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Political boogeyman
by Gunnar Larson 04 Jan '24

04 Jan '24

The United Nations is a convenient political scapegoat for many U.S. Republicans who have already ramped up electoral attacks on the world body. *Also in today’s edition:* The Danes backtrack to beef up their development bona fides, and Africa CDC institutes a hiring quota. *On Jan. 10, join us for our first Devex Pro event of the year, an “ask me anything” session with Devex President Raj Kumar, and get exclusive insights into the key trends in global development to watch out for in 2024. Save your spot now <https://t.devex.com/Njg1LUtCTC03NjUAAAGQc1VeEVIbL0JiqKAmbzhxvCkLz1liF9n03vc…>.* Political boogeyman U.S. Republicans and the United Nations get along like oil and water. *The world body is a perennial punching bag for conservatives* — and the hits are about to keep on coming as the United States enters election season. Republicans such as presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have plucked the liberal political slogan “defund the police” and *repackaged it to “defund the U.N.”* to win over their conservative base <https://t.devex.com/dc/kyXVoDpAY__Vu56MNr4POitZi1OcIE_0Xjzs73eE_Dtl8Qj4v1sk…>, my colleague Colum Lynch writes. “The prospect of the U.S. election is already casting a pretty long shadow over U.N. diplomacy,” says Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, noting that U.N. diplomats have “never really shaken off the suspicion that Trump might return to power.” Multilateralist Joe Biden was *supposed to be the global antidote to Donald Trump’s isolationism*. And indeed, the Biden administration rejoined the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Paris Agreement on climate change, UNESCO, and the U.N. Population Fund. It also resumed hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. But Biden’s staunch support of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has *tarnished his reputation at the U.N.* “People aren’t going to just forget this,” says one senior U.N.-based diplomat. Others say any dings against the U.S. — which spends more than $18 billion <https://t.devex.com/Njg1LUtCTC03NjUAAAGQc1VeEUgbtfzkKHBu9S0-h5Fwvv1EqI6o8D_…> a year on U.N. activities — won’t stick. As Peter Yeo, president of the Better World Campaign, the advocacy wing of the U.N. Foundation, puts it: *“This too shall pass.”* *Read: *US presidential candidates rally behind ‘defund the UN’ campaign <https://t.devex.com/dc/kyXVoDpAY__Vu56MNr4POitZi1OcIE_0Xjzs73eE_Dtl8Qj4v1sk…>

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Become a New York State Fellow in 2024 and earn $85K while you train; here’s who qualifies - silive.com
by Gunnar Larson 04 Jan '24

04 Jan '24

There are two RICOs happening in New York right now. And they won't let me apply for this... Become a New York State Fellow in 2024 and earn $85K while you train; here’s who qualifies https://www.silive.com/news/2023/12/become-a-new-york-state-fellow-in-2024-…

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Bill Dudley, Former Kingpin of Darkness at the New York Fed, Now Urges Transparency at the Fed
by Gunnar Larson 04 Jan '24

