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108g
- US
vs Secret Swiss Bank
Accounts
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108g - GovToxic-IOUs-Flipping.htm
•
108g
- TelecRejectStimulusMoney.htm
  
 •
108s
- TelecRejectStimulusMoney.htm
/ Telecom companies reject stimulus
money
Government wants to help expand Internet
broadband service, but the offer makes the
big FIVE WiTEL®™©
nervous.
•••
The LAtimes
reported that the Obama administration
made it a national priority to spread
high-speed Internet access to every
American home and it offered stimulus
money to help companies pay for it, but
the biggest network operators are staying
away from the program. August 14, 2009
/ Washington Post.
•••
Troy Cory,
CEO of NBS WiTEL®™© said,
"If you want to get the WiMax
wired-wirless broadband out into your
neighborhood, you have to do it with the
organization who brought you to the dance
in the first place. In this case, the man
that organized the 1902 celebration was,
Nathan B. Stubblefield, the inventor,
creator, and founder of the Wireless
Telephone that registered the NBS
WiTEL®™© service marks in
1907.
•••
The founder
of the NBS Wireless
Telephone®™© Organization,"
said Cory, has, and still maintains the
the Service marks. "This is not a basket
weaving contest mixing copper wire within
RF spectrums. This is really complex and
intensive technical stuff that takes a
fair amount of area codes and numbering
sophistication and scale to be able to do
right and to continue to upgrade."
•••
With, (August
14, 2009) -- being the deadline to apply
for $4.7 billion in broadband grants,
AT&T, Verizon and Comcast won't be
going for the stimulus money, sources
close to the companies said.
•
108s
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STORY
•••
Their reasons
are varied. All three say they have enough
cash to upgrade and expand their broadband
networks on their own. Some say the grant
money could draw unwanted scrutiny of
their business practices and compensation
programs, as seen with automakers and
banks that got government
bailouts.
•••
It's no
secret that all of the Telcos, including
the revampt AT&T organization,
Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, were not
around the game in 1907. In fact, it was
just recently, they found out who the
inventor of the NBS Wireless
Telephone®™©, was, and they
have been using the eliments and effects
created by the Wireless
Telephone®™© without
payment. Their customers, with the
exception of AT&T, who was looking for
ways to send voice wirelessly, as early as
1898, but they were the ones that didn't
do it. The big five are now considered as
pioneers, and users of existing NBS
WiTEL®™© -- and land-lines
weaved thoughout the U.S.A. - during the
past 100
years.
•••
And
privately, some complain about the
conditions attached to the money,
including a net-neutrality rule they say
would prevent them from managing traffic
on their networks in the way they want.
•••
"We are
concerned that some new mandates seem to
go well beyond current laws and FCC rules,
and may lead to the kind of continuing
uncertainty and delay that is antithetical
to the president's primary goals of
economic stimulus and job creation," said
Walter McCormick, president of USTelecom,
a trade group that represents companies
including AT&T and Verizon.
•
THE
PROS AND
CONS.
•••
This
condition goes beyond guidelines at the
Federal Communications Commission that
have been criticized by consumer advocacy
groups as too vague. Carriers have pushed
to keep the current rules in place, and
they see the condition on the stimulus
grants as a potential precursor to
additional rules at the FCC on how
carriers can manage content over the Web.
•••
1. - The
companies paint dire scenarios in which
new rules would lead to networks being
clogged with spam and video content,
slowing service for all.
•••
"It's not
cost-effective for the big network
operators to play in rural
[markets] in the first place, and
if they take federal money that comes with
all these strings attached to it, they are
opening themselves up to being regulated
even further," said Roger Entner, head of
communications research at Nielsen IAG.
•••
McCormick
said the net-neutrality conditions on the
grants are fuzzy and might give network
operators pause about investing in
expensive projects that could end up in a
tangle of technical and legal hang-ups
over how the firms operate.
