Daily Archives: February 27, 2007

Enronizing the Nacchio trial

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cliff%20stricklin%20022707.jpgPeter Lattman notes this Jeff Smith/Rocky Mountain News article on Cliff Stricklin, the former Enron Task Force prosecutor who is gearing up as lead prosecutor in the upcoming criminal trial in Denver of Joseph Naccio, the former Qwest CEO. Naccio is charged with several fraud counts alleging that he sold over $100 million of stock during the first five months of 2001 while knowing that the telco’s finances were weakening. Naccio contends that he believed that the company’s finances and prospects were fine, and that his stock sales were simply a diversification strategy that he was pursuing at the behest of his investment advisors.
Although the article describes Stricklin’s goal of keeping the Naccio trial simple, it does note Stricklin’s dubious (and rather complicated) handling of the trial of the first Enron Broadband case, which ended in a crushing prosecution defeat:

In the Enron Broadband case in 2005, Stricklin failed to win convictions against the five former executives on trial. Three were acquitted on some charges, and the jury deadlocked on charges against the other two.
During the trial, the prosecution presented a videotape it said had been shown to stock analysts in 2000 when it hadn’t, a mistake Stricklin apologized for in his closing arguments. Stricklin also had to rebut defense arguments that some of the prosecution witnesses had tailored their testimony out of fear of being charged themselves.

That description soft-pedals Stricklin’s performance in the first Enron Broadband trial, which — as noted earlier here — exemplified the DOJ’s “anything for a conviction” attitude toward businesspeople in the post-stock market bubble era. Stricklin might also remember to be careful about what he asks on re-direct examination of cooperating witnesses during the Naccio trial.

The ruse of dieting

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diet%20scales.jpgThis earlier post made the point that a sound understanding of nutritional principles and moderate eating habits are far more likely to result in proper personal weight management than relying on the dozens of fad diets that are available to the American consumer.
Along those lines, this Sandy Szwarc post reports on some rather startling statistics relating to one such diet program:

A study on one of the largest commercial weight-loss programs was just published in the International Journal of Obesity but has been ignored by the press. Understandably, a major media campaign and flurry of press releases have not trumpeted its findings.
Researchers at four major research centers across the country followed 60,164 adults enrolled in the Jenny Craig Platinum program in 2001-2002 to evaluate how long people were able to stick with this program and how much weight they lost.
They found that a quarter dropped out the first month, 42% after 3 months, 22% after 6 months, and only 6.6% were able to stick with the program for a year.
Unlike Kirstie Alley, the weight loss among people not being paid as celebrity spokespersons was considerably less notable. For a 200 pound woman able to keep with the program an entire year, according to this study, she would have lost half a pound a week….except fewer than 7 out of 100 were able to hang in for a full year. Hardly winning endorsement for the success and palatability of the program.

Read the entire post. Research is increasingly concluding that being overweight does not equate with increased mortality risk. Rather, physical activity and fitness have a far greater impact on lowering mortality risk than one’s body mass index or waist measurements. Despite our cultural stereotypes of what ìfitî looks like, research on obese adults has shown that about half rate highly fit on maximal exercise testing, which is not much different from slender people.
Thus, there is nothing wrong with wanting to lose a few pounds, but forget about the latest fad diet. Instead, understanding nutrition and modifying eating habits over the long-term is much more likely to produce the calorie deficit that will eventually result in permanent weight loss. But if the goal is to reduce mortality risk, the better bet is simply to increase the exercise and recreation regimen, and more exercise is not necessarily better ó a couple of hours total spread over 3-5 days a week is fine.

Barack Obama’s questionable economics

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Thomas%20Sowell%20022607.jpegThe exceedingly clear thinking Thomas Sowell (earlier posts here and here) is reviewing Democratic Party Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s positions on economic policy and doesn’t much like what he sees:

Senator Barack Obama recently said, “let’s allow our unions and their organizers to lift up this country’s middle class again.”
Ironically, he said it at a time when Detroit automakers have been laying off unionized workers by the tens of thousands, while Toyota has been hiring tens of thousands of non-union American automobile workers. [. . .]
Senator Obama is being hailed as the newest and freshest face on the American political scene. But he is advocating some of the oldest fallacies, just as if it was the 1960s again, or as if he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing since then. [. . .]
Senator Obama is not unique among politicians who want to control prices, as if that is controlling the underlying reality behind the prices. [. . .]
The underlying reality that politicians do not want to face is that here, too, prices convey a reality that is not subject to political control. . .

One of the hardest things for politicians to resist is indulging most voters’ tendency to believe economic fallacies. Unfortunately, most politicos do the easy thing and give the voters what they want to hear. That is probably a good approach to getting elected, but it’s a lousy one for governing.