Monthly Archive for August, 2006

“Inside the Billionaire Service Industry” by Sheelah Kolhatkar

The gap between the rich and the poor has been growing wider for some time, but the really rich have now achieved escape velocity. They have far more money than ever before—and a mind-boggling number of decisions to make about spending it. The “ultrarich”—loosely defined as those with investable assets of more than $30 million—often lead tremendously complicated lives. There are approximately 30,000 such people based in the United States, and nearly 50,000 elsewhere in the world, according to Capgemini and Merrill Lynch’s World Wealth Report of 2005. They are the aristocracy of a new Gilded Age—and providing services to them has turned into a gold rush.

The ending is a killer. Natasha Pearl is a “lifestyle consultant” who serves the “really rich.”

Then, out of the blue during one of our later conversations, Natasha Pearl said something surprising: “If the income inequality persists, we could end up with real armed camps, like in South Africa.” She said she was increasingly aware of the tension between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” and she described a surge in demand among the ultrarich for real estate in out-of-the-way places such as New Zealand and rural Argentina—expensive insurance policies in case things go haywire for some reason at home. “The wise ones are thinking about it now,” Pearl said. Indeed, it might be worth planning ahead; I wonder what the going salary will be for a spot in an oligarch’s private army.

“The Power of the Rich” by William K. Tabb

Once in office elected officials tend to get far richer than they were when they entered politics. They are cut in on various deals. They become unusually successful investors. Empirical investigation reveals that in any given year between 1993 and 1998 senators who played the stock market did remarkably well. It turns out they were prescient in anticipating the market’s movements up and down, purchasing a particular stock before it took off like a rocket and dumping stocks just in time. Consider a landmark study in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, which took eight years to complete because there was no data base from which the scholars could work and they had to develop one, gathering and examining data manually. They found that the stock portfolios of a random group composed of tens of thousands of households underperformed the market as a whole by 1.4 percent annually. Corporate insiders beat the market by 6 percent. But the senators (including their spouses and children) beat the market by 12 percent a year.3 The study reminds one of the findings of U.S. Senate Banking Committee counsel Ferdinand Pecora who in 1933 exposed how J. P. Morgan had reserved shares for certain clients – FDR’s secretary of the treasury, the chairmen of both the Republican and Democratic National Committees, and others.

August 30, 2006
by Terry Walz, CNI Staff

The U.S. blanket support for the Israeli war on Hezbollah can be laid at the feet of the Israel Lobby, concluded Professor Stephen Walt and Prof. John Mearsheimer in an analysis they presented at the National Press Club in Washington on August 28. Their presentation, which was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was a widening of their critique of the lobby and focused on the role it played in the recent Israel-Hezbollah war. It showed once again how the lobby works against both Israel’s and the United States’ national interests.

Their original thesis, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” was presented in shortened form in the London Review of Books in March and prompted a lively controversy in both the mainstream press and academic journals. Rarely has the subject of the power of the Israel lobby been approached by professors from such eminent universities. Mearsheimer is a professor of international politics and security issues at the University of Chicago and Walt is an international affairs scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Walt reviewed that thesis for the audience yesterday in his segment of the presentation, leaving Mearsheimer to discuss the role of the Lobby in the recent Israel-Hezbollah war. The destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure, the bombing of areas not associated with Hezbollah, and especially the killing of almost 1,200 civilians, many of them women and children � which constitutes an international war crime according to Amnesty International and other organizations � had no effect whatsoever on either the U.S. executive branch or Congress. On the contrary, working in lock-step with the Israel Lobby (especially AIPAC), Congress rushed through resolutions on both sides praising Israel for its war against Lebanon, disregarding the wanton death and destruction it was causing to civilian populations and ignoring world opinion. The U.S. was the only country to support Israel in this war.

Mearsheimer reviewed the pressure brought on Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. John Warner (R-VA) for offering softer language on the resolution, and on Chris van Hollen (D-MD) for daring to call for an immediate ceasefire in a letter to Condoleezza Rice. Van Hollen was in fact told what consequences he faced if he didn’t withdraw his statement, and it came shortly thereafter in the form of an abject apology to the Jewish community. Nor, having received it, did local Jewish leaders seem satisfied, one saying that he needed to “continue to reach out to the Jewish community to reassure the Jewish community he was going to be there for Israel” � a clear threat to his political future should he deviate again from the lobby’s script.
Continue reading ‘The Lobby, the U.S. and the Israeli War on Hezbollah’

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(hat tip)

By Roula Khalaf in Beirut

Published: August 24 2006 22:16 | Last updated: August 24 2006 23:49

Lebanon�s powerful parliament speaker accused Israel on Thursday of seeking to re-interpret the United Nations ceasefire resolution in order to justify what he said was a continuing economic war against Lebanon.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Nabih Berri, who has acted as the mediator between the Lebanese government and the Shia Hizbollah movement, brushed aside speculation of UN troops deploying along the border with Syria, an issue that has stirred controversy this week.

