934 Corzine’s Second Crash
It was April, 2007 when then-governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey broke his leg in a car accident on the turnpike. He was not wearing a seat belt. The car in which he was a passenger, piloted by a state trooper, was moving at about 90 and swerved to avoid another car. Corzine also broke 12 ribs and spent some time in critical condition and on a ventilator, underwent surgery and eventually recovered.
Where was he going in such an all fired hurry at 11:30 at night? To a meeting in which he was to try to make peace between radio personality Don Imus and members of the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball team.
The Corzine Crash of 2011 is a little different. After losing a re-election bid, he went back to Wall Street and became head of one of those companies that no one quite knows what it does. It is called MF Global. It owns a lot of lousy debt from Spain and other European countries and it can’t figure out where some of its customers’ money is.
Corzine tried to sell some or all of MF (which used to stand for Man Financial and not that other phrase for which the letters are well known.) That didn’t work out so now, it’s in bankruptcy. The papers are reporting that this is the eighth largest corporate collapse in US history. It doesn’t reach the size of Lehman Bros., WaMu or even Enron. But it’s bigger than Chrysler’s.
Corzine isn’t accused of any wrongdoing, but his reputation’s back on a ventilator and may need additional surgery. This crash wasn’t because of a high speed drive to a dopey destination at a bad hour on a bad highway. But there’s probably no insurance coverage this time, either.
Shrapnel:
--Brian Williams’ new show “Rock Center” premiered Monday night, and he was right when he said it’s not going to knock CBS’ “60 Minutes” out of the box, despite his star power and that of Harry Smith (late of CBS,) Ted Koppel (late of all kinds of places,) plus in house stars Matt Lauer and Ann Curry. “Rock” is better than the self-parody NBC has made of “Dateline.” But it feels too Norman Rockwell-Norman Vincent Peale-ish.
--The website westradamus.com is winding down as of its renewal date in late December. But those of you who refer to the Non-Prophet’s stuff in the off-season, that is any time between, say after the first week or so in January will have a new site to visit. Location to be announced.
--Does Herman Cain ever give a straight answer and stick with it? The latest is denial that there was a settlement/payout in a sexual harassment case against him. After that, he said well, yeah, there was a settlement but it wasn’t big. Guy sounds more like ex-congressman Weiner every day.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011
It was April, 2007 when then-governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey broke his leg in a car accident on the turnpike. He was not wearing a seat belt. The car in which he was a passenger, piloted by a state trooper, was moving at about 90 and swerved to avoid another car. Corzine also broke 12 ribs and spent some time in critical condition and on a ventilator, underwent surgery and eventually recovered.
Where was he going in such an all fired hurry at 11:30 at night? To a meeting in which he was to try to make peace between radio personality Don Imus and members of the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball team.
The Corzine Crash of 2011 is a little different. After losing a re-election bid, he went back to Wall Street and became head of one of those companies that no one quite knows what it does. It is called MF Global. It owns a lot of lousy debt from Spain and other European countries and it can’t figure out where some of its customers’ money is.
Corzine tried to sell some or all of MF (which used to stand for Man Financial and not that other phrase for which the letters are well known.) That didn’t work out so now, it’s in bankruptcy. The papers are reporting that this is the eighth largest corporate collapse in US history. It doesn’t reach the size of Lehman Bros., WaMu or even Enron. But it’s bigger than Chrysler’s.
Corzine isn’t accused of any wrongdoing, but his reputation’s back on a ventilator and may need additional surgery. This crash wasn’t because of a high speed drive to a dopey destination at a bad hour on a bad highway. But there’s probably no insurance coverage this time, either.
Shrapnel:
--Brian Williams’ new show “Rock Center” premiered Monday night, and he was right when he said it’s not going to knock CBS’ “60 Minutes” out of the box, despite his star power and that of Harry Smith (late of CBS,) Ted Koppel (late of all kinds of places,) plus in house stars Matt Lauer and Ann Curry. “Rock” is better than the self-parody NBC has made of “Dateline.” But it feels too Norman Rockwell-Norman Vincent Peale-ish.
--The website westradamus.com is winding down as of its renewal date in late December. But those of you who refer to the Non-Prophet’s stuff in the off-season, that is any time between, say after the first week or so in January will have a new site to visit. Location to be announced.
--Does Herman Cain ever give a straight answer and stick with it? The latest is denial that there was a settlement/payout in a sexual harassment case against him. After that, he said well, yeah, there was a settlement but it wasn’t big. Guy sounds more like ex-congressman Weiner every day.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment