Judge Approves Countrywide/Bank of America Mortgage Settlement

A U.S. District judge in Los Angeles announced terms of a settlement of a class-action lawsuit involving Countrywide Financial Corporation. The LA Times reported the story over this past weekend.

The terms require Bank of America, Countrywide's current owner, to pay $600 million to former Countrywide shareholders remaining in the case. KPMG, which provided the accounting fig leaf for Countrywide's bamboozling, has to pony up $24 million.

A number of plaintiffs won't settle, feeling they would be getting pennies on the dollar. The Oregon attorney general's office, for example, noted its clients would receive a grand total of $500,000 in the settlement; they were owed $14 million.

On the face of it, Bank of America (BOA) must love this settlement. The institution walks away from Countrywide's massive fraud with a manageable, one-time balance sheet hit. Keep in mind BOA received TARP funds, and no indictments of bank personnel for illegal activity have ever been issued. Countrywide's former boss Angelo Mozillo remains unindicted, and with plenty of money he collected as a direct result of his firm's fleecing of home buyers and mortgage investors.

The transfer of wealth from low-income home owners to institutional investors and high net-worth individuals has frayed our nation's social fabric. Our country's societal structure now resembles a barbell, with wealth extremes held together by a slender middle class rod. Do you think that's a desirable state of affairs? All opinions welcome, within reason.

Razzies for a Dull Oscar Year

The Razzies, a LA-based spoof on the Oscars, were recently announced. The BBC story linked here has some details. The big loser was The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyalaman's 3-D picture, although the dreadful Sex and the City sequel was deservedly cited for a number of "awards." (Remember all the hype around Memorial Day fawning over the Fab Four and their outfits? Ah, how quickly one forgets. Even Derek Jeter has put some distance between himself and the actress who played the Carrie Bradshaw character.)

My wife and I saw portions of The Last Airbender at a drive-in. It was an odd situation, as our car's location, on an embankment, provided sight lines for three movies. They ironically included (a) the Oscar-nominated Inception, (b) a bad animated picture for which we had sound, (c) the Shyalaman movie. I tried to watch all three movies to get the gist of them, but ended up wishing I could simply look up and enjoy a summer's night sky.

Wayne Barrett profile

Investigative reporting, and the reporters that do that rather thankless job, is becoming an endangered media species. It's a very tough profession, as The New York Times' article on Wayne Barrett notes.

While there are many curious angles to the Barrett story, the most troubling is that the Village Voice simply dropped him after decades of strong journalism.

Where will Barrett's new journalistic home be? He never fit in with the trendy horseshit editors such as Tina Brown champion. Barrett is much too streetwise and independent to put up with the intellectual cynicism and self-seeking someone such as Arianna Huffington projects. And he's far too rogue for, well, The New York Times.

In a way, the Internet may be Barrett's saving grace. He can start his own blog, as other well-connected journalists have done. And he won't be in it for the monetization.

NY Mets to MLB: Hey Bud, Can You Spare $25 Million

The New York Mets baseball team, according to today's New York Times, tapped Major League Baseball for a $25 million loan late last year.

The loan was provided on the hush-hush to the Madoff-tainted franchise. The secrecy has raised eyebrows among many interested parties. Those include other major league baseball franchises (the Yankees must be having a very good laugh over this episode), the banks whom the Mets' owners have strung out to the tune of $400 million in IOUs, the team's sponsors, the players who must be wondering if Met ownership is solvent enough to meet its $140 million payroll, and the trustee of the Madoff mess who is suing the Wilpon/Katz empire for a cool billion dollars.

Yes, the Mets have issues. Spring training has just begun, and already "Let's Go Mets!" sound pretty hollow. It's going to be a very long, lonely season at Citi Field.

Mr. Peanut Sighting

There was a Mr. Peanut sighting in Los Angeles this week. The LA Times noted the episode, in which the walking, talking legume took to the streets promoting "green" initiatives during pre-Oscar week. The photos above originally appeared in the Times article.

Too bad Mr. Peanut can't present a major award at Sunday's Oscar event. He would automatically win my vote for best outfit.

Geithner: We Can Handle Rising Oil Prices

Treasury secretary Tim Geithner told a Bloomberg Breakfast gathering today that the economic "recovery" put nations in stronger positions to navigate through the current wave of oil price hikes.

"Central banks have a lot of experience managing these things," Geithner said.

One wonders. Libyan resources represent 2% of the world's crude oil production. More significantly, Libya's oil goes to a select few, with Italy at the top of the list. Further, Libya's oil is a particularly good variety, making "one-to-one" swaps with, say, Saudi oil, an unrealistic proposition.

Finally, how many central bankers really know their way through the merciless world of Big Oil?

My guess is that Geithner will sing a different song once gas reaches four dollars per gallon. That was the price that sank John McCain's presidential run. Neither the current Treasury secretary -- nor his boss, the President -- wants to experience what the Arizona senator did in the late summer of 2008.

The photo shows Geithner (extreme right), Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and Representative Barney Frank, in presumably happier times.

Internet-Inspired Revolutions: Chinese and Russian Empires Strike Back

Events in North Africa and the Middle East have reasonably caught the world's attention. However, there are some very interested parties which have been rather quiet during the recent uproar across the Islamic crescent of nations. Prime candidates include Russia and China.

Both countries have a ruling class whose appetite for control permits no quarter with free expression. Both China and Russia have a history of repression in the name of "progress." Both nations have populations that could resort to volatile behavior as a means of mass expression. And both former Communist monoliths harbor profound reservations about the Internet.

Chinese president Hu Jintao, in a recent speech at Beijing's elite Central Party School, was blunt about his concerns. The Asian edition of The Wall Street Journal noted his remarks at the end of an article about the Chinese government's heebie jeebies over the Internet's role in the downfall of North African regimes.

The key quote is as follows:

"At present, our country has an important strategic window for development, but is also in a period of magnified social conflicts," he said. Among the steps Beijing had to take, Mr. Hu said, was "further strengthening and improving management of the Internet, improving the standard of management of virtual society, and establishing mechanisms to guide online public opinion."

It's easy to imagine Russia's Vladimir Putin feeling that he and Hu are kindred spirits on this issue.

One wonders what the Chinese government's "improving management of the Internet," or "establishing mechanisms to guide online public opinion" might mean in practice.

Like it or not, the United States remains the global counterpoint to China's dark police state and Russia's gangster nation. That's one very important reason why our country must recover its economic mojo. The sooner we get it, the better off the world will be.

University Faculty Asked to Sign Time Sheets

University faculties, which have gotten a free pass during the turmoil over American public education, just received the first whiff of a trend they will decidedly dislike.

Kean University of New Jersey, a commuter school whose graduates frequently become public school teachers, has requested its faculty to complete weekly time sheets. The story from nj.com (the Internet version of the Star-Ledger of Newark) notes administration rationale as well as faculty response.

For some time, the education "reformers" had the wrong focus. They should have focused on the universities, where so much is misguided, wrong, corrupt. I don't think time sheets are the way to bring academia back to reality. What's needed is the end of the faculty tenure system, an end to annual tuition increases that are routinely, insultingly double or triple the inflation rate, and the churn of "papers" that accomplish next to nothing toward intellectual development.

Just don't ask the reformers to sign a time sheet.

NFL Star Backs Wisconsin Protest

Charles Woodson, an All-Pro defensive player with the NFL champion Green Bay Packers, publicly announced his support of those protesting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's intention to eliminate public employee collective bargaining rights.

Woodson's statement, in its entirety, appears in the Green Bay Press Gazette. The paper's related story notes other Packer players who have made public statements in support of the protest.