Word: bidders
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Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested this week on the basis of a 76-page report detailing alleged corruption that included plans to auction off former Sen. Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. Blagojevich has been recorded on tape spilling priceless gems that will contribute notably to Illinois’s heritage of thoroughly corrupt politics at all levels of government. Indeed, when all his deeds have finally been brought out, his tenure will no doubt stand as a milestone in the long and noble tradition of corrupt Illinoisans...
...often the case in graphic novels, there was no time for the hero to lose. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald began wiretapping the governor in mid-October and by mid-November could hear that Obama's old seat was being auctioned to the highest bidder. Fitzgerald feared that the longer Blagojevich remained as governor, the more likely he would name someone to replace Obama in exchange for a bribe. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as Justice Brandeis said," explained Robert Litt, who served in the Justice Department under Bill Clinton. "By bringing this all out into the open, Fitzgerald is making...
...during his stunning press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama's now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians, it's never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance them from a front-page scandal. And indeed, there are enough connections between the worlds of Blagojevich and Obama that the whole thing has the potential to grow...
...they raise through deposit-gathering are finding that the numbers barely work at all. Easton Bank's Menzies, for example, recently lost a bid to get $5 million in cash from a local government in exchange for the bank's issuing the government a one-year CD. The winning bidder agreed to pay the government 3.72%. Menzies had offered 2.69%, which he considered a high rate, one that probably would have netted him just a 0.04- or 0.05-percentage-point profit after he rolled the money into an investment like a Fannie Mae mortgage-backed security. (See "Four Steps...
...could someone else offer a higher rate? Chances are, the bidder wasn't looking to make a profit - just trying to inject liquidity into the institution's balance sheet - or was pursuing riskier investments in order to make the transaction make sense. "When a bank chases yield, they then start making riskier investments or riskier loans," says Fine of the Independent Community Bankers of America. That's not something we particularly need more of right...