I'd like to suggest an alternative title for this CNN puff piece.
Disgraced Fraud Artist Alarms Neighborhood Revitalization Organizers
The puff piece is about this guy:
NASD Fines Hantz Financial $675,000 for Fraud, Misrepresentations Related to Undisclosed Revenue Sharing ArrangementsWashington, D.C. - NASD announced today that it has fined Michigan-based Hantz Financial Services, Inc. $675,000 for fraud and misrepresentations relating to undisclosed revenue sharing arrangements, as well as other violations. John Hantz, the firm's President, CEO, founder and primary owner, was censured and fined $25,000 for failing to supervise the firm's revenue sharing activities and suspended from acting in a supervisory capacity for 30 days.
He's taken an interest in Detroit's urban farming movement. He wants some of the action. The urban farmers are quietly trying to make something out of a city that's been beaten and left for dead by a gang of corporate psychopaths. The last thing they need is renewed attention from the rent-seeking sector.
Comments (4)
Al,
I tried to write something in response, but this is the only think I could think of that is even remotely appropiate:
http://www.tridentmilitary.com/new-photos15/m35ob.jpg
Posted by MazingerZ | November 21, 2010 11:19 PM
Posted on November 21, 2010 23:19
I wonder what his game is. I'm guessing that it is more about tax credits than free land, given the low probability of it being redeveloped. Either way, I'd tell this monorail salesman to take a hike.
One problem in this type of situation is that it is remarkably hard to convince desperate local officials and residents that they are dealing with a snake.
A couple years ago, this company called Aquablue showed up to "save" my hometown by converting the Hershey factory that had been outsourced to Mexico into a bottled water factory. It was evident from the outset that it was a fraud. The company was run by a Montreal penny stock hustler who already had some sort of fraud charges against him. The CEO that they appointed appeared to be an alcoholic hoser with no outside management experience. They were quite clearly a bunch of shady grifters.
Along with a lot of other people who were a little more worldly than the town leaders, I tried to point this out to some local residents. They wanted the jobs so badly that they wouldn't hear a negative word about the project. Despite being forewarned, they gave these conmen all sorts of incentives, and the company promptly took over the factory with no money down. The only thing that they did with it was auction off millions of dollars worth of chocolate making equipment and scrap metal that was in the factory, and then abscond with the money without paying any of the local contractors that they had hired.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/03/31/smiths-falls-aquablue-hershey-assets-frozen.html
The depressing thing is that it was completely clear from the very beginning that these guys were just fraudsters. I foresee a lot more of this type of thing happening in the rustbelt. Desperate communities looking to reinvent themselves make for easy prey.
Posted by FB | November 22, 2010 8:07 AM
Posted on November 22, 2010 08:07
Tax credits seem most likely. The plantation mentality may play a role too. All that labor with no place to go... It'd be a shame to leave it "undeveloped".
I think you're right about the trend in completely fraudulent rescues. It's the logical progression from socially subsidized privatization.
Posted by Al Schumann | November 22, 2010 9:09 AM
Posted on November 22, 2010 09:09
It's really frustrating. Minimal community safety requires a level of informed skepticism and street smarts that is generally antithetical to prevailing values. Anxious, desperate gullibility is perversely moral. A jaded reaction to magic ponies is tantamount to killing the ponies.
Posted by Al Schumann | November 22, 2010 9:16 AM
Posted on November 22, 2010 09:16