Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday Must Read
Politics / People / Sports / Education Robert Gammon — Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 10:41 AM
Stories from today and over the weekend that you shouldn’t miss:
1. Jerry Brown’s attempts to pounce on Meg Whitman’s ties to Goldman Sachs may backfire, because he has some ties of his own. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Brown mayoral administration renegotiated an “interest-rate swap” with Goldman Sachs that is now costing the cash-strapped City of Oakland $5 million a year. Goldman Sachs has come to epitomize Wall Street greed, particularly following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to sue the firm for fraud.
2. The Berkeley school board approved a compromise plan that cuts fewer science teacher positions than previously proposed and uses the money to help struggling students. The compromise plan slashes three teacher positions and saves college prep science labs that had been on the chopping block, the Berkeley Voice reports.
3. A Good Samaritan rescued a family of six in Richmond on Saturday evening by knocking down their front door and helping them escape a raging fire, the CoCo Times reports.
4. The odds of convincing the San Francisco 49ers to share a new stadium in Oakland with the Raiders suddenly look a lot tougher thanks to a new poll that shows that Santa Clara residents want the team to move to their city. According to the poll commissioned by the Mercury News and KGO-TV, 52 percent of Santa Clara voters say they will vote for a June ballot measure that will pave the way for a new 49ers stadium in their city. And unlike a previous Merc poll involving the Oakland A’s planned move to San Jose, this one appears to be legit.
5. The San Leandro City Council gave final approval last week to use ranked-choice voting. The council had previously approved the new voting format, but then appeared as if it might change its mind.
6. The Sac Bee has an interesting read about an inexpensive motel that East Bay Assemblyman Tom Torlakson lives in when working in Sacramento. Torlakson also is running for state superintendent of public instruction this year.
7. And former longtime Golden State Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli died yesterday of natural causes. Mieuli was instrumental in bringing the team to Oakland in 1971.
Comments (1)
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To equate Whitman's level of involvement with Goldman Sachs to Brown's is a wild distortion. Meg Whitman steered millions of her company's business to Goldman, and while spinning "wasn't illegal at the time" it certainly was unethical. She was named in a congressional investigation regarding the matter and was forced to return the money she made from those insider stock deals to eBay after the shareholders sued her. While she sat on Goldman's board of directors she was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and stock options. She served on Goldman's compensation committee when it approved huge bonuses for Goldman's current CEO, Lloyd Blanken, and its previous chief exec (and former Treasury Secretary) Henry Paulsen, who oversaw the era of credit default swaps and consolidated debt obligations which is now the focus of the SEC fraud suit. Meg Whitman has also received at least $105,000 from Goldman execs in her campaign for CA governor.
As for Brown, the "interest rate swap" may be costing the city $5 million now, but at the time of the City officials' renegotiation, cancelling it would have cost $15 million, which was then considered a bad deal for Oakland. Oh, and his sister works for GS. So?
Rothfeld's article is a false equivalence fallacy, unfortunately perpetuated by anyone who, among other things, links to it.
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