Gender stereotyping in the executive suite

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catfight2.jpgAs noted earlier here, I am troubled by the recent indictment of former HP chairperson Patricia Dunn. I am equally troubled by what happened to Martha Stewart (see here and here). How much of Dunn and Stewart’s troubles are attributable to the fact that they are powerful women in a male-dominated corporate world?
Well, it would appear quite a bit. Earlier this week, the WSJ’s Alan Murray wrote this column ($) entitled Why Gender Plays A Role in H-P Drama in which Murray makes the rather preposterous assertion that Dunn and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina‘s actions at HP were the products of gender — the column suggests that the fact that both executives are women made them less likely to resign gracefully or take responsibility for the actions of others.
What gibberish. Thankfully, Christine Hurt over at the Congomerate takes Murray down a notch or two:

Why do we have to criticize women’s actions not as their individual actions but as actions that reflect badly on their gender? Did [former HP director] Tom Perkins’ actions as a rogue director and mediocre romance novelist reflect badly on his gender? On the venture capital industry? Why would we expect Fiorina and Dunn to be any more supportive of each other than [HP CEO Mark] Hurd and Perkins?

A related question: Was Martha Stewart skewered in the media — and then prosecuted for protesting her innocence about a crime that the prosecution could not prove — at least in part because she is perceived as a hard-knuckled female executive?

How did Drayton not think of this?

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7-11.jpgThe standard start time for Chicago White Sox home games next season is going to be — you guessed it — 7:11 pm
The price for that accomodation: $500,000.
I generally prefer earlier start times for evening games (most of the Stros’ games begin at 7:05 pm, which is fine). But KTRH 740 is the Stros flagship radio station . . .

Behind the Closed Doors – the Fastow Sentence

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As noted earlier here, the six-year prison sentence handed down earlier last month to former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow was surprising on several levels, not the least of which was that the Enron Task Force elicited testimony from Fastow during the Lay-Skilling trial that his minimum sentence would be ten years.

The purpose of that testimony was to make Fastow appear to be more credible to the Lay-Skilling jury — he was going to do at least ten years, so he supposedly didn’t have any incentive to lie in order to reduce his sentence.

Thus, it was somewhat surprising that, in the run-up to the Fastow sentencing hearing, Fastow’s attorneys requested a sentence of less than ten years and there was nary a peep from the Task Force objecting to the request.

Then, at the sentencing hearing, the Task Force prosecutors at least tacitly supported the less-than-ten-year sentence by not objecting to Fastow counsel’s requests for leniency to U.S. District Judge Ken Hoyt and even extolling Fastow’s “cooperation” with the Task Force in regard to the Lay-Skilling trial.

Indeed, one of the most surprising aspects of the Fastow sentencing hearing is that neither the Task Force prosecutors nor Fastow attorneys disclosed to Judge Hoyt during the sentencing hearing about Fastow’s contrary testimony during the Lay-Skilling trial.

Or did they? According to this Tom Fowler/Houston Chronicle article, Task Force prosecutors and Fastow’s attorneys met with Judge Hoyt in chambers during a transcribed meeting the afternoon before Fastow’s sentencing.

The transcript of that meeting has not been made public and none of the participants is talking about what was discussed. The Chronicle has filed a motion to unseal the transcript, and neither Fastow nor the Task Force is really opposing the Chronicle’s motion (Fastow has requested that matters regarding his personal medical condition be redacted from the transcript).

But what is really odd about all this is that Fowler reports that the Task Force, in a recent filing that is not yet publicly available, states that it wants to review the transcript of the closed-door meeting because “[t]he government is currently assessing whether to file a notice of appeal of the sentence imposed on Mr. Fastow, and it cannot make that determination without a copy of the transcript of the pre-sentencing hearing.”

Note to Task Force — it’s hard to appeal rulings successfully when you do not object to the ruling in the first place.

Previewing the Skilling appeal

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skilling101106.jpgFormer Enron CEO Jeff Skilling filed a motion for bail pending appeal earlier in the week (download a copy here; Carrie Johnson’s WaPo article on the motion is here) and, in so doing, previews the major issues that he will emphasize in his upcoming appeal of his conviction on conspiracy, securities fraud and insider trading charges: the “deliberate ignorance” jury instruction; the Task Force’s application of the “deprivation of honest services” theory upon which most of the conviction is based; failure to transfer the venue of the trial and related jury bias issues; and the Task Force’s prosecutorial misconduct, particularly in effectively precluding witnesses with exculpatory testimony for Skilling from testifying during the trial by threatening those witnesses with prosecution if they were to do so. The motion is compelling, and its introduction sums up Skilling’s position well:

