Document: Money found in Price's safe proceeds of conspiracy - WFAA
DALLAS – Federal authorities say that $229,590 in cash found in a safe in John Wiley Price’s Oak Cliff home last summer, as well as another $230,000 in money from a land deal, were all proceeds of conspiracy to commit money laundering, bankruptcy fraud and bribery, according to a document filed Thursday in Dallas federal court.
FBI agents found the money in Price’s safe while serving search warrants on his home last June. They also served search warrants on his assistant, Daphne Fain, and political consultant Kathy Nealy.
Agents also seized $50,000 and $180,763 from a Dallas County builder who was set to pay that money to Price for the purchase of a vacant nine-acre tract on Grady Niblo Road in Dallas. The builder’s attorney has said he did nothing wrong.
Billy Ravkind, Price’s attorney, said Thursday morning that he was still reading the government’s filing and had no comment.
No one has been charged with any crime in the investigation, which is ongoing.
The U.S. attorney’s office made the allegations in a civil lawsuit filed to keep the seized money. In it, they detail how agents found the money in the safe, stashed in various envelopes. Documentation found with the money bundles includes various banks and addresses in Dallas, Forney and elsewhere.
Price filed for bankruptcy in 1996, and it was discharged in 2001.
Price, according to the government’s filing, has claimed ownership to $115,000 of the seized money. Fain, Price’s assistant, has claimed $114,590.
Price and his attorneys have fought the seizure of the money, prompting the government to have to file documentation of why they believe it was proceeds from criminal activity.
The FBI’s investigation went public last summer with the serving of search warrants.
FBI agents are investigating Price’s use of campaign funds, his land deals, the African heritage festival he founded known as KwanzaaFest, his expensive car collection, as well as various businesses controlled by his associates.
Agents are also examining his role in in the much-publicized controversy involving an alleged shakedown scheme that targeted the California developer behind a massive logistics center in southern Dallas County known as an inland port.
Money can buy you 'Likes': Facebook's latest money-making scheme is paid-for posts which pop up high in users' news feeds - Daily Mail
- $5 will ensure 700 people see a post
- $75 will ensure 14,000 see it
- Open to people and businesses
- 'Promoted posts' to launch worldwide
- Prices to go up to $70 per post
By Rob Waugh
|
Facebook has finally launched a controversial pay to post service that allows people and businesses to ensure their updates are seen - for a price
Facebook has finally launched a controversial ‘pay to post’ service that allows people and businesses to ensure their updates are seen - for a price.
The company was found testing the feature, called promoted posts, in New Zealand recently.
The money-making scheme comes in the wake of controversy over Facebook's recent flotation on the stock market - and concerns over the value of the social network.
However, today it went official with a video on the site explaining how the process will work.
‘When you post on your page, it currently may only reach a limited amount of the people that Like your page each week,’ a Facebook staffer says via a video posted on the social network.
‘Promoted posts help increase the people you reach for any eligible post. It’s an easy and fast way to reach more of the people that Like your page and your friends.’
In example screenshots of the service, costs range from $5 to ensure 700 see a post to $20 to reach 2,200 people, although it is believed the pricing could change.
People will see promoted posts labeled with ‘Sponsored’ in their news feed, and post can be promoted to everyone, or just people in certain areas - so a cafe, for instance, could only promote to local customers.
‘Your promoted posts will be seen by a larger percentage of the people who like your Page than would normally see it,’ Facebook said on its site.
Prices range from $5 for 1,000 viewers up to $75 for 14,000
‘It will also be seen by a larger percentage of the friends of people who interact with your post.’
The service is set to be available to anyone with a page with more than 400 likes.
Money has changed – that’s the issue - New Statesman
Peter Selby responds to Nelson Jones's article Money and Morality.
When the St Paul’s Institute, working with JustShare, Penguin Books and the LSE, brought nearly 2000 people into St Paul’s for a public debate on the theme of Michael Sandel’s book, What Money Can’t Buy: the Moral Limits to Markets (see Nelson Jones, NS 25 May) it was because we knew the theme touched a nerve, not because we have an answer to peddle. The Institute has been engaged for some years, as an agency of the Cathedral, in seeking to get into debate with the financial institutions which are its ‘parish’; as such we could hardly think Sandel’s book unimportant, and we were delighted so many others thought the same.
That’s not the same as signing up to his thesis about the moral corrosion brought about by the intrusion of the market into all sorts of spheres to which it is not appropriate. Certainly we are signed up to the desire to get people thinking hard about which are the things that should be for sale and which should not be and, as Rowan Williams says in his review of What Money Can’t Buy, to do so on the basis of rational reflection rather than relying in feelings of revulsion when we see certain things getting a price.
