Day: July 17, 2008

Sam Chips in His Two Cents on the Columbia Journalism Review Taking the Hartwig Challenge

I’m going to leave Sam alone this time. 😉 His blog entry today shows that passion for insurance that makes reading Sam’s blog enjoyable. Today he is not happy with Dean Starkman’s CJR story we profiled here earlier this week.

Three thoughts: Sam is no shill, not even close. The big time insurance shills are Hartwig and Rossmiller. I agree with Bob Hunter here 100%.

This battle–“pitting journalist against journalist,” as CJR characterized it–was detailed in an July 8 onlne CJR column by Dean Starkman. As part of his “audit,” he solicited my take via e-mail, and we had a rather lively but polite exchange. He also spoke with Bob Hartwig to hear out his complaints about the facts supporting the story. Continue reading “Sam Chips in His Two Cents on the Columbia Journalism Review Taking the Hartwig Challenge”

Ex Parte Lawyers Gone Wild! North Mississippi Beef Plant Style Woot Woot Mooooooooo….

My thanks to Nowdy for sharing some of her beef pictorial collection with me. The Beef Plant appears to have morphed into a case of life imitating art imitating life etc etc etc. as Sean Carothers has taken exception to the recent rule 17 subpoena issued his construction company by Team Moultrie and has moved to quash:

By previous ex parte Motion not served upon Carothers Construction Company, Inc. (“Carothers”), the defendant, Robert L. Moultrie, moved the Court to issue a Rule 17(c) subpoena duces tecum to be served on Carothers.

Ex parte? From Team Moultrie and Folo blogging lawyer Tom Freeland who has written a good bit about the subject as it applied to the judicial bribery case? The first 10 or so pages of the accompanying memorandum of law tells us a good bit more about Carothers’ expected testimony, contains a good bit of background on the case and takes exception to what Team Carothers terms improper ex parte communications between Judge Mills and Team Moultrie:

Carothers Construction Company, Inc. was the general contractor on the beef plant project. Its contract was for approximately 16 to 18 million dollars and was with Mississippi Beef Processors, LLC. It was in two parts: (1) plant design; and, (2) construction of the processing plant. Continue reading “Ex Parte Lawyers Gone Wild! North Mississippi Beef Plant Style Woot Woot Mooooooooo….”

Oops, cats out of the bag – Swiss Re & Munich Re holding chunk of Freddie/Fannie

Raise your hand if you’re surprised! I caught wind of the official announcement on our link to Sam Friedman’s blog.

European reinsurers in total have billions of dollars invested in the troubled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage finance companies, according to a study by Highline Data.

Highline–a unit of Summit Business Media, the parent of National Underwriter–reported that Munich Re Group, as of the first quarter, had combined Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac investments of some $4.9 billion, representing 27.5 percent of the carrier’s bond holdings.

Highline also noted that PartnerRe Group, with European headquarters in Dublin, has Fannie/Freddie investments of $911 million.

According to Highline, Zurich-based Swiss Re had combined Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac holdings of some $255 million, which represented 18.9 percent of the carrier’s total bond investments.

Swiss Re, after disclosing its involvement with the two lenders, saw its stock drop today by 2.3 percent in Zurich trading.

There was no “unofficial announcement” just an educated guess that some of those “cats” I’ve been writing about were “house cats” in a manner of speaking. Continue reading “Oops, cats out of the bag – Swiss Re & Munich Re holding chunk of Freddie/Fannie”