6 AM Pacific

Best Practices in Voter Bribery

India’s general elections are around the corner. As you know, the most important factor that determines the outcome of our elections is money – how much and how it is spent – in the crucial electoral process of buying votes.

The amount of money spent is, of course, a key determinant of electoral victory. We will cover that in a later article on Corruption and Campaign Finance. In this article we will discuss the state of the art in actually getting the bribes into the hands of the voters. More »

More on IT Unpolicy

In my previous post IT and the Role of Government I objected to Atanu Dey’s arguments against having an IT policy for India. He proposed, what I called an “IT Unpolicy” – basically, do nothing.
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IT and the Government

Atanu Dey has a series of posts that criticize the IT Vision Document released by the BJP in the runup to the Indian elections. In his latest post The Rational IT Policy, he proposes an IT policy that basically does nothing – an Unpolicy, if you will. It requires government to stay out of the way of individuals and the market which will make their own decisions about using IT or not.

To me this seems wrong-headed. I think it is important for any government that comes to power to nurture and encourage the use of IT in government, business, education and at home.
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Bonuses at AIG – Who Wrote that Compensation Plan?

It’s like everyone was waiting for this. The collective anger of a nation is spewing out. The media, the government and the average citizens are outraged. AIG Financial Products (AIGFP) employees have been getting hate mail. Bloggers are talking about forcing them to forgo their bonuses by threatening to make their names public. At the root of it – $165 million in bonuses to employees at AIGFP which was chiefly responsible for bringing down AIG which was then bailed out by the federal government with a whopping $170 B.

The political heat around this is intense. The one thing I’d like to get my hands, but probably won’t, is the contract that requires AIG to pay these bonuses out. More »

Protectionism Ahead?

Last week Bank of America withdrew offers to MBA students on H1 B visas. As a recipient of TARP money from the federal government the bank had to comply with a clause that Congress had inserted into the TARP bill that prohibits TARP recipients from hiring foreign workers with work permits.

Elsewhere, Congress passed the Stimulus Bill after inserting a “Buy American” clause in it that compels the stimulus money to be spent on American steel.

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Email Scam

I got this email recently. It is clearly the first step in a potential fraud. It caught my attention because it claimed to represent the interests of Byrraju Ramalinga Raju!

—–Original Message—–
From: Jessica Ferguson [mailto:balverson@earnhardtelectric.com]
Sent: Fri 3/13/2009 7:41 AM
Subject: Executive Placement

Dear Executive,

This is a Management Placement on behalf of Mr. Byrraju Ramalinga Raju.

Mr. Ramalinga Raju is looking for an experienced business person/company that can profitably invest monies in excess of Thirty Nine Million US Dollars. The sum will be paid from Zurich Bank International Limited, 43-51 Athol Street, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM99 1ET, British Isles.

Mr. Ramalinga Raju is willing to pay 10% for your role as the beneficiary partner to the funds. Also, a subsequent 10% “Management Commission” will be paid for your advised investment services.

If you prefer to be re-contacted for more express information, please send us your:

[1] Full Names:
[2] Contact address:
[3] Direct Telephone No:

Be advised to visit the following links to be better acquainted with Mr. Ramalinga Raju’s current profile and personality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramalinga_Raju

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7832834.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7815031.stm

We expect your correspondence and our response will be swift. I can be reached on (+447035931859) for details.

Signed:
Mr. Hock Lai Chan
Chan Law LLC
Bridge House Bridge Street
Isle of Man, IM9 1AX.
Direct Tel No: + (44) 703 593 1859
Fax No: + (44) 700 608 5723

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Changes at Gridstone

From tomorrow I will no longer be CEO of Gridstone Research. Once again, as I have done twice before in my career, I step into the unknown.

I devoted the last three and a half years to our journey at Gridstone. We set out to build an important technology company serving the capital markets. However, Gridstone’s market, the investment managment industry, has been going through one of its worse downturns ever. Needless to say, budgets have been slashed and Gridstone had to take cost-reduction measures to adjust to the new reality. More »

Banks and the Dreaded N-Word

What is it about ‘Nationalization’ that makes it such a loaded word in the US? You can spot a politically loaded word if

• The media gleefully uses [word] in its headlines, the opposition in Congress and interviews.
• The government refuses to acknowledge that they have any plans to [substitute with loaded word] and come up with new words to describe what they are doing.
• In all this, the public has only a vague idea about what is going on.

‘Bailout’ was one such word. Remember George Bush refusing to admit that what the federal government was doing amounted to a Bailout. Here’s an earlier post of mine on Bailouts.

Well, Nationalization is the latest politically loaded word. More »