For a while, at least.
Archive for July, 2009
On hiatus
Sunday, July 19th, 2009The absolutely right decision
Thursday, July 16th, 2009Here’s a cheer and a great sigh of relief for the State Supreme Court’s decision rejecting the Doyle state’s efforts to get around the law through labor negotiations.
The court rejected arguments that the Legislature changed the open records law when it approved labor contracts the prohibited employees’ names from being made public. (Those contracts were negotiated during the short, mostly forgettable McCallum administration.)
A decision the other way would have set the terrible precedent of allowing laws to be changed silently and secretly, without public notice or debate, to satisfy whatever special interest can get their hooks into a willing legislator.
Sounds a bit like the state budget process, doesn’t it?
Books! Or, life behind the best-seller curve
Friday, July 10th, 2009
Stuart Woods; Putnam 2005
We are talking one bad book here. This was a road trip audio book, selected to keep my sister and I company as we drove to Boston.
Oh, it was bad. Really, really bad. So bad that we could not turn it off because its very high degree of badness was both amazing and entertaining. We ended up shouting at the CD player when something improbable, impossible or just really stupid happened. And the writing matched the plotting.
In this book, the fourth in the Holly Barker series, Ms. Barker gets pulled early out of her CIA training and suddenly is directing the effort to catch serial killer Teddy Fay, a former CIA agent himself. It’s difficult to say just how awful this was — Barker’s CIA mentor is intent on giving Barker management experience, seeming to forget that she commanded a regiment in the Army. Barker has all the good ideas, but has an awesomely large brain fart when Teddy Fay shows up at the opera. And the ending stinks, too.
This book did, however, raise an important question: is the author really this bad or so contemptuous of his readers that he doesn’t believe they will notice how bad his book is? This is the second Stuart Woods book I’ve read and I deeply regret them both.
Why the financial system needs regulating
Friday, July 10th, 2009Story 1 from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–American International Group Inc. (AIG) shares fell nearly 20% Thursday as an analyst said there’s a significant chance the stock’s value will eventually drop to zero.
Analyst Joshua Shanker estimated a 70% chance that AIG’s shareholder equity will be worthless due to the potential for more losses on European credit default swaps, as well as the hit to its long-term prospects because of its selling parts of its business cheaply in order to pay off its debt to the U.S. government.
An AIG spokeswoman declined to comment on Shanker’s analysis.
AIG shares have lost more than half their value under steady selling pressure since the stock underwent a 1-for-20 reverse stock split last week. While reverse stock splits are often meant to make shares more attractive, in AIG’s case it has given investors who are pessimistic about AIG’s prospects more room to drive shares lower.
AIG shares declined 19% in recent trading, to $10.59. When the stock split went into effect after AIG shareholders approved the move on June 30, the stock was priced at $23.20.
Story 2 from today’s New York Times:
Seeking to avoid the public furor that erupted last spring, the American International Group has been quietly seeking approval from the new federal compensation czar to pay a total of $2.4 million dollars in bonuses to dozens of its senior executives, The New York Times’s Eric Dash reported.
Officials at the embattled insurance company, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer money, have sought meetings with Kenneth Feinberg, the pay czar, to review the payments for 40 of its highest ranking employees, The Times said, citing individuals briefed on the matter.
Mr. Feinberg has been tasked with approving the pay for the 100 highest paid employees, but he also can also weigh in on other matters if a company requests.
Seeking to avoid the public furor that erupted last spring, the American International Group has been quietly seeking approval from the new federal compensation czar to pay a total of $2.4 million dollars in bonuses to dozens of its senior executives, The New York Times’s Eric Dash reported.
Officials at the embattled insurance company, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer money, have sought meetings with Kenneth Feinberg, the pay czar, to review the payments for 40 of its highest ranking employees, The Times said, citing individuals briefed on the matter.
Mr. Feinberg has been tasked with approving the pay for the 100 highest paid employees, but he also can also weigh in on other matters if a company requests.
WisDOT is just confused, maybe
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009Did you know western Wauwatosa’s population is more than 30% minority?
I didn’t either, but that is what WisDOT is telling the world in its draft environmental impact statement for the Zoo Interchange project.
More here.
Tags: Wauwatosa, WisDOT, Zoo Interchange
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