Jeff Skilling should remain on bail pending appeal. He presents no flight risk, nor is he a threat to society; his appeal is not being pursued to delay; and his appeal will raise substantial issues of law that, if resolved in his favor, will likely result in the reversal of his convictions. See 18 U.S.C. ß 3143(b) (elements defendant must establish to obtain bail pending appeal); United States v. Clark, 917 F.2d 177, 179 (5th Cir. 1990) (same). Only the last of these elements should be in dispute, and Skilling satisfies them. His appeal challenges all the counts of conviction and presents enough of a ìclose,î or ìsubstantial,î question to warrant bail pending its resolution. United States v. Valera-Elizondo, 761 F.2d 1020, 1024 (5th Cir. 1985).
One of the strongest arguments Skilling will have on appeal is that a ìdeliberate ignoranceî instruction should not have been given in this case. Whether to give such an instruction always presents a ìclose question.î United States v. Tunick, No. S3 98 CR 1238 (SAS), 2001 U.S. Dist Lexis 2911, at *8 n.5 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 22, 2001). The question was especially close here for at least four reasons:

ï Such instructions are disfavored, see United States v. Ojebode, 957 F.2d 1218, 1229 (5th Cir. 1992);
ï Skilling never asserted an ìostrichî defense, a usual prerequisite to issuing the instruction, see United States v. Lara-Velasquez, 919 F.2d 946, 951 (5th Cir. 1990);
ï Skilling never purposefully blinded himself to any allegedly criminal facts, another prerequisite, see United States v. Posada-Rios, 158 F.3d 832, 875 (5th Cir. 1998); and,
ï Finally, the Task Force all but conceded that the instruction should apply only to Lay, yet the Court refused to give an instruction informing the jury that the deliberate ignorance theory could apply only to one, and not to both, defendants, cf. 2001 Fifth Circuit Criminal Jury Instruction 1.37 (approving such clarification; citing United States v. Reissig, 186 F.3d 617 (5th Cir. 1999)).

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So, what’s the big deal about paying key witnesses?

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scales of justice10B.gifIf you’re in Baltimore on Friday, you should make a point to drop in on Larry Ribstein and Bruce Kobayashi’s presentation at the University of Maryland’s 2006 Business Law Conference of their paper entitled What’s So Bad About Paying Plaintiffs?
In this related blog post, Larry highlights the issues addressed in the paper by juxaposing the treatment of a couple of plaintiff-types who are currently signing like canaries, Enron’s Andy Fastow and Howard Vogel, the main accuser of Milberg, Weiss:

We explore the basic policies at stake in the related issues of paying off plaintiffs and witnesses involved in the Milberg indictment. We ask, what’s the difference between Andy Fastow and Howard Vogel? [. . .]
Both cases involve paying somebody for the effort and other costs involved in bringing facts to a court to establish claims that society thinks are worth bringing. [. . .]

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The Fortune Global 500

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Fortune Global 500200x203.jpgTory Gattis over at Houston Strategies has the lowdown on this year’s Fortune Global 500 corporate rankings and, as usual, Houston fares quite well, ranking 10th globally with over $326 billion in Global 500 revenues.
Interestingly, the top four cities — Tokyo, Paris, London, and New York — have over a trillion dollars in Global 500 revenues. Houston ranks third in the U.S. with six Global 500 companies headquartered here. A quick glance at the list indicates that the DFW metroplex has five, although both Ft. Worth and Irving have more Global 500 companies (two) than Dallas (one).
Update: Tory follows his first post up with this one about Houston leading the list of cities with the fastest-growing companies.

Criminalizing the information markets

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winningcards.jpgAs noted earlier here, here and here, the federal govenment’s crackdown on Internet gambling is a a wasteful exercise in nanny-state futility, but also damaging to important American markets. Following up on that theme, University of Texas finance professor Paul Tetlock and Robert Hahn, director of the American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Joint Center, pen this NY Times op-ed appropriately entitled “Short Odds for Ignorance” in which they make the point that the Internet gambling ban will likely shut down important and productive information markets such as TradeSports:

The bigger economic story is how this act, by effectively prohibiting Internet betting, could unintentionally slow the emergence of new tools that have the potential to improve the productivity of the private sector and the government. Sadly, this is an aspect of the measure that both its supporters and its opponents seem to have overlooked. [. . .]
For instance, we now have markets for predicting political and economic events, where you can wager on the monthly unemployment rate or the outcome of the presidential race. (If you visit TradeSports.com, you can bet on Hillary Clintonís chances of becoming the next president: a contract purchased for $1.91 would yield $10 if she wins ó implying that the senator has about a 1 in 5 chance of winning.)
Why should we care? Because information markets, which essentially reflect the collective wisdom of savvy bettors, can help us make more accurate forecasts. Information markets have outperformed experts in a number of areas, whether itís predicting point spreads in football games or elections or printer sales. There are more than 20 Web sites that offer information-market securities, including those run by Goldman Sachs and the University of Iowa.

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They play for keeps in the SEC

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auburn helmet.jpgYear in and year out, the Southeastern Conference is the most competitive of the major college football conferences.
Reflecting that intense competition, you may recall this item from earlier this year in which an Auburn University professor charged that another university professor and the Auburn athletic department had engaged in academic fraud for the purpose of ensuring the eligibility of a large number of Auburn football players.
Those competitive fires boiled over again a couple of weeks ago when an Auburn football team laptop containing the team’s confidential playbook turned up missing the week before Auburn played South Carolina in a big game. Although Auburn initially feared that South Carolina would end up with the missing playbook, it turned out that a homeless man had lifted the computer and it was returned to the Auburn team.
All of that leads to this Onion article that reports that the playbook was actually returned in, might we say, slightly altered form.
And, just to emphasize that truth is often stranger than fiction in the SEC, this State.com article reports that South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier dressed down one of his assistant coaches during the post-game press conference after the Gamecocks won this past week against Kentucky. Spurrier followed up that dressing-down with this apology. At least I think that’s an apology.