Nelson Jones in his NS piece wonders whether things have deteriorated from some golden age when money didn’t play the part it now does, and points to many areas where things were much more monetised in the past than they are now. Tellingly, if slightly optimistically, he says we no longer sell people, and however bad the euro crisis gets we still won’t be doing that. There are examples he cites in the ancient world that are at least as unpleasant to think about as some of the examples Sandel gives of the intrusion of market thinking.
In my comments in the debate I voiced my own reservations about Sandel’s thinking, so much of which seems to me to address symptoms without digging deeper into causes. When he gives the example of prisoners being able to buy a cell upgrade, and when Nelson Jones points out that that has historical precedent, the deeper issue is not being faced by either of them: the selling off of incarceration as a business is common policy in the USA as it is increasingly in Britain. In the process of creating that market a financial interest is being created in locking people up. That can’t be unconnected with the fact that we in Britain lock up more people than other European countries and that a quarter of the rising number of prisoners in the world – and a third of all incarcerated women in the world, whose number has increased by a sixth in five years – are in the USA.
The figures that became a matter of public scandal during the Jubilee 2000 campaign for the relief of unrepayable third world debt showed all too clearly that the escalating power fo financial debt was depriving children worldwide of education, healthcare and life itself. The situation is infinitely worse than either Sandel or Jones portrays: the issue is not the buying and selling of things that should, or should not, be free, or whether people value things they pay for more than things they receive for nothing; in the end it is not about getting people to think more clearly than they do about whether markets should have moral limits though all these questions are important. What really matters is that in everything from the depletion of the planet’s resources to the requirement on Greek citizens to sell their democratic birthright to have their debts rescheduled money is deciding matters of life and death, and doing so more and more.
That’s why as a Christian and a theologian I am convinced money has acquired all the characteristics of an idol, aggrandising its power and claiming more and more of people’s lives. And that’s why, because of faith’s commitment to raise fundamental questions about anything that has the potential to be an idol, the St Paul’s Institute will go on engaging that debate at an ever more fundamental level. When it recently commissioned a report on the attitudes of those working in the financial sector (see Value and Values) we learned that most did not think the City should listen more to the Church’s guidance. But we now know, since the Sandel debate came to St Paul’s, that many people do want to know whether pressing economic questions have something to say about the meaning of life and whether those who profess faith are prepared to get involved in relating that faith to those questions.
Because, make no mistake, money did not acquire this power by accident. The last four decades, roughly since the massive oil price rises of the early 1970s, have seen vast increases in the amount of money in circulation, and technological advance has multiplied its speed of circulation. In the absence of means of regulating that the dominant policy has been one of deregulation, allowing the power of money to grow with its quantity. The results are not just the life and death issues I have described, but a situation in which all of us, rich or poor, are compelled to worry more and more about money and think more and more about it.
The issues of monetary reform, dismissed even by the independent commission on banking and widely ignored, are ones we need to press: just as ‘home ownership’ is a euphemism for housing debt, so ‘fractional reserve’ is now a synonym for debt multiplication: is one of the questions we need to ask about the post-2008 crisis whether the system on which we have relied for money creation for nearly a century fraught with inherent instability? I ask the question not because the Institute has a recipe or a policy to commend, but because it is our passion as a community of faith to ensure that these questions are honestly faced. The Sandel debate, and the Jones response are just a start.
Peter Selby is one of the interim directors of the St Paul’s Institute, and author of Grace and Mortgage: the Language of Faith and the Debt of the World. He was until retirement Bishop of Worcester, and Bishop to HM Prisons.
FOREX-Euro rises before Irish vote but stays vulnerable - Reuters
* Worries growing that Spain needs external help
* Euro falls to near two-year low vs dollar, then recovers
* Irish 'yes' vote could provide very brief reprieve
* But trend remains for further falls in the euro
LONDON, May 31 (Reuters) - Expectations of an Irish vote in favour of Europe's fiscal pact helped the euro recover from a near two-year low against the dollar on Thursday, though any gains were seen limited as concerns grow that Spain may need to seek outside aid.
Opinion polls pointed to a 'Yes' vote in Ireland's referendum, which analysts said could prompt investors to cut some of their hefty bearish bets on the euro.
The euro fell as low as $1.2358, a level last seen in mid-2010, before recovering to trade up 0.3 percent at $1.2410. Any gains were expected to be short-lived, however.
The common currency was poised for its biggest monthly fall in at least eight, with some analysts expecting it to drop towards $1.20 in coming weeks as the euro zone's debt crisis deepens.
"We could see a very brief pause in the downtrend in the euro because of the Irish referendum, but beyond that the news is fairly negative," said Ian Stannard, head of European currency strategy at Morgan Stanley.
"There is very little on the horizon to provide sustained support and the trend is clearly downwards."
