Financial Report

Ciara wonders if it's post feminism if Suze Orman has sexy cheerleaders on her show.

Even More People F'ed by Madoff! Maybe Even YOU!

Posted by Nicholas Kristof on The New York Times' blog "On The Ground", 1/29/09:

I've obtained a list of nearly all the private foundations that invested money directly with Bernard Madoff. What is staggering is how many of these 147 foundations had all their assets invested with [him] and may have been wiped out as a result. Many non-profit organizations invested with Mr. Madoff and will suffer a double-whammy, losing not only their own savings but also the support of foundations that previously donated regularly but are now broke. And they will also lose some of their individual donors who were invested with Mr. Madoff as well.

This is the first time this information has been compiled and made public. I'm posting the list because this is a matter of public concern: These foundations serve the public interest, and if the non-profits that rely on them have been financially crippled we should get a heads up. The philanthropic world also should wonder if there aren't more Madoffs out there.

These foundations didn't do anything wrong; they thought they were safely invested in a variety of financial instruments that they describe on the tax forms. Then there's the question of the accountants who prepared these tax returns. A surprising number of the foundations invested in Mr. Madoff shared the same accounting firms, generally small ones at that. One wonders if they could have looked more skeptically at the kinds of trades that supposedly were being placed on the foundations' behalf by Mr. Madoff. Who knows what else is out there? If I were a board member of a non-profit, I'd be making some calls.

Who Needs the Arts Anyway

Posted on Back Stage's blog, 1/29/09

The House approved $50 million in additional funding for the NEA. The measure still has to pass in the Senate, but it's a good first step. The bad news is there are people out there like Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation -- you know, the people who brought you the Iraq war, at a cost of $10 billion a month -- who think this is a waste of money. "Government policies that make people and workers more productive will increase productivity," he told NPR this week. "But simply borrowing money out of the economy in order to transfer it to some artists doesn't increase the economy's productivity rate. It doesn't help workers create more goods and services, and it won't create economic growth." Actually, for every $1 of federal, state, and local government funding that the nonprofit arts community receives, it helps to generate $7 in tax revenue, according to a report from Americans for the Arts, which says the NEA [also] generates at least $7 in additional giving for each dollar it grants. This $50 million isn't a heedless giveaway to "some artists" (which we guess Riedl sees as self-indulgent, half-baked baristas reinterpreting Strindberg with finger puppets). It's an investment in proven winners who give back much more than they receive. And if Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers were generating a 7:1 rate of return, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

• Americans for the Arts makes it easy to lobby your U.S. Senator.

• The NEA has released its own set of talking points here.

In Portland News...

Thoughtful blog on the scandal with Portland's mayor Sam Adams. Gay rights is among the causes I care most about these days, so this story really dismays me.

But a nice paragraph that captures concisely what I've struggled to paraphrase for years about why Portland is such a great, unique city:

Portland is The City That Works, a slogan not just emblazoned on official vehicles, but taken to heart by its citizens. It is perhaps the most European of American cities, literate and small-scale urban, a pleasant surprise around every corner. And it is often a city of firsts, doing things well and sensibly before any other.

Yet Another Obama - Pressler Parallel

My friends and I have a shameful common secret - we can't remember which Obama kid is which. Is Sasha the older one? Or is it Malia?? But as we realized yesterday, the pneumonic solution was right in front of me all along!

My younger sister is Natasha. "Malia" is kinda like "Ciara", and "Sasha" rhymes with "Natasha." Sooo...

Malia's younger sister is Sasha!

Feel free to use that.

Maddow in a Minute

For those of you distracted by the lameass Lost premiere ( you know who you are (if you don't, your names are listed below)), you are missing Ms. Maddow totally ripping it up over on MSNBC.

But don't worry, here are the talking points for tomorrow at the water cooler. Because if your office is anything like mine, intelligent political discourse always trumps the latest on Locke and the gang.

So Obama, knowing full well he can pass his economic stimulus bill with only Democratic support, goes to all the trouble of meeting with Republicans and even taking out important parts to make them happy (who needs family planning!), then NOT ONE Republican votes in favor of the bill. It passed anyway, but maybe it's time the GOPpers stopped sulking in the corner and learned to play with the big kids.

Then some Republican congressman comes on the show (kudos to him because most are too scared to face a razor-sharp Dem with a PhD) explaining that people should just get $5,000 vouchers to go buy Jeeps because there's a Chrysler plant in his district. And Maddow's like, um, duh, they could also buy stuff if they had jobs, which is what infrastructure stimulus would do, riiiiiight?

