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» Maggie's Leaving!

From GraphicsGuy's workspace   

Maggie's Leaving!

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created by GraphicsGuy on May 11, 2008 at 09:08:01 am     Comments: 22

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Now you will have to wake up BEFORE you hit 70 mph! LOL

posted by DoknowDocare on May 11, 2008 at 10:35:53 am     #

She's NOT leaving Toledo, I hope?

posted by Darkseid on May 11, 2008 at 04:08:46 pm     #

she's leavin so she can spend mpre time with her friend Tom Noe

posted by mudhen519 on May 11, 2008 at 05:23:15 pm     #

WSPD should follow suit. The city would be better served and informed if they broadcast white noise.

posted by charlatan on May 11, 2008 at 05:31:54 pm     #

Still beating that dead horse, eh Mud?

posted by GraphicsGuy on May 11, 2008 at 09:14:46 pm     #

Yep, and it's all Bush's fault.

posted by Darkseid on May 11, 2008 at 09:18:06 pm     #

Speaking of beating a dead horse, it turns out that all of the money from the coins were recovered from the sale of the assets - so how one argues that something was actually "missing" gets kind of slippery now doesn't it?

Meanwhile, Mark Dann, whose only known professional accomplishment was riding into office on the back of a political marketing campaign by the Blade, turns out to be a scumbag.

How about the $200+ million lost by Democrat Mark Lay? What about his $3 million in fees? Has that been recovered?

posted by babbleman on May 11, 2008 at 11:17:27 pm     #

I like details.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061120/BREAKINGNEWS/61120015
"Noe was fined $213,000 by Judge Osowik and ordered to pay the cost of the prosecution, estimated at nearly $3 million, and ordered to pay restitution to the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation for the money missing from the rare-coin fund, estimated at $13.7 million."

Lay is facing 20 years for fraud. It's likely Dann botched the civil suit getting only $5million. Most states manage their own assets. So much for privatization.

Marc Dann has been kicked out of the Democratic Party asked to resign repeatedly. 7 separate investigations are ongoing against him.

posted by charlatan on May 11, 2008 at 11:55:59 pm     #

I like details that are more current. It's 2008, not 2006 Charlatan - the money from Noe was recovered. The money from Lay isn't and won't be and involves 20 times more. Despite this, Noe and Republican scandal are the only reconizable terms associated with the events. That is really good propaganda.

Kudos to the Blade and Dann!!

posted by babbleman on May 12, 2008 at 12:11:09 am     #

Babs said: « {I}t turns out that all of the money from the coins were recovered from the sale of the assets - so how one argues that something was actually "missing" gets kind of slippery now doesn't it? »

No, not at all. Failing to properly account for investment funds is a crime. Failing to allow access to auditors is a crime. Babs, you know these things.

As for Dann, it's obvious that he should step down ASAP to preserve what little is left of his integrity. I voted for him and it's quite apparent that he took a big steamy shit all over that vote. Fuck him.

posted by GuestZero on May 12, 2008 at 12:20:24 am     #

charlatan said : "WSPD should follow suit. The city would be better served and informed if they broadcast white noise."

Yeah because Toledoans are too stupid to change their radio dial to a station they like. We need a government program that helps these dolts operate their radio and pays for their subscription to something relevant and rational like the Toledo Blade.

I thought Czarty was nicknamed "White Noise."

posted by jr on May 12, 2008 at 08:21:33 am     #

Yep, and it's all Bush's fault

That's true. Really, you can boil down most of the world's ills nowadays to GW. It's like the 21st century version of the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Let's all try it....

posted by pink_slip on May 12, 2008 at 11:43:11 am     #

Was the money from Noe recovered? All $16.9 million. Care to cite that? The last article I saw about Noe was some 17 months ago and I cited it.

------
Don't think I called the peeps of Toledo stupid. Don't think I praised the Blade or Carts for that matter.

I actually find people who get their info from radio, TV, and newspapers to be misinformed, uninformed, or a bit emotional as opposed to cognitive over politics, present company included.