Morgan Stanley forecast the euro would fall to $1.15 early in 2013, though this assumes Greece stays in the euro, he said.
Spanish government bond yields held near euro-era highs and yields on safe-haven German bonds stayed close to record lows.
"Things are starting to look ugly. It seems like the market is making Spain its next target after Greece," said Teppei Ino, currency analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in Tokyo.
The European Commission on Wednesday offered Spain more time to reduce its budget and direct aid to recapitalise distressed banks, but the news had limited impact on financial markets.
Member states must decide whether to adopt these proposals and EU paymaster Germany has opposed any collective European banking resolution and guarantee system.
Speaking on Thursday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the ECB could not "fill the vacuum" left by a lack of action on the part of national governments on fiscal growth.
Against the yen, the euro was at 97.83 yen, having dropped to its lowest in more than four months at 97.352 yen. This brought it close to an 11-year low of 97.04 yen hit in January.
FLIGHT TO SAFETY
Market players remained nervous as Greek polls showed parties for and against a bailout were neck-and-neck ahead of the country's second election on June 17.
With investors trying to escape the euro zone into liquid assets, the dollar's index against a basket of currencies hit a 20-month high of 83.11. It was last at 82.883 and looked set to close above its 100-month average, at 81.824, for the first time in almost 10 years.
A break of the 100-month average has been a good indicator of a long-term trend change, having produced four successful signals in the past 30 years.
The dollar fell to as low as 78.71 yen, the lowest in 3-1/2 months, as investors favoured the yen.
A fall in U.S. bond yields also helped to push down the dollar against the yen, as the currency pair is known to have a strong correlation with the yield gap between the two countries.
The dollar has crucial support for now from its 200-day moving average at 78.63 yen.
Money Flies Out Of Spain as Regions Pressured - Moneynews (blog)
Spain is the next country in the firing line of the eurozone's debt crisis, with spendthrift regions and shaky banks threatening to blow a hole in state finances and pushing funding costs towards levels that signal the need for a bailout.
The European Commission gave new help on Wednesday, offering direct aid from a eurozone rescue fund to recapitalize Spanish banks and more time for Madrid to reduce its budget deficit.
That helped lower the risk premium investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year debt rather than the German benchmark on Thursday, but it remained close to the euro-era record, at 520 basis points.
Bank of Spain data showed a net 66.2 billion euros ($82.0 billion) was sent abroad last month, the most since records began in 1990. The figure compares to a 5.4 billion net entry of funds during the same month one year ago.
Spaniards are worried about the health of their banks, hit by their exposure to a 2008 property crash, and have been sending money to deposit accounts in stronger economies of northern Europe.
The capital flight data predates the nationalization of Spain's fourth biggest lender Bankia in May when it became clear the bank could not handle losses from bad real estate investments, compounded by a recession.
Spain's centre-right government has contracted independent auditors to assess the health of its financial system in an effort to restore faith in its banks.
Spain must lay out its restructuring plans for Bankia to the European Commission (EC), a spokesman for the EU executive arm said on Thursday. He added that a domestic solution to the country's bank crisis would be better than a European rescue.
The government said on Wednesday it would finance a 23.5 billion euro rescue of the bank through the bank fund, FROB but senior debt bankers said that the syndicated bond market is currently closed for Spanish agencies.
REMOVING UNCERTAINTIES
The prospect that Spain might not be able to handle losses at its banks has pummeled shares and the euro, although both regained some stability on Thursday.
"What we need first of all is for the Spanish government to tell us its restructuring plans for Bankia, what options it is considering," said European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj in a radio interview.
"From there, we will study the plans and see whether they comply with requirements for public aid."
Spain should carry out the refinancing of its banking sector, laid low by a decade of unsustainable lending during a property boom, by market mechanisms or government funds, rather than a European rescue which would have negative connotations, Altafaj said.
"The sooner uncertainties are removed the better," he added.
The government also hopes to clear doubts on Friday about how it plans to ease financing problems among its 17 autonomous regions.
Treasury ministry sources said a mechanism to back the regions' debt would be agreed at the weekly's cabinet meeting and figures showing they were on track to meet their spending cuts targets would be released.
Fitch Ratings downgraded eight regions on Thursday, warning that a failure from the government to adopt new measures would result in further ratings cuts.
Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria is due to meet U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and International Monetary Fund Director General Christine Lagarde in Washington on Thursday.
The deputy PM will outline Spain's measures to tackle its crisis during the meetings, which were convened before Spain's situation reached boiling point, a government spokesman said.
