How to Get a Job in the Obama Administration, If You Are Jewish

This morning between meetings, I sat myself, and my laptop, down at a Starbucks that is adjacent to the Edward Bennett Williams Building in downtown D.C. The building houses the offices of the very powerful inside the beltway law firm, Williams & Connolly.

I am sipping on my grande mocha and who walks in? None other than Howard Gutman. He is with another man, younger by between 15 and 20 years. They sit down across from me.

Gutman is a partner at Williams & Connolly. According to WC's bio of him, Gutman is:

Identified as one of "Washington's Top Lawyers" by Washingtonian magazine (December 2004, December 2007)...While appreciating anonymity, Mr. Gutman's clients have included Fortune 500 companies, high tech companies, financial services firms, privately held enterprises, labor unions, pensions funds, law firms and accounting firms, government entities, real estate developers, sports teams, high-net-worth individuals, labor union officials, athletes, government officials, and political candidates. These clients have been located throughout the United States and abroad. He is also litigation counsel for Friedman, Billings & Ramsey ("FBR"), one of the top 10 investment banks in the nation...

He was an original member of the Obama National Finance Committee and a Trustee on the Presidential Inauguration Committee. He assisted the Gore campaign in Florida in 2000. Mr. Gutman appeared in several episodes of the HBO series "K Street," playing (not surprisingly) a Washington attorney and has made other movie and media appearances. Mr. Gutman has been an Editor of Litigation Magazine for over 23 years and an active participant in the ABA's Litigation Section. He is a former Special Assistant to F.B.I. Director William H. Webster and a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington Hebrew Home.

Obama has nominated him for the Ambassadorship to Belgium.

As they begin to talk, the younger guy, who I don't recognize, is clearly looking for help in finding a job in the Obama Administration.

Gutman gives him the name and telephone number, which I didn't catch, of someone at Treasury.

Every once and awhile Gutman's cell phone rings and he gets up to take the phone calls outside. The ring is very loud and Gutman has the ringer set to some kind of old fashioned telephone ring.

On one of his returns, he tells the younger guy. "It's the State Department so I have to take the calls."

He then gives the younger guy the name and phone number of Dan Shapiro. Shapiro is Head of the Middle East desk at the National Security Council.

The younger guy mentions that he wonders what happened to Dennis Ross who was Special Advisor for the Gulf and Southwest Asia at the State Department. The younger guy tells Gutman, "One day he was there the next he is gone. I don't know what happened to him."

This energizes Gutman and he tells the younger guy, "Shapiro is the guy to call. We thought it would be Rahm but Shapiro is turning into the go to guy for Jews looking for a job in the Administration. Call him and tell him, Howard Gutman told you to call."

As they leave, Gutman turns to the younger guy once more and says, "Hey, if you find out what happened to Ross let me know. You know, kind of as payback for what I gave you here."

-RW  

Town Hall Forums for Ben Bernanke?

Bernanke is in full panic.

The Remarkable Results of Free Markets, Free Trade and Free People

China's markets and its people are not completely free, but they have come a long way in 30 years. How far have they come? So far that even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner recognize the progress. In a WSJ op-ed, they outline the progress, though not mentioning the advancements in free markets and free people that were responsible for the remarkable growth:

When the United States and China established diplomatic relations 30 years ago, it was far from clear what the future would hold. In 1979, China was still emerging from the ruins of the Cultural Revolution and its gross domestic product stood at a mere $176 billion, a fraction of the U.S. total of $2.5 trillion. Even travel and communication between our two great nations presented a challenge: a few unreliable telephone lines and no direct flights connected us. Today China’s GDP tops four trillion dollars, thousands of emails and cellphone calls cross the Pacific Ocean daily, and by next year there will be 249 direct flights per week between the U.S. and China.

Spitzer Spits Out an Endorsement of Ron Paul's Audit the Fed Bill

The below video is a hoot. Dale Ratigan tries to explain how the Fed ripped off taxpayers. He seems to think taxpayer money was used and doesn't realize the Fed can just print money.

Eliot Spitzer, at the core still a big government type, sees all kinds of roles for government in resolving the financial crisis.



