What's the next step for Goldman's Board of Directors?

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s directors must investigate a former employee’s allegations about a change in the firm’s culture, Jacki Zehner, who was a partner when she left the firm in 2002, wrote on her blog. 

Zehner said she doesn’t know Greg Smith, the derivatives salesman whose New York Times op-ed piece blamed Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein and President Gary D. Cohn for fostering a “toxic and destructive” environment, causing Smith to quit last week. Zehner, who worked at Goldman Sachs for 14 years, wrote that she’s heard from “many people” in the past few years that the firm is emphasizing profits over character.

“These are very serious accusations from a credible person in my view and I hope it does indeed provide a ‘wake-up’ call to the board of directors,” wrote Zehner, who was the first female trader promoted to partner and is married to a former partner. She is now CEO and president of Women Moving Millions, a non- profit supporting the advancement of women and girls worldwide. 

“It is the board that is accountable to shareholders and before they take another paycheck I hope they ask a heck of a lot of questions and get honest answers,” Zehner, 47, wrote in her March 16 commentary.

Romney wants to relive the George W Bush legacy or folly?

In November 2010, supporters of George W. Bush gathered on a college campus in Dallas, Texas, to mark the groundbreaking of Bush's presidential library.

Among those in the invitation-only crowd - which included former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a former Colombian president and singer Wayne Newton - was Mitt Romney.

Romney's visit to Dallas to celebrate the former Republican president, one who left office historically unpopular, was a hint of how he would build his campaign to be the next Republican president: with the Bush crowd surrounding him.

From policy advisers to campaign strategists, more than two dozen veterans of the Bush administration have flocked to Romney's campaign.

Their key roles contrast with Romney's rhetoric on the stump. The former Massachusetts governor has tried to cast himself as a Washington "outsider," largely avoided mentioning Bush's tenure and made a point of criticizing several programs at the heart of Bush's legacy.  But then again Mitt likes to flip on pretty much every point.  Do I hear a little more moral relativism for the American People!!!!!

Light at the end of the tunnel and its not a train!!!

The Fed said yesterday that strains in global financial markets have eased and the labor market is gathering strength. In a separate statement, the U.S. central bank said 15 of the nation’s largest 19 banks could maintain adequate capital levels even in a recession scenario. Data later today may show Indian wholesale prices rose 6.7 percent last month, near the slowest pace in two years, based on economists surveyed by Bloomberg
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“It is just a continued pattern of relatively strong U.S. economic data,” said Shane Oliver, Sydney-based head of investment strategy at AMP Capital Investors Ltd., which oversees about $100 billion. “Overall it’s fairly a positive sign for the U.S. financial sector, banks in particular. It shows how much things have turned around from the situation three years ago.”

Mutant Rootworms attack crops!!!!

A group of US plant scientists have sent a letter warning federal regulators that action is needed to mitigate a growing problem with biotech (that would be genetically modified = GMO) corn that is losing its resistance to plant-damaging pests.

The stakes are high – US corn production is critical for food, animal feed and ethanol production, and farmers have increasingly been relying on corn that has been genetically modified to be toxic to corn rootworm pests.
“This is not something that is a surprise… but it is something that needs to be addressed,” said Joseph Spencer, a corn entomologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, part of the University of Illinois.
Spencer is one of 22 academic corn experts who sent the letter dated March 5 to the US EPA telling regulators they are worried about long-term corn production prospects because of the failure of the genetic modifications in corn aimed at protection from rootworm.

Monsanto introduced its corn rootworm protected products, which contain a protein referred to as “Cry3Bb1,” in 2003 and they have proved popular with farmers in key growing areas around the country. Biotech corn sales are a key growth driver of sales at Monsanto.

The corn rootworm product is supposed to reduce the need to put insecticides into the soil, essentially making the corn plants toxic to the worms that try to feed on their roots.

But plant scientists have recently found evidence that the genetic modification is losing its effectiveness, making the plants vulnerable to rootworm damage and potentially significant production losses.  The rootworm's are genetically adapting to the genetically modified corn to produce "super" rootworms.