© 2012 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
CEE MONEY-First in firing line, east Europe braces for Grexit - Reuters
* Greek euro exit looks set to trigger Lehman-like selloff
* No CEE assets would be immune to spike in risk aversion
* CEE markets still haven't recovered from sharp 2008 falls
By Jason Hovet and Carolyn Cohn
PRAGUE/LONDON, May 31 (Reuters) - A Greek exit from the euro zone could thrust emerging European markets into a downward spiral similar to that seen during the 2008 financial crisis, when currencies lost up to a third of their value following the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Europe's eastern currencies are among the world's 10 worst-performing against the dollar this month, alongside Syria's pound and better only than the kwacha of Malawi, where authorities scrapped the unit's peg to the dollar.
Policymakers across the region have taken pains to stress defences are stronger than four years ago, when the Polish zloty lost 32.5 percent against the euro in the six months after Lehman and stock indices were cut in half.
Investors have already shifted positions in anticipation of Greece's possible exit from the euro zone following a June 17 repeat election, and what investors fear would be a knee-jerk selloff of Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Romanian and other assets.
"I would not rule out a similar market reaction to what happened in the fourth quarter of 2008," said Thanasis Petronikolos, head of emerging market debt at London-based Baring Asset Management, which runs a $140 million fund that has a third of its assets in emerging Europe, Russia and Turkey.
"If Greece exits, then what happens to countries like Portugal, Ireland, Spain or Italy? Then ... we are into an uncharted territory."
ROADS TO CONTAGION
A harsh escalation of the euro crisis would hit growth in the east's export-dependent economies harder than other developing states, due to their close integration with their bigger neighbours and dependence on western European demand.
Another potential source of pain is deleveraging by the western-owned lenders that own around 70 percent of banking assets in the region.
A hit to exchange rates would cause payments on foreign currency loans held by Polish and Hungarian households to skyrocket, pushing up bad loans and intensifying losses.
Aware that the main channel of contagion remains capital markets, politicians are bracing for turmoil.
"I expect the very high volatility on foreign exchange market to continue until results of the Greek elections," Polish Deputy Finance Minister Dominik Radziwill told reporters earlier this month. "The outcome will have a huge impact on the euro zone, even polls may affect the euro and, in effect, the zloty."
Added Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban: "We cannot exclude ... that there will be serious shock waves."
A Greek exit from the euro would technically have little direct effect on the 17-member bloc's economy, of which the Mediterranean state makes up just a tiny fraction.
But it would drive up debt yields for other euro zone states and their neighbours, by prompting a stampede of investors to assets perceived as more safe while the single currency's other members try to forestall a domino effect.
In a poll earlier this month, economists were almost evenly split on whether Greece would leave the euro, although in a Reuters poll published on Thursday, 19 of 30 fund managers said Greeks would still be using the euro at the end of next year.
DOWNWARD SLIDE
Emerging European assets rallied to start 2012 but have retreated since Greece's inconclusive May 6 election.
Following one of its best quarters in a decade, the zloty has lost 4.9 percent against the euro in May. It has recovered only around a third of its post-Lehman drop since hitting 4.93 per euro in February 2009.
The forint, punished for Hungary's slow progress in securing a new EU/International Monetary Fund credit line, is down 4.8 percent for May and is hovering around its 2009 levels after hitting an all-time low of 324.2 per euro in January.
Romania's leu hit a record low last week, and the region's stock markets are down 6.7-12.5 percent in May, far shy of the 40-50 percent shed in the weeks after Lehman's demise.
The losses are still a shadow of those seen immediately after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, reflecting a retreat by investors rather than a full-scale withdrawal, but market players they would accelerate if a major event such as a Greek euro exit happens.
Data from Thomson Reuters Lipper show funds listed in emerging Europe bond and equity categories saw net outflows of an estimated $923 million over the first four months of the year - before this month's selloff.
Jiri Lengal, who manages $190 million in CEE funds for Investicni Spolecnost Ceske Sporitelny in Prague, said he has cut some risky positions and increased cash in his portfolio.
He sees a potential rebound after next month's Greek election, saying "Greece will not commit suicide", but said he is in a scarce minority.
"I think the pessimist camp is much stronger than the optimist camp," Lengal added.
If the Greek election does lead to Athens' departure from the euro, countries with high current account deficits, like Turkey, or where debt is high, like Hungary, would come under strong pressure, said Baring's Petronikolos.
London-based strategist Thanos Papasavvas, for Investec Asset Management, said he has moved to the sidelines in currency markets.
He is overweight Czech debt - seen as a regional safe haven - and underweight Poland "given the large component of foreign participation and high liquidity.
"Given the underlying uncertainty we remain cautious on our positioning," Papasavvas said. (Additional reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Michael Winfrey and Catherine Evans)
It's completely lost everything that Facebook was at the start. They've taken all the fun and lightheartedness out of it
- meme, bucks, 31/5/2012 19:41
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