Note that in this clip, Spitzer pretty much comes out and calls for the Fed audit that Ron Paul's bill would require, but Spitzer manages to avoid Paul's name as though it was the name of some $20 an hour hooker.

Spitzer, of course, would never get caught with such low scale action. No, he paid $5,000 for the services of Audrey "Kristen" Dupree.


Since he knows that it was Wall Street elements that busted his romps in the sack with Dupree, and her ilk, Spitzer will do anything he can to harass Wall Street. Because of his bust, he likely has plenty of time on his hands to do so, since he is not getting any more action from Dupree and it is unlikely he is getting any at home.

IRS Tailing UBS Banker Visits

US tax agents are tailing UBS bankers in an attempt to identify who their clients are to determine who may be evading taxes, a Swiss newspaper reported yesterday, says NyPo.

The Cause of Ted Kennedy's Life May Be the Cause of Your Death

William L. Anderson writes:

...in free markets, producers cut costs every day, as lower costs are essential to making profits. In modern medical care, however, the reality of malpractice lawsuits and other government requirements serve to drive up costs, and I don’t recall Kennedy offering to muzzle the American Trial Lawyers Association, which owns the Democratic Party. So, now we will see the government prohibiting tests, but doctors still being sued into oblivion for not having those tests performed.

Kennedy may be calling this the "cause of my life," but in reality, his cause is our doom. We know that socialist systems deteriorate over time, and Americans are no exception. We cannot make socialism work, and Ted Kennedy, who has lived at the public trough all of his life, cannot make it work...

Anderson also gets my point about treatment going offshore:

In fact, I will make a prediction; if KennedyCare is imposed, over time, more and more people will experience delays and outright denials of care.

To deal with that problem, Americans will fly to places like India and Latin America to receive medical care for a fee, just as Canadians today are coming over the U.S. border to receive care here. There will be a public outcry, the media will condemn it, and Congress will pass a law making it a criminal offense for Americans to go elsewhere for care and pay for it.

Making treatment overseas a criminal offense is likely down the road to be sure, but I don't think it will happen right away, and there will be loopholes for offshore treatment. There will be many rich who won't be very happy if there aren't loopholes. But for the masses, it will be difficult. In other words, it's time to get real rich, real smart or both.

The Honduran Coup and the Clinton Connection

Justin Raimondo puts it all together:

So what we have is this: a powerful group within the Democratic Party, clustered around Hillary Clinton, actively pushing for the legitimization of the Honduran .coup on behalf of their corporate clients – Chiquita, which has a long and dishonorable history in the region, and the Honduran association of big businessmen, who have long used the state as their personal instrument.

Raimondo has all the details here.

Via Nick.

Dr. Eric Novak On Obama's Command and Control Health Care Plan

G. Gordon Liddy has a great interview with Senior Fellow at Americans for Prosperity, Dr. Eric Novak. It's on the Obama command and control health care program that is in front of Congress.

As I have emphasised, this is not just about raising taxes to pay for the health treatment of those not insured, this is about changing the complete landscape of medical care. The government will decide what treatments you will get, not you.

Quality healthcare will move offshore. If you are not rich enough to travel offshore, it is going to be a much more difficult process getting old in America.

The interview with Liddy is here.

Obama as Charity Scam Artist

One of the sneaky acts President Obama likes to pull when he is confronted on raising taxes to help the poor is to claim that what he is doing is the "community" thing to do. Sometimes he calls it the "neighborly" thing to do.

He pulled this off in an interview with Bill O'Reilly back in September 2008 and he just pulled it off last week with Meredith Vieira on NBC's Today Show. On the O'Reilly clip it is roughly 6:00 in, and he uses the word "neighborly". On the Vieira clip, it is roughly 6:30 in, and he uses the word "community." See for yourself.










Now if I was doing the interview, this how I would handle Obama if he tried to drop the neighborly/community bomb on me.

What you don't think I am doing enough for my community?

Do you know what I do for my community?

I would like an apology from you for even suggesting that I need to do this for my community.