The scientists said in their letter to EPA that the situation should be acted upon “carefully, but with a sense of some urgency.” [That would be scientific talk for "holy shit!!!"]

it’s going to be a good year! :-)

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rallied 0.8 percent as of 11:12 a.m. in Tokyo, climbing for the third time in four days. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.2 percent. The yen weakened 0.2 percent to 108.44 per euro and New Zealand’s dollar appreciated 0.4 percent to 82.16 U.S. cents. Oil traded near the lowest level in a week in New York.

U.S. retail sales rose 1.1 percent in February, the most in five months, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg, reducing the likelihood the Federal Reserve will add to stimulus measures today. The Bank of Japan is also forecast to keep policy unchanged today. European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said he was confident EU leaders would reach an agreement on increasing the size of its crisis- fighting funds this month.

“We’re starting to feel more confident and it’s going to be a good year, particularly in equities,” Kirk West, Sydney- based executive director of international investments at Principal Global Investors, manager of about $215 billion in assets, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “‘In the U.S., it’s all about jobs. Jobs growth has continued and will ultimately lead to further consumption and that’s a virtuous cycle.”

Doesn't a Knowledge Economy Ministry sound like a SMART thing to have???

South Korea’s plan to install smart meters in half the country’s households by 2016 could cut electricity consumption equivalent to the cost of one nuclear power plant. 

“We want to make the utility industry intelligent and efficient,” said Choi Kyu Chong, director of the Smart Grid & Electricity Market Division of the Knowledge Economy Ministry. South Korea expects it will be able to save the cost of building a reactor by 2016 by helping households and utilities to manage electricity consumption through the meters, he said.

Weaker Yuan = cheaper stuff for USA-EU = lower inflation = growth (or something like that)

China’s economic growth slowed in the first two months of the year, with both exports and domestic demand moderating faster than analysts had forecast, building the case for Premier Wen Jiabao to accelerate stimulus measures.

The world’s second-largest economy had the biggest trade deficit last month in at least 22 years, the weakest January- February factory-production gain since 2009 and retail sales below the median economist estimate, government data showed March 9 and 10.

Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said today that the nation has large scope in theory for lowering banks’ reserve requirements, and the yuan tumbled after officials weakened the reference rate. Moderating inflation and Europe’s faltering export demand may encourage the government to loosen credit and pause on currency gains, with the yuan down 0.5 percent this year against the dollar after climbing 4.5 percent in 2011.
“We are likely to see another cut sometime soon” in the required-reserves ratio, Brian Jackson, a Hong Kong-based economist with Royal Bank of Canada, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “If you look at the January and February numbers combined, whether it’s trade, whether it’s industrial production, it all shows a pretty clear picture of things continuing to slow down since the start of the year.”

The yuan fell 0.2 percent to 6.3239 as of 12:11 p.m. in Shanghai, the biggest decline since Jan. 20, after the central bank weakened the daily reference rate by the most since August 2010. The MSCI Asia Pacific index of stocks fell 0.6 percent as of 2:20 p.m. in Tokyo.

Encana Impairment

In its earnings report, Encana cited an impairment charge of $854 million in reporting a net loss for $246 million or 33 cents per share, compared with a loss of $469 million or 64 cents per share in the same quarter a year ago despite lower 2010 impairment charges of $371 million.

“There’s a scary amount of gas out there.”

Chesapeake CEO Seeks Cash Infusion  

Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon is cultivating investors from Seoul to New Delhi eager to own natural gas that’s 85 percent cheaper than Middle East supplies because of a glut in the U.S. 

As head of the second-largest U.S. natural gas supplier, McClendon met executives of Asian power utilities and state-run energy companies on a 14-day trip last month. He said they’re unfazed by Chesapeake’s $10.3 billion debt load, more than twice Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)’s burden, and gas trading near a 10-year low of $2.23 per million British thermal units -- two factors that have helped send its stock down 25 percent in the past year. 

“We are presently owned by a group of investors who don’t think gas prices will ever go above $4,” McClendon, 52, said in an interview in Oklahoma City (13409MF), where Chesapeake is based.

To tide over Chesapeake, McClendon plans to sell more than $17 billion in oil fields and other assets by the end of 2013 to cover a cash-flow gap aggravated by plunging gas prices.

U.S. gas has tumbled 22 percent this year, following a 32 percent plunge in 2011.

