Daily Archives: August 24, 2005

The amazing Roger Clemens

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RogerClemens11.jpgThe Stros lost last night, but not due to any lack of effort from Roger Clemens. The Rocket continued his amazing season as the best 43 year old pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball, which only serves to cement his place as one of the three best pitchers in Major League Baseball history. Following in line with this earlier post on providing more detailed statistical analysis on the performance of Stros players, some of Clemens’ amazing statistics are set forth below. “NW” and “NL” refer to “Neutral Wins” and “Neutral Losses,” which are the number of wins and losses that Clemens would have had if his team had always generated a league average number of runs in support of his pitching. Here are the stats.

Roger Clemens statistics

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Roger Clemens

YEAR
AGE
RSAA
ERA
G
GS
IP
SO
SO/9
BR/9
W
L
NW
NL
2003 41 10 3.91 33 33 211.2 190 8.08 11.14 17 9 14 12
2004 42 32 2.98 33 33 214.1 218 9.15 10.67 18 4 15 7
2005 43 54 1.56 26 26 178.1 162 8.18 8.43 11 6 15 2
CAR 699 3.12 666 665 4671.1 4479 8.63 10.82 339 170 336 173
LG AVG 0 4.38 4671.2 3109 5.99 12.95 262 262

Structured finance to the rescue

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structured_finance_eng2.gifProfessor Ribstein notes an interesting development in the entertainment business, where creative financial types are securitizing revenue streams from artists’ work into financial instruments such as “Bowie Bonds,” which are then sold to investors to provide an income source for the artists and their recording studios. Given the revenue loss that some artists and record companies have incurred as a result of illegal downloads, Larry notes the sweet irony of capitalists rescuing “the artists from the non-respecters of property rights.”
Unfortunately, this creativity will only last until the government figures out what is really going on and puts a stop to it.

Securities litigation is like Being John Malkovich?

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Milberg Weiss6.jpgPeter Henning comes up with that apt description of Bruce Carton’s analysis of the black hole that is developing in the securities litigation arena, where litigation seemingly begets litigation about the original litigation. The latest example is speculation over Milberg Weiss becoming a class action target as a result of the criminal investigation into the firm’s handling of dozens of class actions over the years. Cracks Bruce, “Presumably the lawyers bringing any shareholder lawsuit against Milberg would be . . . lawyers who only file non-frivolous lawsuits seeking non-outrageous punitive damages.”
In discussing all of this, Bruce refers to this hilarious Toronto Globe and Mail commentary on the imminent securities class action against CIBC that will claim damages caused by CIBC’s recent generous settlement of claims against it in the Enron securities class action lawsuit:

While CIBC’s shareholders may indeed have the right to feel like they’re stuck in the intensive care unit without health coverage, the logic in taking this to court would seem distinctly fuzzy. If they blame the Enron settlement for hitting the value of their shares, what happens when their lawsuit is launched? Won’t the share price drop even further? And when that happens, shouldn’t they sue themselves? And eventually, won’t they have to end up paying billions to themselves to have their own lawsuit go away?
In the end, CIBC’s share price would be sucked in on itself and go into negative territory, a kind of financial black hole that only Stephen Hawking would understand.

Stop daydreaming!

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Daydreaming Girl.jpgAccording to this Washington Post article, now daydreaming may be hazardous to your health:

The brain areas involved in daydreaming, musing and other stream-of-consciousness thoughts appear to be the same regions targeted by Alzheimer’s disease, researchers are reporting today in an unusual study that offers new insights into the roots of the deadly illness.

While some unknown third factor may be responsible for triggering daydreaming as well as Alzheimer’s, . . . a causative link between the two would explain a mystery that has long bothered scientists: why Alzheimer’s generally affects memory first. . . [T]the undirected thought patterns that most people slip into readily may result in the kind of “wear and tear” that ends in Alzheimer’s disease, . . .
This theory, however, clashes with the evidence that intellectual activity plays a protective role against Alzheimer’s disease. Far from the “wear and tear” model, other research has suggested that the brain runs on a “use it or lose it” system.

The best observation in the article is from a scientist who cautions that the findings are preliminary and should be taken with a grain of salt:

“I look forward to the public health campaign to stop people from engaging in these dangerous, risky behaviors,” he quipped. “Maybe we can equip ourselves with anti-daydreaming monitors that shock us when we slip into reverie.”

Read the entire article.

Don Willett to be nominated for Texas Supreme Court seat

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Texas Supreme Court logo.gifThe Chronicle is reporting this morning that 39 year-old Don Willett, an Austin attorney with close ties to President Bush, will be nominated today by Governor Rick Perry to replace Priscilla Owen on the Texas Supreme Court.
Mr. Willett is a native Texan who graduated from Baylor University and received a JD with honors and an AM in Political Science from Duke University in 1992. After law school, Mr. Willett clerked for Judge Jerre S. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and then worked in employment law at the Austin office of Haynes & Boone for several years.
From 1996-2000, Mr. Willett served as Research/Special Projects Director for then-Governor Bush in Texas and advised Mr. Bush on various political and legal issues. He parlayed that position into a Domestic Policy & Special Projects Advisor position on the Bush-Cheney 2000 Presidential Campaign and then later on the Presidential Transition Team. In 2002, Mr. Willett was appointed as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy where he developed civil and criminal justice initiatives and special projects for the President, including coordinating assistance with judicial nominations and confirmations. After that stint, Mr. Willett served as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Law and Policy for the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives and, most recently, as a key advisor for his old friend, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
After nomination, Mr. Willett could serve on the Supreme Court without Senate confirmation until the Legislature is called into session, but he would still have to run for election to the seat next year.

Judge Hughes hammers the FDIC in the Hurwitz case

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Hurwitz.gifOne of the more interesting (and longstanding) local civil lawsuits turned an interesting corner yesterday.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes — unquestionably the Houston federal judge most likely to challenge the government’s position in any case — handed down this 133 page broadside yesterday ordering the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to pay Houston financier and longtime environmentalist target Charles Hurwitz $72.3 million in sanctions for the FDIC’s conduct in connection with prosecuting a civil lawsuit to hold Mr. Hurwitz and other directors of the defunct United Savings of Texas personally responsible for $250 million in connection with the $1.6 billion loss resulting from the S&L’s 1988 failure.
There is a lot of background to this saga. The FDIC sued Mr. Hurwitz — the chairman and chief executive of Houston-based Maxxam Inc. — and other United Savings directors (including the talented Barry Munitz) in 1995. Interestingly, the FDIC did not contend in the lawsuit that Mr. Hurwitz and Maxxam had looted United Savings; rather, the agency contended merely that Mr. Hurwitz and Maxxam had an obligation to invest more money in the sinking ship of United even after it was clear that the S&L was going down the tubes.

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