senior vice president

Wow:

The chief financial officer (CFO) of Freddie Mac, the giant US mortgage lender and guarantor, has died in an apparent suicide.

David Kellermann, who was acting chief financial officer and a senior vice president of Freddie Mac, was found by his wife in their Virginia home, according to local media reports.

This story will be interesting to watch over the next few days.

Citigoup’s stock closed at $4.71 today, down 26.39%. That pushes them below the $5 threshold, which is generally a big trigger for massive selling:

Most institutional investors and pension funds are barred from owning stocks below $5. So if Citigroup's stock remains below that level, it could trigger a wave of selling that would send the share price even lower.

"That's the danger of crossing that $5 threshold," says Owen Malcolm, senior vice president of Sanders Financial Management in Atlanta. "They're (Citigroup) already in trouble. It could get worse."

I got a feeling their isn’t going to be much to be thankful for next week on Wall Street.

So we have this bailout that is needed for Wall Street to survive. The only problem is that Wall Street wants the plan carved their way or no way. From the WSJ:

House Republican staffers met with roughly 15 lobbyists Friday afternoon, whose message to lawmakers was clear: Don't load the legislation up with provisions not directly related to the crisis, or regulatory measures the industry has long opposed.

"We're opposed to adding provisions that will affect [or] undermine the deal substantively," said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable, whose members include the nation's largest banks, securities firms and insurers.

A deal killer for the group: a proposal that would grant bankruptcy judges new powers to lower the principal, interest rate or both on a mortgage as part of a bankruptcy proceeding.

I think the most ironic part is that the lobbyists know the only hope they have of getting this wish is to lobby the minority party. Why is that? Because the minority party is the party that will listen to them. So they expect us to give them nearly a trillion dollars with no strings attached. Time for the Democrats to give them a big "fuck off" and make it known they are there to protect the people - not the financial big wigs.

This is a very interesting decision:

Fox News Channel is going off the air in Mexico in advance of Sunday's presidential election to steer clear of that country's restrictions on campaign ads and public surveys, cable channel executives said Wednesday.

Fox News decided to temporarily halt transmission into Mexico because of concerns that the channel's coverage would violate a ban on disseminating opinion polls or campaign commercials in the days before the election, and jeopardize the standing of the cable and satellite companies that distribute its signal.

"I just don't think we had much choice," said Janet Alshouse, senior vice president of international distribution for Fox News. "We can't restrict our coverage."

Sounds like Mexico is more out to protect their democracy than we are. As soon as I read this, I thought back to the 2000 election. That night when all the networks were predicting Gore the winner then all of the sudden FOX is breaking ranks and predicting Bush the winner. This of course forced the other channels to switch their prediction and we know what happened after that.

On October 18, the Senate judiciary committee will start
hearings into the ties between Timothy Flanigan and Jack Abramoff. Flanigan was
nominated by President Bush in May to become Deputy Attorney General at the
Justice Department.

Abramoff was a lobbyist for Tyco, where Flanigan became a
senior vice president in 2002. Flanigan joined Tyco following the resignation of
two executives, who were being investigated for misrepresenting the company’s
financial condition and improperly taking bonuses.

Tyco paid $2 million, which most went to firms controlled
by Abramoff, in order to preserve its tax advantage they got from shifting their
home to Bermuda.

Flanigan also worked under Alberto Gonzales, when he was
chief White House council. While at the White House, Flanigan worked on some of
the most controversial cases, including the finding that the Geneva Convention
does not apply to suspected terrorists. He also worked on the controversial memo
narrowing the definition of torture

In September, Senate Democrats questioned Flanigan about
his involvement with Tyco and Jack Abramoff; however Flanigan would not answer
the questions. Arlen Specter, the chair of the judiciary committee, said that
the Democrats questions merited being answered.

This is all coming in the dawn of David Safavian receiving
five indictments for obstruction of justice in the Abramoff investigation.
Safavian was the chief procurement officer for the White House.