The WSJ is reporting that Danielle Chiesi seeks to have the courts suppress certain statements that she made to FBI agents on the morning of her arrest, on the grounds that she was not informed of her rights. The Journal also reports that Chiesi is “running low on funds to finance her defense,” which of course is one of the government’s favorite ways of pressuring targets to capitulate. In the KPMG tax case and in the Jamie Olis case, prosecutors pressured former employers to violate their legal obligation to provide defendants with the funds they needed for defense. (Wall Street Journal “Chiesi, U.S. May End Spat on Arrest,” by Susan Pulliam and Chad Bray). In other Galleon news, Bloomberg’s David Glovin reports that “ Raj Rajaratnam’s attorney said prosecutors misled the judges who authorized secret wiretaps that formed the basis of a federal insider-trading probe.” The Galleon case represents the first time the government used wiretaps on an insider-trading prosecution, thus elevating the atmosphere of criminality around a practice that ( in most circumstances ) should not be criminal at all.

Jul 28, 2010

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If Not Joe Cassano, Then Who? This Wall Street Journal article notes that previous economic collapses have been followed by notorious criminal trials of alleged evildoers. But, so far, the collapse of 2008-2009 has not. At one point, Joseph Cassano was thought to be the most likely candidate, having been fingered by the financial story-teller Michael Lewis as "the man who crashed the world." But when the federal government decided to drop both criminal and civil charges against Cassano, it began to seem as though criminal businessmen might not be found to lie at the heart of the world's economic problems, frustrating the standard anti-capitalist narrative. (Investigations into the role of power-seeking bureaucrats are not to be expected.) For true believers, however, it should be noted that New York State attorney general Andrew Cuomo continues his Javert-like pursuit of Cassano.

Jul 27, 2010

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These stories about the soul of Conrad Black are fairly common on the Web, and I cannot begin to relate them all. But I thought it useful to include one or two—just to give a picture of the man whom prosecurors are so desperate to imprison. In the great Rodney-King, if-they-want-you-to be-found-guily-you-will-be-found-guilty tradition, New York State attorney general Andrew Cuomo has reopened his investigation of Joseph “the man who broke the world” Cassano, after the federal government could find no basis for prosecuting him on either criminal or civil charges .

Jul 27, 2010

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BP's president and CEO, Tony Hayward, has agreed to resign , probably in the fall, the New York Times is reporting.

Jul 25, 2010

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Conrad Black. Appearing in a Chicago courtroom today, Conrad Black heard some of the terms set for his bail. Apparently, the one he finds most onerous is that he cannot travel to his home in Canada. U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve has restricted his travel to the United States. He will be back in court on August 16th. The BBC story is here .

Jul 24, 2010

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Matt Ridlley has a blog, "The Rational Optimist," to accompany his book of the same title. And the other day he wrote an interesting blog post on the resilience of nature , with particular reference to oil spills. Information on Ridley's book is here .

Jul 24, 2010

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Days after the Soviet Union collapsed, and shortly after the Iron Curtain fell, David Kelley delivered this lecture at the University of

Jul 23, 2010

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David Kelley Ph.D

One small step for a man: Conrad Black has been freed from prison on $2 million bail . The money was posted Roger Hertog , a New York businessman associated with many conservative causes, especially the Manhattan Institute, of which he is chairman emiritus.

Jul 22, 2010

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Toyota. The indispensable Michael Fumento has posted his forthcoming Forbes column at his Web site. His survey of the database at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that it is a undigested lump of unevaluated complaints: “ Anybody can enter anything . An entry filed by someone named “Damnable Liar” claimed his car accelerated to the moon because of a child seat problem. That was mine. Many “complaints” are merely comments, and since NHTSA has no “sudden acceleration” category but rather uses “speed control,” the sudden-acceleration claims are lumped in with entries regarding vehicle sluggishness. But in the media conversion process they all become runaway Toyotas.

Jul 22, 2010

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The 2006 U.S. elections, which put the Democrats in charge of the House and Senate, were widely described in media as a referendum on the Ir

Jul 21, 2010

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10 Mins

Black Gets Bail . Conrad Black has been granted bail. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, over the protests of the U.S. government, has granted Conrad Black bail while his appeal is heard by the circuit court, following the Supreme Court's decision in the "honest services" case of Jeffrey Skilling. Market Cop. Last Saturday, writing about the Goldman Sachs settlement, I mentioned in passing the remarks of the rabidly anti-capitalist U.S. Senator Carl Levin, who mischaracterized the Goldman settlement as being tantamount to a confession of guilt. The lie was standard Levin, but I must admit that the senator was fully entitled to gloat. After all, he had won. Goldman had said it would fight, and it didn’t.

