Sunday Roundup
This week, I spent a couple of great days at Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher's annual D: All Things Digital conference. Among the highlights: watching Jill Sobule sing about Rupert Murdoch -- in front of Rupert Murdoch, and Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg levitate around the conference after securing a $200 million investment from the Russians. The breakout star was new Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz -- and not just because of her perfectly timed F-bomb on the D7 stage. She was a quote machine: "Down 15 percent is the new flat" and "You can't take nine women and make a baby in one month; there is a process" were among my favorites. But the line of the week came from Martha Stewart who told me over lunch: "While Bernie Madoff was on his rampage, the SEC was busy pursuing me." For more on the conference, click here.
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Martha Stewart makes a significant point--the watchdog agencies, the SEC and the U.S. Attorneys, have been making the world safe from Martha Stewart while letting the Madoffs roam free. They have been after the low hanging fruit and seeking easy victories that give them publicity while neglecting the hard work of investigating and prosecuting the real crooks. Perhaps another example of the Bush administration's total lack of competence and priorities. AllenKamp
Great coment by Carol Bartz "You can't take nine women and make a baby in 1 month." Something to remember for those that want Obama to do every thing right now. "There is a process."
Martha should never have been jailed. She handled it with grace and made the most of it. Madoff is already complaining and he only has about 30 years to go.
I agree with Arianna that the AllThingsD line of the week came from Martha Stewart.
Getting busted for insider trading to the tune of about $229000 is for mugs. It's not a good thing.
I defended Martha Stewart at that time. I'm still impatient with seeing moral preaching against petty, even incidental violations of law while the worst remain free.
Sorry, Ms. Huffington, but this working class guy who grew up in a union family can't bring himself to imagine calling any multi-millionaire a "breakout star." Isn't that kind of idolatry one of the reasons we're in this economic mess?
My sentiments precisely. I'm delighted for Arianna's digital success but this post
is an example of "inside baseball'. The comraderie of the internet millionaire
crowd is no different than the comraderie of the Bohemian Club. What's
next? The Yahoo millionaire and the Facebook millionaire roast marshmellows
with Murdoch and Arianna will provides the juicy details?
When it comes to the digital age as it relates
to real news I recommend everybody google David Simon, former writer for
the Baltimore Sun and talented creator of the TV show The Wire. He appeared
with Arianna and the marketing executive of Google in front of a Senate panel
chaired by John Kerry. The crux of the hearing was how sites like Huff Post
and Google take content from Newspapers and other investigative sources
and makes money regurgitating it on the internet. Simon's performance
is brilliant and worth watching, especially as it relates to Arianna and Google.
The SEC needs to clamp down on commodities trading, if possible. Their excuse for high oil prices a year ago was high demand and low supply. Now that there is low demand and high supply, why are the oil prices going up?
Raymond Gellner – Charlotte Liberal Examiner at Examiner.c
http://www
Because Goldman Sachs is running the prices up AGAIN!
"...But the line of the week came from Martha Stewart who told me over lunch: "While Bernie Madoff was on his rampage, the SEC was busy pursuing me." - Not to mention people like Raphael Palmiero, Roger Clemens, and baseball Comissioner Bud Selig, to name a few, get away with lying under oath to Congress while Martha Stewart goes to prison for lying to an investigator and that wasn't even under oath.
Isn't that a mouthful and to this day those idiots take no responsibilty for being inept or is it foxes in the henhouses.
Blessings to Martha for her courage and ability to come back better then ever.
Dorothy from grammology
http://gra
The sometimes cranky grandmother
Martha Stewart has proven once again that she has a great tongue-in-cheek attitude. That is the most classic and well-timed quote I've heard so far....
Keep being Martha, Martha. One in a million.
The SEC is our most dysfunctional agency, a very competitive contest.
Carol is a kick-ass kind of a lady. Many neglect to understand that Autodesk’s roots were in engineering tools mostly used by men. She broke through the glass ceiling and was quite successful in a male dominated industry.
Martha is 100% correct and was nailed on a technicality as opposed to the nature of what she did. High profile no less. The SEC catering to the industry and checklist enforcement processes still cannot get their heads out of the minutia to see the big picture. Simple example, after years of a speculative bubble related to excessive margin, double and triple swap ETFs, lax short sale and no uptick rules the collapse of the financial system was accelerated ten fold.
Some rules are slowly being put into place yet they ignore the next speculative bubble by excluding those same rules from the OIL and Commodities sectors and speculators are driving up prices on margin. We will bust soon and perhaps take our green shoots recovery down with it. Based upon fundamentals Oil prices should be around 25-35 dollars a barrel and are now 3x that.
SEC is moving slowly because the exchanges like the volume and are lobbying for no effective rules whatsoever.
SEC? Beuller? Beuller?
The point is that women seem to be targets when the good old boy networks get a pass.
Oil prices should be around 25-35 dollars a barrel
Where do you get that idea?
Historically Oil prices have been six times the price of Nat Gas. Nat Gas is not even $4 yet.
Martha Stewart was wronged. I empathize.
http://dem
Martha Stewart was a powerful woman who was demonized by the press and hounded by the SEC. At the time of her troubles, I remember commenting to a friend that Martha's gender lay at the root of her legal problems. Powerful women have always been and will always be a threat to most men.
It sounded fun, Arianna. We wish we could have been there. Peace always
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