If you like the Koch Brothers, you will love the Stephens Clan. [View All]

[formercia]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/5268966/Red-zone-advertising-pack-angers-residents

Red-zone advertising pack angers residents
DAVID WILLIAMS
Last updated 05:00 12/07/2011
A "tasteless" mail drop has angered Christchurch homeowners hardest hit by the earthquakes.

Envelopes addressed to "Red zone resident" have been delivered to mailboxes in the city's hard-hit eastern suburbs. Inside was advertising material and an invitation to weekend seminars with insurance, home-removal and property firms.

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Christchurch Central Labour MP Brendon Burns said the mail drop was "poorly executed, to say the least".

"I think that they have every right to be angry about that – people are feeling pretty vulnerable there at the moment."

Warren Stephens, chief executive of the Lifetime Group, which was one of the companies involved, said there had been a "fantastic" response to the information pack and he rejected suggestions it was ill-conceived.

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http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/assigned-counsel/

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As Marc points out, Steve Green at Vegas Inc. has one possible answer to that question, which suggests one very big little problem with this throw-’em-under-the-bus strategy:

Ninety-eight. That’s the number of Righthaven LLC copyright infringement lawsuits in which Righthaven CEO Steven Gibson was one of the attorneys of record for his own company.

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But this is a new one. Can you actually throw yourself under the bus? Now that would sure flatten you good. And — again — it would be Mr. Gibson who would be doing the throwing:

In fact, Righthaven is half owned by Gibson and half owned by investors who are part of the family of Arkansas investment banking billionaire Warren Stephens. He and his family also own Stephens Media.

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http://www.forbes.com/profile/warren-stephens

Warren Stephens
Net Worth $2.5 B As of March 2011

Owns investment bank Stephens, Inc. founded by uncle W.R. (Witt) in 1933 with $15,000 to start underwriting and dealing muni bonds. Father Jackson (d. 2005) joined in 1946. Brothers paid $5.4 million for Arkansas-Oklahoma Gas in 1954. Plowed earnings into private equity. Investment criteria: "Whim and caprice." Famously underwrote Wal-Mart's public offering in 1970. Warren grew up in the business, became chief executive 1986. Witt died 1991. Bought out cousins' stake in 2006. Adding to private equity stakes like Stephens Media, which owns 30 newspapers including Las Vegas Review-Journal. Golf nut built ultra-private Alotian Club on 1,000 acres outside of town. Also a wine aficionado, he sold 5,000 bottles in Sotheby's auction 2007. His favorite quaff: 1959 Chateau Latour.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2011/08/15/goldman-citigroup-employees-big-givers-to-deficit-super-committee/

Goldman, Citigroup Employees Big Givers To Deficit Super Committee

If money does buy influence, the financial services industry should be in pretty good shape when the 12 members of a new Congressional “Super Committee” start meeting to decide how to trim at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade.

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A new analysis by MapLight, a not-for-profit which tracks political money, shows that the Political Action Committees and employees of six public companies— five of them entirely or partly in financial services—rank among the 10 largest organizational givers to the 12 politicians from 2001 through 2010. The five are Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and General Electric.


The top organizational giver, according to MapLight, was the fervently anti-tax Club for Growth, which gave $990,066 to the 12. Most of that went to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa) who served as president of the Club before winning his Senate seat in 2010. Here too, the financial sector presumably has some influence; the current chairman of the Club is Jackson T. Stephens, a member of the Arkansas Stephens Inc. investment banking family. (His brother, Warren Stephens, is on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans, as was their father, before the father’s death in 2005.)

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Those Stephens folks really get around, sort of like the Koch Brothers. :evilgrin: