Loren C. Steffy's Blog, page 68

BP's return to the Gulf: the whack-a-mole effect

Last week, BP pushed ahead with plans to resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, one week after the release of final joint report by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management into its Macondo well disaster in April 2010. Now, BP wants the government to approve a plan for five wells, originally filed in 2008, that would boost production in some of the company's most profitable fields.

Book signing & panel discussion

I will be moderating a panel discussion entitled "The Gulf Coast: Aftermath of an Unnatural Disaster" at the SXSW Eco Conference in Austin, 3:15 p.m. on Oct. 6. I also will be signing copies of Drowning in Oil. For more info: http://sxsweco.com/

H-P's real problem is in the boardroom

Hewlett-Packard's shares are falling toward a six-year low this morning after the company announced yet another change of chief executives. Yesterday, H-P's board booted Leo Apotheker and replaced him with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Apotheker had been in the job less than 11 months. Whitman is a proven leader, but it's not clear if [...]

Return of the Fed guy

If you've read my column over the years, you know that I occasionally try my hand at humor. (This was one of my favorites.) I always admired Art Buchwald's column, and quite frankly, I don't know how he was able to make it so consistently good for so long. The fact is, writing a humor [...]

Stocks plunge amid Fed fears of another recession

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 440 points today after the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee offered its bleakest outlook this year on the economy and hinted that another recession may be unavoidable. Wrapped up in that decline was the collective scream of investors who now realize, if they didn't before, that [...]

How would AT&T purchase of T-Mobile create jobs?

That was what I found myself wondering as I read a Bloomberg BusinessWeek article about how AT&T spread money among lawmakers who, coincidentally, have written a letter urging the Obama administration to allow AT&T to complete its acquisition of T-Mobile. It's not surprising, after all, that AT&T doled out cash to build a loyal support [...]

GOP and Fed agree, sort of

In an audacious move, a group of Republican congressional leaders — including House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday, urging him to "resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy." Never mind that part of the Fed's [...]

Stanford investors insurance coverage source of internal SEC dispute

The Securities and Exchange Commission's change of heart with regard to the long-suffering investors of Allen Stanford is now a little more clear. Earlier this week, the SEC's inspector general released his latest report, this one focusing on potential conflicts of interest involving David Becker, the commission's former general counsel and senior policy director. Becker [...]

Would a lower corporate tax rate create jobs?

A group of 13 corporations and organizations is using the tax debate that's sprung up around President Obama's to raise taxes on the rich to call for cutting the corporate tax rate. The group is calling itself the "Reducing America's Taxes Equitably" coalition. In a release, the group decried the 35 percent corporate tax rate [...]

Allen Stanford claims amnesia, and it seems contagious

R. Allen Stanford, accused of running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme from offices in Houston and the Caribbean island of Antigua, apparently has a new defense tactic: amnesia. Stanford has been held without bail since his arrest in 2009. He was later beaten in prison by another inmate, then became addicted to pain killers as [...]