Cities and States going bankrupt will also facilitate the destruction of public workers' unions, something the Corporatists want desperately. Although I'm not sure I understand the term "austerity anschluss", I'm sure the private sector will be gobbling-up (annexing?) huge chunks of what used to be public property and commonwealth.
In exchange for NOT holding the Commercial/Investment-Banks (i.e. -rigged casinos) accountable for their >$1/2-QUADRILLION in valueless derivatives, maybe we could put ALL real estate into a public trust and re-establish a homesteading program, and declare the derivatives market (and its speculative trading) null and void.
Isn't it "Angelo" -- not Joe -- Mozilo? Also, he settled the SEC charges:
"On Friday October 15, 2010, Mozilo reached a settlement with Securities and Exchange Commission, over securities fraud and insider trading charges. Mozilo agreed to pay $67.5 million in fines and accepted a lifetime ban from serving as an officer or director of any public company, it is the largest settlement by an individual or executive connected to the 2008 housing collapse. Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement that "Mozilo's record penalty is the fitting outcome for a corporate executive who deliberately disregarded his duties to investors by concealing what he saw from inside the executive suite." By settling the SEC charges, Mozilo will avoid a trial that could have provided fodder for future criminal charges. [18][19] This fine represents a small fraction of Mozilo's estimated net worth of $600 million. Countrywide will pay $20 million of the $67.5 million penalty because of an indemnification agreement that was part of Mozillo's employment contract. The terms of the settlement allow Mr. Mozilo to avoid acknowledging any wrongdoing.
another reason states and cities are going bankrupt is that they've been cutting taxes for decades. it's not necessarily that the states do not have the resources. In many of them, some people have been getting exceedingly rich. But policymakers have refused to raise revenues, leaving infrastructure, education, health care, and the most vulnerable residents in the dust.
When UC Berkeley recently announced its elimination of baseball, men’s, women’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse teams and its defunding of the national-champion men’s rugby team, the chancellor sighed, “Sorry, but this was necessary!”
But was it? Yes, the university is in dire financial straits. Yet $3 million was somehow found by Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau to pay the Bain consulting firm to uncover waste, inefficiencies in UC Berkeley (Cal), despite the fact that a prominent East Coast university was accomplishing the same thing without expensive consultants.
Essentially, the process requires collecting, analyzing information from faculty, staff. Apparently, Cal senior management believe that the faculty, staff of their world-class university lacks the cognitive ability, integrity, energy to identify millions in savings. If consultants are necessary, the reason is clear: the chancellor has lost credibility with the people who provided the information to the consultants. Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau has reigned for eight years, during which time the inefficiencies proliferated to $150 million. Even as Bain’s recommendations are implemented (‘They told me to do it’, Birgeneau), credibility, trust, problems remain.
Bain is interviewing faculty, staff, senior management and academic senate leaders to identify $150 million in inefficiencies, most of which could have been found internally. One easy-to-identify problem, for example, was wasteful procurement practices such as failing to secure bulk discounts on printers. But Birgeneau apparently has no concept of savings: even in procuring a consulting firm he failed to receive proposals from other firms.
Students, staff, faculty, California Legislators are the victims of his incompetent decisions. Now that sports teams are feeling the pinch, perhaps the California Alumni, benefactors, donors, will demand to know why Birgeneau is raking in $500,000 a year while abdicating his work responsibilities.
Let there be light.
The author, who has 35 years’ consulting experience, has taught at University of California Berkeley, where he was able to observe the culture and the way the senior management operates.
PS University of California Berkeley (Cal) ranking drops. In 2004, for example, the London-based Times Higher Education ranked Cal the second leading research university in the world, just behind Harvard; in 2009 that ranking had tumbled to 39th place.
We are dependent on free television for entertainment and information,
but we can get those from other sources. I wonder about all the money
the government spent (our tax dollars) on the coupons for the digital
converters for people with antennas. We bought two converters but had
a forty dollar coupon for each. How about the American public standing
up and boycotting products advertised on TV? We don't do this very much
anymore because there are those who will put up with anything as mentioned
in a previous post.
I plan on stocking up on dvds so I will have something to watch;
we have never had cable television and won't ever get cable; we have seen it at other homes; it's awful.
Isn't it "Angelo" -- not Joe -- Mozilo? Also, he settled the SEC charges:
"On Friday October 15, 2010, Mozilo reached a settlement with Securities and Exchange Commission, over securities fraud and insider trading charges. Mozilo agreed to pay $67.5 million in fines and accepted a lifetime ban from serving as an officer or director of any public company, it is the largest settlement by an individual or executive connected to the 2008 housing collapse. Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement that "Mozilo's record penalty is the fitting outcome for a corporate executive who deliberately disregarded his duties to investors by concealing what he saw from inside the executive suite." By settling the SEC charges, Mozilo will avoid a trial that could have provided fodder for future criminal charges. [18][19] This fine represents a small fraction of Mozilo's estimated net worth of $600 million. Countrywide will pay $20 million of the $67.5 million penalty because of an indemnification agreement that was part of Mozillo's employment contract. The terms of the settlement allow Mr. Mozilo to avoid acknowledging any wrongdoing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Mozilo
When UC Berkeley recently announced its elimination of baseball, men’s, women’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse teams and its defunding of the national-champion men’s rugby team, the chancellor sighed, “Sorry, but this was necessary!”
But was it? Yes, the university is in dire financial straits. Yet $3 million was somehow found by Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau to pay the Bain consulting firm to uncover waste, inefficiencies in UC Berkeley (Cal), despite the fact that a prominent East Coast university was accomplishing the same thing without expensive consultants.
Essentially, the process requires collecting, analyzing information from faculty, staff. Apparently, Cal senior management believe that the faculty, staff of their world-class university lacks the cognitive ability, integrity, energy to identify millions in savings. If consultants are necessary, the reason is clear: the chancellor has lost credibility with the people who provided the information to the consultants. Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau has reigned for eight years, during which time the inefficiencies proliferated to $150 million. Even as Bain’s recommendations are implemented (‘They told me to do it’, Birgeneau), credibility, trust, problems remain.
Bain is interviewing faculty, staff, senior management and academic senate leaders to identify $150 million in inefficiencies, most of which could have been found internally. One easy-to-identify problem, for example, was wasteful procurement practices such as failing to secure bulk discounts on printers. But Birgeneau apparently has no concept of savings: even in procuring a consulting firm he failed to receive proposals from other firms.
Students, staff, faculty, California Legislators are the victims of his incompetent decisions. Now that sports teams are feeling the pinch, perhaps the California Alumni, benefactors, donors, will demand to know why Birgeneau is raking in $500,000 a year while abdicating his work responsibilities.
Let there be light.
The author, who has 35 years’ consulting experience, has taught at University of California Berkeley, where he was able to observe the culture and the way the senior management operates.
PS University of California Berkeley (Cal) ranking drops. In 2004, for example, the London-based Times Higher Education ranked Cal the second leading research university in the world, just behind Harvard; in 2009 that ranking had tumbled to 39th place.
Kiplinger rated UC Berkeley 16th best in 2011
We are dependent on free television for entertainment and information,
but we can get those from other sources. I wonder about all the money
the government spent (our tax dollars) on the coupons for the digital
converters for people with antennas. We bought two converters but had
a forty dollar coupon for each. How about the American public standing
up and boycotting products advertised on TV? We don't do this very much
anymore because there are those who will put up with anything as mentioned
in a previous post.
I plan on stocking up on dvds so I will have something to watch;
we have never had cable television and won't ever get cable; we have seen it at other homes; it's awful.
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