Teh internets allows you to research everything yourself from primary, secondary, and tangential sources.

The radio, TV, and newspapers are to information for which to make rational decisions as to what muzak is to music. Not exactly the most reliable, but a lot of times they do a bang up job. A lot of times they miss the mark entirely.

To each their own.

posted by charlatan on May 12, 2008 at 05:05:59 pm     #

Care to cite that?

A Blade article from December 18, 2007:

"Once we complete the rest of this, I think we are going to come close to recovering the original principal," Mr. McCarthy said, adding that the cost of the liquidation will be factored into the final sums.

posted by babbleman on May 12, 2008 at 10:58:29 pm     #

Not really detailed. Nor very well cited.
Let's try teh googlez:

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/12/19/noe_stuff.ART_ART_12-19-07_B1_IC8QNHS.html?sid=101

"McCarthy said the state has recovered $45.4 million so far, but Brandt said there still are a few coins to sell and a court hasn't yet completed a $7.8 million settlement with coin-grading company Numismatic Guaranty Corp., which sold stock to Noe.

Brandt expects all matters to be wrapped up by June and that the final amount collected will reach about $53 million or $54 million, but McCarthy said about $8 million of that will go to pay fees and expenses.

That also doesn't factor in any lost profits had the investment been run properly, or the $13.7 million that Noe was convicted of stealing from it."

Yep, he's still on the hook for multi-millions. Bang up insight and research Babbs. Perhaps you should be in politics. Lulz

posted by charlatan on May 13, 2008 at 12:12:53 am     #

Good work charlatan. I don't see any of these numbers changing my original point - but it would be interesting to come up with our own, back of the napkin figure for the actual return realized vs. a return that the state could have reasonably expected had it invested elsewhere.

To do that, we need to have a schedule for the cost basis. Can you find out, in rough numbers, how much Noe received and returned and when? For example, maybe $10 million state to Noe in 1998, $20 million state to Noe in 2002, $2 million Noe to state in 2003, etc.

If we knew that schedule - even in round millions and round years - we could come up with a good estimate.

posted by babbleman on May 13, 2008 at 07:45:34 am     #

I had $59.73 to cover 3% inflation, assuming the 2 $25 mill inveestments spread over time.

A kid with a dartboard could have made that into roughly $70 mill. Someone with keen insight and connections, $95-$105 mill.

Other people's money.

At least the workplace will have incentives to make itself $50 million dollars safer to cover that windfall.

So Tom is the patron saint of shoelace safety. Hopefully Dann and Lay will join him in the public service Hall of Fame.

posted by charlatan on May 13, 2008 at 07:26:19 pm     #

If only Noe had properly accounted for the investments, and if only Noe had allowed auditors to conduct that accounting, then we wouldn't have had to resort to legal action, leading to about 90% asset recovery after all sales and costs are included.

This is STILL all upon the criminal Noe's head. You can kidnap a child, then feed them well, educate them, and see to it they have good clothing and housing ... but it's still KIDNAPPING and as such, a crime. The amount of money recovered from the defunct coin fund is not the point here. The point is that Noe chose to become a crook in how he HANDLED that coin fund, and that was done in my opinion for specious reasons relating to fear and politics.

Maybe by the 12th year of his incarceration, Noe will realize this.

posted by GuestZero on May 14, 2008 at 06:09:58 pm     #

I wish we knew what the actual schedule was because I'd like to see what really should have been expected.

So just to have something, I took the 8 year period from 1998 through 2005 with two investments of $25 million - one in year 1 and one in year 4. Then I used the growth rate of the S&P 500 for each year during that period as the return on the balance. The period was a really wild ride with a 49% spread between the high and low years.

While I'm not sure what the justification is in your use of inflation as an index, the compound annual growth rate of my index during that period was 3.2% - so we are basically the same. That brought me to a balance of $59.35 million at the end of year 8.

