Senators question $1 million pay for charity's CEO

A group of Republican senators is questioning high salaries and expensive travel bills for executives at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, raising issues that could jeopardize millions in federal funding for the national charity.

The four senators said they were concerned that the chief executive of a charity that has been closing local clubs for lack of funding was compensated nearly $1 million in 2008. They also questioned why in the same year officials spent $4.3 million on travel, $1.6 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $544,000 in lobbying fees.

"The question is whether or not a very top-heavy organization might be siphoning …

All-GOP reform team takes on the FCC.

House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) has lined up six GOP members to help him draft an FCC reform bill. On Tauzin's roster are Reps. Paul Gillmor, Ohio; Vito Fossella, N.Y.; Charles Pickering, Miss.; Robert Ehrlich, Md.; Nathan Deal, Ga.; and …

Maxim rebounds from Chau departure with new team.(service introduction of Collateralized debt obligations)

Maxim Group is preparing to bring its first CDO to the market following the departure several months ago of its CDO group head Wing Chau. Maxim shelved its CDO group, Maxim Advisory, after Chau and several key staff members left. Now, under the name Maxim Capital Management, and with former Bear Stearns managing director Doug Jones at its head as president and chief investment officer, the team is preparing to emerge again as a regular CDO manager.

"We are going to start in the high-grade, then expand from there," Jones said. "Beyond that, we fully envision long-term adding additional product lines, such as CRE or CLO, if and when we find the right talent."

…

What others are saying:

The Internet, no surprise, was abuzz with confirmations and denials. Here are some examples:

Sportsnet.ca also reported the sale was made, quoting Stephen Brunt's Globe and Mail story. Brunt is also a contributor to Rogers Sportsnet, the television partner of sportsnet.ca.

Sportsnet's competitor, TSN, discussed the Globe and Mail story during the second intermission of Thursday night's playoff game between Boston and Tampa Bay.

"The deal isn't done yet, we can confirm that," said Darren Dreger, quoting "primary sources" in Atlanta and Winnipeg. He added that doesn't mean a deal couldn't be reached in the next few days or a week from now.

The segment was also posted on TSN's website.

ESPN.com also reported a deal wasn't done, according to multiple sources.

"It's simply not true, it's not a done deal," a source from True North told ESPN.com.

ESPN.com also reported NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, on his weekly radio show Thursday night, said no deal had been made. "I can tell you that with certainty."

"We get reports, speculation, that the team's gone. And there's no deal," Bettman said on NHL Live. "I can tell you that with certainty that there is no deal for this team to move. Am I predicting that there will never be or that there won't be at some point in time? No, I'm not saying there is or there isn't."

The Yahoo hockey blog Puck Daddy, which follows the NHL, also mentioned the many denials Thursday evening.

"The likely excitement in Winnipeg was a bit premature after the story began circulating, so did the denials," the blog said.

"By all accounts, the Atlanta-to-Winnipeg deal will happen in the very near future, but when you're dealing with very large financial transactions, it's going to take some time."

Several Thrashers officials told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday that the report was unfounded.

-- Alan Small

Securitization talk: Accounting, accounting, accounting...(Brief Article)

Despite a banner year so far for volume and demand in the asset-backed securities market, certain structural aspects, particularly those associated with accounting standards (or lack thereof), have weathered a "confluence of elements coming together to create something no one expected... a perfect storm," said Jason Kravitt, partner at Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, a speaker at a seminar hosted last week by the American Securitization Forum in New York.

It's old news by now, no doubt, but most of the industry's woes are being attributed to the fallout and abuses of SPE's by Enron Corp. that were revealed last fall, followed by events such as a group of law professors lobbying against the securitization-friendly safe harbor provision that was to be written into the bankruptcy reform act. Most currently, the market is waiting for the Financial Accounting Standards Board's final rules on the consolidation of SPEs.

Old news or not, last week's ASF seminar attracted roughly 160 market participants, according to ASF Executive Director Dwight Jenkins.