Sir, I don't object to neighborliness or being a part of the community. I object to your charcterization that I have to fall in line with your thinking to be part of the community. I object to politicians playing God and who want to get in the middle of neighborliness and community.

What Obama is doing is using one of the ugliest tricks in a politicians book. They use the good hearted nature of most Americans who don't object when the words, neighborliness, community and charity are used. But, the slimy hidden implication is that if you don't agree with them, you are not neighborly, part of the community or charitable. Don't let them get away with it. It is an outrage for them to assume anything about your neighborliness, community or charitable activities. It's the trick of a scam operator, with an out of control ego. Tell them to go back to their own communities to do their good works (Which I am guessing would be the community of politicians) and leave you alone.

Specifically with regard to health care, I hasten to add that there is another technical argument against the Obama health care program that can be made based on the fact that it will remove incentives to be creative and innovative at the same time increasing demand for services. Anyway you look at it, this plan was not put together by deep, clear thinkers. It was put together by those who want to get in on a power driven egomania.

Understanding High Frequency Trading

Goldman Sachs and others have been using computer programs to do what they call "High Frequency Trading." It is pretty much front running. The Ticker Guy does an excellent job in the video below of explaining HFT and front running. I don't agree with him that the trades create longer term movements in the market-- maybe some trading from momentum traders, but this isn't about long term impact. It's much more similar to the guy who programs a computer at the bank where he works to take a penny out of each account at the end of the month. It is not something most will not notice, but those pennies add up for the penny grabber.


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What's the Problem With California?

California should be leading the nation -- indeed, the world -- in economic prosperity and enjoying all the benefits that such prosperity offers, like job opportunities, increasing incomes, and low unemployment, write Bob Murphy and Jason Clemens.

California has some unparalleled economic advantages, including an incredible array and supply of natural resources, a strategic trade location, a hospitable climate, a highly skilled workforce, and a world-renowned university system, Murphy and Clemens continue.

Yet, people are leaving the state as though it was the second coming of East Berlin before the wall came down.

Murphy and Clemens explain why the Golden State is turning into the IOU state, right here.

Roubini and Reality

Nouriel Roubini is out with an op-ed at NYT calling for the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman. Here's his pitch:

LAST week Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress, setting off a discussion over whether the president should reappoint him as chairman of the Federal Reserve when his term ends next January. Mr. Bernanke deserves to be reappointed. Both the conventional and unconventional decisions made by this scholar of the Great Depression prevented the Great Recession of 2008-2009 from turning into the Great Depression 2.0.

Mr. Bernanke understands that in the Great Depression, the collapse of the money supply and the lack of monetary stimulus during contractions worsened the country’s economic free fall. This lesson has paid off. Mr. Bernanke’s decision to keep interest rates low and encourage lending has, for now, averted the L-shaped near depression that seemed highly likely after the financial collapse last fall.

Say what?

First this week's testimony by Bernanke did not set off a discussion about his his reappointment. It been going on for months. See here and here.

Roubini then writes:

Mr. Bernanke understands that in the Great Depression, the collapse of the money supply and the lack of monetary stimulus during contractions worsened the country’s economic free fall. This lesson has paid off.

As things got worse in early 2008, Bernanke collapsed money growth that summer. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. This is what intensified the downside in September 2008.

And Bernanke is doing the same thing this summer. See here.

Most bizarre, Roubini writes:

Mr. Bernanke’s decision to keep interest rates low and encourage lending has, for now, averted the L-shaped near depression that seemed highly likely after the financial collapse last fall.

Yet, just last week, Roubini stated we are likely headed down again in a double dip recession. Here's Bloomberg:

A “perfect storm” of fiscal deficits, rising bond yields, “soaring” oil prices, weak profits and a stagnant labor market could “blow the recovering world economy back into a double-dip recession,” he wrote in a research note today. “It is getting more likely unless a clear exit strategy from the massive monetary and fiscal stimulus is outlined even before it is implemented.”

This Week's Peek at a Government Organization: The CIA's Health Alteration Committee

David Wise explains:

Back in 1960, the CIA hatched a plan to kill Patrice Lumumba by infecting his toothbrush with a deadly disease. The Congolese leader would brush his teeth and, presto, in a few days or weeks he would be gone.