Soaring production from shale fields in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania smashed open by high-pressure jets of water and sand inflated supplies at a time of mild winter weather that suppressed demand for the furnace fuel.

Gas futures traded in New York touched $2.23 per million British thermal units on Jan. 23, the lowest since February 2002.

iShares Human Rights Index Fund => nothing will drive responsible civilisation like money!!!

iShares has filed paperwork with the SEC for a “iShares Human Rights Index Fund.” 

Principal Investment Strategies
The Underlying Index aims to exclude companies that have economic associations with countries or regimes that are implicated in certain serious human rights violations, including, but not limited to, acts that result in widespread death, torture, rape, slavery, forced labor, and forced displacement of communities.

In addition, companies with substantial economic associations with repressive regimes with poor human rights records, such as Sudan, Iran and Burma, are excluded.

Further violations may also include, but are not limited to, actions taken by company employees, local military, security personnel, private military, or civilian contractors.

The selection universe for the Underlying Index is the MSCI All Country World Index. The Underlying Index is comprised only of equity securities. Companies are then excluded from this list based on MSCI ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) research data as of the end of January, April, July and October. As of December 31, 2011, the Underlying Index consisted of companies in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States (together, the “ACWI countries”).

Govt of the Rich, for the Rich, by the Rich ....hmmm that's not what it says!!!

The Kochs Want to Kill the Cato Institute!!!

It seems the effort by billionaires Charles and David Koch to take control of the libertarian Cato Institute is going poorly. 

The Koch brothers have long supported Cato, which they helped found in Washington in 1977. Recently, however, they have come to consider their creation politically unreliable. In a meeting with Robert Levy, the chairman of Cato’s board of directors, they expressed their intention to remake Cato into a party organ that would aid their campaign to unseat President Barack Obama. To do so, however, they need control of the board. They intend to get it by suing the widow of William Niskanen, a recently deceased board member, for control of Niskanen’s shares. 

The puzzle is that the Kochs ever started this campaign in the first place. It’s easy enough to see what they hoped to achieve: They would quietly take control of Cato and then leverage its credibility to help elect a Republican. Unfortunately for them, the cries from inside Cato made the “quietly” part impossible. But it would have been impossible in any case: Cato’s credibility is derived from its independence; it wouldn’t last long separated from it. 

What the Kochs have in Cato is an advocacy organization that matters in the years between elections, even when the Koch brothers’ preferred candidate doesn’t win, even to people who don’t share the brothers’ ideology. Cato is an organization that can have more than a marginal impact on elections. It can have a significant impact on policy and governance.

Wonder why marijuana isn't legal = look to the lobbyists...

John Lovell is a lobbyist who makes a lot of money from making sure you can’t smoke a joint. That’s his job. He’s a lobbyist for the police unions in Sacramento, and he is a driving force behind grabbing Federal dollars to shut down the California marijuana industry. 

At some point in the distant past, the war on drugs might have been popular. But not anymore — the polling is clear, but beyond that, the last three Presidents have used illegal drugs. So why do we still put hundreds of thousands of people in steel cages for pot-related offenses? Well, there are many reasons, but one of them is, of course, money in politics. Corruption. 

In 2010, California considered Prop 19, a measure to legalize marijuana and tax it as alcohol. The proposition gained more votes than Meg Whitman, the former eBay executive and Republican gubernatorial nominee that year, but failed to pass. Opponents of the initiative ran ads, organized rallies, and spread conspiracy theories about billionaire George Soros to confuse voters.

Lovell managed the opposition campaign against Prop 19.  The Republic Report reviewed lobbying contracts during the Prop 19 fight, and found that Lovell’s firm was paid over $386,350 from a wide array of police unions, including the California Police Chiefs Association.

Shortly after President Obama’s stimulus program passed, Lovell went to work channeling the taxpayer money for California into drug war programs. According to documents Republic Report obtained from the Police Chiefs Association, Lovell helped local departments apply for drug war money from the Federal government. 

There is big money in marijuana prohibition. Lovell represented a police union in a bid to steer some $2.2 million dollars into a “Marijuana Suppression Program.” In 2009 and 2010, California police unions sought a $7,537,389 chunk of Federal money for police to conduct a “Campaign Against Marijuana Planting” program.