Richard Justice goes batty again

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justice12.gifAs noted here and here earlier, Chronicle sports columnist Richard Justice comes uncorked at the darndest times.
Take Justice’s recent blog post on why the Stros should not make a play for disgruntled New York Yankees star, Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez is the same age as Stros slugger Lance Berkman and has substantially better career hitting statistics than Berkman, but Justice engages in vacuous blathering about how Rodriguez would not be a “good fit” for the Stros despite the fact that it is clear that the Stros’ main need is a hitter of Rodriguez’s quality.
Well, Justice’s subjective analysis would normally not even merit a comment, except that he ends it with the following salvo:

A-Rod may be the kind of guy [Stros GM] Tim Purpura would want, but I’m guessing the best GMs–Billy Beane, Gerry Hunsicker, Pat Gillick, etc.–wouldn’t touch him.

What a cheap shot at Purpura. Although it’s fine to think that Rodriguez would not be welcome in the Stros clubhouse, it’s silly to suggest that exploring a trade for a hitter of his caliber reflects poor judgment by the Stros GM. And though Justice apparently doesn’t want to admit it, his old buddy Hunsicker is such a good general manager that he couldn’t even land a GM job at all after leaving the Stros last year and ended up working this past season as an aide to the GM at Tampa Bay, not exactly on the upper-crust of Major League Baseball.
Richard Justice needs to remove his nose from Gerry Hunsicker’s rear end.

Stros 2006 Review, Part Ten: Season Recap and Report Card

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berkman_bashing.jpgWith the League Championship Series matchups now set, it’s time to put the Stros 2006 season to rest. At least the Stros’ late season surge was fun while it lasted, but it ended in the same manner as too many of this club’s games (previous reviews here) — with a whimper in Atlanta as the Stros failed to make the playoffs for the first time in three seasons and for the only the fourth time in the past 10 seasons. This tenth and final review of the season will provide a report card on the Stros, hopefully without the subjective blather that we endure from much of the mainstream media that covers the club.
The Stros played well down the stretch as they posted an 11-6 record in the final 1/10th of the season (including their magical nine game winning streak), which means that they were a solid 21-12 over the final 20% of the season. However, inasmuch as the Stros were 19-13 during the first 20% of the season, that means that the club was an abysmal 42-55 during the middle 60% of the season. That latter record is reflective of the club’s poor hitting, while the 40-25 record during the first and final 20% segments of the season reflect the club’s strong pitching. The combination of the two means that the Stros are about a National League-average team, which is proved by the club’s 82-80 final record.
The Stros late-season run was fueled by outstanding pitching, which has been the foundation of the club’s success throughout the Biggio-Bagwell era. After a slow start this season, the Stros pitching staff really picked it up over the second half of the season, finishing by saving an outstanding 78 more runs than a National League-average pitching staff would have saved in the same number of innings (RSAA, explained here). That was the best of any pitching staff in the National League this season.
Oswalt_Roy_03.jpgNevertheless, as has been the case over the past six seasons, the Stros’ overall hitting declined again this season. The club’s hitters generated a poor 47 runs fewer runs than a National League-average team would have created using the same number of outs (RCAA, explained here), which was only 11th among the 16 National League teams.
Thus, while this season was clearly not disastrous, my main concern is that the club’s fast finish will distract management from recognizing and addressing the festering problem with the club’s hitting that — if not rectified — will prevent the Stros from being a perennial playoff contender during the Berkman-Oswalt era. The initial management move — firing pitching coach Jim Hickey while retaining manager Phil Garner and hitting coach Sean Berry — is not particularly encouraging, although it must be conceded that young, back-end rotation starters Taylor Buchholz and Wandy Rodriguez struggled this season. That probably sealed Hickey’s fate.
But as my grades for the Stros players reflect, the Stros have far bigger issues than their pitching coach. The club’s model of emphasizing pitching remains sound, so the club doesn’t need to become even an above-average National League-hitting team to return to serious playoff contention. In fact, adding merely one above-average hitting corner outfielder may be enough to do the trick so long as the pitching continues to excel. But whatever deals Stros management make, the club clearly does not need to make wholesale changes during the off-season to return to serious playoff contention in the 2007 season. Indeed, the $40 million or so in payroll that will be freed up with the expiration of the Bagwell, Clemens and Pettitte contracts will provide Stros management with some much-needed flexibility in consummating a deal or two.
My report card for the Stros follows the final season statistics below. Pdf’s of the final hitting stats are here and the final pitching stats are here), courtesy of Lee Sinins‘ sabermetric Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. The abbreviations for the hitting stats are defined here and the same for the pitching stats are here:

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