04 Jan '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/01/bill-dudley-former-kingpin-of-darkne… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 4, 2024 ~ William C. (Bill) Dudley, Former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York William (Bill) Dudley served as President of the New York Fed from 2009 to 2018. (He was previously an executive at Goldman Sachs.) During Dudley’s tenure at the New York Fed, it secretly oversaw the largest and darkest bailout of Wall Street mega banks in global banking history. A Bloomberg News reporter, the late Mark Pittman, battled in court for years to get the details of those bailouts released to the public. Today, the former kingpin of darkness at the New York Fed, Bill Dudley, had the audacity to pen an opinion column for Bloomberg News, urging – wait for it – more transparency at the Fed. The ironic title of Dudley’s column is (paywall): “If Only We Knew the Problems Facing America’s Banks.” (We do. See Federal Agency Study Contradicts Fed Chair: Finds Banking System Is Ripe for Another Crisis and Remains “Fragile and Uncertain.”) The hubris of Dudley’s reign at the New York Fed is perhaps only second to Robert Kaplan’s reign at the Dallas Fed. (Kaplan also came from Goldman Sachs.) Let’s start with Carmen Segarra, a lawyer and former bank examiner at the New York Fed, one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks – but the only one with two trading floors and a money spigot to Wall Street. Segarra charged in a lawsuit filed in October 2013 that she was told to change her negative examination of Goldman Sachs by colleagues, who also obstructed and interfered with her investigation. According to her lawsuit, when she refused to alter her findings, she was terminated in retaliation and escorted from the New York Fed premises. After having her case tossed by a federal Judge whose lawyer husband was representing Goldman Sachs, Segarra turned over her 46 hours of secret tape recordings on the matter to ProPublica’s Jake Bernstein and public radio’s This American Life, creating a media frenzy. In early 2012, as JPMorgan Chase was making risky bets with derivatives in London, using deposits from its federally-insured bank in the U.S., its Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, was sitting on the Board of Directors at the New York Fed. As Dimon’s bank was being investigated by the New York Fed, Jamie Dimon continued to sit on its Board, serving out his two terms which ended in late 2012. The derivatives debacle became infamously known as the London Whale trades where JPMorgan admitted to losing $6.2 billion of its bank depositors’ money. But it wasn’t the New York Fed that released a transparent report on the London Whale and the diabolical risk-taking with federally-insured deposits, it was the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. A report in October of 2014 from the Federal Reserve’s Inspector General indicated that the New York Fed was advised of potential trouble in the Chief Investment Office at JPMorgan Chase on multiple occasions but failed to conduct a comprehensive examination that might have alerted it at an early stage to the wild gambles JPMorgan was making in derivatives with depositors’ money, leading to the London Whale scandal and $6.2 billion in losses. While the New York Fed was “supervising” JPMorgan, Bill Dudley was serving as the President of the New York Fed and his wife, Ann Darby, a former Vice President at JPMorgan, was receiving approximately $190,000 per year in deferred compensation from JPMorgan – an amount she was slated to receive until 2021 according to financial disclosure forms. According to the New York Fed’s web site, its “employees are subject to the same conflict of interest statute that applies to federal government employees (18 U.S.C. Section 208).” Under that statute, a spouse’s conflicts become the conflicts of the employee. As far as we can recall, Dudley is the only Fed Bank President to have been put through a public shaming before a U.S. Senate Banking Subcommittee. In November 2014, the Senate Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection called Dudley to testify following the Segarra revelations. During the hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren drilled down to just how Dudley saw his role as a regulator. In a revealing exchange, Dudley made it clear that he didn’t interpret his role as a cop on the beat, calling his job “more of a fire warden” to make sure the banking institutions are run well so that they’re not going to catch on fire and burn down. Warren shot back: “But you don’t think you should be doing any investigation; you should wait and see if it jumps in front of you.” Warren also brought out the fact that once the New York Fed learned that Goldman Sachs had fashioned a deal for the Spanish bank, Banco Santander, which a New York Fed employee called “legal but shady,” to dress up its capital, the New York Fed failed to bring the activity to the attention of European banking regulators. Citigroup, supervised by the New York Fed, burned down to a 99-cent stock while Dudley was President at the New York Fed. It would later be revealed via a Government Accountability Office audit that Citigroup had secretly received $2.5 trillion in cumulative emergency loans from the New York Fed from December 2007 to at least July of 2010 to resuscitate its sinking carcass. Dudley’s appearance at the Senate hearing was followed by testimony from David O. Beim, Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Business School. Professor Beim was the author of a 2009 report, commissioned by the New York Fed, that was highly critical of how deferential the regulator was to the banks it was charged with supervising. The report made multiple recommendations for changing the culture. The existence of the report was revealed in the ProPublica story on the Segarra tapes. At the Senate hearing, Dudley admitted that he had never spoken with Professor Beim in the five years since the report was given to him but said many recommendations had been implemented. Related Articles: Former New York Fed Pres Bill Dudley Calls This the First Banking Crisis Since 2008; Charts Show It’s the Third If Wall Street’s Mega Banks Are Safe and Sound as the Fed Says, Why Do They Need a Half Trillion Dollar Bailout Facility at the New York Fed? Mission Creep or Creepy Mission: The New York Fed’s Trading Desk Has Ballooned to $6.59 Trillion Today from $576 Billion in 2008 The New York Fed Is Exercising Powers Never Bestowed on It by any Law New York Fed Has Allowed Dangerous Wall Street Banks to Have Lower Loan Loss Reserves than at time of 2008 Crash The Man Who Advises the New York Fed Says It and Other Central Banks Are “Fueling a Ponzi Market” Bernie Sanders Hasn’t Quite Captured What Wall Street Does: It’s Actually a Fraud-Monetization System with a Money-Printing Unit Called the New York Fed Here’s Why the New York Fed Doesn’t Want You to See a Photo of Its Wall Street-Esque Trading Floor New York Fed Plans to Throw $2.93 Trillion at Wall Street’s Trading Houses Over Next Month as New York Times Remains Silent Is the New York Fed Too Deeply Conflicted to Regulate Wall Street? New Documents Show How Power Moved to Wall Street, Via the New York Fed Intelligence Gathering Plays Key Role at New York Fed’s Trading Desk FacebookTwitterWhatsAppLinkedInEmail

