Short Answer: marginally.
Long Answer: There was much sturm und drang over Extended Stay America’s (ESA) Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on Monday. Of primary concern to this investor is how the filing may affect Ashford Hospitality Trust’s (AHT) $98 million mezzanine loan that was made to ESA last year.
For investors, it’s important not to panic and […]

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Short Answer: marginally.
Long Answer: There was much sturm und drang over Extended Stay America’s (ESA) Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on Monday. Of primary concern to this investor is how the filing may affect Ashford Hospitality Trust’s (AHT) $98 million mezzanine loan that was made to ESA last year.
For investors, it’s important not to panic and […]

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What backroom dealings are going on in Ohio government these days? Could it be that the forces opposed to payday lending (PDL) have given the nod and wink to the Ohio Division of Financial Institutions (DFI) to create a chilling effect on lenders? There’s certainly an argument to support that position.
A quick recap of Ohio […]

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DirecTV’s (DTV) management downplayed their Q4 results a few months ago, wisely cautioning analysts and investors of the challenging economic environment that confronts us all. However, there is no denying that their numbers were strong – simultaneous with the economic meltdown happening all around them. Their results put them in the catbird seat – and […]

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Shell’s CEO designate Peter Voser would have to have been terminally naïve to assume that his extraordinary internal Email to staff would not immediately be placed in the public domain - as indeed it was within minutes of its transmission. Assuming that Voser knew exactly what he is doing let’s analyse what this message means […]

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A year ago I called for the departure of Sir Peter Job as a non-executive director of Shell.
It has taken a full year for the media at large to realise just how unfit this man is to oversee the remuneration of Shell’s top executives. But whilst the buck undoubtedly stops on Job’s well-padded shoulders the […]

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Lawyers representing the British-based oil firm Trafigura have taken their first steps toward suing BBC’s current affairs television program, BBC Newsnight, for “libelous statements” in their May 13 investigative report, Dirty tricks and toxic waste in Ivory Coast .
The company’s law firm has yet to specify what statements in the report they […]

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Last week, Citron Research issued a report on World Acceptance Corporation (WRLD) that demonstrated a staggering degree of either ignorance or malfeasance. Their tabloid-style reporting seems designed to maximize fear in stockholders. One could reasonably assume it is because Citron is short the stock. They claim there is a disconnect between reality and what World […]

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“He’s a PR man. For an oil company. That’s bottom of the list!
 Below TV evangelist. Just above child molester.”
Michael in “Greenwash” by David Lewis
I have just been scanning through the last seven editions of “The Economist” newspaper – and as always it’s a very good read. And in these troubled times it is arguably […]

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When corporations act as dysfunctionally as all too many in the world of banking and finance have been doing over the past few years it gives the opponents of capitalism a field day.  The charge, which is impossible to refute, is one of greed and incompetence and we have seen what happens when these twin […]

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The Obama administration is planning to have the VA (Veteran’s Administration hospital/clinic system) bill private insurance for treatment of veteran’s war related injuries.
From the WashingtonPost:
The president was sympathetic to the needs of veterans, Gorman (executive director of Disabled American Veterans) said, but insisted that the insurance companies are getting away with not paying for […]

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There is a happy news for IT industry in India. Despite whatever may happen worldwide, now there is a plan for bringing in revolutionary chages that may enable India take giant steps towards realizing its goal to be an IT super power in the world.
The indications are available in the IT Vision document that BJP […]

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MEMO TO: Richard Feducci, Overlord of Finance
FROM: E Pluribus, Wondergod
SUBJECT: Five Year International Finance Plan
DATE: January 1, 2005
Happy New Year, Rich. Got some good news and some bad news. The bad news: We’re going to let the American economy crater. The good news: Everybody else’s will, too. The best news: By 2010, we’ll be on […]

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If you visit Washington, locals will point out when the President leaves in a convoy of helicopters, most of which are there to protect him from bad guys. It’s quite an inspiring sight. His helicopter is called Marine One.
But the helicopters are getting on in age, so there has been some discussion about an overpriced […]

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Britain’s largest casualty of the international turmoil in the banking sector has been the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) which only survives at all because it has been bailed out by the British taxpayer with Government ownership now at 70%. The grotesque mismanagement of this huge concern by its discredited CEO Sir Fred Goodwin […]

