LARRY ROIBAL

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New boss - same problems, GM’s New CEO, Fritz Henderson admits the tax payers have been postponing the inevitable. Even after bailout, GM still likely to go bankrupt.

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General Motors CEO has resigned at the request of the White House. GM is given a 60 day window to restructure the company.

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It’s not a spaghetti western, it’s Timothy Geithners testimony about the state of our economy. And while he’s no Clint Eastwood or Lee Van Cleef, he is seeking to become a regulatory gun slinger by expanding his power over hedge funds on Wall Street.

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Today’s a slow news day so I’m returning to yesterday’s lefty notables - as in left handed, not political affiliation. Five of the last seven presidents have been left handed including Bush 41. I can’t think of Bush the elder without thinking of Dana Carvey’s spot on impersonation and famous tag line, “Nope, not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent”. In fact, he was prudent when compared to his right handed son. 41 angered many conservatives who wanted him to expand the mission beyond the UN Resolution in the first Gulf War. After liberating Kuwait, many wanted US troops to continue on to Baghdad and oust Saddam. “Nope, not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent”. Whadaya know, he was right.

This correction appeared in today’s Washington Post. It turns out Reagan wasn’t a lefty.

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The issues and problems are omnipresent for our new president, but I for one am comforted by Obama’s command of the facts and eagerness to engage. It’s a stark contrast from our previous chief executive.

A side note: Five of the last seven US Presidents have been left handed: Ford, Bush the elder, Reagan, Clinton and Obama, what’s more, no matter who won the previous election, we were destined to put another lefty in the White House since both Obama and McCain are left handed. Other lefty notables: Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Angelina Jolie and my daughter Alyssa. Check out this web site of famous left handers.

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New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo has railed against bonuses for employees of company’s receiving bailout money. He’s fought to get a list of those at Merrill Lynch who seemed to loot the company on the way out the door.  Yesterday Cuomo announced that nine of the top ten and fifteen of the top twenty recipients of bonus money at AIG have volunteered to return their bonuses.

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Well, it’s that time of year when newspapers insist on depicting college basketball by showing countless photos of people with their mouths open. The Mens NCAA basketball tournament has had little surprises so far, with all of the number one seeds, Louisville, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and North Carolina having advanced to the sweet sixteen. In fact, every #2 and #3 seed also advanced, with the Missouri getting the biggest scare, needing a comeback to best Marquette.

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One year of doodles

Today marks the one year anniversary of Larry Roibal Drawing On Observations, A mostly self indulgent journey of my obsession with news and my love of drawing. Over the previous year (less two, week long vacations) I’ve posted every weekday and occasionally on a weekend for a total of 289 posts. Now studies have proven that doodling hasn’t just improved my drawing skills but actually can help your memory. Newsweek’s Dina Fine Maron reported recently that doodling in class may be a good thing, I wish my grammar school teachers could have read that. Thanks to everyone who’s visited, commented, linked or thought enough to post.

Here’s a small sample:

Drawn, The Star Ledger, ABC News, Tad’s Tab, Lines and Colors, Boing Boing, Compose, Cartel Agency, Robert Plant Newswire, Art of Obama, Sugar Mob, I think it’s hilarious when sites from around the world are referencing my doodles, Like this, And this, And this, And this, And this,
Thanks to the Star Ledger, The New York Times, The New York Post and the Daily News for doing the really important work of informing our citizenry and supplying me with newsprint.

I hope some of you stay tuned to see what the next year brings.

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Tony Award winning actress tragically passes away. Wife of Liam Neeson, daughter of the Venessa Redgrave, star of stage and screen, sadly lost her life after falling and suffering a head injury during a beginners ski lesson. Perhaps best known for her film roles in The Parent Trap and Patty Hearst she was revered for her stage work winning a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical portraying Sally Bowles in Cabaret.