Jul 19, 2010

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The invaluable Larry Ribstein (who left his personal "Ideoblog" for the excellent group effort "Truth on the Market" ) offers the definitive first-take on the Goldman case from the perspective of a busiiness-law professor . His key conclusion is that this suit was, in effect, the governmental version of a "strike suit," the term used when priv ate individuals go after a corporation in the expectation that it will settle and they can pocket their gains without having to prove wrongdoing in court. But, as Ribstein writes: "Instead of attorneys’ fees, the SEC’s objective appears to have been purely political." And part of that political objective, as he notes, was to alter the obligations that a corporation has to others. Exactly. The purpose was to move the American economy away from the stand-alone individualism of the capitalist system to the paternalistic collectivism of a feaudalistic-seigneurial system. spiderID=679

Jul 19, 2010

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Goldman's Consent Decreee. Here is the consent decreee that Goldman Sachs agreed to in order to settle the SEC's suit. In it, the company does not admit or deny the allegations (standard wording) but does admit that it made "a mistake." Well, we knew that. If I take a walk on the bad side of town and get mugged, clearly I made a mistake. Goldman's "mistake" was to do something that provoked the SEC to mug it. Still, for the reasons I laid out here , I wish Goldman had fought the SEC in court. By capitulating, Goldman allows the SEC and the Obama administration more broadly to start taking us back to the mid-20th century era of feudalistic capitalism, under which companies are forced to act as the caring seigneurs of all their "stakeholders."And as for Goldman's attempt to preserve the distinction between committing a "mistake" and committing an immorality: naturally, it was quickly brushed aside by anti-capitalists such as the viciously anti-business Senator Carl Levin .

Jul 19, 2010

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On July 12, The Washington Post ran a fascinating interview with Mark Thornton, Senior Vice President, Product Development, and Chief Medical Officer at Novavax. Inspiringly, the story was headlined “A career built on bringing livesaving drugs to the market and to patients.” And, for the most part, Thornton’s career is every bit as admirable as the headline makes it sound. “In college,” he tells us, “I fell in love with the notion of correcting a disease and making a person better by giving them a pharmaceutical.” And he ends the interview by commenting: “At Novavax, I can help bring these products to the marketplace and to patients.”

Jul 17, 2010

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Hang your clothes on a hickory limb / But don't go near the water. That seems to be the message of Rep. Henry Waxman's bill to limit the conditions under which a person may drill for oil. According to Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Waxman restriction is simply that the would-be driller first accomplish the impossible. After that, he may go right ahead.

Jul 17, 2010

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On June 24, the Supreme Court ordered the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago to reconsider the conviction of Conrad Black in light of the high court's rulinig in the “honest services” decision in Skilling v. United States . Predictably, the prosecutors in Black's case are arguing that he should not be free on bail while his appeal is being heard.

Jul 17, 2010

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The Washington Post today offered those few of us unwilling to read the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill a cartoon summary of what it all means: “Reinventing Financial Regulation,” by Brady Dennis and Alberto Cuadra. It is not entirely clear to me who did the text and who did the graphics. But the essence of the Consumer Protection provision is clearly stated (and illustrated): “In the lead up to the financial crisis, seven regulators shared responsibility for looking out for consumers of mortgages, credit cards, and other such loans, but none treated consumers as a top priority.”

Jul 16, 2010

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Richard Scrushy, former HealthSouth Corp. chairman, today filed a motion with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, seeking to be released from prison while the court reconsiders his 2006 conviction, as the Supreme Court ordered it to do following the high court’s “honest services” decision.

Jul 15, 2010

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“Waterboarding” is a controversial procedure in which interrogators compel a target to cooperate by making him feel as though he is dying—specifically, by making him feel that he is drowning. I am not convinced that it amounts to torture, or that its use against Islamic jihadists is wrong. But I am convinced that U.S. prosecutors have devised a metaphorical form of waterboarding, which they regularly employ against innocent businessmen. They have discovered a means by which they can convince a businessman who is not even suspected of a crime that his company—to which he may have devoted his life—will be killed if he does not cooperate with them. And that, I think, is wrong.

Jul 14, 2010

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The ever-stalwart Tom Kirkendall, of Houston’s Clear Thinkers, writes today about the plight of former Merrill Lynch executive James Brown , one of the last Enron figures still pursued by our Javert-like Department of Justice (sic). My own take on Enron, now, is that it involved some financial fraud, notably by Andy Fastow and a couple of his cronies, but that it also involved what Rob Bradley has called “philosophical fraud” and I have called postmodernism . Under the circumstances, I think we need to say of its dubious but non-frauduent practices something similar to what ACLU types often say of disagreeable speakers: “I disagree entirely with the way you conduct your business, but I shall defend to the death your right to conduct it as you see fit.” The invaluable Professor St

Jul 13, 2010

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