•••
2. - Verizon
said its officials had decided not to
apply before the conditions were
announced. Comcast, which serves mainly
urban and suburban areas, said it also
won't apply. AT&T said it probably
won't apply but is open to partnerships
with state and local governments that win
the grants.
•••
Corporate
officials have also said it would look bad
for firms like AT&T and Comcast to
take money when they are among the few
companies in the economy with billions of
dollars in cash reserves.
•••
3. - An
official with a large network operator,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said
that once a company takes government
money, there's a "mob mentality" that
makes the firm afraid even to sponsor a
golf tournament or give executives bonuses
because there could be political backlash.
•••
Some public
advocates and analysts say the carriers
never had a compelling reason to seek the
stimulus grants.
•••
4. - "They
weren't going to apply," said Ben Scott,
head of policy at public advocacy group
Free Press. "They are using this as
opportunity to grandstand against net
neutrality."
•••
Rebecca
Arbogast, head of tech policy research at
Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., said the
biggest carriers would be less inclined to
create rural networks because there isn't
enough demand to justify the costs. She
said the companies should have expected
stronger net-neutrality conditions because
they were mandated by Congress in the
stimulus act.
•
"With a few exceptions,
the
net-neutrality provisions were not a great
departure from what I think was already
out there and is consistent with the path
that most recognize we were already headed
down," Arbogast said.
•••
The Commerce
and Agriculture departments, which are
handing out a total of $7.2 billion in
broadband stimulus grants through 2011,
say the plan to bring high-speed Internet
to rural America and the urban poor can be
done without the big carriers.
•••
Companies
like wireless broadband provider Clearwire
and small cable and telecom operators may
introduce more competition into the
industry by using the funds to build new
networks that could compete for customers
from AT&T, Verizon and Comcast,
analysts and government officials say.
•
•••
The LAtimes
reported that President Obama has pushed
for open and universal access to broadband
since his election campaign, saying it
will underpin the country's economic
future. The stimulus funds target rural
homes and businesses that have largely
been overlooked by broadband providers
because of the high cost of laying down
fiber and other broadband conduits to
small communities.
•••
At the same
time, the government has promised more
scrutiny of industry practices that might
limit people's access to services, such as
Comcast's blocking of online video
provider BitTorrent last year and Apple's
decision this summer not to run Google's
voice service or free Internet calling
service Skype on the iPhone.
•••
That has
alarmed the major carriers. Some of them
fear that a clause in the stimulus plan
that says recipients of the grants cannot
"favor any lawful Internet applications
and content over others" -- the concept
known as net neutrality -- could lead to
more rules down the road.
///
•
108g - GovToxic-IOUs-Flipping.htm
•
108g - GovToxic-IOUs-Flipping.htm
| Loophole in
government program to buy toxic securities
could cost taxpayers for the potential
Wall Street IOU scam. 'Without safeguards,
traders in the $40-billion program could
use inside information to profit -- and
any losses would be largely borne by
taxpayers.
•••
Augutst 14,
2009 / Washington - A controversial
$40-billion government program to buy
toxic securities from ailing banks has a
flaw that law enforcement and financial
experts say could allow traders to
illegally profit from inside information.
•••
"It is a
conflict by design," said Troy Cory, CEO
of NBS WiTEL®™©. "I agree
with Neal Barofsky, the special inspector
general for the banking rescue program."
It was Rarofsky who has been urging
tighter controls on the nine trading firms
selected to participate for several
months.
•••
The Treasury
Department, which is in charge of the
program, says it intends to closely
monitor trading activity to prevent
illegal insider trading and profiteering
at the expense of the public interest.
••But
it was Barofsky who reflected the point
that it was "the government probably
stands little chance of beating Wall
Street at its own game."
••"The
Treasury cannot possibly match wits with
the innovation and aggressiveness of Wall
Street," he said. "If you give them a set
of rules and there are technicalities and
legal loopholes and things we haven't
thought of, they are going to find that
out, not because they are bad, but because
that is what they are supposed to do. They
are supposed to seek out profits at all
costs."
