If you didn’t have a chance to see this yesterday, you should. The Boston Globe’s Dina Rudick put together a terrific video to accompany Linda Matchan’s fine story on a video-making class for students at the Perkins School for the Blind.
Year: 2010
Open systems, open society
Apple’s attempt to ban a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist from its iTunes Store is an extension of the same mindset that led it to keep Adobe’s Flash software off its new generation of closed devices — the iPhone, the iPod touch and the iPad. And it shows that Steve Jobs and company are poorly cast in their role as a savior of the struggling news business. Or so I write in the Guardian.
Harvey Silverglate on the Goldman case
Harvey Silverglate checks in on the Goldman Sachs case:
I think you have it just right. The ideologues, especially some New York Times reporters and liberal columnists, would like to deem Goldman’s conduct “fraud” of either the civil and/or criminal variety. From time to time, a sane and informed voice peeks through the miasma and realizes what is really going on — the SEC is trying to salvage is reputation by blaming the economic melt-down on fraudsters, rather than on the incompetence of Congress, the SEC, the Treasury Department, the Fed (why did Alan Greenspan keep interest rates so low for so long? one might usefully ask) and other regulators or would-be regulators.
While there was doubtless some fraud (for example, in the writing or sub-prime mortgages to home purchasers without adequate income or even jobs), a large measure of the blame for the meltdown goes to our government, that allowed the casino to proceed and that even provided low-interest-rate money to help finance it. Those of us who took notice, as the price of houses on our respective blocks continued to escalate to the point where we never could have bought our homes had we not done so years earlier (and way beyond what we knew the houses to be worth), realized something was amiss. But the big boys on Wall Street, blinded by the huge paydays and bonuses, just kept betting more and more.
The creation of synthetic vehicles, the only purpose of which appears to have been to magnify the amount of the bet without requiring a huge amount of capital to make the bet, made the situation infinitely worse, for the vehicles were so non-transparent that they achieved higher ratings from the rating agencies (or the underlying securities did) than they intrinsically deserved. And so the combination of incredible leverage, plus non-transparency of the underlying securities, was a formula for disaster. This is the great failure of government regulators (as well as the independent rating agencies, by the way, such as Standard & Poor, Moody’s, and so forth).
What bothers me is that the SEC is being allowed to get away with absolving its own grotesque errors and incompetence by shouting “fraud.” You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but….there comes a time when the game is up. To prevent this from happening again, sane government regulation of these markets is required, period.
Watch Silverglate talk about Goldman its similarities to the case of Michael Milken, whom Silverglate represented.
Was Goldman’s sleazy behavior really illegal?
Keep an eye on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Goldman Sachs. It’s hard to imagine a less sympathetic defendant than Goldman. That may be the problem, because evidence is already emerging to suggest regulators are concocting violations in order to punish sleazy but legal behavior.
In today’s New York Times, Binyamin Appelbaum offers a useful analysis of the SEC’s civil suit against Goldman, which stands accused of defrauding investors. The story quotes experts who point out that those investors were fully informed about what they were buying. The only thing investors didn’t know was that a hedge-fund manager named John Paulson helped pick what went into the investment vehicles and then bet they would lose money, to the great benefit, as it turned out, of Goldman’s shareholders. [Note: The previous sentence has been corrected since this item was first posted.]
Elsewhere in the Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin asks, “Why was Goldman, or any regulated bank, allowed to create and sell a product like the synthetic collateralized debt obligation at the center of this case?” The key word in that sentence may be “allowed.”
The Goldman case seems similar to one investigated recently by ProPublica and the NPR program “This American Life” involving Magnetar, a hedge fund that created collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that it then bet against. Magnetar has been accused of deliberately making those CDOs as risky as possible and then shorting them, running up many tens of millions in profits when they failed. (Magnetar denied the accusation.)
