Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: "Best Idea Ever!"

Best Idea Ever: Brilliant: Credit Suisse To Pay Top Execs With Illiquid Mortgage Securities: (ClusterStock): "We're shocked that nobody has suggested this before, but on its face this looks like a great idea... Credit Suisse announced today that bonuses for its top executives would be made in illiquid, mortgage-backed securities. Seeing as these guys are responsible for getting this stuff on the companies books, it makes sense to shove it back to them. And if the market gets liquid again, and the stuff goes up, that's going to be a huge windfall for execs..."

Not the Emanuel I thought I new: Thursday Night Blago Wrapup (Marathon Pundit)

My 78 year-old auditor lives in Florida: Harry Markopolos in 1999: "Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi Scheme" (WSJ via The Australian) : "Until at least November, 2006, the firm, which claimed to manage billions of dollars and be among the largest market makers in the stock market, used as its auditor Friehling & Horowitz, a small New City, New York firm... Mr Vos says his firm hired a private investigator and determined that the accounting firm had only three employees, one of whom was 78 and lived in Florida, and another was a secretary, and that it operated in a 13 foot by 18 foot office."

Hey, look over there!: May 2001's Madoff tops charts; skeptics asks how (MAR/Hedge): "Skeptics who express a mixture of amazement, fascination and curiosity about the program wonder, first, about the relative complete lack of volatility in the reported monthly returns. But among other things, they also marvel at the seemingly astonishing ability to time the market and move to cash in the underlying securities before market conditions turn negative; and the related ability to buy and sell the underlying stocks without noticeably affecting the market."

Not the Rezko I thought I knew: Feet in the Fire: Rezko/Obama (Team Sarah): "During 2004 and 2005, the FBI takes notes of repeated visits by Obama and Gov. Blagojevich to the offices of Rezmar Corporation. During the corruption trial of Rezko, an FBI mole, John Thomas helped investigators build a record of repeat visits to the offices of Rezko, at 853 N. Elston, by Obama and Blagojevich, though the purpose of the visits is not clear. [Chicago Sun-Times]"

Revenge of the $80K Forklift Drivers: Detroit's Downturn: It's the Productivity, Stupid (Rand Simberg at Pajamas Media): "I supervised a loading dock and 21 UAW workers who worked approximately five hours per day for eight hours’ pay. They could easily load one-third more rail cars and still maintain their union-negotiated break times, but when I tried to make them increase production ever so slightly they sabotaged my ability to make even the current production levels by hiding stock, calling in sick, feigning equipment problems, and even once, as a show of force, used a fork lift truck and pallets and racks to create a car part prison where they trapped me while I was conducting inventory. The reaction of upper management to my request to boost production was that I should 'not be naive.'"

Schumer's Pornography: The Clintons Make Blagojevich Look Like a Piker (Rush Limbaugh): "This Rod Blagojevich in Illinois, the governor, this guy is a piker... while he's looking for payoffs, the Clintons got them. The Clinton team has finally released some of the donors and the amounts for the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor, and there are 205,000 donors on this website. The Clintons have ended ten years of resistance to identifying the sources of its money. Saudi Arabia is among the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation. It turns out that Blago is a piker. If you're out there selling influence, don't look for a couple low-paying jobs for you and your wife and some low six-figure donations. If you're out there looking to peddle influence, you gotta go get tens of millions of dollars from international players, and then after you do that, you get yourself named secretary of state so that the back scratching can continue."

Not the Blago I thought I knew: Emanuel's deep involvement with Blago (Chicago Sun-Times): "A source with the Obama camp strongly denied Emanuel spoke with the governor directly about the seat, saying Emanuel only spoke with Blagojevich once recently to say he was taking the chief of staff post... But sources with knowledge of the investigation said Blagojevich told his aides about the calls with Emanuel and sometimes gave them directions afterward. Sources said that early on, Emanuel pushed for the appointment of Jarrett to the governor and his staff and asked that it be done by a certain date."