Tag Archives: Business Insider

The Law Trump’s Conflicts of Interest May Be Directly Violating? Only the U.S. Constitution.

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of The Constitution, the so-called “Emoluments Clause,” states clearly that:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.

As this article in Business Insider explains:

One of dozens of proscriptions in the Constitution aimed at fighting corruption, the emoluments clause is one of the only ones that actually applies to the president. Critics of President-elect Donald Trump‘s potential financial conflicts of interest are pointing to it amid reports about his extensive business dealings with foreign entities, including the state-owned Bank of China.

Some critics point to recent troubling reports — that Trump allegedly asked British politician Nigel Farage to push against wind farm development near a Trump golf course, and that the president-elect reportedly lobbied Argentinian president Mauricio Macri to help expedite a stalled Buenos Ares development — as signs that Trump is already using his clout improperly.

In a meeting Tuesday with the New York Times, Trump seemed to confirm the reports about his talk with Farage.

But Trump’s camp is denying the reports about Macri, and the president-elect tweeted on Monday night that his “interests in properties all over the world” have been public knowledge for awhile and that it’s “only the crooked media” that is making “this a big deal” now.

 

 

 

Google Is Being Forced To Censor The History Of Merrill Lynch — And That Should Terrify You

Leave a reply

Google Is Being Forced To Censor The History Of Merrill Lynch — And That Should Terrify You
By Jim Edwards for Business Insider.

From the article:

The European Union’s new law giving people a “right to be forgotten,” which requires Google to remove links to information about them, is having exactly the effect its critics predicted: It is censoring the internet, giving new tools that help the rich and powerful (and ordinary folk) hide negative information about them, and letting criminals make their histories disappear.

Exhibit A: Google was required to delete a link to this BBC article about Stan O’Neal, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch. O’Neal led the bank in the mid-2000s, a period when it became dangerously over-exposed to the looming mortgage crisis. When the crisis hit, Merrill’s losses were so great the bank had to be sold to Bank of America. O’Neal lost his job, but he exited with a $161.5 million golden parachute.

There is nothing incorrect in the post, in fact it’s a rather mild account of O’Neal’s incompetence during the period. O’Neal was forced out of the company after he began discussing selling it without informing his board of directors. This is ancient, well-established history. Having it removed from Google doesn’t undo the fact that it happened. But there is a new generation of 25-year-old investment bankers who perhaps do not have a firm grasp of the 2007 crisis that reshaped banking globally. Their grasp will be ever more slightly weaker due to this new law.