According to the report, Magnetar’s dealings may have single-handedly extended the housing bubble for at least a year, making the subsequent crash much deeper than it otherwise would have been. Yet not only has there been no hint that there was anything illegal going on, but Magnetar itself is still in business.
(And by the way, if you haven’t heard the report, you should download the podcast. It is a rare model of clarity about an exceedingly murky subject. You will come away, as I did, actually knowing something about what CDOs are and why they were so harmful to the economy.)
Although the charges Goldman faces are civil rather than criminal, the story calls to mind my friend and occasional collaborator Harvey Silverglate’s book “Three Felonies a Day,” which details the expansive reach of federal prosecutors who use vague laws (“conspiracy” is a favorite) in order to punish people and corporations they have targeted.
The news media ought to follow Appelbaum’s lead and be on alert against getting spun by tales of wrongdoing at Goldman. The real outrage may prove to be not what’s illegal but what’s legal. Perhaps a better story is whether the massive financial-regulation bill now being considered by Congress would outlaw the sort of behavior that made Goldman and Magnetar clients even richer than they already were — while leaving the economy in ruins.
Slip-sliding with the Red Sox
It’s way too early to write off the Red Sox. The starting pitching, relievers Jonathan Papelbon and Daniel Bard, and the defense are all going to be fine. Early-season aberrations are nothing to worry about.
What does make me worry are bad things that were eminently predictable. A soft bullpen. Poor defense by catcher Victor Martinez. And, more than anything, weak offense led by the all-but-finished designated hitter, David Ortiz.
The Sox are going to have to get by with Martinez as catcher, and in any case he’s no worse than Jorge Posada. But the hitting? They’re two hitters away.
Getting that first hitter may be as easy as benching Ortiz and replacing him with some combination of Mike Lowell and Jeremy Hermida.
The second hitter? I imagine Theo is hoping Clay Buchholz can string together enough decent starts so that he can unload him for a good bat.
As it stands, I could easily see this team not making the playoffs. I know: Sounds like I am writing them off, doesn’t it? But I’m counting on Theo making some adjustments.
Photo (cc) by Googie Man and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Original at Wikimedia Commons.
Is there more to Howie’s suspension?
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. So maybe Howie Carr’s suspension from WRKO Radio (AM 680) is just a suspension. But let me inject some uninformed speculation into the matter. The once-great station has been running on fumes for some time. Maybe its corporate owner, Entercom, has decided to force an end game, let Carr out of his contract and turn ‘RKO into an outlet for, oh, let’s say Spanish-language infomercials.
The Boston Globe’s Erin Ailsworth reports that Carr was suspended for a week for badmouthing the station on the air — something he has done continuously since he was forced into staying in 2007. (Apparently it’s gotten worse lately.) Carr is said to be unhappy that Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated show recently moved to Clear Channel’s WXKS (AM 1200), part of a national “Rush Radio” network.
Funny, but I thought one of the reasons the station replaced Rush with Republican political consultant Charley Manning was that Howie and Manning are buddies, and that Charley might keep the petulant star more or less in line. I don’t have any numbers in front of me, but Boston radio observers have long noted that this is one of Limbaugh’s worst markets. The idea of not fighting to keep Limbaugh and going with a local show struck me as pretty smart, even if Manning’s show is a work in progress.
Carr does seem to be wallowing in bitterness lately. For instance, he recently wrote in his Boston Herald column that President Obama wouldn’t have made it through college and law school if he weren’t black:
Of course, no one expects Barack Obama to really know anything. We understand, all too well, exactly how he got through Columbia and Harvard Law. He had certain … intangibles, shall we say.
That’s pretty rancid even by Howie’s standards. No, I’m not leaving anything out — the ellipses are his, not mine.
Back in 2007, Carr tried to jump to WTKK (96.9 FM), which wanted him as its morning guy. Unfortunately for Carr, he turned out to have a contract more restrictive than Curt Flood’s, and he was forced to stay.