Now regarding the idea of kids with dartboards doubling the S&P 500 and people with keen insight tripling it, I would have to disagree. Looking at a wide variety of domestic markets and funds, there are very very few today that exceed 6% on a 10 year return (1998 - 2008). And remember that today's 10 year return number is biased by an 8.21% compound annual growth rate for my index in the 3 years following 2005 (I can't find numbers on the 10 year CAGR from 1996 to 2006). So, no, I don't think that a 6% to 10% annualized return from 1998 to 2005 is anywhere near realistic much less child's play as you assert.

Besides, the screeching from the Blade reading mob during that time was unanimous in the opinion that there was no room for high risk investments in public funds. So it only makes sense to compare what we ended up getting with what we would have got had it been invested conservatively if that's what the opposing argument holds.

So if the fund had returned $9.35 million, what was the agreement for Noe's cut? I have no idea, but let's use 30%. That means that the state, in the most conservative estimation, would have netted $6.54 million. So, as it turns out, they netted $4 million. So they are out $2.54 million because of Noe's mismanagement and fraud. Ok, fine.

Now Mark Lay lost, what, $250? And he took a $3 million fee for doing it?

I'll ask again, how much of that have we recovered?

GZ, I am not questioning Noe's guilt. I am questioning the honesty and / or intelligence of anyone that was in the Noe lynch mob led by Dann in 2005 pretending to be concerned about public funds or injured workers. If there was an honest concern for those things, we would have all the details on Lay's money trail and Noe would have been a sidebar. Instead, it is precisely the opposite. Why did liberals trip over taxpayer dollars to pick up taxpayer pennies?

Because honesty is not what it was or is about. Nor is it about public funds. It is about gaining and maintaining political control at the expense of the taxpayer. That expense being the lack of focus on the real loss of funds because it doesn't fit the politcal goal.

I am not naive or surprised about this. I am just trying to bring reality to the discussion. The fact of the matter is, when it comes to the Noe case, half of the screaming liberals are economically stupid and the other half are liars.

It kills me that the mainstream storyline is that their purpose was to return ethics to the government.

posted by babbleman on May 16, 2008 at 10:18:13 am     #

Babs, I've already called for Dann's resignation. In his professional-personal conduct he clearly exhibits contempt for the same law and moral standing that he campaigned on.

Whether Dann was pretending or not in 2005, he and his ilk were NOT a lynch mob. They went after a clear suspect in Noe, and found an equally clear criminal. (Noe's criminality was heavily related to the attitude that he was untouchable, which ironically is the same attitude that Dann has now.) We can question their motivations but we can't question the outcome, as you admitted.

This Lay thing is aggravating and I now expect to make another sweep of Ohio's government in a year or three if the condition of denial persists. Of course, we'll just have Republicans to replace those fuckers with, and the same problems will probably arise. When it comes to the megamillions available for playing with at the state level, you'd be hard pressed to find a moral man who can handle them without corruption. That's yet another reason why I have the meta-idea that government should be as small and as focused as possible, since that necessarily provides a minimum of power to be abused by those within it.

The Blockade's attention upon Noe was comical after a while, and that was purely for the reasons we well understand here ... that being the Blocks are kingmakers and were trying to hang a court jester just to make a point. I don't buy the Blockade and I urge others to avoid it, too, for just that reason. I might relent if the Blockade decided to assemble a Lay Investigation Team as I can only imagine happened for the crook Noe.

posted by GuestZero on May 17, 2008 at 11:53:23 am     #

Missing in all of the above analysis has been the effect of the steep rise in precious metals and the fall of the dollar, both of which work to minimize Noe's potential shortfalls. The state has been able to get near-historic high prices on the coins in the various BOE/Noe portfolios because the rare and collectible coin markets are red-hot right now with people jumping in to hedge against inflation and/or a major recession.

The economic doldrums could not have come at a better time for Noe, and the amount he has to pay back might wind up being under a few million if the coin markets continue on their upward spiking.

posted by historymike on May 17, 2008 at 07:55:33 pm     #

SHE AIN'T LEAVING!
She'll be back on Mondays, Tuesdays & Wednesdays!
Same 'bat' time - Same 'bat' channel!
C O O L ! !

posted by GraphicsGuy on May 24, 2008 at 03:31:17 pm     #

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