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Good Billions After Bad

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele - Sep. 11 (Special Report) - As the Bush administration waned, the Treasury shoveled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in tarp funds into the financial system—without restrictions, accountability, or even common sense. The authors reveal how much of it ended up in the wrong hands, doing the opposite of what was needed.

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A Media Guy Asks: Why Do They Hate Us?

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Matt Pressman - Jun. 24 (Opinion) - There’s no question media people think highly of themselves. We tend to be well-educated and worldly, and we consider ourselves worthy to help shape what the entire country reads, watches, and listens to. But what’s equally clear is that the general public does not hold us in such esteem. On the Internet, articles about the demise of traditional news media are commonly greeted with glee and schadenfreude. And it’s not just the online cranks. The Pew Research Center recently found that most Americans feel that the press is biased and inaccurate, and large percentages even said it was “immoral” and “hurts democracy.” So to borrow a phrase that became a media refrain in 2001: why do they hate us?

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Wall Street and the Third World

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Joseph Stiglitz - Jun. 13 (Opinion) - When the current crisis is over, the reputation of American-style capitalism will have taken a beating—not least because of the gap between what Washington practices and what it preaches. Disillusioned developing nations may well turn their backs on the free market

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Madoff's World

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Mark Seal - Apr. 03 (Investigative Report) - Among Bernard Madoff’s many dupes were his closest friends, including two tycoons he loved as surrogate fathers: the late Norman F. Levy—whose girlfriend, supermodel Carmen Dell’Orefice, would lose her life savings—and the prominent philanthropist Carl J. Shapiro. Amid the sobs, screams, and curses in Aspen, Palm Beach, and New York, with victims sharing their stories, the author gets behind Madoff’s affable façade, to reveal his most intimate betrayals.

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The New York Times on the Precipice

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Mark Bowden - Apr. 01 (Special Report) - With a doomsday clock ticking for newspapers as we know them, no one has more at stake than fourth-generation New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., who is scrambling to keep his family’s prized asset alive. Some see him as a lightweight cheerleader, others as the last, best defender of quality journalism. Talking to company insiders, the author examines the nexus of dynasty and character that has brought the 57-year-old Sulzberger to the precipice.

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The Swastika and the Cedar

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Christopher Hitchens - Mar. 30 (Special Report) - In newly liberated Lebanon, the signposts on “the Arab street” point in opposite directions. The author’s experiences—he was buoyed by a huge rally for democracy in downtown Beirut, then beaten up by Fascist bullies—show how much this diverse society offers hope but is still threatened by the Syrian dictatorship next door.

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Wall Street on the Tundra

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Michael Lewis - Mar. 05 (Special Report) - Iceland’s de facto bankruptcy—its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance—resulted from a stunning collective madness. What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a global financial power? In Reykjavík, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them, the author follows the peculiarly Icelandic logic behind the meltdown.

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Fannie Mae's Last Stand

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Bethany McLean - Jan. 31 (Investigative Report) - Many believe the government-backed mortgage giants known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were major culprits in the economic meltdown. But, for decades, Fannie Mae had been under siege from powerful enemies, who resented its privileged status, its hard-driving C.E.O.’s, and its huge profits. Surveying Fannie’s deeply dysfunctional relationships with Congress, the White House, and Wall Street, the author tells of the long, vicious war—involving most of Washington’s top players—that helped propel one of the world’s most successful companies off a cliff.

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An Oral History of the Bush White House

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Cullen Murphy, Todd S. Purdum - Dec. 31 (News Analysis) - January 20, 2001 After a disputed election and bitter recount battle in Florida whose outcome is effectively decided by the Supreme Court, George W. Bush is sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States. In foreign affairs he promises an approach that will depart from the perceived adventurism of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, in places such as Kosovo and Somalia. (“I think the United States must be humble,” Bush said in a debate with his opponent, Al Gore.) In domestic affairs Bush pledges to cut taxes and improve education. He promises to govern as a “compassionate conservative” and to be “a uniter, not a divider.” He comes into office with a $237 billion budget surplus.

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Capitalist Fools

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Joseph Stiglitz - Dec. 11 (Special Report) - behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history--a debate over the causes of our current situation. the battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. so it's crucial to get the history straight.

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Wall Street: Profiles in Panic

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Michael Shnayerson - Dec. 10 (Special Report) - It may be premature to say our gilded age has ended. Third Point dropped 10 percent in October, bringing it down 27 percent for the year, but Daniel Loeb is still moving into his extravagant new apartment. Steven Cohen’s SAC was down 11 percent in October and 18 percent for the year to date, but that still leaves him plenty of money to add a second ice-skating rink to his Greenwich, Connecticut, estate. And Larry Gagosian is still selling plenty of art.

