MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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The Company We Keep

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greece_3402538bMy son asked me a question the other day that still cuts very deep.

“How are you comfortable being in league with racists, xenophobes and reactionaries?” he asked.

What prompted the question was my support for Brexit.

I’ll admit it is true that the likes of Boris Johnson, the idiotic and racist former London mayor, and Nigel Farage who leads the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a right-wing political party, stoked anti-immigrant fervor to sell their successful campaign to get Britain out of the European Union.

And, let’s not forget our own resident bigot, one Donald Trump, the next president of the United States, was ecstatic at the outcome. Just yesterday, Marine Le Pen of the French racist National Front political party wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times praising the Brits’ courage for their Brexit vote.

The reactions to Brexit, especially in the media, have been hyperbolic. In a highly emotional editorial yesterday, the Times castigated Brexit proponents for “backing away from the false claims and dubious promises that they made in the run-up to the referendum to take Britain out of the European Union.”

I know the financial markets have been tantrumy since the vote but everything is going to be all right. The world on Friday and since has been no different than it was on Wednesday, the day before the Brexit vote. Despite corporations and the markets behaving the way they are, nothing is really being lost.

Let me rephrase that. Read More

June 29, 2016
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Palin’s understated brilliance

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I know all of us are holding our breath for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to wow America all over again during her vice-presidential debate with Delaware’s Sen. Joe Biden Thursday night.

One newspaper has called Mrs. Palin’s debating skills “formidable.” The New York Times says she’s a confident debater. In fact, the Obama campaign, calling her a “terrific debater,” is thinking of suspending the vice-presidential portion of the fall campaign.

I thought, maybe, we should imbibe a little her recent series of triumphant interviews with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric:

Couric: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was kinda made to . . . cari . . . I don’t know, you know . . . reporters.

Couric: Mocked?

Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.

Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.

Palin: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…

Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

Ms. Couric then brought up the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, suggesting the money could be better spent by regular Americans. Mrs. Palin burst forth in incandescent rhetoric. Her answer was nothing short of historic in its scope and grasp of policy details, mastery of nuance:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

October 1, 2008
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Drink heavily; recycle

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An investment banker said of the current Wall Street calamity:

“If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would have $49 left.

With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the original $1,000.

With AIG, you would have less than $15 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 dollars worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214 Cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to Drink Heavily and recycle!”

September 30, 2008
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Outdated but still funny

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Welcome wagon

Serrano Votes Against Wall Street Bailout – NY Times BlogShare, Yesterday at 8:31pm
Four of New York State’s 29 representatives voted no on the $700 billion economic bailout package that the House of Representatives rejected on Monday in a historic vote, 228 to 205. The four no votes from New York State came from three Democrats — José E. Serrano of the Bronx, Kirsten E. Gillibrand from the Albany area, and Maurice D. Hinchey of south-central New York — and one Republican, John R. Kuhl Jr. of central-western New York. (See the roll call.)
Mr. Serrano, a Bronx Democrat and the only House member from New York City to vote no, explained his decision in a phone interview:
I felt it was not a situation where you should be giving large amount of money to be administered by the same people who caused the problem. I just felt it was not right to begin with.
Second, I didn’t find enough provisions that satisfied me in terms of the oversight. In so many ways it was just giving them a blank check.
I represent the poorest district in the nation, located within the richest nation and within walking distance of the wealthiest district in the nation, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
When Wall Street was doing great and these guys were giving each other $50 million bonuses, I couldn’t see anything happen to the Bronx that made me say, ‘Wow, there’s some good from what’s happening on Wall Street.’ So now, they want $700 billion — which could amount to over $1 trillion, and who knows how much more later on – and that debt would be incurred by the people of the South Bronx, directly or indirectly.
Next year, when we want to increase funding for education, health care or veterans affairs – or just keep them at the same level – we will be told that we can’t because we can’t pay down the debt.
Despite strong pressure from the House leadership, Mr. Serrano added, “I couldn’t in good conscience” support the rescue package.
Mr. Serrano acknowledged that Wall Street’s collapse could hurt Main Street even further. If so, “do my constituents suffer?” he asked rhetorically, replying, “Yes, but what was presented to us did not help my constituents at all. It in fact put them at risk, because it would saddle them with debt. Where was Wall Street when we were cutting the taxes of zillionaires and driving up the debt?”

