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Bear Stearns
Bill Maher's Complete April 4th Show + Overtime
Al Gore, Amy Holmes, Barbara Lee, Bear Stearns, Bill Clinton, Esai Morales, Hillary, Iran, Iraq, John McCain, Martin Luther King, Mortgage Crisis, Obama, Politics, Racism, Real Time, Robert Reich, Ron Paul, terrorism, Tullycasts
Florida Man Drops a Dime on Governor Elliot Spitzer; Tells F.B.I. About Sex
Alexandra Ashley Dupre, Bear Stearns, Business, C.R.E.E.P., David Patterson, Economy, Elliot Spitzer, Enron, Governor Sex Scandal, J.P. Morgan, Joe Bruno, Mortgage Bankers, Politics, Richard Nixon, Roger Stone, Wall Street Corruption
Posted on Fri, Mar. 21, 2008
Beach man told FBI of alleged Spitzer sexscapades
Almost four months before Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ”used the services of high-priced call girls” while in Florida.The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from ”a social contact in an adult-themed club.” It offered one potentially identifying detail: the man in question hadn’t taken off his calf-length black socks “during the sex act.”
Stone, known for shutting down the 2000 presidential election recount effort in Miami-Dade County, is a longtime Spitzer nemesis whose political experience ranges from the Nixon White House to Al Sharpton’s presidential campaign. His lawyer wrote the letter containing the call-girl allegations after FBI agents had asked to speak to Stone, though he says the FBI did not specify why he was contacted.”Mr. Stone respectfully declines to meet with you at this time,” the letter states, before going on to offer ”certain information” about Spitzer.
”The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services. It is Mr. Stone’s understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer,” the letter said.
”It is also my client’s understanding from the same source that Governor Spitzer did not remove his mid-calf length black socks during the sex act. Perhaps you can use this detail to corroborate Mr. Stone’s information,” the letter said, signed by attorney Paul Rolf Jensen of Costa Mesa, Calif.
The letter also notes that while Stone believes the information is true, he ”cannot swear to its accuracy” because it is second-hand.
James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI’s New York office, would not say whether the bureau had received the letter. A spokeswoman for Spitzer also had no comment.
The letter was written several months after allegations were leveled at Stone that he had left a threatening phone message at the office of Bernard Spitzer, the ex-governor’s father, regarding ”phony” campaign loans involving his son’s unsuccessful 1994 bid for attorney general. Stone denied making the call but resigned as a consultant for state Senate Republicans in Albany.
Spitzer, the crusading attorney general who became governor, resigned March 12 amid allegations he was a client of a high-paid prostitution ring, the Emperors’ Club. Four people have been charged with operating the ring. Spitzer has not been charged. A federal affidavit described a rendezvous between Spitzer and a prostitute known as Kristen, since identified as Ashley Alexandra Dupre, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13.
One of Stone’s lawyers, Fort Lauderdale attorney Robert Buschel, said the letter’s release is an attempt to set the record straight about Stone’s possible part in the Spitzer drama. Stone confirmed the letter and referred The Miami Herald to his lawyer for comments.
”The conspiracy enthusiasts on the Internet are going wild over Roger Stone’s role in the fall of Eliot Spitzer. We felt it was important to lay out for the public exactly what Mr. Stone did tell the government,” said Buschel, a partner in Rothstein, Rosenfeldt, Adler of Fort Lauderdale.
Stone works as a partner in a separate public affairs and consulting company with the same name — Rothstein, Rosenfeldt, Adler — in the same office as the law firm.
”We trust this information was helpful to federal authorities in making their case against Mr. Spitzer,” Buschel said.
Beach man told FBI of alleged Spitzer sexscapades – 03/21/2008 – MiamiHerald.com
Sirius-XM Merger Approved by Justice Department
Artie Lange, Bear Stearns, Beetlejuice, Benjy Bronk, Bloodhound Gang, Eric the Midget, Fred Norris, Gary Dell'Abate, High-Pitched Eric, Hillary, Howard Stern, J.D., J.P. Morgan, Jeff The Drunk, Jim Florentine, Justice Department, Mark The Bagger, McCain, Obama, Ralph, Richard Christie, Robin Quivers, Ronnie the Limo Driver, Sal the Stockbroker, Satellite Radio, Sirius, Sirius XM Merger, Wall Street, XM
Justice Department gives thumbs up to satellite radio merger more than one year after it was first announced.
In its decision, the Department of Justice determined that an XM-Sirius merger was not anti-competitive. The Justice Department argued that other media companies such as Clear Channel (CCU, Fortune 500), CBS (CBS, Fortune 500), or even Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) with its iTunes software and iPod music player served as alternate options for music and media customers.
The Department of Justice did not place any conditions on the merger.
“Since we determined that there was no competition between the companies, we did not need to set any conditions as such,” said Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett during a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon.
But the Federal Communications Commission must also approve the deal. The FCC has yet to make a decision on the merger and it could decide to place conditions on the deal. A spokesperson for the FCC was not immediately available for comment.
