MARTHA THRIVED ON BUDDY SYSTEM: well-connected ride stock gravy train; can you say Terry McAuliffe?

NY POST ^ | 7/7/02 | TERRY KEENAN

[Liz]

The Martha Stewart saga gives a glimpse into how the Wall Street game was played among the well-connected.

One of the most compelling aspects of the Martha Stewart saga is how it keeps on giving.

Giving, that is, almost daily examples of how the Wall Street game was really played by the well-connected in the days before the bubble became real trouble. We all knew that the game was rigged, but Martha's Web helps complete the picture.

[Liz]

The DNC's Terry McAuliffe cashed in on Global X stock turning a $100 thou investment into $18 mil. Who's kidding who?
If McAwful was Joe Schmoe from East Overshoe, instead of the head of the DNC, he would not have been able to cut such
a lucrative deal. If this isn't considered "inside information," it darn well should be.

The question is what did Global X's Gary Winnick get in return? Besides the all-important "access," that is.

As soon as the corrupt Clintons left office, the company went belly-up. Were the conniving Clintons in on the deal?
Were they giving the company legal protection? Protection that could not be expected from the new administration? Meanwhile, the investing public is given the sugar-coated explanation that the collapse of Global X is due to "bad business decisions" and the over-subscribed telecom industry.

What with the collapse of Loral, WorldCom, ImClone, Enron, Global X, dot.coms by the dozens, and other companies with cooked books that had big buck ties to the Democrats, it's becoming more and more apparent why Al Gore just had to win.

[kcvl]

Gary Winnick (with Karen B.)
March 5, 2001

Richard Reeves, the nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, remembers his introduction to Gary Winnick at "one of the most disgusting events I've endured in many years of watching the way the world works." The scene was a luncheon last August for the National Democratic Institute attended by President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and a host of foreign dignitaries and big-time political donors.

As one of those donors, Winnick had paid for the lunch, and thus had been allotted time to address the gathering. "This egomaniac who could afford the tab got up and rambled on about how rich and daring he was and how great his kids were," writes Reeves. When Albright got up to speak, Winnick adorned her with a baseball cap bearing the corporate logo of his telecommunications company, Global Crossing. "It made you cringe to be a citizen of the world's greatest democracy," Reeves reports. "But that's the way it is these days."

Albright and Clinton had at least 133,000 reasons to grin their way through Winnick's performance: that's how many of his own dollars the corporate heavyweight gave to Democrats during the last election cycle. The donations were part of at least $1,265,268 that Global Crossing and its affiliates and executives gave the party. Republicans received almost as much from the company, including $185,000 from Winnick. Global Crossing has made no secret of its desire for returns on that investment beyond self-congratulatory luncheons.

Winnick founded Global Crossing in 1997, and has since raised over $20 billion in capital. The company plans to lay 100,000 miles of fiber-optic cable to 27 countries and 200 cities by the middle of this year. Last August, Forbes estimated Winnick's value at $3.2 billion. But that was when the company's stock was hovering around $32 a share. By February, it had plunged to barely $15.

A former employee of junk-bond king Michael Milken, Winnick also controls Pacific Capital Group, an investment firm that helped launch Global Crossing. In February, Pacific Capital agreed to acquire part of Loews Cinema as part of a bankruptcy restructuring. The group also has investments in a number of telecommunications and finance companies, including Nextwave Telecom, WorldPort Communications, Value America, and Aegis Consumer Funding Group.

Winnick harbors political interests beyond Washington. He has pledged $40 million of his wealth to build the Winnick Institution Jerusalem, which will focus on global issues of peace and tolerance. He also funds other pro-Israel programs, including one that sponsors Jewish-American students who wish to visit the country for the first time.

In 1997, Winnick hired Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's chief fundraiser, as a consultant. According to the New York Times, the $100,000 he paid McAuliffe turned into an $18 million windfall as McAuliffe's contacts helped Global Crossing's stock climb. In 1999, McAullife set up a golf gave between Clinton and Winnick, which ended with Winnick pledging $1 million for Clinton's presidential library.

-- Michael Scherer

[J. L. Chamberlain]

Um, you are aware that G. H. W. Bush got $80,000 in Global Crossing stock (worth more than $14 million at the height of the bubble), aren't you?

Surely you aren't suggesting that he's in on the deal as well, are you?

J

[kcvl]

Senator Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) also bought Global Crossing stock -- even as he filed a court brief supporting a bid by the company to control some $8 billion in wireless frequencies held by a bankrupt firm called NextWave Telecom. The FCC wants to put the prized frequencies up for auction, but as an investor in NextWave, Global Crossing is trying to claim the air-space without having to bid against rivals like AT&T and Sprint.

[jaq]

Former President Bush received the stock in exchange for money as payment for a speech he gave. This is common knowledge because the liberal press reported this in EVERY article that was written about Global Crossing, even though no one was sure when he sold the stock or how much he received for it. But, hey, who needs facts when illusion is all that matters.

[J. L. Chamberlain]

But, hey, who needs facts when illusion is all that matters.

The facts are not in dispute, only your ability to process the information. Check out former co-chairman Lodwrick Cook's connections to the Bush family and get back to me...