September 30, 2008
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“K-e-a-t-i-n-g-5”

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AP News Dispatch:

McCain: Greed created Wall Street’s problems, By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Filed at 12:52 p.m. ET

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain says Wall Street’s financial turmoil is the result of unchecked corporate greed.The Republican says government must protect the public from investment schemes too complex for people to understand or regulate.McCain told a crowd of several thousand at a rally Tuesday in Tampa, Florida, that people have the right to know when their jobs and pensions and the entire economy are, in his words, ”being put at risk by recklessness on Wall Street.”

McCain has a reputation as a free-marketeer, but he says that Washington regulatory agencies need to be overhauled.

Instead of a dozen federal agencies behaving badly, he says the nation needs the best ones doing the right job.

Let me see if I follow this: The problem is corporate greed and John McCain is the solution?

The same John McCain? Certainly not the same McCain who, even now, is swaddled daily by corporate lobbyists. That McCain? Maybe he’ll appoint Charles Keating to help him police Wall Street. You know, the Keating who looted Lincoln Savings while McCain and four other United States senators acted at lookouts.

This is from Wikipedia:

In 1989, American Continental Corporation, the parent of Lincoln Savings, went bankrupt. More than 21,000 investors, most of them elderly, lost their life savings (in total about $285 million.) This occurred largely because they held securities backed by the parent company rather than deposits in the federally-insured institution — a distinction apparently lost on many if not most depositors until it was too late. The federal government covered almost $3 billion of Lincoln’s losses when it seized the institution. Many creditors were made whole, and the government then attempted to liquidate the seized assets through its Resolution Trust Corporation, often at pennies on the dollar compared to what the property had allegedly been worth and the valuation at which loans against it had been made.

In 1989, Keating was subpoenaed to testify before the House Banking Committee, but refused to answer questions, invoking his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

McCain and his wife Cindy, by their own accounts, stayed at Keating’s Bahamas vacation home about ten times. All the while, McCain was exercising influence to keep federal regulators off Keating’s back.

“The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One” is the title of the book written about the exploits of Keating and his U.S. Senate hand-holders.

How John McCain could utter the words “greed” and not fear being struck dead by lightning is beyond me.

September 16, 2008
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Scapegoat*

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Alright. Look that word up today and it’ll have a picture of a two-headed monster named Tannin and Cioffi.

Don’t get me wrong: Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin are probably guilty of a lot more  than they’re being charged with here. But, are they the biggest crooks on Wall Street? Can anybody tell me what these two Bear Stearns executives did that thousands of Wall Streeters don’t do every single day and run merrily all the way the bank?

This arrest, with the requisite perp walk reminiscent of the stunts that old demagogue Rudy Giuliani used to pull, is simply to draw attention away from the crooked deal that U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson struck to get Bear Stearns into the hands of JP Morgan Chase.

The American people were left holding the bag in that deal.

The fact is we are surrounded by these thieves, including Mr. Paulson, formerly of Goldman Sachs, in government who preside over the wholesale looting of the American tTreasury on behalf of the wealthy at the expense of poor and working class Americans.

People worry whether Barack Obama is an American and vote for people who then turn around and devastate the American way of life through crooked deals like the one Paulson cooked up here.

Who will tell the people? Will we hear? Better yet, what are we going to do about it?

June 20, 2008
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FLEETING INFAMY Many are called, but few are frozen in spotlight By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and RICHARD T. PIENCIAK, Daily News Staff Writers

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Sunday, May 4, 1997

Most people who grab fleeting notoriety — Sukhreet Gabel, the kid who stole the A train, Lady Bing and Yankee switcher Fritz Peterson — disappear quickly and quietly.

Then there are those like Burton Pugach, resurrected at regular intervals, and Donald Trump, who never seems to leave the stage.

Pugach has defied the odds by stretching his fame to 45 minutes with front-page appearances in 1959, 1974 and 1997.

