Tell It To Al

So now the Obama Administration and the  Justice Department is setting up a mortgage fraud task force?

Three years after the height of a financial crisis caused by systemic mortage fraud?

So far, I can only think of one mortgage company CEO who has been sent to prison, Paul R. Allen, 55, of Oakton, Va., former CEO of Ocala, Fla.-based Taylor Bean & Whitaker. Click here to read my column on that case. Meantime, plenty of little people have gone to jail for peddling mortgages as fast as they could to meet market demand. Click here for my column on one of them. 

Anthony Accetta, a former U.S. attorney who used to prosecute mortgage fraud, was seething at the obvious cases of mortgage fraud at the highest levels of Wall Street before the financail crisis began. Now, he’s concerned that the government has put off investigations for so long that prosecutors risk running into statutes of limitations. He was beside himself after Obama’s announcement, calling it too-little, too late.

“Does he think we’re all stupid?”

It’s 2012 and while economists can spot are few signs of a recovery, they can’t spot any sings of a strong recovery.

It’s one thing when economist Nouriel Roubini – a.k.a. Dr. Doom – sees trouble ahead. But not even Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is very bullish on the economy, promising to hold interest rates as close as he can to zero through 2014, to prop up the economy.

2014 will mark five of six years since the financial crisis of 2008. Despite bailouts and unprecedented intervention from the Fed, the economy is still struggling and even more addicted to artificial stimulus schemes. Perhaps we’ve blown a hole in the economy that’s too big to fill.

Click here to read my column in the Sunday Wall Street Journal.

It’s a long, hard road for a woman to sue her employment for sex discrimination.

Lorelei Kilker persisted in her claim against Western Sugar Cooperative, where she worked for nearly a decade as a chemical analysts. The settlement she won would have been victory enough, but she was also lauded as a champion for women’s rights on a national stage.

Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.

It’s hard to get a job if you can’t sell your house and move for a new job.

In the last two quarters of 2011, only 7.5% of job seekers relocated to find work, a record low, according to outplacement agency Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That’s down from  9.4% in the first half of 2011 when it appeared things were improving.  Click here to see the report.

It’s the ol’ housing market pulling down the employment  market, yet again.

“The latest numbers indicate that picking up stakes remains a last resort for the majority of job seekers, many of whom are unwilling to take a loss on the sale of a home for a position that may or may not last,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The report illustrates an obvious economic observation: an economy toppled by a housing bubble can not be fixed without first addressing the housing bubble. Most of the Federal Reserve and government stimulus efforts have been aimed at shoring up banks, not the real estate market that banks manipulated.

Alaska Airlines says it will no longer hand out prayer cards on its flights.

The inspirational cards used to come with meals, but when the meals stopped, the customers were left with only the cards, citing Psalms such as, “Give thanks to the Lord.”

Alaska says it’s getting rid of the cards because religion is personal.  Click here to read the details from the Associated Press.

I can’t believe it’s been handing them out this long. I, for one, would have second thoughts about flying on an airline that suggests I better pray.

Bouncing around in a turbulent sky is bound to inspire prayer as it is.  What else do we have to pray for besides a safe landing? Our luggage back? An on-time arrival? A lavatory that doesn’t stink up the entire cabin?

What do you pray for when you’re up in the air?

Richard Edelman ought to be a big hit in Davos, Switzerland, telling some of the most powerful people in the world how much they are mistrusted.

Government and business leaders have seen a precipitous drop-off in trust, as measured by the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of more than 30,000 people in 25 countries.

With Europe’s debt crisis threatening the global economy, the U.S. Federal Reserve always looking for new ways to hold interest rates down to historic lows, and job growth that can’t catch up to job destruction, it’s a wonder anybody trusts government or business at all.

Click here to see the survey.

Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.

Apologies to Walt Whitman for using his words in mock praise of  captains of sinking ships, from Capt. Francesco Schettino to Capt. Bernie Madoff.

Whitman wrote his poem to honor slain president Abraham Lincoln. I simply liked the rhythm of the words, and the economy of spelling the word O without the “h” made it much easier to fit in a headline.

For all the rage against the captain of Carnival’s submerged vessels, there are many captains of industry who’ve caused bigger accidents.

Click here to read my column in The Sunday Wall Street Journal.

That’s the top price for a spot at the Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

Meet Aashish Dalal, the man who will sell it to you.

Over the past few years, Dalal has quietly cornered the market on parking spaces at major events.

Click here to read my column on Dalal on MarketWatch.

One reason white collar crimes are so hard to prosecute is because government regulators often become defense attorneys.

In some cases, this is not even legal. But for lawyers laws are often just things to get around.

One day Dallas attorney Spencer Barasch was running the Security and Exchange Commission’s regional office in Texas. Another day he was representing alleged Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford.

Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.

You are not what you eat. You are what certain powerful people tell you to eat.

The Daily Meal has once again compiled a list of the 50 most powerful people in food, from top chefs  to government officials, the CEO of Weight Watchers and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Click here to read the Daily Meal’s report.

Not all of the power in the food world is nefarious. I was glad to see a man on the Daily Meal’s list who I profiled in my column last year, Milwaukee urban farmer Will Allen.  Click here to read that column. Allen is truly and inspiration. I think he has a solution for what ails America, beginning not from the ground up, but from the worms up.

“In the food world, the people with power are the ones who affect what and how and where and why we eat, or could if they wanted to,” the report explains. “They’re the agribusiness moguls who decide … what crops are planted and how they’re harvested and sold. They’re the representatives of major food processing and distribution concerns and retail food outlets, which is to say the people who actually put food on our tables. They’re the scolds and nannies — and admirable consumer advocates — who tell us what we should and shouldn’t eat and why, sometimes upending whole industries in the process; the key figures in the governmental agencies concerned with the economics and the safety of our food supply; the media stars and public figures who sway our food opinions and stimulate our appetites; the chefs and restaurateurs who introduce us to new raw materials, new dishes, new culinary notions, and establish the standards we come to expect for the preparation and the serving of food. They’re the journalists, online or on television or even still sometimes in print, who report on all of the above…”

Hey, I’m a journalist. I’ll tell you what to eat. Less.