Can I be the first to say that “Harry is the Man !” Putting the obvious reasons aside, I also want to be the first to suggest that we ask, and beg Harry to accept a newly created Presidential Financial Oversight Advisor position. Is there a better person to make sure that the oversight committees appointed to watch how the TARP and Stimulus is spent do their jobs ? Is there a person any of us would trust more to tell the politicians in Wall Street “How to tell if the oversight committees can “sit down in Fenway Park and find first base ?” To make sure there are appropriate levels of transparency ?
Keep your day jobs Harry. Do what you do. But give us taxpayers a ray of hope that our money won’t all be wasted.
And when you get the oversight committees working, can we talk about balancing the budget ?
DEAR MARK,
I AM AN ARCHITECT AND HAVE BEEN WORKING ON A NEW BUILDING TYPE AND I NEED HELP WITH FUNDING FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT.
THE TITLE OF THE PROJECT IS “IGLU” (IGLOO). THE TITLE IS DERIVED FROM THE ESKIMO HABITAT. ALSO, I LIKE THE NAME “CUBANA” IGLU.
THE IGLU UTILIZES THE LATEST MODULAR PREFABRICATED CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY, SOLAR ENERGY, PHOTOVOLTAIC CELLS, WIND AND WATER POWER AND OTHER RELATED SCIENCES.
MARK, WHAT I NEED IS FUNDING TO DEVELOPE WORKING DRAWINGS AND CONSTRUCTION OF A PROTOTYPE “IGLU”. THIS PROJECT COULD REVOLUTIONIZE THE RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY, AND AFFECT THE DESIGN OF PREFABRICATED BUILDINGS.
THE LONG TERM, BENEFITS WOULD BE FAR REACHING. I ENVISION THE STANDARDIZATION OF SOLAR TECHNOLOGIES AND OTHER TECHNOLOGIES INTO THE RESIDENTIAL PREFABRICATION CONSTRUCTION MARKET.
MARK, I HOPE THAT AS A GREAT FINANCIAL VISIONARY, YOU WILL SEE THE POTENTIAL OF WHAT THIS PROJECT WOULD MEAN TO THE LARGEST INDUSTRY THAT AMERICA HAS IN THE BUILDING INDUSTRY.
I WOULD LIKE YOUR INTEREST IN THE PROJECT TO BE 49% (FORTY NINE PERCENT).
AS THE PREFABRICATED MODULAR UNITS SELL, EMPLOYEES WILL BE ADDED AS NEEDED. AS THE BUSINESS INCREASES, THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY WILL INCREASE TO SUPPLY THE DEMAND FOR THE UNITS.
MY PROPOSAL IS FOR $250,000.00 (TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS) OVER THE NEXT 2 YEAR PERIOD FOR THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE “IGLU”, SUFFICIENT TO HAVE A COMPLETE SET OF CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS APPROVED BY THE OFFICE OF THE STATE ARCHITECT READY FOR FABRICATION OF A PROTOTYPE UNIT.
ADDITIONAL FUNDING TO BUILD A WORKING MODEL PROTOTYPE FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND REFINEMENT OF THE WORKING PARTS WILL ALSO BE REQUIRED.
I WOULD LIKE YOU TO PLEASE CONTACT ME SO THAT I MAY PRESENT IN DETAIL WHAT THE PROJECT IS ALL ABOUT.
I APPRECIATE THE OPPORTUNITY YOU ARE GIVING ME TO PRESENT MY PROPOSAL.
PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU NEED ANY MORE INFORMATION OR HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.
SINCERELY,
RONALD L. WEHENKEL, ARCHITECT
2446 ELDEN AVE SUITE B2
COSTA MESA, CA 92627
714.206.8981
ronniewink@ca.rr.com
Comment by RONALD LEE WEHENKEL, ARCHITECT -
I guess Crime does pay!!!
In the Public Sector, And Well-Compensated
Washington Post – United States
Mary L. Schapiro reported that she is getting a lump sum payment of between
$5 million and $25 million from the Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority, …
See all stories on this topic:
Comment by Mary -
Bill Clinton was president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 and
although he made significant progress toward fiscal responsibility,
he did not balance the budget. The United States has not had a balanced
budget since 1957, the year that Dwight Eisenhower was in office.
Comment by Mike in Houston -
I Agree, that is an obvious choice!
Comment by Sean -
I did vote for Barack Obama,but even I don’t agree with a lot of the democratic policies and their general economic theory.
Comment by antoniogas -
Mark, I couldn’t agree with you more. I watched Harry’s testimony on C-SPAN and was fist-pumping for like 10 minutes straight. I also couldn’t fucking believe how negligent and ass-backwards the SEC is. They were handed the case on a silver platter in 2000 (and several other times since) when the Madoff scam was less than $7 bill. WTF!! I’m really wondering if the SEC could be found liable for gross negligence or something of that sort. I actually hope they are. Yes, the U.S. gov’t would be out $50B, but the accountability will force SEC and other agencies to actually start doing their jobs, instead of dicking around doing who the hell knows what. The SEC doing their jobs for real will bring credibility in our regulatory agencies, and subsequently our financial markets.
Comment by Travis Kalanick -
I can honestly say, when it comes to government and our hard earned
tax dollars they are very good at losing it for us. I figure for every
dollar I make they lose about 30% of what I pay on toilet paper. Or
whatever they call that.
Comment by JAZD Chemicals -
My humble take on this is this: do not trust the government to get you out of this mess. The people calling the shots are themselves involved directly or indirectly in creating this chaos. So it goes without saying that they will first benefit themselves, their friends and if anything is left, like the crumbs, give it back to the tax-payers who paid for this in the first place.
