in severance when Bank of America buys the company he helped found.
Equilar's numbers are based on Countrywide's most recent proxy statement, which is a year old. According to the statement, if Countrywide is acquired and Mozilo leaves, he is entitled to a cash severance of $88 million. He would also receive a retirement package worth $24 million.

Equilar said that most of Mozilo's compensation since becoming chairman -- $285 million -- has come from stock options. Mozilo has been criticized for selling pieces of his stake in Countrywide, cashing in tens of millions of dollars in options as the housing market dropped.

Mozilo, 69, is a native New Yorker and son of a butcher. He graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx in 1960. While in high school, he took a job at a mortgage company and learned the trade as a messenger and file clerk.

Mozilo went to work full time in the mortgage industry right out of college. His first success came during the population boom at Cape Canaveral, Fla., in the 1960s after President John F. Kennedy's announced goal of putting a man on the moon. He wrote loans for aerospace engineers who descended on the cape to work for NASA, and eventually underwrote home loans across Florida.

In 1969, Mozilo launched Countrywide in Calabasas, Calif., with David Loeb, a former boss and mentor. They had a novel storefront business plan that tried to simplify the mortgage process and replace salesmen with bank-like customer service.

Mozilo said that every American who wanted to buy a home ought to be able to buy one -- a sentiment that led to millions of borrowers in recent years getting mortgages they could not afford.

Fortune magazine ranked Mozilo as the 13th-highest-paid male executive in 2006, with a total compensation of $43 million. He does not crack Forbes's list of the 400 richest Americans, however, meaning that his net worth is less than $1.3 billion.

His contract as chairman of Countrywide runs through the end of next year, and he is expected to continue as a non-employee chairman of the board until the end of 2011. During that time, he will receive a director's salary, plus $200,000 a year, office space and the use of the corporate jet for business trips. His country-club dues will also be paid.

Even if Mozilo is fired as chairman, he would receive $400,000 a year to consult until the end of 2011.

Mozilo can expect pressure from shareholders and members of Congress to part with some of his compensation.

In a written statement yesterday, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Mozilo, "who will be profiting from this transaction personally," should "donate a substantial portion of the $150 million he has collected over the last several years to nonprofits and other institutions that are helping us deal with the problem he helped to create."

Countrywide's stock price has fallen 79 percent in the past year, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has been looking at Mozilo's stock sales during the decline. He has said he did nothing wrong.

Mozilo holds an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine University, has been on the board of Home Depot and is a member of the board of trustees of Gonzaga University.

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Accounting Fraud...Really? look at all thePublicCompnaies that dumped their losers into private NCFE...BIGGER THAN ENRON!!

The push to credit 'mortgage-back securities' as the causal effect of our financial crisis is very troubling and misleading.
Yes,the home mortgage crisis is a huge contribution, however do you honestly believe Iceland, a Country, has gone bankrupt because of 'low income'or 'mortgage backed securitues'?

We cannot continue to allow the false rhetoric to soar and the truth to be buried. If we continue to blame 'mortgage-backed securites" as the root of the problem, justice will never be ceased.

We need to get to the root of this Global Financial Crisis, whatever the outcome.

Remember, Corporate Bankruptcy,Debtor in Possession Financing,(Darla Moore's invention-Richard Rainwater's wife), Healthcare Fraud and REIT's would be a great start.

I believe we should go back to 1997. The year Healthcare Reform was passed.

In 1997, the largest healthcare company in the nation was the "Frist Family" and friends' Hospital Corporation of America , HCA, or any one of their affiliates...There are many players here so try to keep up!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2003
WWW.USDOJ.GOV
LARGEST HEALTH CARE FRAUD CASE IN U.S. HISTORY SETTLED
HCA INVESTIGATION NETS RECORD TOTAL OF $1.7 BILLION

WASHINGTON, D.C. - HCA Inc. (formerly known as Columbia/HCA and HCA - The Healthcare Company) has agreed to pay the United States $631 million in civil penalties and damages arising from false claims the government alleged it submitted to Medicare and other federal health programs, the Justice Department announced today.

One must wonder about the mortgage-related securities JPMorgan is taking onto its books. The following are not the only questionable liabilities JPMorgan has taken on that Richard Rainwater was directly involved with and I am not referring to oil.

JPMorgan is taking on about $176 billion of WaMu home loans, and marking down almost $31 billion of that right off the bat.

Just before the Real Estate crash in 2007, JPMorgan Chase financed Richard Rainwater’s REIT, Crescent (CEI) sale. (Many investors wondered about this move)

Jul 28, 2003
2003-87
SEC Settles Enforcement Proceedings against J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
J.P. Morgan Chase Agrees to Pay $135 Million to Settle SEC Allegations that It Helped Enron Commit Fraud
Citigroup Agrees to Pay $120 Million to Settle SEC Allegations that It Helped Enron and Dynegy Commit Fraud

The following is an excerpt from a 10-K SEC Filing, filed by J P MORGAN CHASE & CO on 3/9/2006: Enron litigation. JPMorgan Chase and certain of its officers and directors are involved in a number of lawsuits arising out of its banking relationships with Enron Corp.

