[  This is a personal non-profit online research library and is solely used by Scott Bryan Hill.  Some of the links on this page lead to outside resources and the presence of these links should not be taken as an endorsement.  ]

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

( Symbol Guide )

 [ A ]

A Friend of Main St., or Wall St.?, Gretchen Morgenson, The New York Times, November 3, 2002.  “To many investors, Michael G. Oxley is the Ohio Republican who put partisan politics aside and helped write legislation meant to restore investor confidence after the worst spate of corporate misconduct since the 1929 crash. "We will not tolerate those whose greed and deception damage not only our financial marketplace but also our good will," Mr. Oxley said as President Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill into law in July. "Not just money, but character, counts in America," he added.  But in fact, Mr. Oxley, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and one of the best friends that the industry has in Washington, has worked hard to keep it from facing new regulation intended to protect investors.”  (Government | Governance )

After Huge Default, Argentina Squeezes Small Bondholders:  Offer Of 25 Cents On The Dollar Angers Creditors, Including Many European Retirees, Matt Moffett, The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2004.  “In Rome, Gianfranco Lucifora turned on his satellite TV and watched the news from Argentina. A Buenos Aires fashion show filled the screen. "There's my interest payment," said Mr. Lucifora, a 65-yearold retired construction manager. When the scene shifted to a traffic jam of late-model cars, he clutched his chest. "They should be paying me, not buying cars," he said.  A few years ago, Mr. Lucifora, like hundreds of thousands of small investors in Europe and Japan, sank part of his life savings into Argentine government bonds. In the midst of a brutal recession, Argentina halted payments on its $88 billion in bonds in late 2001 -- the largest sovereign-debt default in history."  (Government | Governance )

As Banks Bid for City Bond Work, 'Pay to Play' Tradition Endures, Mark Whitehouse, The Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2005.  “In 2001, two J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. investment bankers were looking for a way to get more work underwriting municipal bonds in Philadelphia. Then the bankers, Charles LeCroy and Anthony Snell, met one of the Philadelphia mayor's top fund-raisers, and their lives got complicated.  The fund-raiser was a folksy lawyer named Ronald A. White. According to accounts later introduced in a trial in federal court in Philadelphia, Mr. White suggested he could help the bank get bond work and also suggested various ways the bank could compensate him.  J.P. Morgan eventually gave $20,000 to fund a scholarship in Mr. White's name. It also donated $70,000 to a charity of which he was co-chairman. And according to accounts later introduced in court, the bankers got J.P. Morgan to pay $50,000 to Mr. White's tiny law firm for work that, it turned out, it never did." (Government | Governance )

 [ B ]

 [ C ]

Competitive Era Fails to Shrink Electric Bills, David Cay Johnston, The New York Times, October 15, 2006.  “A decade after competition was introduced in their industries, long-distance phone rates had fallen by half, air fares by more than a fourth and trucking rates by a fourth. But a decade after the federal government opened the business of generating electricity to competition, the market has produced no such decline.”  (Government (Regulation))

 [ D ]

 [ E ]

 [ F ]

From Public Life to Private Business, David S. Hilzenrath, The Washington Post, May 28, 2006.  “After more than 30 years in politics, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen was saddled with credit card debt.  The baker's son from Bangor, Maine, was never wealthy, and his government salary went only so far. When the motorcades and military escorts ended in January 2001, his final financial disclosure form listed tens of thousands of dollars of charge-account debts at interest rates as high as about 25 percent.  Within weeks of leaving office, he was living in a $3.5 million McLean mansion with a swimming pool, a cabana and a carriage house.”  (Government | Governance )

 [ G ]

Government Can't Make the Market Fair, Lester C. Thurow, The New York Times, July 23, 2002.  "Anyone who thinks the current round of corporate scandal could have been prevented with new rules and regulations simply does not understand American capitalism. The Enrons, WorldComs and Tycos are not abnormalities in a "basically sound system." Scandals are endemic to capitalism. The best any government can do is contain the damage, and the best any individual investor can do is get out of harm's way."  (Government | Governance )

 [ H ]

How Big Tax Shelter With Cities Shortchanges Federal Treasury, John D. McKinnon, The New York Times, October 7, 2004.  “While Chicago shoppers hunted for bargains a few days after Christmas last year, two big financial firms landed their own sweet deal. FleetBoston Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking bought Chicago's 911 emergency-call system.  Chicago wasn't in the throes of privatization. It was playing its part in a complicated tax shelter, in which banks and insurers buy municipal assets and lease them back to the city. The investors claim big tax deductions, the city reaps a revenue windfall, and middlemen take a cut. The loser is the U.S. Treasury.  Of all the tax shelters currently reducing taxpayers' bills, municipal leasing may be the most costly to the Treasury. Absent new legislation, the deals are projected to cost the U.S. $4.4 billion in uncollected taxes this fiscal year, the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates. Cities have sold and leased back $60 billion to $80 billion in assets over the past four years, the Equipment Leasing Association says. Even if there are no new leasing deals, those already in place would generate deductions that cut tax revenue by billions of dollars in future years.” (Government | Governance )