Around the same time, the CIA's Health Alteration Committee... sent a monogrammed, poisoned handkerchief to Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, the leader of Iraq....

The CIA's involvement in planning assassinations goes back at least to 1954, when it prepared a manual for killings as part of a U.S.-run coup against the leftist government of Guatemala. The 19-page manual, which was declassified in 1997, makes chilling reading. "The essential point of assassination is the death of the subject," it declares, noting that while it "is possible to kill a man with the bare hands ... the simplest local tools are often much the most efficient means of assassination. A hammer, ax, wrench, screwdriver, fire poker, kitchen knife, lamp stand or anything hard, heavy and handy will suffice."

The agency's manual recommends "the contrived accident" as the best way to dispose of someone. "The most efficient accident ... is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Elevator shafts, stairwells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve." The manual suggests grabbing the victim by the ankles and "tipping the subject over the edge. ... Falls before trains or subway cars are usually effective, but require exact timing."

The manual goes on to discuss "blunt weapons," noting that "a hammer can be picked up almost anywhere in the world" and that baseball bats are also excellent. The manual explains the best place in the body to stab people or how to bash their skulls in and the pros and cons of rifles, pistols, submachine guns and other weapons.

During the Cold War years, the CIA plotted against eight foreign leaders, five of whom died violently. The agency's role varied in each case.After the plots were publicized by a Senate committee, President Ford issued an executive order in 1976 barring political assassination. President Reagan broadened the ban, dropping the word "political" and extending the prohibition to include contract killers as well as government employees.Although the ban remains in effect, it has largely been ignored on the premise that it does not apply in a military setting...

I know a man who has done hits for the U.S. government. In addition, to top leaders the gvt appears to be active with lower level assassinations.

My man tells me they go down something like this. "They" have you fly into a country, The "tools" will be there for you. They tell you where to pick them up. Then they tell you something like this, "Stand on the corner of xyz street, a cab will pull over to pick you up. Get in the car use your tools to take out the other rider that will be in the back of the car, then take out the driver. Leave your tools and walk away."

My man looks like a businessman. He dresses professional like, and also carries a professional demeanor. I wondered how he got into the business. I asked him. He told me something about his background that explains everything. Let's just say "they" have a very good profile of the kind of person they want. They must watch for people who fit certain very unique profiles, when they become aware of such a person they contact him, and put him to work.

Henry Louis Gates Jr as Big Time Entrepreneur

Henry Louis Gates Jr. the black Harvard professor caught up in the controversy surrounding police responding to a call at his house about a robbery in progress that ended up with his being arrested for disorderly conduct, is quite the entrepreneur.

In addition to teaching at Harvard, in 2000, Gates created Africana.com, a web site aimed at uniting blacks world-wide, and sold it to Time Warner Inc. for at least $10 million, according to WSJ. In 2007, Gates started a DNA-tracing company, African DNA LLC, after a commercial genealogy service traced his genetic heritage to Europe, discovering he had both Irish and Jewish ancestry. Since 2006, his "African-American Lives" television documentaries have explored African-American genealogy, including an examination of the backgrounds of such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Tucker.

According to the African DNA web site, Gates is most recently the author of Finding Oprah's Roots, Finding Your Own (Crown, 2007) and the host and executive producer of the2006 PBS series "African American Lives" and its follow-up, "Oprah's Roots."

Gates is Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American and Africana Studies. He is co-editor, with K. Anthony Appiah, of Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. With Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, he is the co-editor of the biographical encyclopedia African American Lives (Oxford, 2004), and the online African American National Biography database.

Gates is the author of several other books, including The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (Oxford, 1988), winner of the 1989 American Book Award, and Colored People: A Memoir (Knopf, 1994).

Gates authenticated and published two landmark African American texts: Our Nig, or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859), by Harriet Wilson, the first novel published by an African American woman; and The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts, one of the first novels written by an African American woman. In 2006, he and Hollis Robbins co-edited The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin, edited with Hollis Robbins (W. W. Norton, 2006).


