December 7, 2011
From The Federation of Connecticut
Taxpayer Organizations, Inc.
Contact Susan Kniep, President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
Ex-Illinois Governor Blagojevich Gets 14-Year Sentence in
Corruption Case
State pension fund falling far short of ability
to pay retirees By JC Reindl Publication: The Day 12/04/2011
Connecticut has
only half the money needed to meet its obligations. Hartford - The
pension-funding sins of Connecticut's
past are now catching up to us, threatening the state's fiscal stability and
the comfortable retirements of future retirees. That was the message to state
legislators last week from Benjamin Barnes, secretary of the state Office of
Policy and Management and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's top
budget official, although he spared his audience the fire and brimstone. But
what the show lacked in hellfire, it made up with red-ink. Connecticut has one of the lowest pension funding levels of all 50
states. According to the most recent audit, the State Employees Retirement
System, which covers more than 42,000 retirees, had $11.7 billion in unfunded
liabilities last year. The audit found just 44
percent of the money that's needed to meet the state's future obligations, far
below the general guideline of 80 percent.
Continued at …. http://www.theday.com/article/20111204/NWS12/312049900/1070/rss/State-pension-fund-falling-far-short-of-ability-to-pay-retirees
Malloy: State Employees Defrauded Federal Food Assistance
Program CTNewsjunkie.com, Christine Stuart, Dec 5, 2011 They lined
up by the thousands after Tropical Storm Irene in
the hopes of obtaining $200 to $1,200 in federal food assistance, but not
everyone who received the benefits qualified for the program. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Sunday that about 800 of the
23,000 applicants were state employees and an unknown number of them may have
committed fraud in applying and receiving federal funds. Continued at …. http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/state_employees_defrauded_federal_food_assistance_program/
A lawyer for the state Freedom of Information Commission
abandoned an argument his office had been making for the past three years when
he got to the Supreme Court on Monday, confusing the Supreme Court Justices and
the man who filed the FOI complaint. Up until Monday, the case had been
expected to be the first time the Supreme Court would consider whether public
entities can use an exemption in the state’s freedom of information statutes to
withhold trade secrets.The case stems from a 2008
freedom of information request made by former state Rep. Jonathan Pelto, who asked the University
of Connecticut for databases including
lists of customers who purchase athletic department tickets or tickets for the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Continued at ….. http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/new_legal_argument_surprises_in_uconn_foi_case/
America's army of jobless The real number of unemployed or underemployed people in the
U.S.
is a stunning 26.9 million. November 30, 2011|By David B. Grusky When President Obama announced that 40,000 troops now in Iraq would come
home by the end of the year, the initial excitement quickly turned to concern
that our already struggling economy couldn't easily handle the shock of an
additional 40,000 job seekers. Although we should, of course, care deeply about
returning Iraq
war veterans, we ought not to think for a moment that adding 40,000 workers to
the job-seeking pool will break the back of the economy. It's already broken.
The nation is laboring under the weight of a reserve army of nearly 27 million
women and men who don't have a full-time job, but most surely want one. Continued at …. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/30/opinion/la-oe-grusky-workers-20111130
Audit finds inadequate monitoring of US arms sales
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Audit-finds-inadequate-monitoring-of-US-arms-sales-2276739.php
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OFF THE HOOK: Official
Says Financial Execs. Likely Won't Face
Criminal Prosecution The Huffington Post Jillian
Berman First Posted: 12/ 6/11 12:27 PM ET Updated: 12/ 6/11 12:27
PM ET
The Justice Department has decided that prosecution of
financial executives is "better left to regulators"
to take civil-enforcement actions, David Cardona, who was a deputy
assistant director at the Federal Bureau of Investigation until last month,
told the Wall Street Journal.
"There's been a realization
and a more deliberate targeting by the Department of Justice before we launch
criminally on some of these cases," Cardona told the WSJ.