What’s not known is whether Greater Media, which owns ‘TKK, still wants him. Morning drive is now ably helmed by Jim Braude and Margery Eagan. Would ‘TKK move Jay Severin out of afternoon drive to make way for Carr?
Moreover, given the changed economic climate, it certainly seems unlikely that Greater Media would still be willing to pay Carr $7 million over five years.
The other mystery factor is how much Entercom really wants WRKO to succeed. There’s a lot of audience overlap between ‘RKO and another Entercom station, WEEI (AM 850), a sports-talk outlet that also carries the Red Sox. No doubt the company wants WRKO to make money, but not at the expense of its more-valuable sports station.
Carr is a legitimate talent, but it’s been years since he’s showed more than an occasional glimmer. His suspension comes at a time when he probably has little leverage. Maybe he’ll be back on the air in a week as though nothing happened. But you have to wonder if Entercom executives have finally decided it’s time to do something drastic about its faltering talk station.
Photo (cc) by Paul Keleher and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Original at Wikimedia Commons.
Profile in cowardice
CommonWealth Magazine’s Michael Jonas considers the sad case of state Rep. Ellen Story, an Amherst Democrat who candidly admits she reversed her longstanding opposition to casino gambling in order to please House Speaker Robert DeLeo.
Analyzing coverage of the Phoebe Prince story
Occasional Media Nation commenter Bill Weye has written a detailed critique of how his local newspaper, the Springfield Republican, has covered the Phoebe Prince story. Weye offers a harsh analysis, pointing his finger at newsroom cutbacks and a court reporter whom he considers to be inexperienced.
I know nothing about the Republican. But whether Weye is right or wrong, his post strikes me as a well-thought-out take that is worth reading.
Poll illuminates tea-partiers’ views on race
Thanks to Greg Mitchell’s Twitter feed, I know far more about the New York Times/CBS News poll of tea-party supporters than I would have if I’d relied solely on the Times’ polite take. (The Times does better with an interactive presentation of the complete results.) What you really want to do is check out CBS News’ coverage, starting here. A few findings that are worth pondering:
- Fewer than half — 41 percent — believe President Obama was born in the United States. Thirty percent flatly declare that Obama was born in another country, and another 29 percent don’t know. In other words, 59 percent of tea-partiers are either hard-core or soft-core birthers.
- Then again, 32 percent of Republicans believe Obama was born in another country.
- Eighteen percent of Americans identify with the tea-party movement, and just one percent of them are black. Not surprisingly, 52 percent of this overwhelmingly white group say that too much is made of the problems facing black people, and one-fourth believe the Obama administration favors blacks over whites.
- Fifty-four percent are Republicans, and 41 percent are independents. Given that 73 percent say they’re conservatives, it stands to reason that most of the independents are politically to the right of where they perceive the Republican Party to be. Just 5 percent say they are Democrats.
- Sixty-four percent believe a flat-out falsehood (other than the birther falsehood): that taxes for most Americans have risen during the Obama presidency. In fact, they have fallen.
- And here’s the explanation: 63 percent say they get most of their news from the Fox News Channel, and large majorities hold favorable view of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.
- While anger is a prime motivating factor, tea-party “activists” turn out to be even angrier than mere supporters: 72 percent of activists are mad as hell, compared to 53 percent of supporters.
Conclusion: Anyone who thinks the tea-party movement isn’t motivated by racial fears is deluding him- or herself.
Apple’s heavy-handed approach to speech
I’m trolling for Boston-area stories about Apple’s heavy-handed approach to allowing and banning apps for the iPhone, the iPod Touch and now, of course, the iPad. If you know of any, please pass them along. I would love nothing more than to give Steve Jobs a Muzzle Award, but I need a local angle.
What prompts my request is this outrageous example involving newly minuted Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore, who was unable to get his app approved because his work “ridicules public figures.”
I’ll be in the market for a new phone in the summer of 2011. It’s looking less and less likely that I’ll be going with Apple, much as I love its technology.