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In spite of the deep financial crisis within AIG last year, they still managed to pony up $103,100 in campaign cash to the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd and 101,332 to then Senator Obama…… Now, who changed the language in the original bailout bill that would have prohibited taxpayers money from going towards bonuses? Answer: Chris Dodd’s staff after talking to Obama’s Treasury department…hmmm

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New Jersey Devil, Martin Brodeur set a new standard for hockey goaltending becoming the winningest netminder in NHL history by recording his 552nd career victory at the glorious Prudential Center yesterday.

P.S. I’m not going to pretend to be a big hockey fan. Like most Americans, I grew up playing basketball, baseball and football, but I am a fan of excellence and a New Jersey native, so I’ve gotta give it up to Brodeur. Truth be told, I’ve only been to one Devils game in my life, and that was because my brothers built the beautiful arena where the Devils play and I was treated to great seats behind the net to check out their handy work. So, as long as I’m giving out kudos for excellence, great job on that arena Tom and Dan!

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President “O”Bama is fighting mad over bonuses and retention packages given to the employees of AIG Financial Products Division responsible for derivatives that brought the giant insurance company to it’s knees and triggered a taxpayer bailout.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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My Dad, having lost all function of his kidneys when I was a boy, would come home from work on Monday’s Wednesday’s and Friday’s, ensconce himself in a reclining chair in front of our family television while my Mom connected him to a dialysis machine for a five hour treatment. So began my family’s introduction to the late afternoon talk shows of Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas and their eclectic group of guests. The hosts were equally at home talking to John Lennon, as they were to comedian Totie Fields or one of my favorites, The Amazing Kreskin. Now the B list mentalist is the inspiration for a new movie “The Great Buck Howard”. The film opens this Friday, starring John Malkovich and directed by Kreskin’s former personal assistant Sean McGinty . A native New Jerseyan, Kreskin still makes his home in Essex county, not that he’s home much, he’s in his 70’s and still on the road doing hundreds of gigs a year.

The Amazing Kreskin’s Blog

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Eminence Front

The sun shines
People forget
The spray flies as the speedboat glides
People forget
Forget they’re hiding
The girls smile
People forget
The snow packs as the skier tracks
People forget
Forget they’re hiding.

Behind an eminence front
Eminence front - It’s a put-on

The drinks flow
People forget
That big wheel spins, the hair thins
People forget
Forget they’re hiding
The news slows
People forget
The shares crash, hopes are dashed
People forget
Forget they’re hiding.

Behind an eminence front
An eminence front - it’s a put-on
it’s a put-on - it’s a put-on

The Who

I doubt those who lost everything will ever forgive or forget the man who hid behind an eminence front. They just want their legacy back.

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I applaud how the legislature has been shining a light on how corporate America does business, but the standard practices of our legislature also seems broken. Earmarks are a way for legislators to make the federal government pay for local concerns. But, often seniority has as much to do with who brings home the bacon as those concerns….and in light of the catastrophic state of the economy and our ballooning deficits, said concerns often seem silly and ill conceived. The state of Iowa is receiving $1.7 million to research pig odor, while Hawaii is receiving $2 million for the promotion of astronomy. Of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks, more than twenty percent of those funds are going to preserve the Kennedy legacy. The bill includes 5.8 million to plan and design the Edward M Kennedy Institute for the Senate, $22 million to expand John F Kennedy Presidential Library, $5 million for a new gateway for the Rose Kennedy Gateway, a park system in downtown Boston named after Kennedy’s mother. At a time when so many are without a job and others are struggling to make ends meet, do we really need to ask a coal miner from Pennsylvania to chip in and preserve the legacy of one of the wealthiest family’s in America?

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Barbie turned 50 on Monday and is still defying gravity…. I guess it’s true, life in plastic, it’s fantastic!