The three current or former Firm employees are sued in their roles as former
members of NCFE's board of directors
National Century Financial Enterprises litigation. JPMorgan Chase, JPMorgan
Chase Bank, JPMorgan Partners, Beacon Group, LLC and three current or former
Firm employees have been named as defendants in more than a dozen actions filed in or transferred to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (the "MDL Litigation"). In the majority of these actions, Bank One, Bank One, N.A., and Banc One Capital Markets, Inc. are also named as defendants.
JPMorgan Chase Bank and Bank One, N.A. are also defendants in an action brought by The Unencumbered Assets Trust ("UAT"), a trust created for the benefit of the creditors of National Century Financial Enterprises, Inc. ("NCFE") as a result
of NCFE's Plan of Liquidation in bankruptcy.

"...the Order finds that JPMorgan Chase was a cause of NCFE's violations of Section 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act, requires JPMorgan Chase to cease and desist from committing or causing any violations and any future violations of Section 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act, and orders JPMorgan Chase to pay disgorgement of $1,286,808.82 and prejudgment interest of $711,335.76. JPMorgan Chase consented to the issuance of the Order without admitting or denying any of the findings therein."

JP Morgan Settles SEC Proceeding Relating to Activities as Trustee to National Century Financial Enterprises

The SEC settled administrative proceedings against JPMorgan Chase & Co relating to its activities as an asset-backed indenture trustee for certain special-purpose subsidiary programs (programs) of National Century Financial Enterprises, Inc. (NCFE), formerly a Dublin, Ohio healthcare financing company, during the approximate period 1999-2002. According to the SEC's Order, JPMorgan Chase and Bank One Corporation, which merged into JPMorgan Chase in 2004, at the instruction of NCFE, made transfers between reserve accounts in the programs that contradicted NCFE's representations to investors about how the reserve accounts would be used and contravened the requirements of the indentures governing the programs. In addition, the Order finds that pursuant to NCFE's instructions, JPMorgan Chase and Bank One made month-end transfers of huge amounts of reserve account funds and that these transfers helped NCFE mask substantial and growing reserve account shortfalls. Based on the above, the Order finds that JPMorgan Chase was a cause of NCFE's violations of Section 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act, requires JPMorgan Chase to cease and desist from committing or causing any violations and any future violations of Section 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act, and orders JPMorgan Chase to pay disgorgement of $1,286,808.82 and prejudgment interest of $711,335.76. JPMorgan Chase consented to the issuance of the Order without admitting or denying any of the findings therein. In the Matter of JPMorgan Chase & Co.

A little history of National Century Financial Enterprises (NCFE):

Prior to bankruptcy, NCFE provided financing to various healthcare providers through wholly-owned special-purpose vehicles,including NPF VI and NPF XII, which purchased discounted accounts receivable to be paid under third-party insurance programs. NPF VI and NPF XII financed the purchases of such receivables, primarily through private placements of notes.

TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ohsn
SUPERSEDING INDICTMENT CHARGES FORMER EXECUTIVES OF HEALTH CARE FINANCING COMPANY WITH CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, MONEY LAUNDERING

COLUMBUS – A federal grand jury here today returned a superseding indictment charging eight former executives of National Century Financial Enterprises (NCFE) with conspiring to defraud investors by diverting millions of dollars in investors’ funds, fabricating data in investor reports, and moving money back and forth between accounts in order to conceal investor fund shortfalls. NCFE, based in Dublin, Ohio, was one of the largest healthcare finance companies in the United States until it filed for bankruptcy in November, 2002.

All defendants, except for James K Happ, were initially indicted in May, 2006. United States District Judge Algenon L. Marbley will preside over the case which is scheduled for trial on November 5, 2007.

“All defendants, except for Happ...”
Who is James K Happ?

James K Happ has an interesting employment history.

SEPTEMBER 9, 2003
Source: ANNUAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS-SEPTEMBER 9, 2003-Med Diversified Inc.
JAMES K. HAPP has served as chief executive officer of our subsidiary,
Tender Loving Care Health Care Services, Inc., since October 2002.
Previously, Mr. Happ served for three years as executive vice president of NCFE,
during which time he restructured the servicer department to improve operational
Performance and accelerated the utilization of technology to increase operational
efficiency. Mr. Happ also served as chief financial officer of the
Dallas-based Columbia Homecare Group, Inc., a home care company with more than 500 locations nationwide and more than $1 billion in revenue in 1997.

In this role, he directed the company through the challenging reimbursement climate, known as the interim payment system, and participated in the divestiture of all of Columbia/HCA's home care operations. (All of which are in the Bankruptcy case in Tennessee) Who owned Columbia Homecare Group, Inc.?