March 24, 2012 archive

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The JOBS Act, Only It Doesn’t

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The Senate passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, JOBS Act, with a bipartisan vote of 73-26, with all the “no” votes coming from Democrats. The legislation will make it easier for small businesses to use the Internet to raise small investments from lots of people, a technique known as “crowdfunding.” :

The legislation combines six smaller bills that change Securities and Exchange Commission rules so small businesses can attract investors and go public with less red tape and cost. It eases rules on advertising and permits startups to use the Internet and other social media to solicit a large number of small-scale investors.

So why is this not such a good bill? Basically, as Mark Gongloff of Huffington Post explains, because it rolls back “investor-protection regulations, some of which date back to the 1930s, and some of which have been passed as recently as 2002 in the wake of Wall Street shenanigans from the 1990s tech bubble to Enron.”

The bill purports to make it much easier for small firms to raise money, either through private “crowdfunding,” essentially raising money online, or by going public. At its heart is the persistent myth, relentlessly propounded by Wall Street, that there are a million Facebooks out there waiting to thrive and create jobs if only the government would just get the heck out of the way. [..]

Investment banks can now issue research reports on the companies they take public — meaning we’ll be back to the days when analysts can pump up “POS” stocks they then dump on unwitting customers — removing a prohibition set by Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002.

Web sites can pitch new companies directly to investors, raising the specter of “boiler rooms” preying on your grandmother to pry away her retirement money.

To give Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) some credit, he did manage to get one amendment passed that would provide some investor protections:

required companies that use crowdfunding to provide financial statements to investors. Companies seeking between $100,000 and $500,000 in capital would have to get independent accountants to review these statements. Audited financial statements would be required for companies seeking more than $500,000 in capital.

The amendment also limits the total amount that a company can raise through crowdfunding to $1 million. The House bill would allow companies to raise up to $2 million, if they provide audited financial statements.

In addition, the amendment requires Internet intermediaries — the web sites that will offer crowdfunding investment opportunities to the public — to register with the SEC.

An amendment that would have tightened certain shareholder definitions, and prevented public companies from “going dark” if their shareholder number falls below a certain threshold, failed to pass a straight majority vote.

Dan Primack at CNN’s Fortune best describes what does and doesn’t matter about the bill and states his the reason for his opposition:

Emerging growth companies: Okay, this is where I move from ambivalence to opposition. The idea here is to make it easier for small private companies to go public, by reducing the costs associated with such an action. It does so by reducing certain existing investor protections, including one that prevents investment banking analysts from offering pre-IPO research on their firm’s own clients. Here is what I wrote on the subject, back in January:

   Going public is not supposed to be a cakewalk. We’ve already been through an IPO environment where all you needed was a clever URL and a fuzzy mascot, and the results weren’t pretty. I’m not suggesting that last year’s issuers are all future members of the Fortune 500, but shouldn’t a successful listing signal to retail investors that experienced institutions took a hard look at the issuer and considered it worthy of consideration? How can that still be true if those institutions get to see only two years of audited financial statements instead of three? Or if analysts working for a company’s underwriting bank can publish pre-IPO research (albeit with a disclaimer)?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) gives his scathing criticism of the bill, calling it the “Con Job Bill”:

“The so-called ‘JOBS Act’ is an extremely anti-consumer, anti-investor, and anti-jobs bill.  As currently drafted, the bill is opposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman (as well as past SEC chairmen appointed by both political parties); AARP; the AFL-CIO; the Consumer Federation of America; Consumers Union; and the Council of Institutional Investors, among many others.  There is good reason for the opposition.

“At best, this bill could make it easier for con artists to defraud seniors out of their entire life savings by convincing them to invest in worthless companies.  At worst, this bill has the potential to create the next Enron or Arthur Andersen scandal or an even worse financial crisis.

“Have we learned nothing?  Deregulating Wall Street led to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.  Now the same people who caused this horrible recession are telling us that more Wall Street deregulation will create jobs.  Give me a break.  I strongly support providing small businesses with the tools they need to create jobs.  Sadly, that’s not at all what this bill will do.”

Calling this the “JOBS” Act is a misnomer because, as Yves Smith notes at naked capitalism, “In reality, the only jobs it is likely to create will be due to the resulting explosion in stock scamsters and bucket shop operators.”

