Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Wow, Like This is Astonishing

I am shocked, shocked, to learn that the guy who George Bush appointed to run the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Charles Millard, became mired in allegations of influence peddling with various Wall Street banks.

And the real "no, shit, Sherlock" moment: One of the Wall Street firms that was sucking up to Millard was Goldman Sachs. Goldman was one of the three firms to win a contract to manage money for the PBGC.

But wait, there's more!
On July 20, the agency permanently revoked the contracts with BlackRock, Goldman and JPMorgan Chase, the third winner, nullifying the process. The decision was based on questions surrounding Mr. Millard’s actions during the formal bidding process. His actions have also drawn the scrutiny of Congressional investigators and the agency’s inspector general.
And more!
Mr. Millard’s e-mail messages show that, while the bidding was under way last fall, he also spoke with Rick Lazio, a former House Republican who is now a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, to discuss career options.[1]
We are seriously into the "ZOMG, a Bush Administration official ran his agency with an eye towards feathering his own nest, so what's so shocking about that" territory. Between the incompetence and the corruption of the Bush Administration, you'd be excused for thinking that they did their recruiting, in part, from among those who scored 400 on their SATs and those who were from New Jersey.

Nothing newsworthy there.

[1]Lazio ran for the Senate in 2000 against Hillary Clinton, who, at the time, was so new to New York State that she probably thought that Erie County was home to a collection of haunted houses. Clinton nonetheless beat Lazio as though he were a trailer-park wife in "Cops".

Speaking of "Cops", here is a handy guide to dealing with the cops.

1 comment:

  1. LOL on that last link to the cops thing. Former cop Bryan at Why Now is always baffled and somewhat irate whenever cops do stupid things to violate people's rights, because, he says, "criminals that cops deal with are so stupid that they'll talk their way into a conviction if you don't violate their rights and give them a get-out-of-jail-free card." Street cops don't get to deal with the better class of criminal (the Enron/AIG level of criminal). If that class of criminal is ever brought to justice, they're allowed to voluntarily turn themselves in. And street cops almost never have anything to do with the smarter organized criminal either, who is usually behind the scenes directing common criminals and brought down by the Feebs or, more likely, the DEA, not by street cops. The guys street cops deal with are exactly as stupid as your link sez, apparently :).

    - Badtux the not-a-cop Penguin
    (But have known some over the years)

    ReplyDelete

House Rules #1, #2 and #6 apply to all comments. Rule #3 also applies to political comments.

In short, don't be a jackass. THIS MEANS YOU!
If you never see your comments posted, see Rule #7.

All comments must be on point and address either the points raised in the blog post or points raised by commenters in response.
Any comments that drift off onto other topics are subject to deletion.

(Please don't feed the trolls.)

中國詞不評論,冒抹除的風險。僅英語。

COMMENT MODERATION IS IN EFFECT UFN. This means that if you are an insulting dick, nobody will ever see it.