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Stanford International Bank may not have been investing client funds in the kind of secured assets they had claimed.  Among the many revelations in the unfolding scandal was the company’s majority position in Health Systems Solutions, Inc. (HSSO.OB), a pink-sheet stock with negative shareholder equity, that has been operating at a loss for several years.   […]

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I will leave it to the economists to figure out how using the present day credit crisis as an excuse to increase government spending will solve the world’s problems.
But as a doc, I hate to tell you that there are a few worrisome items in that spending bill that you need to know about.
The first […]

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A couple of months ago, a physician in California who refused to perform in vitro fertilization (aka “IVF”, aka “Testtube baby”) on a lesbian was taken to court and sued for “discrimination”.
He contended that doing IVF on single women was against his religious beliefs, but lost the case on the basis of discrimination laws.
Essentially the […]

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The esteemed British medical journal, the Lancet, has gotten a black eye in the news lately for articles that were poorly screened and were biased for political/personal reasons.
The first one is the 1998 study linking MMR vaccine with Autism.
This study has had devastating effects on three fronts: One, the terrible guilt by parents who are […]

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 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, January 22, 2009, San Francisco — Anna Karapetian, a journalist from Armenia who in radio broadcasts funded by the U.S. government reported on human rights abuses in her country, is one of many people around the world who see Barack Obama’s inauguration as a hopeful beginning of a new era […]

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I guess I got out of the Federal government’s health system just in time.
Obama has stopped the implementation of protections for medical workers who oppose abortion.
It won’t get headlines, however: the headlines say “White House stops pending Bush Regulations for Review”
… Bush administration include allowing the carrying of concealed weapons in some national parks and prohibiting medical facilities from receiving […]

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As anticipated, state legislatures across the country have been renewing and introducing new employment eligibility and compliance laws requiring the use of E-Verify. The latest bills to be introduced are from Arkansas, Nebraska, Indiana, and Wyoming.
In Arkansas, State Representative Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, introduced HB 1093 which would require state agencies to use E-Verify for […]

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The intriguing story  that ExxonMobil has Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) in its sights will send shivers down the spines of Shell’s senior executives as they plan their strategy for 2009 and beyond. It may also give much food for though to those in the European Union who want to keep European hands on key energy […]

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The list of food contaminated by melamine that originated from China keeps getting longer. The New England Journal of Medicine calls the presence of melamine in food a major public health product, claiming that it resulted in 294,000 children hospitalized for health problems in China, and that it may have sickened children in other parts […]

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New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has filed proceedings in the High Court of New Zealand against 13 international airliners for alleged cartel  behaviour for more than seven years. Seven airline staff of a high level in their respective companies also face prosecution.
In a press release the Commerce Commission said, “Airlines throughout the world colluded to raise […]

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It all started in 1992 when Worrell Worcester, of the Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington Maine, estimated he would not be able to sell all of his wreaths by Christmas. Rather than discard them, he decided to donate them to Arlington Cemetary to lay on the graves of the soldiers.
With plans underway, a number […]

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Here in the Philippines, we figure that all politicians are on the take.
Politicians visiting the Presidential palace get gift boxes containing thousands of dollars in pesos; fertilizer funds are funneled to politicians to distribute right before an election (and many, but not all, of the politicians made money off the deal, by buying the fertilizer […]

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I am aghast at the latest headline spin insisting that generic drugs are just as good as the more expensive brands.
Why? Because the study cited doesn’t “prove” that at all.
From the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) abstract (summary):
We identified 47 articles covering 9 subclasses of cardiovascular medications, of which 38 (81%) were randomized […]

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No matter how bad the times are there is always someone ready to make a fast buck out of those in trouble. Are there are fewer people in more trouble than those in debt, bereft of savings, on the minimum wage (or worse) and struggling to feed and clothe their families. And very often these […]

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Of the 350 companies in the FTSE350 index I suspect that Royal Dutch Shell probably spends more on corporate advertising than most. Over the past few years there was been a steady stream of advertising messages which seek to persuade, in particular,  that Shell is driven to a large extent by its commitment to Corporate […]

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