This Wednesday (Sept. 25), FASB will discuss, among other things, the elusive paragraph 17, which alludes to the conduit "silo" interpretation, in the SPE exposure draft. The Board also plans to begin deliberations on some of the other issues raised in commentary received from the industry participants.

According to seminar speaker Marty Rosenblatt, of the securitization practice at Deloitte & Touche, FASB has received more than 120 commentary letters as of the Aug. 30 deadline. Perhaps testament to the severity of the "consolidation threat," one letter, said to be pushing for more stringent criteria, came from Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), who is heading up the Enron investigation.

Rosenblatt added that, of all the commentary letters, Levin's "would not be ignored."

EITF 02-12

Still in the pike, FASB's Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF) has yet to take a conclusive stance on issue 02-12, which addresses the permitted activities of FAS 140 QSPEs issuing beneficial interests.

This issue is especially pertinent to ABCP conduits, as they continually issue notes and determine factors such as terms, rates and durations. Also potentially impacted are revolving structures, such as credit card securitizations, where the transferor continually sells assets into the SPE, accruing beneficial interests prior to issuing term notes.

One consideration is whether or not these "activities," such as deciding when to issue beneficial interests and on what terms, could be automated via legal documentation at the onset of the structure - such that, once the QSPE is set up, it acts according to a predetermined set of rules.

According to the discussion document FASB made available prior to the meeting, other issues include the ability of the transferor to modify the structure (for example, via waivers from note holders), and whether the discretion given the SPE is consistent with FAS 140 requirements that qualifying SPEs are "limited to passively holding financial assets on behalf of the [beneficial interest holders]."

According to informal commentary distributed by Deloitte following the meeting, the EITF is leaning toward what the documents refers to as Approach B2, which states that the QSPE could decide terms, rates and durations if these are limited to the issuance of beneficial interests that are "well supported", meaning that the "expected cash inflows from the underlying assets (including guarantees of the timing and amount of those inflows) need to be sufficient to pay the cash outflows expected by the beneficial interests holders."

Approach B2 would call for more clarification on what is or is not considered "well supported."

On-line diversity More women, minorities make use of cyberspace

Oxygen is more important to Sharon Shea than a computer modem --but not by much.

The research analyst from Brighton spends about 10 hours a dayconnected to the Internet, the worldwide computer network. Sheafound her job in cyberspace. Shea has made friends in cyberspace.Shea even sold her red velvet, Victorian-era dress in cyberspace.

"Everything I do, I do through the Internet," Shea gleefullyadmits.

With so many miles on her computer modem's odometer, Shea is by nomeans a typical user. As a woman in cyberspace, however, Shea isbecoming part of an increasingly mainstream medium.

Not long ago, the on-line world was a veritable electronicfraternity, as white as Ivory soap and as male as the Citadel. Butin the past year or so, a little-noticed explosion has shaken thefoundations of the electronic universe, as women and minorities flockto get wired.

Observers say women are being lured into the on-line world byeverything from electronic shopping, "chat" groups and electronicmail to old-fashioned peer pressure. And some experts say thedevelopment of content for minority audiences has helped draw them online.

But perhaps more important, observers say, women and minoritiesare getting wired for many of the same reasons that white males are:"going electronic" is becoming a mainstream necessity, as computerswith modems seep their way into homes, offices and schools.

There is no hard data on the demographics of cyberspace -- whichencompasses both the Internet and such commercial on-line services asAmerica Online and Prodigy. But several recent studies and anecdotalevidence suggest a significant shift toward greater gender and ethnicdiversity.

Even by conservative estimates, the percentage of women on linehas doubled in the past 12 months to about 25 percent. Minorities,too, seem to be scurrying to get their modems humming; most analystsbelieve they now make up about 15 percent of the on-line population.

To be sure, the on-line world is by no means as mainstream asMcDonald's. Predictably for a medium that often requires a fewthousand dollars worth of hardware, most studies show the on-linepopulation to be wealthier, better educated and younger than thegeneral US population. Cyberspace is not a place many poor peoplevisit.

Still, said Anthony Rutkowski, the director of the Virginia-basedInternet Society, "there's finally a strong trend toward diversity."

