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The Hillary Clinton confidant who was caught running a clandestine intelligence service for her may have also illegally lobbied for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ally in the nation of Georgia. According to a Gawker report, Sidney Blumenthal, the top Clinton confidant, and “another former official from Bill Clinton’s administration were secretly lobbying the secretary of state on behalf of a billionaire in the former Soviet state of Georgia who was seeking closer ties with Putin’s Russia—seemingly in violation of a federal law designed to prevent foreign powers from covertly wielding influence within the United States.” Blumenthal “passed along a note...

A week ago, when reading between the lines of what had heretofore been considered an inevitable USPS episode of austerity in which hundreds of thousands of labor union workers would lose their jobs but in the process would streamline a thoroughly outdated and inefficient US Postal Office bureaucracy, we asked if a US Postal Service bailout was imminent, focusing on the following: "Enter Ron Bloom, Lazard, and the very same crew that ended up getting a taxpayer funded bailout for GM. From the WSJ: "The Postal Service's proposal to close thousands of post offices and cut back on the number...

Crain's New York Business Lazard bonuses so big, they turned 4Q into a loss By Aaron Elstein Published: February 3, 2010 - 3:06 pm What should have been a profitable quarter a Lazard Ltd. turned into a surprising loss due to the investment bank paying its people big bonuses. The firm doled out $616 million in compensation and benefits to about 2,300 employees last quarter, or more than triple the amount handed out in the same period in 2008. It was a consequence, Lazard said, of a decision to pay more bonuses in cash and accelerate some deferred cash awards...

It was only a matter of time before asset managers said "enough" to Bernanke's plan of debasing the dollar day after day, and took appropriate measures. In a not very surprising, yet quite shocking at the same time, development, caught by Annuity IQ, Lazard's The World Trust Fund has had enough of the dollar. Lazard will "change the currency in which the Fund's shares are traded from US dollars to Sterling." Good work Mr. Chairman and Wall Street lobby. The reason for the seismic shift: In response to comments from a number of shareholders and potential investors in the Fund...

NEW YORK – Bruce Wasserstein, the CEO of Lazard Ltd., has died, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday, which cited sources familiar with the matter

The Subprime home mortgage collapse...a Primer. It's ALL about the CRA of 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 - This required banks to offer credit throughout their entire market area for “underserved” populations and small businesses. The CRA gave incentives to help low income borrowers become “home owners”. Liberals call this group “low income borrowers”. Conservatives call them a RISK!The CRA was passed by the Carter administration. In 1995 the Clinton administration authorized subprime loans under the CRA. Democrats added these provisions for the securitization of subprime loans and then ENFORCED the lending to high risk individuals. By 2000,...

Taliban told US it would give up Osama - middleman By Mark Trevelyan BERLIN, June 4 (Reuters) - U.S. and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt almost a year before the September 11 attacks to discuss terms for the Afghans to hand over Osama bin Laden, according to a German television documentary. But no agreement was reached and no further negotiations took place before the suicide hijackings in 2001, which bin Laden subsequently hailed in a videotape as the work of his al Qaeda network. ZDF television quoted Kabir Mohabbat, an Afghan-American businessman, as saying he tried to broker a...

Investigators into the collapse of the Italian dairy giant Parmalat are turning the spotlight on America's big investment banks. Italian magistrates and officials from the powerful Securities and Exchange Commission are examining the role of lenders to Parmalat - which collapsed into administration last month following the disclosure of an €8 billion (£5.6bn) hole in its finances. These lenders include some of the US's largest financial institutions. An SEC source said that while at this stage an investigation did not imply wrongdoing by the investment banks, it was focusing on placements of notes and bonds in the US. But he...