The 70-year-old ex-attorney first surfaced when he paid three goons $2,000 to throw lye into the face of a girlfriend who had discovered he was married. After serving 14 years in prison, Pugach hit the front pages again in 1974, when he married the woman who had been blinded in the attack.

His third major foray into the public arena concluded last week with his acquittal in Queens on charges that he had threatened to kill his most recent ex-mistress.

In Trump’s case, his soap opera — separation from Marla — is just beginning.

Here’s a reprise of what happened to some others who just faded away:

Howie Spira

Howie Spira, George Steinbrenner’s one-time archrival, would love to return to center stage. These days, Spira has an entertainment lawyer and a literary agent; he’s hawking a book and movie about his life and says he is dating a beautiful 25-year-old airline employee from California.

Howie’s big moment in 1990 produced dire consequences for a variety of people: The Boss got suspended from baseball; Fay Vincent ultimately was booted from the baseball commissioner’s office; and Spira ended up in federal prison.

Spira claimed Steinbrenner had paid him $40,000 to dig up dirt on slugger Dave Winfield. The FBI charged him with extortion.

Several weeks before his parole in October 1993, Spira made the acquaintance of another inmate, former New York Judge Sol Wachtler.

“He was very upset,” Spira, now 38, recalled. “I introduced him to people. We became friends.

“It’s been very, very difficult. The same people who to this day chase me for autographs or want to talk baseball will not give me a job because of the stigma. . . . I’m frightened about my future.”

Francine Gottfried

Front-page allegations of sexual harassment lodged last week by several female employees of a Long Island brokerage house suggested that the more things change in Wall Street circles, the more they stay the same. Take the case of the Wall Street Sweater Girl of 1968.

At the time, Francine Gottfried was 21 years old, stood 5-foot-3 and earned $92.50 a week as a data processing operator for Chemical Bank. A completely different set of numbers brought intense public attention to the Brooklyn native: her 43-25-37 figure.

The frenzy over Gottfried began spontaneously; several brokerage house employees noticed she exited the BMT subway station near the New York Stock Exchange each workday shortly before 1:30 p.m. The workers told their friends and colleagues, who told more people.

During a two-week period that September, the crowds grew from several hundred to more than 15,000 — all in search of a glimpse of Francine in her extremely tight yellow sweater.

“A Bust Panics Wall Street as the Tape Says 43,” blared one Daily News headline. Added The New York Times: “10,000 Wait in Vain for Reappearance of Wall Street’s Sweater Girl.”

Meanwhile, Francine began considering whether to charge for interviews and photos. “I’ve got a million dollars of publicity already, but no money,” she said. “This is the biggest thing to hit Wall Street since the Crash of ’29, and I should be compensated.”

But Francine eventually dropped from the radar screen by taking a different route to work.

Keron Thomas

On May 8, 1993, at the age of 16, Keron Thomas took Duke Ellington’s musical advice one step too far: He didn’t simply take the A train, he stole it.

A train buff since his childhood in Trinidad, Thomas rode the subway at all hours.

Thomas became such fast friends with trainman Regoberto Sabio that one day he found himself behind the controls of the shuttle between Franklin Ave. and Prospect Park.

Psyched by the experience, Thomas called the 207th St. subway yard in Inwood, identifying himself as Sabio and requesting an overtime shift.

The dispatcher failed to ask Thomas for photo I.D. or his employee badge, which enabled the older-looking teen to take control of a 10-car train.

An estimated 2,000 passengers were aboard during the ensuing three-hour ride.

Thomas might have gotten away with the caper had he not exceeded a 20 mph speed limit, tripping an emergency signal.

The sheer brazenness of Thomas’ act captivated New Yorkers. Friends at Brooklyn Automotive High School took to calling him “A Train.”

The charges were reduced to misdemeanors, and Thomas was sentenced to three years probation.

But 18 months after the A train incident, Thomas was arrested for stabbing a teen.

Charged with attempted murder, Thomas spent 177 days on Rikers Island and pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree assault. He was credited with time served and was released in July 1995 on five years probation.

