TV News LIES

Aug 30 2007 (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers has hired Jeb Bush, brother of the President of the United States, as an advisor to its private equity business, a source familiar with the situation said.

Lehman hired another relative of U.S. President George W. Bush last year--George Walker, a second cousin, who heads up the bank's asset management business.

Jeb Bush is the former governor of Florida.

Lehman Brothers declined to comment.

TVNL Comment: Things that make you go hmmm.

Source...

Nine of them are retired. Four of them are over 75 years old. One is a theater producer, another a former Navy admiral. Only two have direct experience in the financial-services industry.

Meet the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. external board directors, a group of 10 people who, perhaps unknowingly, carried the health of the world’s financial system on their shoulders the past 18 months.

The Fed on Monday said it would begin accepting equities as collateral for emergency loans for the first time as it tried to ease the spiralling crisis. The steps would likely help surviving financial institutions to find cash but may not do much to boost global confidence in the U.S. financial system.

"The mere fact that they are forced to do this -- and they may still yet do some more -- indicates the breadth and depth of the trouble that the system is in," said V. Anantha Nageswaran, head of investment research, Asia-Pacific with Bank Julius Baer in Singapore.

More...

Royalties from the energy industry are an important source of revenue for the U.S. government. But regulatory mismanagement means much goes uncollected, a GAO report finds.

The sex and drugs scandal revealed earlier this week at the Interior Department may be just the start.

A Government Accountability Office study set for release Friday says the department lacks basic procedures for monitoring the oil industry, and that these shortfalls could be cheating taxpayers out of billions of dollars in revenue. CNN received a draft of the report on Thursday.

The department's failure to consistently check oil-company supplied production data, the report found, "raises questions about the accuracy of royalty payments."

"This report shows that the U.S. has one of the most lenient royalty collection systems in the world and calls into question whether taxpayers are getting a fair return for the resources they own," said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-West Virginia and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

TVNL Comment: Mismanagement? Nonesense. This is criminal behavior that can be traced directly to the electoral coup conducted in 2000. This is the result of Cheney's secret energy policy meetins and an administration comprised of oil cartel members.

More...

When it came to buying influence in Washington, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were among Corporate America's biggest spenders.

The two mortgage giants paid $174 million to lobbyists over the past ten years to ensure the political climate would remain friendly to growing the mortgage business - even as the housing bubble began showing signs of bursting, according to a report by the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.

More...

Vise-Grip is an iconic name in Nebraska, one of the most famous products invented or developed in the state, along with Kool-Aid, raisin bran, and the Reuben sandwich.

The locking pliers have been manufactured in DeWitt for more than 80 years. DeWitt blacksmith and Danish immigrant William Petersen got a patent for the device in 1924.

American Tool sold out in 2002 to Newell Rubbermaid, a minority owner since 1985. Since then, the DeWitt plant has operated under the name of Irwin Industrial Tools, a company American Tool bought in 1993.

Oden said employees were told that "to keep the Vise-Grip name competitive, they had to move to China."

More...