J

[AntiScumbag]

If this isn't considered "inside information," it darn well should be.

nah, an ipo is done by prospectus, which invariably say that we ain't makin' any money and we probably never will

in the old days, brokers allocated ipo shares to their best customers and friends, they still do, and always will

as for this whole scumbag conspiracy theory, if idiot bob dole had won in '96, the same stuff would have happened except we'd have burned more ethanol in the process

it was all part of a great once-in-our-lifetime mania, with the icing on the cake being the dot-bomb "new economy", and it didn't matter who was sitting in the oval office or using the sink

g.e. has been "managing" their earnings for over 20 years and microsoft for almost as long

aggressive accounting ala andersen is a concept almost as old as prostitution

tino de angelis (remember the great salad oil swindle?) would be proud

heck, he probably is, i think he's still alive

[Ed_in_NJ]

Cute. If you've got a point, make it.

[J. L. Chamberlain]

They are ALL gaming the system. That's the point!

J

[Liz]

Richard Reeves, the nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, remembers his introduction to Gary Winnick at "one of the most disgusting events I've endured in many years of watching the way the world works." The scene was a luncheon last August for the National Democratic Institute attended by President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and a host of foreign dignitaries and big-time political donors.

As one of those donors, Winnick had paid for the lunch, and thus had been allotted time to address the gathering. "This egomaniac who could afford the tab got up and rambled on about how rich and daring he was and how great his kids were," writes Reeves. When Albright got up to speak, Winnick adorned her with a baseball cap bearing the corporate logo of his telecommunications company, Global Crossing. "It made you cringe to be a citizen of the world's greatest democracy," Reeves reports. "But that's the way it is these days."

Another disgusting chapter from the late unlamented days of the Clintons' Reign of Terror. These fast-buck artists debased and degraded a great nation and its historic principles in order that the conniving Clintons and their minions could profit. We have yet to recover from the Clinton debacle while small shareholders pay the price for this rampant greed as the Clintons Legacy lives on.

Thanx for resurrecting this great expose of Winnick and the conniving Clintons. (As I recall, think I may have even posted the piece when it appeared back then.)

[gunnedah]

And this is the way the free enterprise system in America works.It is nothing more than stealing from every day old Joe Schmoe!
As I have said before,rob a bank with a pistol you get 15 years.Rob you neighbor with a pencil and you get rich.
And the answer too this is to educate and hire more lawyers to use and screw the average man!

[Liz]

tino de angelis (remember the great salad oil swindle?) would be proud ........

AAMOF, I did hear about good ol' Tino's swindle. The Washington Post in February, did a backstory after Enron went belly-up. Tino, Ponzi and Boesky were mentioned as great fraudsters.

Boesky of "greed is good" fame was guilty of "parking" stocks among other things. Ponzi used the pyramid method using late investors to pay early investors. But Tino was a real "pro." The guy fooled people into thinking he had all this salad oil. He had fake reservoirs built into huge tanks, so that when inspectors there to certify his holdings inserted their yardsticks, the fake reservoirs showed oil, but the tanks held mostly water. Tino bankrupted a couple of large brokerage houses speculating on oil futures.

The grand-daddy of frauds was Equity Funding. As the WSJ reported: "The customers didn't exist. Their mutual fund shares didn't exist. The funded loans didn't exist. The phony customers' phony pledges of their phony fund shares to buy phony insurance ultimately became numbers on a computer tape, which then printed out phony assets for Equity Funding Corporation's phony books."

Book-cooking at its most egregious.

[Charlotte Corday]

What with the collapse of Loral, WorldCom, ImClone, Enron, Global X, dot.coms by the dozens, and other companies with cooked books that had big buck ties to the Democrats, it's becoming more and more apparent why Al Gore just had to win.

Gore only "had to win" under the assumption that a GOP administration would send some Democrats to jail.

Please don't hold your breath while wating for this to happen.

[Nuke'm Glowing]

It's quite obvious why Algore had to win. Not to save the trees but to save the stock market. They built a house of cards just like Japan and the BOJ did in the 80's. When it collapsed on W's watch, they thought they could just point and say "see, George caused this". But the truth is seeping out and the realization that the earnings reports from the 90's are now all suspect. It will take years to sort out, and there will be more Enrons, Global Crossings, etc. Just keep watching those corporations that had suspect sales reports and used Andersen as their accounting firm....

[kcvl]

I didn't find this posted anywhere.

Note Appears to Back Stewart
But Investigators Still Have Doubts About Her Explanation

By Ben White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 2, 2002; Page E03

NEW YORK, July 1 -- Merrill Lynch & Co. has turned over a document to congressional investigators on which Martha Stewart's broker wrote the figure "$60," an apparent reference to the price at which he planned to sell Stewart's shares in ImClone Systems Inc., a congressional official said yesterday.

More...

[Tijeras_Slim]

Let us not forget that Anne Bingaman (wife of NM Senator Jeff Bingaman) got over $2M lobbying for Global X before she joined the Justice Department anti-trust division and their raid on Microsoft.

[razorback-bert]

I find it odd, that Martha who talks about how even the littlest details shouldn't be overlooked, fails to have a detailed daisy-chain decorated hand made cabinet filled with London watermarked paper records

[BluH2o]

... you are aware that G. H. W. Bush got $80,000 in Global Crossing stock

That's right ... in lieu of a speakers fee. The same kind of speakers fee Slick gets $200 thou for ...

[Liz]

I find it odd, that Martha who talks about how even the littlest details shouldn't be overlooked, fails to have a detailed daisy-chain decorated hand made cabinet filled with London watermarked paper records

....or a mega-magnified flow chart detailing her investments afixed to the walls of each of her seven houses.....

[Liz]

I'm pretty sure I read this WP story on FR.

The story claims the $60 notation will not exculpate MS.