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A paragon of plain dealing wit and wisdom

By Al Schumann on Sunday September 20, 2009 08:39 PM

this weeks not in the msm news poli-con to despise
at the daily hate sessions ...

pic-240-1202569.jpg


andrei shleifer,
j.b. clark award winner


"During the early 1990s, Andrei Shleifer was an advisor to Anatoly Chubais, the then vice-premier of Russia, and was one of the engineers of the Russian privatization......

During that time, Harvard University was under a contract with the United States Agency for International Development, which paid Harvard and its employees (shleifer)to advise the Russian government. ....

... Under Anatoly Chubais, privatization led to valuable Russian business assets being acquired at extremely cheap prices amid accusations of rigged auctions.
Shleifer was also tasked with establishing a stock market for Russia . That effort was also unsuccessful, and became mired in charges of corruption and self-dealing.

Under the False Claims Act, the US government sued Harvard, Shleifer...(he) bought Russian stocks and GKOs while they were working on the country's privatization, which potentially contravened Harvard's contract with USAID.

.... On August 3 92005) Harvard University, Shleifer and the Justice department reached an agreement under which the university paid $26.5 million to settle the five-year-old lawsuit. Shleifer was also responsible for paying $2 million dollars worth of damages.... A firm owned by his wife previously had paid $1.5 million in an out of court settlement.

Because Harvard University paid most of the damages and allowed Shleifer to retain his faculty position, the settlement provoked allegations of favoritism on the part of Harvard's outgoing president Lawrence Summers, who is Shleifer's close friend and mentor. Shleifer's conduct was reviewed by Harvard's internal ethics committee. In October 2006, at the close of that review, Shleifer released a statement making it clear that he remains on Harvard's faculty. However, according to the Boston Globe, he has been stripped of his honorary title of Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Economics.




a paragon of plain dealing wit and wisdom

Comments (9)

StO:

"Amid accusations." As opposed to, you know, selling off what was left of state industry to the lowest bidder in exchange for political support.

I had to learn about this in the eXile, because for some reason I didn't see jack-shit in the US media.

Given what I know about Chubais, Shleifer is the devil.

Al Schumann:

Chubais and Shleifer make a fine pair. Chubais himself is appropriately placed to continue his work.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- J.P. Morgan Chase said Friday that it has appointed Anatoly Chubais, the architect of Russia's controversial privatization program in the 1990s, to the firm's International Council, an advisory body. Chubais, one of Russia's economic reformers, was responsible for a privatization program of state property in the 1990s that resulted in the emergence of Russian oligarchs, a handful of extremely wealthy, well-connected businessmen that acquired control of state assets. Chubais was recently named general director of state-run Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies. Previously, Chubais was chief executive of United Energy Systems, Russia's largest power monopoly, which under his leadership was unbundled into 24 successor power companies. J.P. Morgan's International Council, which is chaired by former United States Secretary of State George P. Shultz, advises the firm's senior management on global business issues. Regarding the Chubais appointment, Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan, said that "we are very fortunate that someone with his unique experience will provide his perspective to our firm as we invest in growing our business in Russia and across Central Europe.

If anyone needs further confirmation of what Jay Taber said the other day, there it is.

StO:

Beautiful.

I was out for a lot of July and August; where are MJS and op?

Al Schumann:

Rumor has it that MJS was ambushed by unreconstructed democratic centralists while vacationing. He evaded them, but felt he had to flee the country. Some people say he's in hiding in Belfast. Others claim to have seen him in Venezuela. We'll know eventually, I hope. Meanwhile...

I have a guest key. I put up Owen's posts for him; you'll see my name as the author on them, but that's just from the limits of the guest key. I occasionally bash together a few words of my own.

Contrary to any rumors you may hear, I am not an unreconstructed democratic centralist and I played no part in the ambush.

StO:

The revolution is without fault.
Struggle against selfishness and criticize revisionism.

Al Schumann:

The revolution will offer puppy day care centers, a four day work week and lots of festivals this time around. Beer, too, and pizza. Owen made it very clear that he'd settle for nothing less.

StO:

Will America stand for socialized puppy care?

It was the lack of puppy day care that defeated the last revolution, though. Hard to take to the streets to claim one's rights and destroy the oligarchy when one has a growing puppy to take care of! Sort of a catch-22, really.

Al Schumann:

America will stand, sit, stay, lie down, roll over and heel for socialized puppy care! America does that already for cretinous plutocrats, with a kick to the crotch and a looted pension fund as rewards. The reds can offer actually existing puppies, pizza and beer, unlooted pensions and no kicks to the crotch (except amongst consenting adults).

Voila! A puppy.

There are a few details, admittedly, that we're going to need to iron out first, such as a revolution and so forth, but the vision compares favorably to vengeful individual mandates for shit health care and cavity searches.

StO:

And the puppy looks so cheerful!

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