Cardona's comments come nearly eight months after Senator Carl Levin released a
report on Goldman Sachs' role in the financial crisis, which found the
investment bank profited off purposefully deceiving its own clients at the
height of the financial crisis. Levin then said he would recommend some of the
investment bank's executives for possible criminal prosecution.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/criminal-prosecution-financial-crimes_n_1131639.html
How Financial Crime and Exploitation Led to the Economic
Crisis
Crime and Exploitation Led to the Economic Crisis - Sam Gustin hosts Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz,
author of Freefall: America,
Free Markets, and the Sinking … http://www.5min.com/Video/How-Financial-Crime-and-Exploitation-Led-to-the-Economic-Crisis-517141433
Banks face U.S.-backed claims process over foreclosures Connecticut residents are expected to be
among the millions filing compensation claims against the nation's largest
banks and mortgage servicers for using defective and
faulty foreclosure practices between 2009 and 2010. On Monday, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and State Banking Commissioner Howard Pitkin announced the federal review
process was open and ready to accept claims against the banks and servicers designated by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
and other federal agencies as having deficient foreclosure procedures. http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Banks-face-U-S-backed-claims-process-over-2346893.php
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Ex-Countrywide Exec
Blows The Lid Off The Systemic Fraud At The Company Julia La Roche|December 05, 2011| Eileen
Foster, a former senior executive at Countrywide Financial, told CBS's "60 Minutes" Steve Kroft that
mortgage fraud was a way of business. Continued at http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-05/wall_street/30476779_1_mortgage-fraud-countrywide-employees-foreclosure-mess
Aunt Midge Reveals $14B Hospice Market By Peter
Waldman - Dec 6, 2011 12:01 AM ET Bloomberg Janet Stubbs was grateful when the
nursing home recommended hospice care for her aunt Midge. Although Stubbs knew
her aunt wasn’t dying, the offer of free, Medicare-paid hospice visits from a
nurse and chaplain, plus an extra weekly bath, was too good to pass up. Stubbs didn’t know that her aunt, Doris
Midge Appling, was admitted to Hospice Care of Kansas
during the company’s “Summer Sizzle” promotion drive, which paid employees as
much as $100 a head for referrals, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Stubbs also said she
had no clue that the nursing home doctor who referred her aunt for hospice
moonlighted as medical director for the hospice company. Continued at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/hospice-care-revealed-as-14-billion-u-s-market.html?cmpid=yhoo
Groups prepare to bring Occupy protests to Congress
Carriers Admit to Installing Hidden App | Save the Internet The cellphone spying saga is heating up. On Friday, Rep. Ed
Markey joined Sen. Al Franken in demanding answers from Carrier IQ, the company
that has worked with mobile carriers to install a hidden application that has
the ability to secretly track nearly everything users do - including the keys
they press, the numbers they dial and the websites they visit - on more than
140 million cellphones. Researcher Trevor Eckhart uncovered the secret app. Continued at …. http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/11/12/02/carriers-admit-installing-hidden-app
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Every year, the Teamsters for a Democratic Union compiles the list of Teamster bosses earning six-figure
salaries. The 2011 $150,000 Club was
released on Friday and shows, unlike many of their members who have suffered job
and pay cuts, Teamster bosses are still doing quite well for themselves.
According to the TDU’s Report:
- 123
Teamster officials made over $150,000 in salary in 2010; 35
made over $200,000. The total paid to that group went up $259,636
over the previous year.
- 129
Teamster officials got paid a multiple salary by the
International Union , most of them appointees of James Hoffa.
- For
the first time since he took office, James Hoffa did not get a salary
increase. This is
because his salary goes up by a percentage equal to the rate of inflation,
and inflation did not rise.
Hoffa did take a $6,000 hike in his total compensation: Hoffa is
paid a very lucrative “housing allowance” on top of his salary.
Below is
the listing of the Teamsters’ Top Ten Money Makers, based on salary and total
compensation. Teamsters’ 2011 $150,000 Club Full Report
Continued at ….. http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/12/04/tdus-new-150000-club-shows-teamster-bosses-still-doing-well-despite-recession/
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The 5 Biggest Failures of the 112th Congress - Chris Good -
Politics ... Nov 30, 2011 ... Partisan stalemate has held America
hostage. A look at the most significant instances of
legislative dysfunction this year. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/the-5-biggest-failures-of-the-112th-congress/249056/#slide1
The Iran Oil Embargo Epitomizes The Transfer Of Power From
West To East Does Thursday's announcement that the EU is considering to ban oil imports from Iran epitomise the draining of power from west to east? The big
winners here will be China
and India,
who do not fear rising Iranian influence and who will
gladly soak up any additional oil exports they may have to offer. However,
ending this small dependency upon Iranian oil imports in Europe
(Figure 2) does clear the way for military action without the need to ponder
the immediate consequences on oil imports. Continued at …. http://www.businessinsider.com/conflict-between-iran-winners-china-and-india-2011-12