And there is no worry that this bill will pass in the House. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has schedule a vote for early next week.

Here come the “Penny Stocks.” Good job, Barack

A New Head For The World Bank

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

In a surprise announcement President Barack Obama nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to head up the World Bank:

Dr. Kim’s name was not among those widely bandied about since Mr. (Robert B.) Zoellick announced his plans to move on last month. Highly respected among aid experts, Dr. Kim is an anthropologist and a physician who co-founded Partners in Health, a nonprofit that provides health care for the poor, and a former director of the department of H.I.V./AIDS at the World Health Organization. [..]

Dr. Kim, who was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2003, was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1959 and moved with his family to the United States when he was 5. He graduated from Brown University in 1982, earned an M.D. from Harvard University in 1991 and received a Ph.D. in anthropology there in 1993.

He was the first Asian-American to head an Ivy League institution when he took the Dartmouth post in 2009.

While working with Partners in Health in Lima, Peru, in the mid-1990s, Dr. Kim helped to develop a treatment program for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the first large-scale treatment of that disease in a poor country. Treatment programs for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are now in place in more than 40 nations, according to Dr. Kim’s biography on Dartmouth’s Web site. He Kim also spearheaded the successful effort to reduce the price of the drugs used to treat this form of tuberculosis.

The United States traditionally selects the head of the World Bank and Europe the leader of its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, since they were founded during World War II.

Apparently, Dr. Kim was suggested by former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was present with the President and Dr. Kim at the Rose Garden press conference. Though Dr. Kim will certainly be the front runner for the position, he isn’t the only candidate:

Angola, South Africa and Nigeria put forward Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian finance minister and former World Bank official.

José Antonio Ocampo, the former finance minister of Colombia and a United Nations official, is rumored to be another candidate.

Jeffrey Sachs, the development economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, has put himself forward for the position.

If there are more than three candidates, the board will announce a “short list” and the new head will be named in time for the April meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Dr. Kim is an excellent choice with experience in global development and management. He is well known and well liked. We wish him luck.

Cartnoon

This week’s episodes originally aired September 23, 2005.

The Six Wazillion Dollar Duck, Season 3 Episode 11 Part 1

On This Day In History March 24

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

March 24 is the 83rd day of the year (84th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 282 days remaining until the end of the year.

March 24th is the 365th and last day of the year in many European implementations of the Julian calendar.

On this day in 1989, Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska.

The worst oil spill in U.S. territory begins when the supertanker Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, runs aground on a reef in Prince William Sound in southern Alaska. An estimated 11 million gallons of oil eventually spilled into the water. Attempts to contain the massive spill were unsuccessful, and wind and currents spread the oil more than 100 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 700 miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands of birds and animals were adversely affected by the environmental disaster.

It was later revealed that Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Valdez, was drinking at the time of the accident and allowed an uncertified officer to steer the massive vessel. In March 1990, Hazelwood was convicted of misdemeanor negligence, fined $50,000, and ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service. In July 1992, an Alaska court overturned Hazelwood’s conviction, citing a federal statute that grants freedom from prosecution to those who report an oil spill.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound‘s Bligh Reef and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to 119,000 m3) of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. As significant as the Valdez spill was-the largest ever in U.S. waters until the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill-it ranks well down on the list of the world’s largest oil spills in terms of volume released. However, Prince William Sound’s remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane and boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely taxed existing plans for response. The region is a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals and seabirds. The oil, originally extracted at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, eventually covered 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline, and 11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of ocean. Then Exxon CEO, Lawrence G. Rawl, shaped the company’s response.

Timeline of events

Exxon Valdez left the Valdez oil terminal in Alaska at 9:12 pm on March 23, 1989, bound for Long Beach, California. The ship was under the control of Shipmaster Joseph Jeffrey Hazelwood. The outbound shipping lane was obstructed with small icebergs (possibly from the nearby Columbia Glacier), so Hazelwood got permission from the Coast Guard to go out through the inbound lane. Following the maneuver and sometime after 11 p.m., Hazelwood left Third Mate Gregory Cousins in charge of the wheel house and Able Seaman Robert Kagan at the helm. Neither man had been given his mandatory six hours off duty before beginning his 12-hour watch. The ship was on autopilot, using the navigation system installed by the company that constructed the ship. The ship struck Bligh Reef at around 12:04 a.m. March 24, 1989.

