Gonzales Met With Advisers on Dismissals - New York Times

When will politicians start telling the truth? Has everything come down to spin, distortion and outright lying? Do our government officials have any self respect?

Gonzales tells the world two weeks ago that he was not involved in the dismissals of seven US attorneys, and now it is found that he actually attended an hour long meeting about it with his staff. Oh wait, it is not a lie, he simply "forgot" about the meeting, according to his aides.

As we tell our clients, saying you don't recall when you do is a lie.

Perelman's $1.5 Billion Judgment vs. Morgan Stanley Reversed

Morgan Stanley Inc. won a reversal of the $1.58 billion verdict handed to billionaire Ron Perelman for misleading him in a deal to sell Coleman Co. to Sunbeam Corp. The Florida Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach ruled that the firm was punished unfairly for destroying e-mails involved in the transaction.

According to the AP, this decision is expected to be appealed.

Senate limits Gonzales' hiring authority

Gonzales is toast. Demonstrative of the mood in Congress over the handling of the US Attorney fiasco, the Senate voted 94-2 in favor of a bill that would cancel the attorney general's power to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. NINETY FOUR to TWO. I'm sorry, that is not political, that is flat out anger. That is what...virtually every Republican senator voting in favor of the bill?

Charges Dropped in HP Pretexting Cases

Here is an interesting note from the world of white collar crime. Remember the big news splash over HP's "pretexting" case, where executives were publicly humiliated and forced to resign, being charged with multiple felonies including fraudulently obtaining confidential records, identity theft, accessing computer data without authorization, and conspiracy?

The charges have all been tossed out by the court.

The prosecutor was California's former Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who is now the state Treasurer.

Hedge Fund Math - A New Study

The NYT is reporting on a new study finds that the funds’ high fees make it unlikely that investors will improve their long-term performance by putting money into hedge funds.

The study, “Portfolio Efficiency With Performance Fees,” was written by Mark Kritzman, president and chief executive of Windham Capital Management, a money management firm in Boston. The article itself makes a couple of mistakes ("hedge funds typically become subject to greater regulation once they have more than a small number of investors"),
but according to the Times, Mr. Kritzman found that the investor should allocate nothing to the basket of hedge funds and everything to the two index funds.