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Apple Can't Duck Investor Vote On Human Rights Proposals
by Gunnar Larson 04 Jan '24

04 Jan '24

Apple Can't Duck Investor Vote On Human Rights Proposals <https://www.law360.com/capitalmarkets/articles/1781916?nl_pk=abe82add-2a33-…> By Dorothy Atkins The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told Apple Inc. on Tuesday that the tech giant must allow its investors to vote on two separate shareholder proposals by conservative nonprofits requesting that Apple investigate and disclose how its app curation and other practices align with certain human rights policies. 2 documents attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/capitalmarkets/articles/1781916?nl_pk=abe82add-2a33-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/capitalmarkets/articles/1781916?nl_pk=abe82add-2a33-…>

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New York's Horse Manure Problem of 1894
by Gunnar Larson 04 Jan '24

04 Jan '24

The Horse Manure Problem of 1894 The 15 to 30 pounds of manure produced daily by each beast multiplied by the 150,000+ horses in New York city resulted in more than three million pounds of horse manure per day that somehow needed to be disposed of. That’s not to mention the daily 40,000 gallons of horse urine. In other words, cities reeked. As Morris says, the “stench was omnipresent.” Here are some fun bits from his article: Urban streets were minefields that needed to be navigated with the greatest care. “Crossing sweepers” stood on street corners; for a fee they would clear a path through the mire for pedestrians. Wet weather turned the streets into swamps and rivers of muck, but dry weather brought little improvement; the manure turned to dust, which was then whipped up by the wind, choking pedestrians and coating buildings. . . . even when it had been removed from the streets the manure piled up faster than it could be disposed of . . . early in the century farmers were happy to pay good money for the manure, by the end of the 1800s stable owners had to pay to have it carted off. As a result of this glut . . . vacant lots in cities across America became piled high with manure; in New York these sometimes rose to forty and even sixty feet. We need to remind ourselves that horse manure is an ideal breeding ground for flies, which spread disease. Morris reports that deadly outbreaks of typhoid and “infant diarrheal diseases can be traced to spikes in the fly population.” Comparing fatalities associated with horse-related accidents in 1916 Chicago versus automobile accidents in 1997, he concludes that people were killed nearly seven times more often back in the good old days. The reasons for this are straightforward: . . . horse-drawn vehicles have an engine with a mind of its own. The skittishness of horses added a dangerous level of unpredictability to nineteenth-century transportation. This was particularly true in a bustling urban environment, full of surprises that could shock and spook the animals. Horses often stampeded, but a more common danger came from horses kicking, biting, or trampling bystanders. Children were particularly at risk. Falls, injuries, and maltreatment also took a toll on the horses themselves. Data cited by Morris indicates that, in 1880, more than 3 dozen dead horses were cleared from New York streets each day (nearly 15,000 a year).

