Gloria Ferris on the Breuer Tower: nailing down the dialogue

Gloria Ferris begins to nail the smarmy dynamics of the Breuer Tower deal and throws some light on self-serving motives, and our recourse. What's important here is that she touches on the perilous tactical position in which the City Planning Commission finds itself.

Blackwell tries endless-loop theory on legal system

Plain Dealer Business: Former OSU prof loses appeal of insider trading conviction -- Roger Blackwell keeps squirming and trying to introduce the frustration of the endless-loop theory into the legal system, even as he is told to report to prison and ante up a $1 million dollar fine. The noted OSU prof and strategist is a bright guy, granted, but there may be such a thing as "too clever"; another way of stating this would be to say he's become the "poster child for hubris," but hasn't quite acknowledged it, yet. He still seems to think that the courts will abandon their claims against him if only he can wear them down and overwhelm them with his brilliance. He's still parsing the insider-trading issue to the point where he comes out right, and everybody else, even his own legal representation, is wrong. It's them, not him, you see.

Stay on top of the business strategies revolving around the idea of "the endless loop." It's one of those things that's unconscionable but not really illegal, yet. People tell me Blackwell, who seems to be a good example of amoral intellect, was one of its proponents. We should be seeing it discussed more and more as we delve into the depradations of the mortgage-lending, the mortgage-servicing, and the mortgage-foreclosure industries, as well as other things that disenfranchise the consumer to enrich the provider.

PD starting to call it like it is

Refinance, Subject to Oversight--This reporting and editorializing the PD is doing on the bond job and the cozy arrangements is what we need more of in this town. We could also use even more numbers, less speculation, to see how this might actually benefit the public.

Avoiding the appearance of impropriety is what is called for, and we don't really have that in this situation. A school superintendent at Sanders' level should have enough common sense not to present such a lucrative target for criticism. What we do have, unfortunately, is a lot of the hired help telling us what they have to and don't have to do, and this doesn't sit well in a city that's continually conned by it's employees. We already have another embarrassment, regardless of how the deal eventually goes down.

It's time to shuck the third-world-country image and get on with ethical business practices.