The funniest sitcoms on TV remain the unintended ones that appear on financial news channels.
Last month, after the large hedge fund operation run by Steve Cohen — one of its biggest boys had already been indicted for on-the-job corruption — reached a record $616 million settlement with the SEC, the financial stations dutifully (and with straight faces) reported that the deal was reached “with no admission of wrongdoing.”
Now that’s funny!
Most right-headed folks would fight a $90 parking ticket if they were convinced they did no wrong, but SAC Capital apparently paid $616 million as a nuisance charge, to rid its offices of pesky government gnats that enter through the open innuendos.
“Madge?”
“Yes, Mr. Cohen?”
“When you get a chance, today, would you write the SEC a check for $616 million.”
“Yes, of course. How shall I enter it in the ledger?”
“Just write, oh, ‘Miscellaneous.’ ”
Call me a cockeyed optimist, but if my company is trading on the public’s trust, I’m not going to pay a dime to settle any SEC claims or rumors that impugn my company’s integrity, let alone pay $616 million in exchange for the privilege and honor of admitting that our company did nothing wrong.
Yet, when this story broke, the “no admission of wrongdoing” part was treated flatly, blankly, as if we’re supposed to accept such bogus disclaimers as business as usual, which it may, in fact, be!
If we’d been handed a story to read about a company paying a $616 million settlement, a story that ended with word that the company did not admit guilt, we’d have fallen down, laughing.
“We are willing to pay $600 million because we have a business to run,” explained SAC lawyer Martin Klotz. “We want to put this behind us.”
Know what? Tomorrow I’m going to accuse SAC of some dastardly deed, say, ringing my doorbell then running.
And then I’m going to cut SAC a break. I’ll let it return to running its business and allow it to “put this behind us” for a tiny fraction of what it paid the SEC to admit no wrongdoing. I’ll settle for a mere half-a-million.
* * *
The story about director/actor Rob Reiner paying someone to stand in line to procure him a ticket to hear the Supreme Court’s arguments on gay marriage, brought to mind some live, on-site reports by our local TV news stations several winters ago, just before Yankee tickets to games in the old Yankee Stadium were put on sale.
Upon learning that lines had formed outside the stadium box offices, and that people were camping out overnight to ensure their ticket purchases, the local stations dispatched reporters and crews to interview these hearty and most devoted Yankee fans.
But when the crews arrived, they found the lines predominated by exceptionally seedy looking folks — the unshaven, toothless, dirty and detached; folks we used to indelicately refer to as bums.
Still, several were interviewed, and when asked about their presumed ardent rooting interests in the Yankees — enough to cause them to spend the night sleeping outside Yankee Stadium — they returned blank looks and empty nods.
These men were sent by and paid by ticket agents — scalpers — to hold places near the front of the line. They didn’t know Mariano Rivera from Chita Rivera.
* * *
There was small surprise in recently learning that East Orange, NJ, native Dionne Warwick, 72, is broke. TV station-grazers years ago could reason that she was desperate when she hosted commercials for the pure-garbage Psychic Hot Line sells that came to include “lucky lottery number” advice.