Once the approx. Trillion Dollars stimulus is approved and wasted, there will be no other option left, considering that interests are almost 0, but to get those laser printers working over-time and devalue the Dollar.
MC: If I were you and if you have not done so yet (I doubt it !), I would convert millions of Dollars to Gold even at current prices and keep them until this mess is sorted out (about 3 to 5 years). I am sure you have enough space to store this.
Comment by kamal -
I’m guessing Congress and the SEC live by the motto “This to shall
pass” They express concern and their desire to correct the problems knowing full well that the public will move on to some other issue in a few days. They’ve known for ten years what Madoff was doing. The public outrage over his Ponzi scheme and the pork in the stimulus package are today’s story and the public can easily be distracted by a new puppy for the Obama girls or the openign of spring training in a couple weeks. All of us need to stay interested in the stimulus
package and the need for reform for as long as it takes to get legislation passed–and that takes months not a few days.
Comment by deb -
@Jeff…..
The budget was balanced under Clinton in 1999 and 2000, I believe.
Comment by Bill in Dallas -
@Craig… Wells got a raw deal. They didn’t want the bailout money, but then were forced to take it under the theory that if other big banks had to take bailout money, the ones that didn’t shouldn’t be in some economically morally superior position that the recipients of bailout money would suffer runs on their banks as clients leave for healthier pastures. Then, as a recipient of bailout money, they got asked to buy Wachovia by the government, which was, of course challenged by another bailout recipient who shouldn’t have been on a buying spree. They get saddled with Wachovia, tainted by TARP, stock price slides, and now everyone gets pissed off that they have a retreat for their best loan officers. You know, the loan officers that managed to keep them out of trouble from the beginning until the government stepped in and told them they had to take $25B.
Anyone see that Wynn is laying off workers? Coincidence with the cancellation of the Wells event? Not so much. Anyone wonder what will happen to the corporate jet industry? In the name of punishing extravagance, execs get to fly commercial into 80 some-odd large markets and then figure out how to get the hinterlands within a day from there, when they could just fly directly to wherere they could solve problems. Great work with that bailout, dumbasses. Way to scapegoat everyone and solve nothing.
Comment by BoscoH -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOKSkaQoF_I&feature=channel
This is our watchdogs with our tax money doing NOTHING!!!!!!!
Comment by Mary -
Forgot to add that I did vote for Barack Obama, even tho I don’t agree with a lot of the democratic policies and their general economic theory.
Comment by James Stevens -
Jim, you’re part of the problem when it comes to partisan crap in this country. While I vote Libertarian, you should be voting for the person, since it’s their administration and they pick the advisors who make all kinds of decisions.
Comment by James Stevens -
If you want a ray of hope that taxpayers money won’t be wasted,
then don’t vote for a democrat.
Comment by Jim -
Ya know, the guy’s got guts. Yea, he did some of the whistle blowing anonymously but he didn’t sit back and wait like so many have done in this whole Madoff mess. Give the guy a little presidential authorization to really go digging, and a few secret service guys to watch his back, and then we should start seeing results and perhaps a faster, smarter economic recovery.
On a side note, I really respect the way President Obama is taking it to the corporate sector:
– Stop using bailout money to sponsor recognition sales events to Las Vegas
– Stop using bailout money to buy corporate jets
– Cap salaries in government positions
I knew I voted for the right person.
Comment by Craig -
My problem is, I am not sure how many if any politicians are in touch with what they are supposed to be there for anymore.
This country was founded to give us all the liberty to all rise to be, well, the next Mark Cuban! Our politicians have forgotten about the whole “We the people” thing and are more intent on establishing and maintaining their position as a sort of ruling class. Exactly what this country is NOT about.
I do not think the existing parties are capable as they are of doing what really needs to be done without a serious jolt from outside their current beltway comfort zone.
Comment by federalistblogs -
Maybe I’m ignorant of the facts, but who is Harry?
And frankly, I don’t trust anyone in government to have the
gonads to make sure people make sure people in the bailout
do the right thing.
Its a free wild west market out there, and why make the executives
who make 100’s of millions a year pay the price when its not against
the law!
If you start making it tougher for CEO’s to make 10’s of millions
a year even if it is unethical,they will make it even tougher for
average investors to make money.
They don’t need all the average investors out there, but it helps
to keep mutual funds and stocks flush with cash they can use at will.
Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but if the public is going
to continue to be gullible enough to be what mob guys call “mooks”,
then they deserve to lose their money in the market.
The banks and the investment community know where the bread and butter
is, and its stupid people. As long as the government continues to
bailout banks and the investment industry, these banks will keep going
unabated.
Actually, I love it that these people are getting one over on the public
and the government and its all legal!
Who ever Harry is, he isnt doing his job right.
Yeah, yeah so I’m stupid.
Mark
Comment by mark -
I quick search of Google news shows no results for Markopolis’ whistleblowing. Did he really blow the whistle? Or just trying to get attention.
Comment by Flyers -
Harry should be appointed Czar of SEC, Treasury, FED the whole lot!
He is qualified and should received a medal for his courage to go after the Agency!
Thank you Harry…for caring about my future and that of my children!
Comment by Mary -
Balance the budget? Isn’t that a thing of the past? lol. I’m 23 years old, I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a time when the federal budget was balanced…
Comment by Jeff -
Did you notice that Harry reads with his finger during the whole hearing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an adult do that. I guess there is less risk to losing his place.
Comment by David -
“Mr. Markopolos said he and his team were worried for their safety because of Mr. Madoff’s position as a powerful Street investor. This led them to submit some documents anonymously.”
Really!
Comment by Shawn Shepherd -