Tell It To Al

Another day, another insider trading case.

Today it’s two former brokers in Denver and Baltimore, who allegedly traded on inside information regarding an IBM Corp. acquisition. Click here to read the detail from Bloomberg.

Once again, emails intercepted by law enforcement authorities could prove deadly for defense lawyers. Here are a few prosecutors cite:

“We need spss to run up i need that lexus.”

“don’t tell anyone else..we gotta keep this in the family.”

“Dude, no way. I don’t want to go to jail…that Martha Stewart spent 5 months in the slammer.”

Ms. Stewart is mighty handy with a glue gun, but it’s best not to bring up her name in emails when trading any stock.  And a Lexus? Is that what this is all about? Is it worth it to risk all this aggravation for an upscale Toyota?

Is Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman digging her own grave?

She’s written down the value of H-P’s $10.3 Autonomy acquisition by $8.8 billion. And now she’s accusing the company’s former managers of accounting fraud.

Even if the accusations she’s leveled at Autonomy prove true, the debacle only highlights a multibillion mistake made on Ms. Whitman’s watch.

H-P has a long history of dumping it’s CEOs for mistakes like this.

Click here to read my column on Marketwatch.

And click here to read the column I wrote last year telling Ms. Whitman to back out of Autonomy and warning her of the of the H-P Boot.

Also click here to read a column I wrote on Ms. Whitman before she became CEO of H-P.

Mary Schapiro today announced she would step down from her post as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, capping a tenure during which most white collar criminals responsible for the financial collapse of 2008 could sleep soundly.

The nation’s biggest banks could pay fines without admitting nor denying guilt, with none of their top executives ever really targeted. Click here to read more on her announcement from the Associated Press.

Ms. Schapiro is a career regulator and a go-along-to-get-along gal. It was easy to see that nothing much would come of our sorry state of finanical regulation when President Barack Obama appointed her. It was even easier when she said she was having a difficult time explaining to people why financial regulation is even necessary.

Yes, she actually said this. Click here to read what I wrote last year. Ms. Schapiro will get some kudos for guiding an agency following the greatest financial collapse of our time. But most of the problems that got us here are alive and well today, thanks to bureaucrats like Ms. Schapiro. Where, oh where, are the leaders?

As for President Obama’s new pick Elisse Walter, an SEC commissioner, all I can say is meet the new boss, the same as the old boss.

Click here to read my sarcastic column on who should replace Ms. Schapiro in The Sunday Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft may have been the first company to envision the tablet computer, but it’s just now coming out with the Surface.

How did this market leader become the market follower of just about every consumer computing trend over the past 12 years?

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

Also, would love to hear your thoughts on the new Surface if you’ve check it out over the weekend.

Manufacturing does not have to disappear from the American landscape.

Robert Hamilton offers proof.

Mr. Hamilton, a friend I’ve known since high school, is making auto parts out of a small shop in Waukegan, Ill. His injection molding company, E2 Manufacturing Group LLC, is making parts for Ford, Chrysler and Maserati.

Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.

I thought my column, “Twinkie Deserves A Big, Fat Taxpayer Rescue” was clearly sarcastic – a work of satire pointing out the absurdities of bailing out anything, from banks to automakers.

Click here to read the column, and then check out the comments from readers. They are clearly smart enough to read and write, but so many of them can’t detect sarcasm from a columnist with known sarcastic tendencies. They don’t seem to get it even after a paragraph that marvels at the Twinkie as “the most ingenious clump of white flour, high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oil, and yellow No. 5 food coloring that ever rolled off a factory floor.”

“I know why Al Lewis wants Twinkies bailed out,” one reader wrote.  “The big money in Twinkies is all Democrat money.  The same reason they aren’t putting “Pretty Boy” Jon Corzine behind bars.”

All I can say is dude, Google up what I’ve written about Mr. Corzine before you blabber online. You can start with a column I wrote just before writting my Twinkie column. Cick here to read it.

Here are some other comments from people who took my Twinkie bailout column way too seriously:

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!  First, WE THE PEOPLE can’t afford it.  Already we are headed for a debt of $20,000,000,000.  I live on a budget, so should the US Governement.”

“WTH is wrong with you? This garbage about using tax payer’s money to bail out failing companies and nationalize industries is not only completely out of line, it is un-american. ”

“This article is rubbish. … Hostess should definitely be left to die. Not only do they make some of the worst junk food on our grocery store shelves, they also appear to have poor management.”

All I can say is thanks to those who got it, and took the time to comment as well: “LOL You didn’t read the article, did you?” wrote one reader. ”He was being sarcastic!”

Yeah, what he said. 

Sometimes all it take to blow up a company is a boss with an enormous ego who refuses to listen to anything other than his own insulated mind.

This is largely what caused the meltdown of MF Global, a $40 billion commodities trading and investment firm run into the ground by Jon Corzine, the former Goldman Sachs chairman, Democractic U.S. Senator and New Jersey governor, according to a report released by Republican members of the House financial services committee.

Of course, there’s no law against having a ridiculously sized ego, and the report stops short of assigning any sort of criminal liability.

Click here to read my column in the Sunday Wall Street Journal. And click here to download the full report from the commitee.

You know the job market is still bad when you go to a job fair for veterans, and you run into a guy who helps veterans get jobs, and he’s laid-off, too.

I met Ray Parrish at a veteran’s job fair at Chicago’s Roosevelt High School. He specializes in helping vets with less than honorable discharges.

Without an honorable discharge, it’s really difficult to find a job, and often these bad military records are simply a symptom of post traumatic stress disorder.

“He does a great job,” said  Chester Henry, a 66-year-old Vietnam vet who’s been battling this issue for most of his life.

Click here to read my column on Marketwatch.

PHOTO: Chester Henry, left, and Ray Parrish.

Michael Milken is a complicated man: A lauded visionary and philanthropist, and a symbol of 1980s greed all in one.

History – as muddled as it is in legal maneuverings -  records that Mr. Milken was embroiled in an insider trading scandal. He never plead guilty to insider trading, though, only technical trading violations, which resulted in him serving nearly two years in a federal prison.

Milken’s philanthropy goes back long before this scandal. And, though his Milken Institute, he’s continued to find new ways to improve the health of the planet. Still, two presidents have declined to pardon him for his past convictions.

I heard Mr. Milken speak at and event put on by the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado. Rabbis I spoke with offered varying opinions about having Mr. Milken keynote a somewhat religious event.

Click here to read my column on Marketwatch.com

It’s never a good sign when a company adopts a “poison pill” plan to fend off a corporate raider.

Netflix’ recent move to thwart Carl Icahn only exposes it’s desparation after a series of missteps that sent it’s stock tumbling.

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