Last week, Probation Department spokesman Jack Ryan said Thomas’ file was sealed. Despite being 18 at the time of the stabbing, Thomas ultimately was treated as a youthful offender.

Sukhreet Gable

For nine riveting days in 1988, Sukhreet Gabel testified against her ailing 75-year-old mother — a respected judge — former Miss America Bess Myerson, and Bess’ lover, contractor Carl (Andy) Capasso.

The prosecution alleged that Sukhreet had been given a city job in return for her mother’s fixing of Capasso’s divorce settlement. The bribery trial ended, however, in acquittals for all.

“I think I was naive,” says Gabel, now 47. “I might do it differently if I had to do it all again. But my mother’s words always come back to me. What she said was to always tell the truth, and I think those are good words to live by. My mother was a wise woman.”

Sukhreet remembers her moment in the spotlight as having been quite awful.

“So often I would be misunderstood and labeled crazy, when I don’t think I am,” she said. “I’m certainly a character, but I’m not crazy.”

These days, Gabel is busy importing and exporting traditional and high-end contemporary textiles, a job that takes her all over the world.

Lady Bing

At age 22, Carroll Lee Douglass married 65-year-old moviemaker Jack Glenn. Following a divorce, she married William Rickenbacker, son of World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. In 1987, at 47, she married retired Metropolitan Opera impresario Sir Rudolf Bing, 85 at the time.

The wedding ceremony had taken place only two days after Bing’s relatives succeeded in getting a judge in Manhattan to schedule a competency hearing for him.

Bing and his wife, who took to calling herself Lady Bing, appeared at the hearing on Jan. 12, 1987, but vanished once the judge declared that the groom was incompetent to handle his financial affairs.

Within a month, the Daily News traced the newlyweds to the idyllic Caribbean island of Anguilla.

Eventually, the pair returned to New York, where a judge annulled the marriage; Sir Rudolf entered the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale.

Last Thursday, a worker at the home confirmed that Bing still is a resident. “He’s doing fine,” she said.

Does Lady Bing ever come to visit?

“No,” the employee said. “She hasn’t been here in well over a year.”

Harvey Sladkus, Lady Bing’s attorney, said she appeared unannounced at his law offices on Park Ave. several weeks ago. “She looked very sad. She had lost considerable weight.”

Lady Bing wondered whether Sladkus would hire her as the office receptionist.

“I told her, ‘We already have someone in that position,’ ” the attorney recalled.

Alice Crimmins

Alice Crimmins may well have achieved her aim of blending anonymously into the community. But more than three decades ago, her crime held the city spellbound.

Her daughter, Alice Marie Crimmins, 4, and the child’s brother, Edmund, 5, disappeared from their Kew Gardens Hills apartment July 14, 1965. The girl’s body was found a half-mile away and the boy’s a mile away.

It took two trials over a six-year period before Alice Crimmins was convicted of her son’s murder and of manslaughter in her daughter’s death. The investigation focused on Crimmins’ many boyfriends.

The murder conviction eventually was overturned for lack of evidence, but she was sentenced to 5 to 20 years for the manslaughter conviction.

On Friday, Thomas Grant, assistant to the chairman of the state Parole Board, said Crimmins no longer is under parole supervision. He said records indicate she was released from a state correctional facility on Sept. 9, 1977, after serving nine years. He said her official file also showed a closure date of Jan. 17, 1993.

Crimmins, who married a Long Island construction contractor while on a weekend furlough, no longer talks to the media. Her last known address was a high-rise in Bayside, Queens.

She consistently has denied killing her children.

Yankee Wife Swappers

Even if former Yankee left-handed pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson had produced Hall of Fame numbers, their off-the-field exploits would have overshadowed what they did on the mound.

At the beginning of the 1973 baseball season, the two close friends and free spirits told the world they had swapped wives, children, dogs and houses.

Peterson moved in with Susanne Kekich and her two daughters, Kristen, 4, and Reagan, 2. They married soon after she divorced her husband.

For Mike Kekich and Marilyn Peterson, the exchange had an unhappy ending. They broke up two months after he moved in with her and her sons, Gregg, 5, and Eric, 2.