The anti-marijuana money went directly into the paychecks of many officers. For example, police departments in Shasta, Siskiyou, and Tehama Counties formed a “North California Eradication Team” to receive $550,000 in grants that helped pay for overtime, a new officer, and flight operations:

• The total amount awarded was $550,000, to be split between Shasta, Siskiyou and Tehama counties, which make up the Northern California Marijuana Eradication Team (NorCal-MET). Broken down in the agenda worksheet, the sheriff’s office is expecting to spend $20,000 on flight operations, $94,895 for the full-time deputy’s salary and benefits, $16,788 for the administration assistant salary and benefits and $29,983 to cover up to 666.29 hours of overtime.

The Federal anti-marijuana honeypot might have dried up if Prop 19 had passed. Legalizing marijuana would have generated billions in tax revenue for the state of California, while also reducing victimless crime prosecutions. But for lobbyists like Lovell, legalization was a direct assault on hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential fees for helping to solicit taxpayer money for his clients.

Police unions also contributed about $100,500 to a campaign account used to coordinate opposition to Prop 19. Of the $386,350 in fees paid by police unions to Lovell through 2009 and 2010, status update reports reviewed by Republic Report reveal that Lovell worked on a number of issues, from advocacy against Prop 19 to channeling grants and monitoring legislation.

Of course, police unions aren’t the only interest group with a stake in maintaining broken drug laws. The beer industry, alcohol corporations, and prison guard unions also contributed money to help Lovell stop Prop 19. Howard Wooldridge, a retired police officer who now helps push for legalization as a citizen advocate, told Republic Report that drug company lobbyists also fight to keep marijuana illegal because they view pot as a low-cost form of competition.

Religious Freedom is why Mormons, Jews, Christians, Pagans, Muslims, Hindus can all exist under one American Flag.

The question I have for Mitt Romney would be this:  "Given some of the positions Joseph Smith took on other religions, other races and women = does his (Mitt's) values represent the values of all Americans which by definition requires a liberal view of what is right v an absolute view of the world?

If Mitt answered "Sure I think Americans have a right to be different", then how does he reconcile that with being a Mormon which is quite intolerant of diversitry?

Not picking on Mormons but here are a few bits that worry me:

Joseph Smith   (Mormon Patriarch)

On Other Religions => Not Tolerant

I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight: that those professors were all corrupt . . ." (Joseph Smith, "History of the Church, Vol. 1, page 5-6.)

On Other Colors => Not Tolerant

And [God] had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God; I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities." (2 Nephi 5:21)

On Polygamy => Loves it!  Joseph Smith had 33 wives!!!

Smith's well-documented wives, eleven (33 percent) were 14 to 20 years old when they married him.

Jacob 2: 24-30 = Bible
24 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none... For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.

D&C 132: Verses 62-63: (Joseph Smith)

And if he [Joseph Smith] have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.... for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

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There are liberal and conservative Mormons; some have moved far away from the literal interpretation and practices of Joseph Smith.  So like most religions, it had its dark days and hopefully is generally moving into the light of tolerance. But I would like to hear that from the lips of Mitt Romney...

Women want the CHOICE which makes their clear choice for President Barak Obama!!!

As baby showers go, the party Mary Russell attended to celebrate her niece’s first child was sweet, with about a dozen women offering congratulations over ice cream and cake. 

But somewhere between the baby name game and the gifts, what had been light conversation took a sharp turn toward the personal and political — specifically, the battle over access to birth control and other women’s health issues that have sprung to life on the Republican campaign trail in recent weeks. 

“We all agreed that this seemed like a throwback to 40 years ago,” said Ms. Russell, 57, a retired teacher from Iowa City who describes herself as an evangelical Christian and “old school” Republican of the moderate mold. 

Until the baby shower, just two weeks ago, she had favored Mitt Romney for president. 

Not anymore. She said she might vote for President Obama now. “I didn’t realize I had a strong viewpoint on this until these conversations,” Ms. Russell said. As for the Republican presidential candidates, she added: “If they’re going to decide on women’s reproductive issues, I’m not going to vote for any of them. Women’s reproduction is our own business.”