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Harvard inflates wood ... 85 Highlights to "Digital Assets: Beauty Is Not in the Eye of the Beholder"
by Gunnar Larson 03 Jan '24

03 Jan '24

What a week. I am going to need to tone down spamming the list going into 2024. But, meanwhile... Its a Gay Crypto Conspiracy out of Havard. 85 Highlights to Digital Assets: Beauty Is Not in the Eye of the Beholder: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yEQupX1a7VS4K6N018Y0SF_0v4lpJWz8/view?usp=… --- " ... When recommendations by some consultants and the allocation of TIMBER by Harvard University’s endowment led to broad interest in the asset. Timber funds were launched with the understanding that they provided diversification and enhanced returns. Our analysis showed that timber did not add any value to our clients’ portfolios, and we recommended against investing in timber funds." -Goldman Sachs Investment Group (June 2021): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yEQupX1a7VS4K6N018Y0SF_0v4lpJWz8/view?usp=…

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Feds Plan To Drop 2nd Trial Against Bankman-Fried
by Gunnar Larson 03 Jan '24

03 Jan '24

Feds Plan To Drop 2nd Trial Against Bankman-Fried <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1780858?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…> By Aislinn Keely Federal prosecutors have asked a Manhattan federal judge to consider evidence related to additional charges against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried as part of his March sentencing rather than litigate them at a second trial. Letter attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1780858?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1780858?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…>

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Juana Doe v. IFC violence case settled in Honduras
by Gunnar Larson 03 Jan '24

03 Jan '24

Juana Doe v. IFC violence case settled in Honduras JAN. 3, 2024 BY HELEN MURPHY The International Financial Corporation settled with a group of farmers who alleged that the World Bank’s financial arm backed an investment in a company that “tortured, harassed, and killed” people from a community in Honduras. Also in today’s edition: We look at artificial intelligence in education, highlight this year’s development calendar, and explain the naval blockade that means a holdup for aid to Gaza. IFC takes a hit in Honduras It’s unfortunately all too common in Latin America: companies that use intimidation and even murder to profit from natural resources in areas populated by poor rural communities. That the World Bank allegedly found itself caught up in such a case is not a good look. But a group of farmers late last year reached a settlement with IFC, the World Bank’s private sector arm, in a class action lawsuit that alleges that a company it backed for investment tortured, harassed, and killed members of the Bajo Aguán community in Honduras. The suit Juana Doe et al v. International Finance Corporation filed by a group of unidentified farmers in northeastern Honduras focuses on IFC and its Asset Management Company, or AMC, “knowingly profiting from financing murder, violence, and dispossession,” the group alleges in court documents. IFC in 2009 approved a $30 million loan to Corporación Dinant to help expand its palm oil plantations and operations and build a biogas plant. Later that year it paid out $15 million of the loan. But Dinant used “all kinds of unsavory and brutal and violent methods to obtain land from the campesinos,” Marissa Vahlsing, one of the lawyers at EarthRights International representing the farmers, tells Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger. The violence was “openly talked about” in Honduras, and IFC could easily have accessed that information and should have known what was happening, she says. Dinant denies all of the allegations, including charges of murder, which it called “completely meritless,” and said it is committed to respecting human rights. “We categorically deny the allegations made in the lawsuit,” it said in a letter to Devex. An IFC spokesperson tells Adva that neither IFC nor AMC “has admitted to any wrongdoing or agreed to any remedial action as part of the settlement agreement.” Read: Honduran farmers, IFC settle suit alleging violence linked to investment Related: Civil society groups lambaste IFC over response to sex abuse allegations https://t.devex.com/v/Njg1LUtCTC03NjUAAAGQbi_h51jKoemJbyXXIsq43HYOA0VLDx0SG…

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NY Gov. Hochul Again Vetoes Wrongful Death Damages Bill
by Gunnar Larson 03 Jan '24

03 Jan '24

NY Gov. Hochul Again Vetoes Wrongful Death Damages Bill <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1781120?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…> By Y. Peter Kang For the second consecutive legislative session, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have allowed families of wrongful death victims to seek emotional distress damages, saying the legislation had the potential to increase healthcare costs and drive up insurance premiums. 1 document attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1781120?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1781120?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…>

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Doctors in England to hold longest NHS strike ever
by Gunnar Larson 03 Jan '24

03 Jan '24

https://www.samaa.tv/208737281-doctors-in-england-to-hold-longest-nhs-strik… Hospital doctors in England on Wednesday begin their longest consecutive strike in the seven-decade history of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). Junior doctors -- those below consultant level -- will walk out for six days in a major escalation of their long-running pay dispute with the UK government. The industrial action comes at one of the busiest times of the year for the state-funded NHS, when it faces increased pressure from winter respiratory illnesses. It also quickly follows a three-day strike held by doctors just before Christmas.

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