Archive for June 4th, 2009
Found on Cryptogon
Wait for it…
Last month, a little-known company where Summers served on the board of directors received a $42 million investment from a group of investors, including three banks that Summers, Obama’s effective “economy czar,” has been doling out billions in bailout money to: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. The banks invested into the small startup company, Revolution Money, right at the time when Summers was administering the “stress test” to these same banks.
A month after they invested in Summers’ former company, all three banks came out of the stress test much better than anyone expected — thanks to the fact that the banks themselves were allowed to help decide how bad their problems were (Citigroup “negotiated” down its financial hole from $35 billion to $5.5 billion.)
The fact that the banks invested in the company just a few months after Summers resigned suggests the appearance of corruption, because it suggests to other firms that if you hire Larry Summers onto your board, large banks will want to invest as a favor to a politically-connected director.
Last month, it was revealed that Summers, whom President Obama appointed to essentially run the economy from his perch in the National Economic Council, earned nearly $8 million in 2008 from Wall Street banks, some of which, like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, were now receiving tens of billions of taxpayer funds from the same Larry Summers. It turns out now that those two banks have continued paying into Summers-related businesses.
According to filings obtained for this story, Summers first joined the board of directors of Revolution Money back in 2006 (when it was called “GratisCard”), the same year that Summers was forced to resign as president of Harvard after his disastrous tenure. Revolution Money/GratisCard was a startup headed by former AOL chief Steve Case. Revolution Money billed itself as the Next Big Thing in online payment, “PayPal meets Mastercard,” according to their own pitch.
In September 2007, Revolution Money announced that it had raised $50 million from a group of investors including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. Some found the investment strange even then, because normally big banks don’t get involved in seeding small startups — that’s the domain of venture capitalists, not mega-banks. Especially not in September, 2007, when these same megabanks were Chernobyling their way into full-fledged balance-sheet meltdown.
What seems clear is that at least part of Revolution Money’s success in raising funds is due to their star-studded board of directors — which included not only Larry Summers, but also the notorious Frank Raines, the former Fannie Mae chief whom Time Magazine named to its “25 People To Blame For The Financial Crisis” list. Raines is still a board member.
Over the next year and a half, Revolution Money didn’t quite live up to its promise of competing with PayPal or Visa/Mastercard. At least some of this could be attributed to the difficulty of starting up an online credit card company in the middle of a triple-cluster credit crunch, banking crisis and recession.
Found on Infowars
This one is scary.
A new infectious disease is spreading in large areas of Mainland China. Symptoms are similar to AIDS but it spreads faster between family members, even via bodily fluids like saliva. Here is more on this story.
Mr. Lin from Yunnan Province caught a disease last May, unlike anything he had seen before.
[Mr. Lin, Yunnan Resident]: (quote1, male):
“This disease destroys immunity cells just like AIDS. The lowest amount of immunity cells of some patients is only 200, mine is 400. The doctor couldn’t find many antibodies, so he called it ‘Fear of AIDS’ disease.”
Preliminary research shows that patients have symptoms of fatigue, chronic diarrhea, swollen lymph nodes, and weakened immunity. But doctors cannot find any sign of the HIV virus.
[Mr. Xue, Hunan Resident]: (quote2, male):
“A huge number of people caught the nameless virus but the doctors cannot make a thorough check. So they make a conclusion that it’s a ‘Fear of AIDS’ disease. The symptoms are very much like those of AIDS.”
Because the Chinese Ministry of Health doesn’t recognize the disease, it has not carried out any investigation. However, patients feel very horrified and sad when they see their family members and friends become infected by coming into contact with their saliva or sweat.
[Mr. Chen, Shanghai Resident]: (quote3,male):
“We hope that media reports can pressure the relevant departments to pay more attention to the disease. Do not make any irresponsible conclusions and say it is caused by fear or psychological effect it is a real virus. Many doctors, including doctors from Beijing also say this is an infectious disease.”
Doctors from mainland China also believe patients might catch the disease. However, the exact number of people infected remains unknown and what the mortality rate is, and how many have died from it.
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