 [ I ]

Investor Fees Finance Interests of Lobbyists, Kathleen Day, The Washington Post, January 11, 2004.  “Mutual fund investors might not be surprised to learn that the companies that manage their funds actively lobby Congress and the states regarding regulation of their industry. But they may be startled to learn that these managers have lobbied hard over the past decade for policies that investor and consumer advocates say often run counter to the interests of average mutual fund shareholders.  And what many investors surely do not realize is that they are footing much of the bill for the lobbying effort, industry critics say. In a sour addition to recent revelations of  widespread misconduct in the $7.1 trillion industry by fund managers and brokerages, the fund industry has, among other causes, lobbied to keep proxy votes secret and has persuaded legislators in Maryland and Massachusetts to adopt a lenient definition of what makes a fund director independent."  (Government | Governance )

 [ J ]

 [ K ]

 [ L ]

Lawmaker-Turned-Lobbyist A Growing Trend on the Hill, Jeffrey Brinbaum, The Washington Post, June 20, 2004.  “John Breaux and Don Nickles are looking for work -- and they have lots of choices.  Lobbying-law firms all over town are salivating at the idea of hiring one or both of the well-connected senators, who plan on retiring when their terms are up in January. And Breaux (D-La.) and Nickles (ROkla.) are anything but coy about their intentions to cash in when they join the private sector.”  (Government | Governance )

 [ M ]

 [ N ]

 [ O ]

 [ P ]

 [ Q ]

 [ R ]

 [ S ]

Sweet Hedge Alabama:  A County Defends Rate-Swap Strategy, Karen Richardson, The New York Times, June 8, 2005.  “Jefferson County, Ala., is counting on a large portfolio of sophisticated interest-rate swaps to help save millions of dollars on pedestrian public-debt projects like a new sewer system.  Federal authorities are hoping the county's finances don't go down the drain instead. Critics point out that the swaps currently cost taxpayers money.  Welcome to the front of a growing debate over the use of swaps by municipal governments. In their most basic form, interest-rate swaps allow parties to trade exposure to fixed- and floating-rate debt. Swaps are often used by companies, and traders, including hedge funds, often take swap positions." (Government | Governance )

 [ T ]

Targeting Lobbyists Pays Off For GOP, Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, June 26, 2003.  “Nearly a decade after Republicans launched a campaign to oust Democrats from top lobbying jobs in Washington, sometimes through intimidation and private threats, they are seizing a significant number of the most influential positions at trade associations and corporate government affairs offices -- and reaping big financial rewards.  Partly because of the "K Street Project" -- and partly because of GOP control of Congress and the presidency -- virtually every major company or trade association looking for new top-level representation is hiring or seeking to hire a prominent Republican politician or staffer, according to Republicans and Democrats tracking the situation.  This year, General Electric, Comcast, Citigroup and many other Fortune 500 companies have hired Bush administration officials and former GOP congressional advisers for top lobbying posts. A Republican National Committee official recently told a group of GOP lobbyists that 33 of 36 top-level Washington positions he is monitoring went to Republicans, according to someone who attended the meeting.”  (Government | Governance )

Tech Company Settled Tax Case Without an Audit, David Cay Johnston, The New York Times, August 10, 2004.  “Remy Welling is a senior auditor for the Internal Revenue Service with 22 years' experience. But when she was handed the file on a company suspected of underpaying its taxes, it contained something she had never seen before in such a case: an agreement to close the audit before it had even begun.  Instead of being given tax returns to examine, Ms. Welling was asked to sign off on a secret deal worked out by other officials at the I.R.S. The deal, she ultimately calculated, would allow a Silicon Valley company and its top executives to escape at least $51 million in additional taxes that she was convinced they should have paid.  Moreover, the agreement required the I.R.S. to cooperate with the company, a relatively small semiconductor maker named Micrel, in keeping its shareholders uninformed on some basic terms of its stock-option plan, which Ms. Welling said enriched the four top executives by as much as $20 million in total."  (Government | Governance )

 [ U ]

U.S. Senators' Stock Picks Outperform the Pros', Jane J. Kim, The Wall Street Journal, October 26, 2004.  “Politicians may have done a poor job improving the government's bottom line, but they seem to be doing quite well with their own.   A study suggests that U.S. senators possess stock-picking skills that even the most seasoned money manager would envy. During the boom years of the 1990s, senators' stock picks beat the market by 12 percentage points a year on average, according to the study."  (Government | Governance )

 [ V ]

 [ W ]

Welcome to Club Fed, Review and Outlook, The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2006.  “The closest thing to a life-time sinecure is a federal government job, and now it turns out that it’s also a very lucrative way to make a living.”  (Government)  Seminar Information

 [ X ]

 [ Y ]

 [ Z ]