The Influence Industry: UBS invests in Washington
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 19th, 2011 4:34 am by HL
The Influence Industry: UBS invests in Washington
UBS AG hasn’t exactly been a model company lately — the Swiss investment bank has paid more than $1 billion in fines for financial crimes in recent years.
But that doesn’t seem to have scared away many lawmakers or President Obama. To the contrary, the bank is quite well placed in official Washington, with campaign contributions and personal ties connecting it to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The company has dramatically increased its involvement in politics in recent decades, even as the bank has paid off three large federal settlements over the past three years.
Default deniers say it’s all a hoax
First there was the claim that global warming was a hoax. Then came the assertion that President Obama’s Hawaiian birth was a fiction. And now we are hearing that the prospect of a U.S. government default is, likewise, a fantasy.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says that it’s the real deal: that if Congress doesn’t agree to an increase in the debt limit by Aug. 2, the United States will be forced to default on its debt, potentially spreading panic and collapse across the globe. During debt-ceiling showdowns in the past, President George W. Bush’s treasury secretaries and President Ronald Reagan himself issued similar default warnings.
For as long as most political junkies can remember, Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses have been the sine qua non of the nomination fight, the place where presidential ambitions went to either bloom or bust.
But as the 2012 Republican nomination fight begins in earnest, there are questions being raised about whether Iowa’s caucuses are still a must-do or whether skipping the Hawkeye State entirely is not only doable but, in fact, a sound strategic move.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has sent mixed signals about how hard he will play in Iowa — although he will be in the state to campaign later this month. (It’s his first visit in 2011.) Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman seems more likely to focus on New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.
Senators ‘encouraged’ as Gang of Six deficit talks resume, minus Coburn
One day after the departure of a key Republican senator threatened to derail the bipartisan Gang of Six talks aimed at producing a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan, the group’s remaining five members emerged from an hour-long huddle Wednesday sounding an optimistic note and pledging to meet again Thursday.
“We had a very constructive meeting today; we intend to meet again tomorrow, and we’re going to keep working,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.), one of three Democrats in the working group, told reporters after Wednesday’s meeting. “I think that’s a summary of what we’re going to say at this moment, and I think all of us are encouraged.”