Since Sirius and XM are still awaiting approval from the FCC, it is unclear exactly what a merger would mean for consumers. Both companies charge their customers a $12.95 per month subscription fee for their most basic packages. Some have feared that if Sirius and XM are allowed to merge, the two companies would raise the monthly price.
However, the companies said last year that they would be willing to offer a so-called “a la carte” price plan where consumers could pick certain packages for less money.
The merger would combine the nation’s only two satellite radio companies and create a company with about 14 million subscribers. It would bring together Sirius’ most well-known content, including shock jock Stern and National Football League games with XM’s Major League Baseball as well as programming from Oprah Winfrey.
Currently, subscribers for either Sirius or XM can only receive broadcasts from one of the two services with their satellite radios. But in a statement Monday, XM reiterated that radios owned by its current subscribers would not need to be replaced in order to continue receiving programming.
Shares of XM (XMSR) and Sirius (SIRI) both rose after the announcement. 
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FBI Targets Mortgage Industry
FBI, Mortgage, Wall Street 
From The Times Online UK
Shit, meet fan….
America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating senior banking executives for insider dealing and fraud as part of a criminal inquiry into the sub-prime crisis, the agent leading the inquiry said yesterday.
Neil Power, the head of the FBI’s economic crimes unit, is heading the most far-reaching criminal investigation into the practices of the mortgage industry since it began to melt down last year, after years of increasingly lax lending finally fed through into an increase in defaults on home loans.
The FBI is investigating every level of the conspiracy that it believes perpetuated the housing boom and ultimately resulted in millions of Americans losing their houses, investment banks losing billions of dollars and the chief executives of Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and UBS resigning.
Mr Power said: “We’re looking at the accounting fraud that goes through the securitisation of these loans. We’re dealing with the people who securitise them and then the people who hold them, such as the investment banks.”
He said he was also concerned that some banking executives might be guilty of insider trading, offloading collatoralised debt obligations (CDOs), pools of bonds and other securities backed by mortgages, before their true valuations came to light in the wake of the home loan meltdown.
The FBI suspects that the house price boom, once seemingly endless, encouraged mortgage lenders to take increasingly large risks, making loans to people with weaker and weaker credit histories as they sought new customers. These lenders, and the brokers that arranged the mortgages, often encouraged borrowers to lie about their income. They told borrowers that if they could not meet their repayments they could always refinance their property and use the proceeds.
The FBI also suspects that the Wall Street banks may have been complicit in the process, ignoring the risks posed by these home loans because they were making huge fees from packaging them into bonds and other securities and selling them on to investors.
Finally, the FBI is investigating whether the Wall Street firms, which kept many of the mortgage bonds they packaged on their own balance sheets, may have failed to warn their investors of the risks they posed.
The FBI is the main investigative arm of the US Department of Justice, working with the US Attorney General and sometimes state attorneys general to bring criminal cases to the courts. The Bureau will also share some of the information it uncovers during the course of its investigation with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which brings civil cases against alleged corporate criminals.
Adam Compton, an analyst at RCM Global Investors in San Francisco, said: “The fact that the FBI is conducting such a wide-ranging investigation shows just how seriously the is being taken. There are so many angles to pursue.”
Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor specialising in white collar crime, added: “Given the level of the losses associated with the sub-prime mortgage crisis, this investigation could turn out to be very significant.”
The FBI launched a mortgage task force in December as it sought to step up its investigation into the home loan industry.
In addition to the sub-prime inquiry covering 14 companies, the Bureau is investigating 1,200 separate cases of mortgage fraud. Many of these involve the sale of a house by one person, for an inflated price, to a “straw” buyer, who disappears from the scene, leaving the bank with a house worth less than the mortgage. The two people then split the proceeds.
In 2003, the FBI investigated 436 mortgage fraud cases, rising to 818 in 2006. Meanwhile, the number of so-called suspicious-activity reports the FBI receives from the banks grew from 35,000 in 2006 to 48,000 last year. The FBI expects the number to rise to about 60,000 this year.
The FBI investigation may be the most significant but it is only the latest in dozens of civil and criminal cases being prepared by the SEC, the attorneys general of various states, and class action law firms such as Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins and Brower Piven.
Many of these cover the same ground as the FBI investigation. Others are investigating the role played by the credit ratings agencies, which frequently granted the top AAA rating to CDOs.
Bond insurers are among the other targets of litigation. These firms, which guarantee the payment of interest and principal of the bonds they underwrite in the event of a default, stand accused of failing to inform their investors of the true extent of the dangers posed by the sub-prime securities they insured.
Sub-plots
— The City of Cleveland is suing 21 Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and
Morgan Stanley, claiming they encouraged mortgage lenders to keep making loans to people who could not afford them by buying even the most suspect and packaging them into bonds. As a result, the number of foreclosures in the city jumped from 120 in 2002 to 7,500 last year
— Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Attorney-General, has issued subpoenas to big banks as he seeks to determine whether they knew more than they let on about the risks posed by the mortgage bonds they underwrote
The New York Herald Sun 