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America the Banana Republic

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Christopher Hitchens - Oct. 13 (Opinion) - ... the chief principle of banana-ism is that of kleptocracy, whereby those in positions of influence use their time in office to maximize their own gains, always ensuring that any shortfall is made up by those unfortunates whose daily life involves earning money rather than making it.

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Tuesdays with Rupert

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Michael Wolff - Sep. 03 (Special Report) - Here was the old man, in white shirt, singlet visible underneath, doing one of the same basic jobs he'd been doing since he was 22, having inherited the Adelaide News in Australia from his father. And he was good at it. He was parsing each answer. Re-asking the question. Clarifying every point. His notepad going. He knew the trade. Of how many media-company C.E.O.'s could that be said? This wasn't a destroyer of journalism--this was a practitioner.

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What Will Liberal Bloggers Do If Obama Wins?

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By James Verini - Jul. 26 (Opinion) - In an interview with The New Yorker, Pat Buchanan recently described the life cycle of American conservatism this way: "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." ...Just as Nixon, Reagan, Gingrich, and Bush depended on developments in new media--direct-mail campaigning, talk radio, cable news--so the new wired Left, with its disheveled assortment of journalist-activists and activist-journalists, has mastered the Internet.

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Believe Me, It's Torture

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Christopher Hitchens - Jul. 02 (Special Report) - What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist--not inflict--it.

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How the Web Was Won

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Keenan Mayo, Peter Newcomb - Jun. 05 (Special Report) - Fifty years ago, in response to the surprise Soviet launch of Sputnik, the U.S. military set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency. It would become the cradle of connectivity, spawning the era of Google and YouTube, of Amazon and Facebook, of the Drudge Report and the Obama campaign. Each breakthrough--network protocols, hypertext, the World Wide Web, the browser--inspired another as narrow-tied engineers, long-haired hackers, and other visionaries built the foundations for a world-changing technology. Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb let the people who made it happen tell the story.

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We Can Beat Coal Co-Dependence

Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By David Roberts: - May. 31 (Opinion) - we don't have to--indeed, cannot--stand by and allow utilities to "build the next generation of coal plants using existing technology." To borrow a phrase from my four year old, they are not the boss of us. We are the boss of them. They will build what we, as a nation and as a species, let them build. We do not have to sacrifice our future for the benefit of electrical utilities.

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The Green Light

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Phillippe Sands - Apr. 07 (Special Report) - torture['s]...military beginnings...lie not in Abu Ghraib...or in the "rendition" of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations...?

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Monsanto's Harvest of Fear: Politics & Power

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By James B. Steele - Apr. 07 (Special Report) - Monsanto already dominates America's food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation's tactics-ruthless legal battles against small farmers-is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.

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The Gaza Bombshell

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By David Rose - Mar. 15 (Special Report) - I...listen to...Mazen Asad abu Dan describe the suffering he endured 11 months before at the hands of his fellow Palestinians. Abu Dan [is],...a member of Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist organization that has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, but I have a good reason for taking him at his word: I've seen the video.... "I lost all the skin on my back from the beatings," he says. "Instead of medicine, they poured perfume on my wounds. "

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The Gaza Bombshell

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By David Rose - Mar. 04 (Special Report) - According to Dahlan, it was Bush who had pushed legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, despite warnings that Fatah was not ready. After Hamas--whose 1988 charter committed it to the goal of driving Israel into the sea--won control of the parliament, Bush made another, deadlier miscalculation.

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Raising Obama

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Todd Purdum - Feb. 16 (Special Report) - Is he tough enough? That's the question being asked of Barack Obama. To those who have known the candidate since boyhood, it's not just those "dreams from my father" that make Obama a contender, but also his mother's daring, his grandmother's grit, and his own relentless drive.

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The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:13:47 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Joseph E. Stiglitz - Nov. 09 (Special Report) - When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.

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The People vs. the Profiteers

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:57:58 -0700

Vanity Fair - By David Rose - Oct. 10 (News Report) - Americans working in Iraq for Halliburton spin-off KBR have been outraged by the massive fraud they saw there. Dozens are suing the giant military contractor, on the taxpayers' behalf. Whose side is the Justice Department on?

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Billions over Baghdad

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:50:18 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele - Sep. 29 (Special Report) - Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency--much of it belonging to the Iraqi people--was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam's palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled.

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