Beginning three days after the vessel grounded, a storm pushed large quantities of fresh oil on to the rocky shores of many of the beaches in the Knight Island chain. In this photograph, pooled oil is shown stranded in the rocks.

According to official reports, the ship was carrying approximately 55 million US gallons (210,000 m3) of oil, of which about 11 to 32 million US gallons (42,000 to 120,000 m3) were spilled into the Prince William Sound. A figure of 11 million US gallons (42,000 m3) was a commonly accepted estimate of the spill’s volume and has been used by the State of Alaska’s Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Some groups, such as Defenders of Wildlife, dispute the official estimates, maintaining that the volume of the spill has been underreported. Alternative calculations, based on an assumption that the sea water rather than oil was drained from the damaged tanks, estimate the total to have been 25 to 32 million US gallons (95,000 to 120,000 m3).

Identified causes

Multiple factors have been identified as contributing to the incident:

   * Exxon Shipping Company failed to supervise the master and provide a rested and sufficient crew for Exxon Valdez. The NTSB found this was wide spread throughout industry, prompting a safety recommendation to Exxon and to the industry.

   * The third mate failed to properly maneuver the vessel, possibly due to fatigue or excessive workload.

   * Exxon Shipping Company failed to properly maintain the Raytheon Collision Avoidance System (RAYCAS) radar, which, if functional, would have indicated to the third mate an impending collision with the Bligh reef by detecting the “radar reflector”, placed on the next rock inland from Bligh Reef for the purpose of keeping boats on course via radar.

In light of the above and other findings, investigative reporter Greg Palast stated in 2008 “Forget the drunken skipper fable. As to Captain Joe Hazelwood, he was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate never would have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his RAYCAS radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker’s radar was left broken and disabled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was (in Exxon’s view) just too expensive to fix and operate.” Exxon blamed Captain Hazelwood for the grounding of the tanker.

Economic and personal impact

In 1991, following the collapse of the local marine population (particularly clams, herring, and seals) the Chugach Alaska Corporation, an Alaska Native Corporation, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It has since recovered.

According to several studies funded by the state of Alaska, the spill had both short-term and long-term economic effects. These included the loss of recreational sports, fisheries, reduced tourism, and an estimate of what economists call “existence value”, which is the value to the public of a pristine Prince William Sound.

The economy of the city of Cordova, Alaska was adversely affected after the spill damaged stocks of salmon and herring in the area. Several residents, including one former mayor, committed suicide after the spill.

Late Night Karaoke

Random Japan

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THERE’S GOOD NEWS AND THERE’S BAD NEWS…

          Women’s World Cup titleholders Nadeshiko Japan beat the powerful Americans in soccer once again, this time 1-0 at the Algarve Cup tournament in Portugal.

   Unfortunately, however, the Japanese women would go on to lose 4-3 to Germany in the Algarve Cup final.

   US pop singer and 1980s icon Cyndi Lauper was in tsunami-hit Ishinomaki to cheer up local elementary school students with a few songs. Lauper was also here a year earlier, arriving on March 11, 2011. Not the greatest timing for a girl who just wanted to have…

   A private detective agency in Japan revealed that 21.5 percent of married women with jobs that they were hired to track had been unfaithful.

   The number of Japanese students who committed suicide in 2011 was up to 1,029, a record and over 100 higher than the previous year, according to the National Police Agency.

   A 6m fishing boat, swept away by the March 11 tsunami from a town in Iwate Prefecture and later recovered off the coast of Hyogo Prefecture, was returned to the owner’s family. The man who owned the boat was killed by the tsunami.

   A Buddhist temple in Nagano has made wooden Jizo statues, which spiritually protect temples, out of fallen pine trees from disaster-hit Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture.

   US Navy Admiral Robert Willard, the man who coordinated the US military’s post-March 11 relief operations in Japan-Operation Tomodachi-stepped down from his post as commander of the US Pacific Command.

   An elderly man and woman were found dead in a Tokyo apartment. The pair apparently expired due to “illness,” according to the local police.

   Pieces of haniwa clay figures shaped in the form of humans dating from the 5th century were found at a burial site in Shimane Prefecture, the oldest artifacts of their type ever discovered in Japan.