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Although credited with the greatest literary works in history, little is known about the man, William Shakespeare. Nearly 400 years after his death, scholars still debate the authorship of his work, so it was not without controversy that yesterday in London, a painting held in private hands for centuries should now emerge as the one and only likeness of William Shakespeare to have been painted in his lifetime. A more handsome Shakespeare, with a long delicate nose and far more hair than the Martin Droeshout iconic black and white woodcut engraving that we have come to recognize as Shakespeare.

From the NYT

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Its gonna take time, A whole lot of precious time. Its gonna take patience and time, ummm To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right.
George Harrison

That was the message from President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag this weekend…minus Harrison’s hip, melodic delivery and eastern philosophy vibe.

Note to Congress: He purposefully skipped over the second verse about how it’s gonna take plenty of money.

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Yesterday, auditors from the Deloitte & Touche accounting firm reported that despite the $13.5 billion GM received in bailout money “recurring losses from operations, stockholders’ deficit and inability to generate sufficient cash flow to meet our obligations and sustain our operations raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern,”
GM has lost $82 billion in the past three years including $30.9 billion last year. The company’s stock closed yesterday at $1.86 per share. Yet despite all that abysmal news, the audit revealed Rick Wagner’s pay package for 2008 was worth $14.9 million.

Yesterday the dow closed at 6,594. How can investors feel confident in the market with these modern day Neros in charge?

Did we really need Deloitte & Touche to tell us that GM’s business model was broken? Even a guy who draws pictures could see the writing on the wall. Some past doodles of Rick.

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There’s a theme of sorts developing in my doodles this week. Bernie Madoff has taken people for $50 billion (that’s billion with a B) so I guess he thinks everyone’s a fool. Take for example the financial success of his wife Ruth Madoff. They have been married for nearly fifty years. Last month after the ponzi scheme was discovered, regulators revealed that she withdrew $15.5 million from a Cohmad securities account (Cohn/Maddoff)….. Hmmm, without being employed outside the firm, she has managed to amass 62 million dollars in cash and bonds and a $7 million penthouse, all in her own name. Now, Bernie says that those assets are separate from his ill gotten gains and she should be allowed to keep them. Very convenient that his name doesn’t appear on any of their assets, being as he robs people of their life savings for a living. Continue Reading

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Founder of AIG, Hank Greenberg, was forced to leave the company in 2005 under threat of indictment by New York’s (then) attorney general Eliot Spitzer, but not without a very nice golden parachute. As PART of his deferred compensation, he received 3.7 million shares of AIG stock in January of 08. At that time AIG’s stock price was in the mid 50’s making the payment worth about $200 million, for which he paid $70 million in taxes. Today AIG’s stock is valued at 42 cents, making those same shares worth 1.5 million. Now Greenberg is suing his former company claiming they hid their exposure to sub-prime, artificially keeping the stock price high. I guess he’s in a position to know. Yesterday on Bloomberg, current CEO Liddy claimed that Greenberg was at the helm during the formation of AIG’s financial products unit, which sold derivatives that cost the company more than $30 billion in writedowns and prompted a government rescue. The worst part is, since AIG is being kept afloat with taxpayer money, should Greenberg prevail, you and I would pay the settlement. That’s rich!

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AIG’s stock price two years ago was 69.00 per share, one year ago it was 42.00. Liddy took over the helm in June of last year with the stock in the 30’s. Later that year, while Lehman Brothers and other giants were going bankrupt, AIG was deemed too big to fail and received $85 billion in bailout money. A month later Liddy defended spending $440,000 of that money on a retreat at a luxurious California resort saying it was “standard practice in our industry” Today the stock is at 0.42 a share and AIG is receiving another 30 Billion in taxpayers dollars. What started as as a mortgage crisis is now a crisis in confidence. Since shinning a light on the “standard practices” of corporate America, investors have no confidence that this current crop of CEO’s know the value of our hard earned dollars. Yesterday the Dow dropped below 7,000 for the first time in twelve years.

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Legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey (……..pause……..) passed away over the weekend. (………pause……..) He was 90 years old. (……..pause…….) Good day.