Guess who else is broke! The Post Office! Shocking! Their primary product costs 43 cents.

The new White House Chef? A 28-year-old from Chicago. I'll bet you a stimulus check my chef-fetish roommate has made out with him and if not, he ought watch his back.

Attorney General confirmed! Welcome Eric Holder - also our first African-American AG.

Russ Feingold on whether Bush Administration will be in trouble for getting us into so much trouble: maybe!

Gwen Ifill's book is out and she's making the rounds. Defending Obama, interpreting DC doings for the rest of us, scoffing at the notion of reverse racism in the press corps, all in a snappy brown leather jacket. You go!

RM Quote of the night: "Obama's approval rating is somewhere between photos of baby pandas on the internet and free beer."

Whew! I need a cigarette.

Kaki, Stephanie, Aaron, Bret aka the Lost Crew -- this one's for you.

Stand By Your Man

“If your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life...”

Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm sorry, but it's hard to feel bad for the laid-off when the chief sacrifice is bottle service.

I expected to feel the crunch on the social scene where finance guys would inevitably stop offering to buy drinks... then I remembered that men in Manhattan stopped buying drinks long ago, and I live in Williamsburg, where guys stare at you blankly when your drink nears empty, fully expecting you to bring them home anyway.

From the actual Dating A Banker Anonymous blog:
Thanks to the recession, I now have a completely devoted BF, which is exactly what I wanted. So I should be happy, right? Wrong. I’m bored and can’t stop thinking about my perpetually unattainable Euro ex-boyfriend who is recession proof courtesy of an offshore trust account.

I'm soooo sorry your titanium Amex got canceled. See you at Loehmann's.

In all seriousness, the enemy here is not the women in this article. It's the fact that while women are banding together to figure out how to get through this, it would never, ever cross men's minds to form a group to see their women through any sort of crisis, let alone this economy.

Raoul Felder, the Manhattan divorce lawyer, said that cases involving financiers always stack up as the economy starts to slip, because layoffs and shrinking bonuses place stress on relationships — and, he said, because “there aren’t funds or time for mistresses any more.”

Puke.

Mad as Hell

I am outraged. If you aren't, you're not paying attention.

• Citigroup went ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees.
• The banks that received bailout money refuse to specify what they did with it and guess what - they don't have to.
• Republicans are blocking Obama's bailout bill that seeks to invest in things that will benefit us long-term, like infrastructure.
• Obama's first four years are only going to be spent cleaning up the heaping mess Bush left while W gets to kick back on a ranch in Texas, no consequences.
• Automakers keep whining about making their vehicles environmentally responsible because it's expensive.
• Bush's reign enlarged the gap between rich and poor to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, practically decimating the middle class. An example? Warren Buffet paid 17.7% in taxes on his gigantic income -- a rate lower than paid by his secretary.

And if you're a New Yorker:

• Our baseball teams are still getting new stadiums. Are you getting a shiny new home financed by taxpayer dollars and Citibank? Didn't think so.
• Our new senator has the highest possible approval ranking for public officials from the NRA.
• Our governor was more concerned with pulling someone from certain demographics for the senate seat than someone who would kick ass at the job. This is the New York State equivalent of McCain selecting Palin.
• Bloomberg and his whole 3rd term nonsense was weakly justified post-debacle by his claim that he's the best person to fix the Wall Street mess, but I don't see our billionaire mayor doing shit to help New Yorkers through the economic mess. Do you really think a finance CEO is going to persuade fellow finance CEOs to start behaving responsibly?
• The MTA, arguable the most corrupt and poorly run organization in our city, is raising fares on those of us who depend on mass transit as our primary means of transport without improving service. What happened to the billion dollar surplus from a few years back?
  

If you ask me, each one of us should be doing some combination of hurling bricks through Citibank's windows, picketing Wall Street, bombarding our elected officials with emails, calls, and letters, and sending invoices to Crawford, TX, daily demanding George W. Bush to personally cover all our losses.

Why aren't those of us who are losing big time as a result of all this doing anything about it? Are we too overwhelmed by everything that's wrong, feeling powerless? Are we so used to not being heard or accounted for after the past 8 years?

Where Do I Begin...

...with everything in this quote that is so wrong it's sickening?

