NYT designates "mansplainer" as one of 2010's Words of the Year

There an irony here that I can't quite articulate.

(I would also argue that the definition offered in the article differs slightly from my understanding of the word - in ways that undermine its point. Mainly by turning the word into a type of person, making it dispositional and limited to certain individuals, rather than an activity/phenomenon common to many. Fancy that.)

While federal regulators slept

Auditors Face Fraud Charge: New York Set to Allege Ernst & Young Stood By as Lehman Cooked Its Books (W$J)

New York prosecutors are poised to file civil fraud charges against Ernst & Young for its alleged role in the collapse of Lehman Brothers, saying the Big Four accounting firm stood by while the investment bank misled investors about its financial health, people familiar with the matter said.

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is close to filing the case, which would mark the first time a major accounting firm was targeted for its role in the financial crisis. The suit stems from transactions Lehman allegedly carried out to make its risk appear lower than it actually was.

The transactions in question, known as "window dressing," involve repurchase agreements, or repos, a form of short-term borrowing that allows banks to take bigger trading risks. Some banks have systematically lowered their repo debt at the ends of fiscal quarters, making it appear they were less risk-burdened than they actually were most of the time.

Lehman Brothers dubbed transactions of this type "Repo 105." The maneuver came to light in March, when the bankruptcy examiner investigating the firm's collapse more than two years ago found that it moved some $50 billion in assets off its balance sheet.

The bankruptcy examiner's report and the attorney general's investigation found that Lehman Brothers carried out the Repo 105 transactions on a quarterly basis in 2007 and 2008 without telling investors. Mr. Cuomo's investigation found that Repo 105 transactions started as far back as 2001, said the person familiar with the probe.

The attorney general's investigation, which began after the bankruptcy examiner's report, found that Ernst & Young specifically approved of Lehman's use of Repo 105 transactions and provided the investment bank with a complete audit opinion from 2001 through 2007, said the person.

States Accuse BofA Of Deceptive Mortgage Practices

Attorneys general in Arizona and Nevada on Friday unveiled parallel lawsuits accusing Bank of America Corp. of duping homeowners with deceptive loan modification and foreclosure practices, while the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly expanded its investigation of the mortgage industry.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard lodged a complaint in the state Superior Court that alleged BofA and subsidiary Countrywide Financial Corp. misled consumers about certain loss mitigation processes, failing to disclose information about how homeowners could qualify for loan modification, among other key details.

Within hours of the announcement of Arizona’s suit, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said her office hit BofA with a nearly identical suit in the Eighth Judicial Circuit of the State of Nevada.

According to Nevada’s complaint, BofA broadly misrepresented its mortgage modification program, lying to consumers about modification requests, falsely telling consumers and credit agencies some homeowners were in default, and even selling some consumers’ homes while they waited for pending modification requests.

Who could have predicted....

Obama to blink first on Social Security

The tax deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is just the first part of a multistage drama that is likely to further divide and weaken Democrats.


The second part, now being teed up by the White House and key Senate Democrats, is a scheme for the president to embrace much of the Bowles-Simpson plan — including cuts in Social Security. This is to be unveiled, according to well-placed sources, in the president's State of the Union address.

Of course, it’s the Politico, so who knows.

2010: My Year in Vidding

In keeping up with tradition - my year in vidding output. It's been a slow year, particularly in the second half. Part of that was work, part of that was Festivids (I finished a vid! But you won't see it until next year!), and part of it - I have to admit - is that my main fannish obsession, Supernatural, hasn't been giving me the same kind of inspiration as it has in the past. Sigh.

Anyway, here's what I got:

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