Pointing out that UN resolution 1701 called on the Lebanese government to secure its borders to prevent smuggling of weapons to non-state parties and �request� assistance from international troops if needed, he said his information was that Beirut was asking only for logistical assistance in the form of new equipment.

�What the resolution says we have to apply,� he said. �So why is Israel putting conditions? What it�s doing is justifying its blockade, on the airport and the sea, because one of the objectives of this war is to hit Lebanon economically, and this war is still continuing.� [MORE]

Michael Carmichael

August 23, 2006

Despite the fact that many Jewish leaders in California have been sharply critical of the policies of the government of Israel and the vast majority of American Jews are liberal, especially in Hollywood, Michael Carmichael sees the defection of billionaire Saban and Spielberg to the Republicans in California as a significant move for the “Israel Lobby.”

As Israel prepares for round two in its battle against Hezbollah, and Iran moves onto a war footing with a defensive mobilization and with the US already at war in the Middle East, the California governor’s race has become a crucible of American politics.  In the politically charged world of Hollywood, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has triggered a minor realignment on the Democratic right and some familiar names are now in the process of moving across the partisan divide.

Led by billionaire media mogul, Haim Saban, several prominent Hollywood Democrats:  James Campbell, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jerry Zucker and Bud Yorkin have announced their support for the Republican “Governorator,” Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once pitched a film that featured an unlikely hero, an “Everyman” characterized as a kind and decent Nazi caught up in the violent conflict of the Second World War.  How Schwarzenegger planned to treat his character’s anti-Semitism remains obscure.

In recent months, Hollywood billionaire Haim Saban’s support for the Democratic Party came under intensifying public scrutiny.  John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt focused on Saban’s growing political influence in their paper, The Israel Lobby.  Describing Saban as an “ardent Zionist,” Mearsheimer and Walt demonstrated the formidable power base of the Israel Lobby in both political parties.

Reflecting on Mearsheimer and Walt, one of America’s leading experts in international law, Dr. Francis Boyle, has dubbed the Democratic Party “a front group for the Israel Lobby.” To a growing number of Americans, Boyle appears to be correct. Saban – not known for his restraint – has vacationed with former President Bill Clinton, a fragment of evidence that supports the lamentations of Boyle, Mearsheimer, and Walt.

A gifted, brilliant and industrious man, Saban was born into the Jewish community in Alexandria, Egypt. In the mid-fifties when the Arab-Israeli wars made their lives as Jews in Egypt more difficult, Saban and his family immigrated to Israel. There, he eventually became involved in promotional and sales activities. In the seventies, Saban relocated to France, where he operated a successful music business.

In the eighties, Saban left France for Hollywood and turned his hand to composing music for films – not major films mind you, but popular ones – and, of course, for television – with an emphasis on children’s TV. Eventually, his success with music, scores, and production for films and television series including: Heathcliff: The Movie; The Super Mario Brothers, Super Show!; Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie; Lord Zedd’s Monster Heads: The Greatest Villains of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers; and Casper meets Wendy put him in position to sell his production company, Fox Family Worldwide, to Disney for a personal profit that made him a billionaire overnight. For years, Saban has been a business partner of neoconservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, another billionaire who admires George Bush and Tony Blair. Murdoch is the owner of Fox News and News International. Reports in the financial press indicate that Saban’s personal profit from the Fox-Disney transaction was $1.6 billion.

Today, Saban presides over the Saban Capital Group where he is currently in the process of negotiations for further media acquisitions. Criticized for the violent content of his children’s programming, Saban is regarded as a tough businessman with decidedly right-wing views. Saban makes no secret of his keen support for the neoconservative policies of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, John Bolton, James Woolsey, Daniel Pipes and Donald Rumsfeld.

[MORE]

Show-biz brigade takes a stand vs. Hezbollah, Hamas
By O’Ryan Johnson
Thursday, August 17, 2006 – Updated: 01:16 AM EST (hat tip)

Hollywood heavyweights Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, Rupert Murdoch and more than 80 other stars played against type and entered stage right yesterday with an ad condemning Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and terrorists everywhere.

“We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” the full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times reads.

Whatever will the crowd at Spago think?

The undersigned also include La-la luminaries Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton of “Everyone Loves Raymond” and William Hurt.

Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names. Other Hollywood powerplayers who signed their John Hancocks included Sumner Redstone, the chairman of Paramount Pictures, and billionaire mogul Haim Saban.

The move is a variation on the usual script in Tinseltown, where the political noise has been predominantly anti-Bush, anti-war on terrorism and anti-war in Iraq from high-profile stars such as George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

But this alternate A-List appeared to steal some of President Bush’s “A” material with lines like: “If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs.”

Doug Ireland writes that instead of firing Tom Cruise for his Scientology-related behaviour, Sumner Redstone should be firing CBS chief Leslie Moonves for approving changes to the reality show, Survivor. According to Ireland, the cast will be split along racial lines, a move Ireland notes, that prompted Don Kaplan of the New York Post to suggest calling the show, “Survivor: Race War.”