•••
The program,
known as the Public Private Investment
Partnership, or PPIP, allows the nine
investment firms to use the government
money and $10 billion in private funds to
buy up toxic securities held by banks.
•
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FOR MORE
108g
- GovToxic-IOUs-Flipping
STORY
•••
Critics of
the program say that without adequate
safeguards, traders could use the tens of
billions of dollars provided by the
government to manipulate prices and
exploit the price swings in other trades.
•••
Because the
government is providing 75% of the
program's money -- $30 billion -- the
manipulations could lead to significant
losses by taxpayers.
•••
The program,
known as the Public Private Investment
Partnership, or PPIP, allows the nine
investment firms to use the government
money and $10 billion in private funds to
buy up toxic securities held by banks.
•••
The firms,
chosen last month from a field of about
100 applicants, have already begun
assembling pools of private investors to
buy the securities, composed of troubled
mortgages that have festered on banks'
ledger books and hampered their return to
health.
••
The toxic
securities, which could total $2 trillion,
plummeted in value during last fall's
credit crisis and became virtually
impossible to sell because of uncertainty
over their worth.
•••
Under the
government's plan, traders would
jump-start the market by making offers to
banks for the securities, thereby setting
fair prices for the securities and trading
them on the open market. Sales could begin
as soon as this month.
••
The chosen
investment firms could earn large profits
or bonuses on those trades, but their risk
of losses is largely borne by the
taxpayers, who are putting up most of the
money.
•••
The danger is
that traders in the government program
could wield enormous influence in the
market -- and there are no explicit
restrictions on how they could use that
influence to profit inside deals of their
own.
•••
For example,
a trader could privately buy up groups of
toxic mortgages on the cheap then later
drive up the price by purchasing similar
mortgages using government money. The
practice, known as "front running," could
be technically illegal, but the firms are
not barred from coming into the program
with such securities and then trading
them, Barofsky said.
•••
"If being a
trader in the program gives you
information that enables you to do trades
on the side, that isn't going to go over
very well with the public," said Lynn
Turner, former chief accountant at the
Securities and Exchange Commission. "The
inspector general is right."
•••
The practice
of using side deals strikes many experts
as a return to what created the financial
crisis in the first place.
•••
During the
Wall Street boom years, massive profits
were made by companies trading in
unregulated side deals, while ordinary
investors earned a fraction of those
profits in regulated markets.
•••
Now, the
Treasury Department seems to be explicitly
creating its own miniature version of that
system, said Mark Sunshine, senior
consultant at First Capital, a commercial
lender based in Florida.
•••
"[President]
Obama has not required any tougher rules
in the PPIP program at a time when he
wants tougher rules," Sunshine said.
•••
Barofsky said
a simple solution would be to construct a
"wall" between traders in the public
program and those in other parts of the
firms, thus preventing the manipulation of
prices with inside information.
•••
But while the
Treasury Department is still finalizing
its rules for the program, it has rejected
the wall, saying it would dissuade veteran
traders from joining because they would be
barred from making other trades. The
program would be left with junior traders
-- the only staff members that investment
companies would be willing to isolate from
their main businesses.
•••
In a letter
to the inspector general, Treasury
officials said that investment firms
privately told the department that they
would not get involved in the program if
there was an attempt to wall it off.
••The
Times asked all nine firms about their
current trading practices in
mortgage-backed securities and their plans
for internal controls once trading begins
using taxpayer money.
•••
The firms
declined to answer all of the questions,
including identifying who would lead their
trading teams.
///
•
108g
- USvsSecretSwissAccounts.htm
•
108g
- USvsSecretSwissAccounts.htm
• 108s -
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FOR MORE 108g -
USvsSecretSwissAccounts Flipping
STORY
U.S. and Swiss
reach deal over secret UBS bank accounts.