Gates has written has written for Time magazine, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. He is the editor of several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (W.W. Norton, 1996). Gates also produced and hosted two previous series for PBS, 1999's "Wonders of the African World" and 2004's "America Beyond the Color Line."

Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. He received a B.A. in history, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1973. The recipient of 48 honorary degrees and a 1981 MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award," Professor Gates was also named one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997, one of the "100 Most Influential Black Americans" by Ebony in 2005, received a National Humanities Medal in 1998, and in 1999 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.f

Upcoming Fedspeak

San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen speaks Tuesday in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Ever since her name has started to be mentioned as a possible successor to Ben Bernanke as Fed chair, she has really turned up the rhetoric, and has become an aggressive dove in favor of Fed easing. Guranteed, on Tuesday she'll call for more easing.

New York Fed President William Dudley speaks Wednesday in New York. It always pays to listen to the NY Fed prez. His office is just across the street from JP Morgan's downtown headquarters and just blocks from the Goldman Sachs world headquarters.

In the pre-internet days, you had to go to the New York Fed building on Thursday afternoon's to get a copy of the H.6 money supply numbers. The room would be packed with assistants, runners and news people. Everybody watched the numbers back then and wanted them instantly---in New York anyway.

One week I happened to be in Boston, and stopped by the Boston Fed on Friday, a full probably 15 hours after H.6 was released for that week. No one in the Boston Fed, the press office or research, could find the then current H.6 report. I was totally dumbfounded. Boston was a totally Keynesian town, even back then.

Up Next:The U.S-China Economic Dialogue

Hosted by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first joint meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue will be held in Washington, D.C. from July 27-28, 2009. Here's the agenda, i.e. public agenda. Of course, the real agenda for the U.S. is to keep the Chineese buying Treasury securities.

Monday, July 27, 2009

8:30 AM S&ED FAMILY PHOTO
Atrium Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
OPENING CEREMONY PRESIDENT OBAMA, SECRETARY CLINTON, SECRETARY GEITHNER, VICE PREMIER WANG, STATE COUNCILOR DAI
Atrium Hall Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

1:30 PM ECONOMIC TRACK PRINCIPALS MEETING
Atrium Ballroom Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.

9:00 AM ECONOMIC TRACK FAMILY PHOTO
Bell Entrance
U.S. Treasury Department
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.

9:15 AM ECONOMIC TRACK OPENING SESSION
Cash Room
U.S. Treasury Department
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C

4:45 PM U.S.-CHINA CLOSING STATEMENTS
Room 450
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
17th St. and Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, D. C.

5:20 PM U.S. PRESS CONFERENCE
Room 450
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
17th St. and Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, D.C.

6:00 PM CHINA PRESS CONFERENCE
Room 450
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
17th St. and Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, D.C

New York Fed Forms Advisory Group

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York today announced the establishment of the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets (IACFM). The committee will serve as a forum for informal discussions on financial, economic and public policy issues and help inform New York Fed President William C. Dudley and senior management, according to the New York Fed.

The IACFM is currently comprised of 13 leaders in the investment community, and is solely an advisory group with no formal policymaking responsibilities. They are:

-Keith Anderson, CIO, Soros Fund Management LLC
-Nicole Arnaboldi, Vice Chairman of Alternative Investments, Credit Suisse Group
-Louis Bacon, Chairman, CEO and Founder, Moore Capital Management LLC
-William Clark, Director, New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Division of Investment
-Mohamed El-Erian, CEO and Co-CIO, Pacific Investment Management Company
-Garth Friesen, Principal, III Associates
-Gary Glynn, President and CIO, US Steel and Carnegie Pension Fund
-Joshua Harris, Managing Partner, Apollo Advisors LP
-Alan Howard, Director and Co-Founder, Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP
-Glenn Hutchins, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Silver Lake-Sander Levy, Managing Director, Vestar Capital Partners
-Morgan Stark, Managing Member, Ramius LLC-Thomas Steyer, Senior Managing Member, Farallon Partners LLC

Soros, Pimco et al. just what kind of advice do you think this money focused group is going to give the Fed? Another insider group ready to steer policy to their personal benefit.