Page 4 — THE BERLIN DAILY SUN, Tuesday, November 1, 2011
T & C to host fundraiser for Special Olympics SHELBURNE -- The Town and Country Motor Inn, in Shelburne, New Hampshire, will be hosting a fundraiser on behalf of Special Olympics of New Hampshire, on Sunday, November 6. The event is scheduled to take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Certified instructors from K&S Fitness and The Royalty Athletic Club will be demonstrating a variety of fitness classes. Participants are welcome to watch or join in to Zumba, Kickboxing, Sculpting, Hip Hop, Yoga and Pilates demonstrations.
In addition, vendors and professionals will be exhibiting various spa treatments (massages, foot therapy, facials, etc.). Participants will be entered into drawings, providing them opportunities for spa treatments and non-invasive health screenings. Complementary lunch will be served. During lunch a guest speaker will present on healthy food choices. For more information on how to purchase your $25 advance ticket, please contact Paula at 603-752-6680 x 165.
2011 Spirit of New Hampshire Award recipients announced CONCORD, NH – Volunteer NH has announced the 2011 Spirit of New Hampshire Award recipients. The Spirit of New Hampshire Awards Celebration, hosted by Volunteer NH in collaboration with the office of the governor, honors outstanding contributions to volunteerism throughout the state of New Hampshire. Spirit Awards augment the many local recognition events that show appreciation for the work of community volunteers and volunteer programs. The award recipient from Berlin is Margret “Marge” McClellan, of Berlin, who is known a crusader and leader. Sitting on the board of many non-profits, Marge has the
wisdom, passion that makes her an invaluable volunteer to the staff of organizations she invests herself in and her fellow board member. Some of Marge’s involvement includes Northern Human Services, Coos County Family Health Services, and the Holiday Center. This year’s event is November 8, at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. The Awards Ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. and is provided at no cost. A $50-a-plate celebratory dinner will be held before the ceremony from 5 to 6:30 p.m. For more information on attending the dinner, event, or for complete details on all award recipients, please visit www.volunteernh.org.
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Rose Dodge, Managing Editor Rita Dube, Office Manager Theresa Johnson, Advertising Sales Representative Barbara Tetreault, Reporter Melissa Grima Reporter Jean LeBlanc, Sports John Walsh, Contributor “Seeking the truth and printing it” Mark Guerringue, Publisher Adam Hirshan, Editor THE BERLIN DAILY SUN is published Tuesday through Friday by Country News Club, Inc. Dave Danforth, Mark Guerringue, Adam Hirshan, Founders Offices and mailing address: 164 Main Street, Berlin, NH 03570 E-Mail: bds@berlindailysun.com Tel.: (603) 752-5858 FAX: (1-866) 475-4429 CIRCULATION: 8,925 distributed FREE throughout the Berlin-Gorham area. For delivery call 752-1005
By Thomas L. Friedman The New York Times
Did You Hear the One About the Bankers?
CITIGROUP is lucky that Muammar el-Qaddafi was killed when he was. The Libyan leader’s death diverted attention from a lethal article involving Citigroup that deserved more attention because it helps to explain why many average Americans have expressed support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The news was that Citigroup had to pay a $285 million fine to settle a case in which, with one hand, Citibank sold a package of toxic mortgage-backed securities to unsuspecting customers — securities that it knew were likely to go bust — and, with the other hand, shorted the same securities — that is, bet millions of dollars that they would go bust. It doesn’t get any more immoral than this. As the Securities and Exchange Commission civil complaint noted, in 2007, Citigroup exercised “significant influence” over choosing $500 million of the $1 billion worth of assets in the deal, and the global bank deliberately chose collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.’s, built from mortgage loans almost sure to fail. According to The Wall Street Journal, the S.E.C. complaint quoted one unnamed C.D.O. trader outside Citigroup as describing the portfolio as resembling something your dog leaves on your neighbor’s lawn. “The deal became largely worthless within months of its creation,” The Journal added. “As a result, about 15 hedge funds, investment managers and other firms that invested in the deal lost hundreds of millions of dollars, while Citigroup made $160 million in fees and trading profits.” Citigroup, which is under new and better management now, settled the case without admitting or denying any wrongdoing. James Stewart, a business columnist for The Times, noted that Citigroup’s flimflam made “Goldman Sachs mortgage traders look like Boy Scouts. In settling its fraud charges for $550 million last year, Goldman was accused by the S.E.C. of being the middleman in a similar deal, allowing the hedge fund manager John Paulson to help choose the mortgages and then bet against them without disclosing this to the other parties. Citigroup dispensed with a Paulson figure altogether, grabbing those lucrative roles for itself.” (Last Thursday, the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case demanded that the S.E.C. explain how such serious securities fraud could end with the defendant neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing.) This gets to the core of why all the anti-Wall Street groups around the globe are resonating. I was in Tahrir Square in Cairo for the fall of Hosni Mubarak, and one of the most striking things to me about that demonstra-
tion was how apolitical it was. When I talked to Egyptians, it was clear that what animated their protest, first and foremost, was not a quest for democracy — although that was surely a huge factor. It was a quest for “justice.” Many Egyptians were convinced that they lived in a deeply unjust society where the game had been rigged by the Mubarak family and its crony capitalists. Egypt shows what happens when a country adopts freemarket capitalism without developing real rule of law and institutions. But, then, what happened to us? Our financial industry has grown so large and rich it has corrupted our real institutions through political donations. As Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, bluntly said in a 2009 radio interview, despite having caused this crisis, these same financial firms “are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place.” Our Congress today is a forum for legalized bribery. One consumer group using information from Opensecrets.org calculates that the financial services industry, including real estate, spent $2.3 billion on federal campaign contributions from 1990 to 2010, which was more than the health care, energy, defense, agriculture and transportation industries combined. Why are there 61 members on the House Committee on Financial Services? So many congressmen want to be in a position to sell votes to Wall Street. We can’t afford this any longer. We need to focus on four reforms that don’t require new bureaucracies to implement. 1) If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big and needs to be broken up. We can’t risk another trilliondollar bailout. 2) If your bank’s deposits are federally insured by U.S. taxpayers, you can’t do any proprietary trading with those deposits — period. 3) Derivatives have to be traded on transparent exchanges where we can see if another A.I.G. is building up enormous risk. 4) Finally, an idea from the blogosphere: U.S. congressmen should have to dress like Nascar drivers and wear the logos of all the banks, investment banks, insurance companies and real estate firms that they’re taking money from. The public needs to know. Capitalism and free markets are the best engines for generating growth and relieving poverty — provided they are balanced with meaningful transparency, regulation and oversight. We lost that balance in the last decade. If we don’t get it back — and there is now a tidal wave of money resisting that — we will have another crisis. And, if that happens, the cry for justice could turn ugly. Free advice to the financial services industry: Stick to being bulls. Stop being pigs.
Special Olympics Bowling Tournament was a complete success Letter to the editor: Fortunately the weather remained fairly calm compared to down south and we were able to hold the 20th Annual Special Olympics Great North Woods State Bowling Tournament on October 29, at the Berlin Bowling Center. Over 60 olympians rep-
resenting White Mountain, White Mountain Elementary, Notchway Bears, and the Androscoggin River Athletes enjoyed a full day of low-key competition and great camaraderie. It is certainly inspiring to see so many friends and family attending to see TORUNAMENT page 5