And if a pat on the back from one of the nation's foremost fashionjournals means you've made it, cyberspace is here to stay.Cosmopolitan magazine -- not normally known for its high-techemphasis -- recently lauded the on-line world as a great way "toorder a new dress from a Beverly Hills boutique for the party you'rethrowing next week" and touted "chat groups" as a way to "throw abash without having to supply refreshments or clean up afterward."

"The floodgate has opened," said Marleen McDaniel, the chiefexecutive at Wire Networks, a San Francisco company that offerson-line services for women.

For minorities, too, going on line is no longer something reservedfor geeks with pocket protectors.

Just look at NetNoir Inc., a San Francisco company that operatesan "Afrocentric" site on both the Internet and America Online.Citing the thousands of users who tap into NetNoir each month,company cofounder E. David Ellington said there is now a "culturalimperative" to go on line.

Godfrey Dogan, a computer consultant who heads a minority planninggroup at the Boston Computer Society, agrees. Blacks, he said, go online to "look for everything from history on Malcolm X . . . toinformation on how to order African clothing."

Just how many minorities are out there is anyone's guess. Most ofthe large on-line services say they do not track the ethnicity oftheir subscribers, and surveys say minorities make up anywhere from10 percent to almost 30 percent of the total user population.

But a recent study by Yankelovich Partners Inc. did come up withthe finding that, among black and Hispanics, women are drasticallyoutpacing men in the move to cyberspace. Black men were found toconstitute just 5 percent of all men who have gone on line sinceOctober, while black women made up 15 percent of all women in thesame group.

While the meaning of that figure may not be entirely clear, ithighlights the on-line boom among women in general, saysYankelovich's J. Walker Smith.

The Yankelovich study, which was conducted among 414 on-lineusers, found that, before October of last year, two-thirds of allpeople on line were men. Yankelovich estimated that women now makeup 43 percent of all on-line users.

While that number is significantly higher than most recentstudies, Smith said "the skew towards men is definitely diminishingover time."

Paula Leventman, assistant dean of engineering at NortheasternUniversity, has a ring-side seat to watch the changes. Leventman,who also serves as director of the university women's programs, saidshe's seen large numbers of female students going on line in the lastyear.

"Everyone around here is getting hooked up," she said.

Ruth Levitsky, an Internet trainer, said the rush to get wired isas much about necessity as it is about accessibility. "There's moreof a sense of panic," Levitsky said, adding that many women think"they have to {go on-line} to keep their jobs."

McDaniel, of Wire Networks, said she's feeling the crunch. Hercompany's World Wide Web home page, an Internet docking station wherewomen can trade ideas and get information, is now drawing around15,000 visitors a month.

By all accounts, the presence of these women is vital to thecommercial viability of the Internet.

Although the findings may have feminists holding their noses, arecent study by Simba Information Inc. of Wilton, Conn., found thatwomen are most likely to use the Internet for shopping and "chatgroups," while men go on line mainly for e-mail and otherwork-related tasks.

For this reason, said Mary Modahl of Cambridge-based ForresterResearch Inc., "women's participation is critical for the success ofon-line shopping."

The rush among women to go on line is by no means uniform.

Several recent studies find that women are joining the Internet --the largely unregulated global network -- more quickly than theeasier-to-use commercial on-line services America Online, CompuServeand Prodigy.

Both America Online and CompuServe services have around an 80-20male-female ratio. Prodigy, which is smaller, says female users makeup about 40 percent of subscribers.

This apparent trend has confounded analysts, who suggest it mightstem from the fact that many women are going on line from work, wherethe Internet is often used. Others suggest that technologicaladvances have made the Internet not only easier to use, but alsotrendy.

Whatever the reasons, Kathryn McCabe, editor of Online Accessmagazine, said women are no longer hesitant to get wired.