As a life-long person of faith, it has been a long struggle for me to accept that atheists and agnostics - without what has always been for me essential grounding in faith and scripture - can indeed be truly moral and decent and self-sacrificing human beings. But in fact, I have learned they can be, and to a large extent as much as most people of faith. I don’t know if atheism will ever produce a Bonhoeffer, a Sophie Scholl, an Oscar Romero, an MLK Jr, but I have learned through personal experience to accept most nonbelievers as decent trustworthy moral human beings. But this kind of acceptance takes a long time for most normal traditional folks to develop. The same can be said for acceptance of Muslims or Gays. This kind of change takes time - so be understanding! Most evangelicals are sincere, good-hearted, generous, and compassionate human beings - but most have never had much personal interaction with Gays, Muslims, or Nonbelievers. It takes time.

— Ben Self

Ben. Ben, Ben, Ben. What is your definition of "moral and decent and self-sacrificing"? Why do you get to decide the societal meaning or value of those things? Most "normal traditional" folks? Normal? Why thank you. And to equate with Muslims and Gays? To even group the two, a religion and a sexual preference? A choice and how you were born? "Most evangelicals are sincere, good-hearted, generous, and compassionate" - which ones, Ben? If you've never had much interaction with the groups you describe, I can't imagine your circle of acquaintances is anything nearing large, so you're describing, what, the 20 people you know from your church who are just like you? How about all those believers that excommunicate those who leave the church, donate little or no time and money to the less fortunate, perpetuate hate, and implausibly think God cares more about abortion and gay marriage than feeding the poor, even though Jesus speaks pretty specifically on the latter in the gospels?

It doesn't take time, Ben. It takes exposure to different people, cultures, experiences. I get it, Ben, I once lived in a mega church suburb. But now I don't, and now my intolerances have shifted nearly 180 degrees. Very few things make me as impatient as Christians getting the beliefs of the mainstream American Christian church confused with actual scripture. You can't have it both ways.

Fan Text

"Just wanted to say how bored I've been at work and how your blog is keeping me entertained. And ain't nothing wrong with a little downgrading to The Cove."

Thanks to Yvette for legitimizing my day of blogging. I owe you a $4 Jameson.

*This does not mean that I will buy every single person who reads my blog a Jameson. You two will have to get your own drinks.

10 Lessons Obama Can Learn from 43

An interesting article from Bob Woodward in last week's Post on what Obama can learn from W's blunders.

Here are a few more from yours truly:

1. Don't let your Veep boss you around.

2. Let your wife speak.

3. Don't let your daughters be idiots, at least not publicly.

4. Run a marathon.

5. Don't take so many vacations when you should be at least appearing to actively attack important matters.

6. Grammar and proper word usage are important. (But then, you already learned that from that old GOP Veep nom.)

7. Transparency now could save us from a lot of problems later on.

8. Popularity does not trump responsibility.

9. Make friends with the press.

10. Make friends with the Pressler.

Let's Join Together in Hating This Guy.

John Thain, former chief executive of Merrill Lynch.

"He was lionized as a rare Wall Street savior as recently as September, when he helped seal the deal that sped his teetering firm into the safe embrace of Bank of America on the same weekend Lehman Brothers died. Since then we’ve learned that even as he was laying off Merrill employees by the thousands, he was lobbying (unsuccessfully) for a personal bonus as high as $30 million and spending $1.22 million of company cash on refurbishing his office, an instantly notorious $1,405 trashcan included.

Thain resigned on Thursday. Only then did we learn that he doled out billions in secret, last-minute bonuses to his staff last month, just before Bank of America took over and just before the government ponied up a second bailout to cover Merrill’s unexpected $15 billion fourth-quarter loss.

So far American taxpayers have spent $45 billion on this mess, and that’s only our down payment."

--Frank Rich

WTF of the Day

Um, maybe news channels should keep some staff on hand over the weekends?

Toast.

I often comfort myself with the old adage about the two recession-proof industries being personal care and alcohol. My best friend works for a major cosmetic brand, so we reason she's safe, and same-ish for me, as alcohol brands are among the biggest cash sponsors of my company's events (and therefore, my paychecks).

And then fun articles like this come along.

When it comes to cosmetics, I'm still a bargain shopper, but where I splurge is quality drinks. Who cares if Miller's profits are down? I drink Rogue! Sixpoint! Chimay! Duvel! Diageo needn't worry at its Cuervo losses; I'll be at the bar sipping a Don Julio or J-dub, neat.

Oh, who am I kidding - I've completely downgraded to JW Red. Hanging late-night at the Blarney Cove instead of The Park. Trading tastings for Trader Joe's. Three-buck Chuck isn't really all that bad, right? But I draw the line at PBR -- a girl's gotta have standards. I'd sooner be sober, even in this economy.

