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Records cast doubt on money manager’s claims
Claims by Bo Beckman, a Twin Cities investment manager, to be among the top money managers in the United States led to an investigation by Dan Browning of the Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.). Among other things, he found that Morningstar says it never rated Beckman, and his own mother sued him twice.
Read MoreFederal stimulus contracts favor large firms
A story by Michael Jamison of the Missoulian (Missoula, Mont.) shows that the contracting scheme the federal government is employing to award stimulus contracts favors large corporations over small- and medium-sized firms. In an effort to speed up the bidding process, the federal government is using indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity, or IDIQ, contracting. “An IDIQ is…
Read MoreCities overcharged by ex-politician through bond loan program
A $3 billion municipal bond loan program run by an ex-politician in Tennessee was overcharging Nashville and two other cities by hiding fees within reported interest rates, The Tennessean‘s Brad Schrade reported. The multi-story investigation used federal bank filings, audits and other public records to expose problems with the non-profit loan program, including lack of disclosure,…
Read MorePaper investigates Philly’s flawed tax board
Mark Fazlollah and Joseph Tanfani of the Philadelphia Inquirer examined the city’s flawed Board of Revision of Taxes. The board, among other things, allowed backdoor tax cuts that cost the city millions. According to the article, “Decades of such deals and persistent mismanagement by the BRT have left Philadelphia with one of the most unfair…
Read MoreHospital pulls advertising, bans paper from campus
“Hackensack University Medical Center has pulled advertisements from North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, and has banned the newspaper from hospital property following publication of a story about its governing board,” reports Mary Jo Layton of NorthJersey.com. The article addressed questionable practices of the hospital’s board members and trustees.
Read MoreJuvenile center supervisor used staff doctor to get painkillers
A 10-month investigation by producer Lauren Sweeney and reporter Melissa Yeager at WINK-Fort Meyers helped change policy at Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice. A worker at a juvenile justice center for kids with drug abuse and mental problems blew the whistle on his supervisor for obtaining a prescription for powerful painkillers from the staff doctor. Two separate…
Read MoreCriminals as mortgage brokers
Cary Spivak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that hundreds of loan brokers in Wisconsin have criminal records, including ex-drug dealers, armed robbers and a killer. In his latest installment of the ongoing “Easy Money” series, Spivak mined state and court records to find that many of these license holders have gone on to defraud…
Read MoreBankTracker crunches numbers from FDIC reports
An analysis of bank financial statements by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University and msnbc.com, sheds new light on just how dangerous conditions have become in many banks across the nation. Information is available on the BankTracker site and a related msnbc.com story by Bill Dedman.
Read MoreHome Wreckers: How Banks are Worsening the Foreclosure Crisis
BusinessWeek‘s Brian Grow, Keith Epstein and Robert Berner detail efforts by the banking industry and its lobbyists in Washington to delay, dilute and obstruct attempts to rescue homeowners. The story describes how those efforts continue, and tracks campaign contributions by financial institutions and large lobbying expenditures by TARP recipients.
Read MoreForeign workers hired as banks failed
“Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.” Frank Bass and Rita Beamish of the Associated Press reported that visa applications…
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