The Final This Week In The Dream Antilles

To be clear, your Bloguero is going nowhere. Really, he isn’t. It’s just that the format of “This Week In The Dream Antilles” has become obsolete. Outmoded. Not useful. Despite a mountain of his excellent intentions, your Bloguero hasn’t been keeping to the task. Yes, he’s put the headline up weekly, “The Week In The Dream Antilles,” but what does he do then? He doesn’t write a digest. No. He does something else.  Something else entirely. Whatever you may call it, one thing is clear: it’s not the digest of the week’s stories at The Dream Antilles.  And it’s been months since your Bloguero actually kept to the task and posted an actual digest. So, your Bloguero wonders solipsistically (you already know he talks to himself), “Ah, Bloguero, Sr. my friend, why are you keeping up this digestive kabuki? (Your Bloguero loves to punish himself). Why not instead just write a weekly essay for all of these wonderful group blogs. And drop the conceit of writing a digest of essays? Won’t that free up some of the neurons in your cranium?”

There you have it. But that’s not all. There’s this, repeated in its entirety:

Yet Another Broken Heart

President Obama got it entirely right when he said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” That captures it in a sentence.  A broken heart, and profound sadness and anger at the shooting of Trayvon Martin. And that’s why, today, students across South Florida, who understand from their own experiences how easy it is to be hassled, frisked, shot, or killed, walked out of school in protest. The death of Trayvon just is too much to bear. What else could they do?

And that’s why so many people are wearing hoodies today in solidarity with Trayvon and to symbolize their desire that justice be done.  I’m one of those. What else can I do?

And that’s why there are demonstrations in many cities that begin with the horror of the death of Trayvon Martin and go on to inevitable questions about the role of police, the constant frisking on the sidewalk. And the incessant of stopping of cars. And endemic surveillance and following and watching and stopping to ask questions.  Was it Justice Brandeis who wrote in dissent about the right of the people to be left alone?

It’s obvious. There’s something incredibly wrong going on. And it’s not new. No. It’s been going on in one dreadful form or another for more than half a millennium in this hemisphere and for more than 400 years in what is now the United States of America. And it continues.  In its simplest terms, it’s dehumanization. It has a long, horrible, degrading, exasperating history. And it continues.  It continues in many forms. Some are new, but others are age old. And it is persistent. And I have no idea how to stop it.  It has such deep roots and so much momentum. And despite all of the justified anger and all of the profound sadness, it continues.  Nobody seems to be able to stop it.

Here’s the heartbreak:  your teenager goes to the store to buy an iced tea and Skittles. Can he have two dollars? Sure. He doesn’t have any money. He says he’ll be right back. But he doesn’t come home alive.  He gets shot for no reason whatsoever. And he dies. Can you imagine this? And then the person who killed him isn’t even arrested.

And why isn’t he arrested? Is it because the police are stupid? Or incompetent? Or racists? Is it because the prosecutors are incompetent or racists? Or because the law of self defense has been so perverted that its been transformed by a state legislature in awe of the NRA into a shield for wanton killings of unarmed people by people with guns? Is it all of these things? Is it more than that? Is it something incomprehensible? Does it even matter why there’s been no arrest? Doesn’t the lack of an arrest speak volumes about the situation?

Here’s the heartbreak again: your teenager did nothing wrong and he’s dead. And nobody gets arrested, or charged, or indicted. And you and many other people suspect that your teenager has been murdered. But there’s no arrest. The police mumble on about the strange, new, self defense law and how somehow that ties their hands from making an arrest.  And they won’t make an arrest. And the person who should be arrested goes into hiding. And the police chief steps down temporarily. And now there’s a new state prosecutor and now there’s a federal, civil rights investigation. But there’s still no arrest. I wonder. Will there ever be an arrest? How long do I have to wait, and what exactly am I waiting for?

I wonder. How many thousands of parents have a version of this terrible event? How many parents have buried their children? How many children were lynched and killed before Emmett Till?  And how many killings of children have there been since? How many parents’ hearts have been broken when children have been killed? How many soul crushing, heartbreaking murders of children have there been? How many oceans of tears have been shed because of events just like this one?

My heart is again broken. The murder of Trayvon Martin is inexcusable. It’s yet another drop in the ocean of suffering filled with parents’ tears at the loss of their children. And the tears of the rest of us who feel their suffering. And it continues to grow.

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cross-posted from The Dream Antilles