"It's not that women couldn't do all the hooking up the software .. . but they just didn't want to go through the hassle," she said."Women have better things to do. Now that it's easier, they'resigning up."SIDEBAR:Race and gender on-lineThere are no generally accepted demographic figures for on-lineusers. Here are the findings from one recent study by YankelovichPartners Inc., a trend-tracking firm that has been following Americanhabits for a quarter century.GLOBE STAFF CHART

The power of the weak

CAIRO

The weak have a new power in the modern media age: Theirsuffering is visible to millions of well-intentioned people aroundthe world who are likely to support humanitarian intervention torescue them from their plight.

But there's a dangerous corollary to this new power of the weak:It can lead disorganized groups to start fights with establishedauthorities that they can't finish - unless they are rescued bylarger powers. In this sense, the media attention emboldens the veryactions that can lead to slaughter and repression.

This paradoxical power of the weak is obvious today in Libya,where a ragtag, barely organized group of rebels challenged theentrenched power of the dictator, Moammar Gaddafi. The world (or atleast, the portion of it that watches cable television) quicklyrallied to the rebels' cause. Their very helplessness was part oftheir attraction.

The impulse to help the embattled Libyan rebels preceded anyserious analysis of their leadership and intentions. The images oftheir plight also trumped an assessment of whether the rebels couldwin, or how they would govern if, somehow, they did succeed.Reversing the normal order of priorities, Western intelligenceagencies are struggling to assess who these people are, after theUnited Nations, the Arab League and NATO have decided to help them.

It may seem heartless to question the logic of humanitarianintervention, especially in the moment when disaster seems imminent.But it's useful to have some benchmarks - and to understand thesubtle reverse leverage that is at work here. Otherwise, policy willinevitably be driven by the images of defenseless people who havetaken up arms against the evil regime.

I first saw the power of the weak in action in Lebanon during theearly 1980s. Despite overwhelmingly superior firepower, the Israeliswere unable to drive the Palestine Liberation Organization fromBeirut in 1982. A major reason was that the conflict was televised.To pry the Palestinians loose, the Israelis would have had to use alevel of force and physical intimidation that would have horrifiedthe world.

The Israelis' problem, as I wrote at the time, was that theirmedia wires got crossed: The Palestinians watching concluded thatthe Israelis, despite their modern army, were less threatening thanthey appeared. The rest of the world concluded that with theiroverwhelming firepower, the Israelis were bullies. That problem ofmixed messaging has persisted for Israel ever since.

Lebanese militias also used the power of the weak: The Christianmilitia known as the Phalange started a civil war in 1975 that itcouldn't win, expecting that France and other former colonial powers(plus the United States) would come to its rescue. In the end it wasSyria that led a so-called Arab Deterrent Force to maintain thestatus quo, and the civil war ground on for another 15 years.

The power of the weak was demonstrated by the Muslims of Bosnia,who declared independence from the Serbian-led Yugoslavia in 1992,despite overwhelming Serbian military power. Their cause wasappealing (as was that of the Lebanese Christians, the Palestiniansand, more recently, the Libyans). The problem was that they couldn'twin on their own. So the world watched heart-rending images of thedestruction of Sarajevo; it was the gruesome massacre at Srebrenicain July 1995 that finally brought decisive internationalintervention to stop the war.

Weakness was strength, too, for Kosovo in its 1999 campaign forindependence from Serbia. The plucky Kosovars were lucky, too, inbattling an unpopular foe, Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. TheKosovars would have been savaged had they continued to fight ontheir own. But NATO intervened with a three-month bombing campaignto support the breakaway province, and Milosevic capitulated in June1999.

Back to Libya: The more we know about the chaotic rebel movementthere, the less attractive an outright rebel victory seems. A betterLibya is probably one where Gaddafi is replaced by a coalitiongovernment that includes both the rebels and "reconcilable" figuresfrom the old regime who have broken from the dictator. Could thisoutcome have been achieved without military intervention? That's aquestion worth pondering.

Here's the troubling conclusion: If you want to maintain adictatorial regime, break the opposition in private torturechambers, not on the streets. Intimidate or block media coverage;police the Internet to prevent dissemination of images that willshock the conscience of the world. That's a cynical strategy, but itseems to work. Just look at Iran.