Fritz and Susanne remain married. Peterson works as a craps dealer at Grand Victoria Casino Boat in Elgin, Ill.

Original Story Date: 050497

May 4, 1997
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Rudy: Shed Half Of Clothes Tax

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January 12, 1997

by MIKE CLAFFEY and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani yesterday revived his call for 2-cent cut in the city sales tax on clothing buys — and vowed to press for approval even if the state doesn’t match the reduction.

In an election year bid aimed at city shoppers and stores, Giuliani said he will include plans to halve the city’s 4-cent share of the 8.25% levy in the State of the City address he will deliver on Tuesday.

The reduction, which requires state Legislature approval, would apply to all clothing purchases under $500.

Unlike last year, when the mayor scrapped a similar plan because Albany leaders balked at halving the state’s 4-cent share, Giuliani said he will seek state Legislature approval for a unilateral cut.

“The proposal we’re going to make to them is: I’m willing to cut the New York City sales tax in half, no matter what they do. I can’t see how they can deny us the opportunity to do that,” Giuliani said.

“I believe that there is a very good chance that we will, by Dec. 1, be able to cut our sales tax in half,” added Giuliani, who predicted the plan would stem the flow of shoppers to New Jersey and other localities with no or low sales tax on clothing.

Many shoppers and storeowners cheered Giuliani’s plan — even as it remained unclear whether the projected economic benefit would outweigh the loss of city sales tax income and expand city budget gaps.

“I absolutely think it would help,” said Nancy Ponce, manager of a Conway discount clothing store in Manhattan. “If you buy one item, it’s not really that much. But if you spend a lot of money, it adds up.”

Deborah Morton, a baker from Brooklyn, said “anything is better than nothing.”

The announcement was the latest in escalating calls for tax cuts as the city and state reap higher revenues generated by Wall Street’s bull market. City Council Speaker Peter Vallone (D-Queens) proposed cutting the sales tax on household goods like soap, toothpaste and diapers.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Pataki, who yesterday unveiled his own $3.4 billion proposal to cut property taxes and boost school aid, said the governor would would study Giuliani’s plan carefully. “The governor is always interested in reducing taxes,” said spokeswoman Eileen Long.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) issued similar signals of approval.

Giuliani estimated the plan would cost the city $70 million in lost sales tax revenue during the 1997-98 city fiscal year and $150 million the following year. Despite new projections of a $500 million surplus by July, the city still faces an estimated $2 billion deficit for next fiscal year.

But the mayor predicted the sales tax cut would more than pay for itself.

Original Story Date: 01/12/97

January 12, 1997
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Teachers, Principals Eye Edition Additions

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November 9, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and LAURA WILLIAMS, Daily News Staff Writers

City teachers and principals yesterday were drawing up shopping lists to spend $70 million promised by Mayor Giuliani for new textbooks.

“I already have my orders worked up,” said Yve Douglass, principal of Public School 3 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

“At the top of the list is to buy new social studies books,” she said. “Then I will buy reading materials. Then I will buy grammar books. I don’t have to worry too much about math books; math doesn’t change too much.”

The mayor yesterday confirmed that he’s earmarked tax revenue from a Wall Street boom to buy books for public schools.

The $70 million comes on top of $69 million already in the schools budget for texts this year.

“The infusion of money is for the purpose of curing what is reported to be a problem for some time — that some of the textbooks are 15, 20, 25 years old, out of date,” Giuliani said yesterday at PS 191 on W. 61st St. in Manhattan.

The Board of Education has begun assessing schools to determine which have the greatest need, said spokesman David Golub.

The money should be available within six months, Giuliani said.

School administrators said the money will help fill a gaping need.

State funding for textbooks allows for about $35 a year per student, well short of meeting demand, administrators said.

“One good social studies book is $35,” Douglass said.

“We have social studies books from six, seven years ago,” said Sheryl Moye, principal of PS 97 on E. Houston St. “In this world, things are changing as we’re talking. Look at Eastern Europe.”

Administrators said they see the funds as a sign that relations between City Hall and Livingston St. have warmed.

November 9, 1996
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