The Haunting

While all of us were busy counting down the days till the Inaug' and hailing each new cabinet appointee like the announcement of a new HBO series, here's what Bush was doing in his final days (and the Times editorialists' recommendations).

(Next up: we learn all of our '08 taxes will be direct deposited into accounts held by Cheney.)

Health care: One particularly objectionable rule took effect the day President Bush left town. It gives an increased number of medical institutions and a broad range of health care workers the right to refuse to provide abortion referrals, unbiased counseling or emergency contraception, even to rape victims — further restricting women’s rights to health care. The administration should suspend enforcement and craft a new rule.

Gun control: A new rule would end a 25-year ban on carrying loaded weapons in national parks, which are among the safest places in this country. Before that changes, the administration should overturn this rule.

Workers’ rights: Revisions to the federal guest worker program would weaken wage protections and housing standards for temporary agricultural workers, who already have far too few protections.

The environment: The Bush administration worked overtime in its waning days to weaken protections for the air, water and endangered species. Representative Nick Rahall, a Democrat from West Virginia, plans to invoke the Congressional Review Act to overturn an Interior Department ruling that carved out significant exceptions to required scientific reviews of federal projects that could harm threatened or endangered species.

Interior’s last-minute rules also eased restrictions on mining companies that dump waste into rivers and streams; opened two million acres of Western lands to potentially harmful oil shale development; and revoked Congress’s authority to withdraw land from commercial development in emergencies. The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, relaxed restrictions on water and air pollution from factory farms.

On Employment

Check out this article in today's Times.

I keep reading about people with master's degrees and former six-figure salaries considering $12-an-hour work and just can't fathom it. These are people much closer than I am to retirement, and with children, and mortgages.

At times the Republican remnant in me wants to blame the people in foreclosure that never should have bought property they couldn't afford, who should have known investments by definition can very well lose value, or who think themselves above blue collar work; but I know my current situation of good health and employment and very little debt is largely due to luck. In fact, a good number of those who would have formerly had the luxury of gazing down from ivory towers have had those towers repossessed, courtesy Mr. Madoff. All our houses are made of glass these days.

When my friends and I talk about our jobs and their relative (in)security, I say I feel pretty good about mine for the time being... meanwhile I spent much of yesterday with Suze Orman, so clearly I don't feel 100% secure. After all, it was only just over a year ago that I finally was able to quit my second job as a bartender, vowing all my income would henceforth come from one source, my primary career. Now I'm thinking of pulling out the cocktail flashcards.

I really don't know what I would do if I were laid off (proverbial wood knock). As a single, young person pretty early in her career, I feel a certain excitement at the idea of being given a fresh start - finally! An excuse to travel the world, to live abroad for a year, to find an opportunity that feels like a lifelong calling!

But reality -- I don't have the Orman-ordered eight-month emergency fund at the ready, and the idea of cashing out investments literally makes me nauseous after opening last month's statement.

A friend of mine was laid off over a year ago and he's since travelled the world and is somehow living on a combination of savings and day trading, seemingly unworried about getting work anytime soon. I don't envision myself comfortably living that way for much more than a month.

Unrelated: If anyone's looking for a marketing/promotions/events professional with arts/entertainment background, cheeky writing skills, grammatical obsessiveness, basic Spanish, passport, and enviable style, I'd be happy to help you find her.

Inauguration Day

I didn't detail my experience here because everyone I talked to had such a personal, unique, yet wholly communal and relatable experience on Tuesday that I wanted to leave it at that. Yes, okay, fine, part cop out but also a pretty good one.

Now let's get down to the next eight years.

It Just Keeps Getting Better

Outside the Box

In 2002 I wrote a scene that was part of a full-length play on multi-racial/cultural issues about the problem of checking boxes - that is, having to fit oneself into a single category, whether that category fit the actual person or not. Black, white, Democrat, Republican... and so this quote in last week's New York spoke to me:

“This really is the first presidency of the 21st century,” says Simon Rosenberg, head of the Democratic advocacy group NDN. “Those who try to hold on to twentieth-century descriptions of politics are going to be disappointed and frustrated by what’s about to emerge in the new administration, because American politics no longer fits into the old boxes—and neither does Obama. For better or worse, what he is doing is building a new box.”

Read the entire article.

WTF

Courtesy a friend of a friend of a etc that was on a ferry in the Hudson today... wow.

Damn Liberals

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/gls/838444132.html