The agreement will end a legal case in
which the U.S. sought names of Americans
suspected of evading taxes.
••U.S.
and Swiss negotiators have initialed a
settlement that averts a legal showdown
over the U.S. government's landmark
challenge to Swiss bank secrecy, a
government lawyer said Wednesday.
••The
U.S. government had sought a federal court
ruling compelling Switzerland's largest
bank, UBS, to turn over the names of
Americans suspected of dodging taxes
through the use of 52,000 secret accounts.
••In
a conference call Wednesday morning with
the federal judge presiding over the case,
Justice Department lawyer Stuart D. Gibson
said the parties had initialed agreements
and that they would ask the judge to
dismiss the matter when the final
documents were signed.
••Terms
of the deal were not immediately
disclosed, leaving unclear what each side
gained or conceded.
••The
agreement "protects the United States
government's interests," Internal Revenue
Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman said
in a statement.
••"We
will release more details when the Swiss
government signs the agreement as early as
next week," Shulman added.
••The
United States last year requested UBS
secrets through an administrative process
established under a tax treaty with
Switzerland. As of February, that request
had been fruitless.
•
108s - CLICK
FOR MORE 108g -
USvsSecretSwissAccounts Flipping
STORY
••One
possible compromise would have the United
States submit a new, narrower request for
information through the same channel, with
promises that the Swiss would handle the
inquiry differently from before. A key
question is whether such a deal would
explicitly or implicitly guarantee the
release of client secrets.
••Tax
lawyer Scott D. Michel, who represents UBS
clients, said he doubted that the IRS
would have settled unless it was assured
of receiving details on a significant
number of accounts. However, "it would be
hard for the Swiss to commit in advance to
a specific disclosure," Michel said.
••If
the United States accedes to Switzerland's
wishes by reverting to the treaty process,
lawyers advising UBS clients are eager to
see what criteria, if any, the United
States uses to narrow its request. The
settlement could focus on accounts of a
certain size with particular
characteristics indicating that the
holders were actively engaged in fraud --
for example, the use of shell corporations
to hide the true ownership of the
accounts.
••But
lawyers following the case, such as Bryan
C. Skarlatos at law firm Kostelanetz &
Fink, said they would not be surprised if
those details were kept under wraps to
keep depositors on edge and give them an
incentive to turn themselves in to the
IRS. That could lighten what might
otherwise be a major enforcement burden
for the agency.
••The
head of the Swiss Federal Department of
Justice and Police, Eveline
Widmer-Schlumpf, issued a statement saying
that the compromise "is in the interests
of both states." UBS Chairman Kaspar
Villiger thanked the Swiss negotiators
"for their outstanding efforts."
••The
announcement followed a long-running legal
battle that had already undermined
Switzerland's legendary bank secrecy,
exposed what the United States alleged was
a conspiracy at the heart of Swiss banking
giant UBS, and threatened to damage
relations between two otherwise friendly
countries.
••The
bank had maintained that the information
the United States demanded was "protected
from disclosure by Swiss financial privacy
laws," and the Swiss government had said
it would prevent UBS from complying, even
if a U.S. court ordered it to turn over
the information.
••Switzerland
has been trying to protect the system of
secrecy that has helped make its banking
industry one of the richest in the world.
••The
U.S. government has been trying to catch
tax evaders, collect potentially
substantial amounts of unpaid taxes, and
give other Americans reason to think twice
before trying to hide money abroad. The
Obama administration has said its effort
to crack down on financial havens is an
issue of fairness for honest American
taxpayers.
••UBS
has been closing the secret accounts of
its U.S. clients, forcing them into the
cold, tax lawyers say. Many Americans with
undeclared accounts have sought leniency
by making voluntary disclosures to the
IRS.
••Meanwhile,
UBS has reported large outflows of
deposits, which go beyond its U.S.
clientele.•///•
• 108g-
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