New Game: Government Run As A Business

Let's play another round of the old game "Government should be run as a Business" All the whiners can shriek about how bad GRod, Howard Dean, etc are doing and good old Reddbyrd --- Illinoize Voice of Reason --- will serve more examples of how the GOPs(as in MOPEs) have sold out the citizenry

ENTRY #1

Below is a slice of State Board of Elections Contributions Report (just to provide the Illinoize connection) and a heart warming tale from Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. The whole piece is not here. I did leave out how Bush's "Spies Like Us Justice Dept." opted not to intervene in the suit against Gabelli

Gabelli Funds, Inc Corp Center At RyeRye, NY 10580
$1,000.00 3/15/1995
Individual Contribution Citizens for Jim Edgar

In FCC Auctions of Airwaves,Gabelli Was Behind the Scenes
Firms Backed by Financier GotSmall-Business Discounts;Suit Labels Deals a Sham

He Says Case Is 'Extortion'

By JOHN R. WILKE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNALDecember 27, 2005; Page A1

When the government auctioned off slices of radio spectrum for cellphone service, one big winner was Victoria Kane, an aerobics instructor who had no experience in the industry. Her start-up firm, Aer Force Communications, paid $18.9 million for five licenses that were later sold in a deal valued at $144 million.

Ms. Kane's firm entered the auction as a "very small business," a designation that brought it millions of dollars in federal subsidies. They included a 25% bidding discount and a low-interest loan through the Federal Communications Commission. But her small business was backed by a big one: that of wealthy money manager and mutual-fund impresario Mario Gabelli, one of the most prominent names on Wall Street.

Affiliates of Mr. Gabelli incorporated her firm, filed its FCC applications and handled its bidding, according to documents filed in a civil suit in federal court that names Mr. Gabelli, Ms. Kane and others. Through various entities, the documents say, he also held a large stake in her company, lent most of the money she bid and profited handsomely on the sale of the licenses. In all, Mr. Gabelli or his affiliates backed more than a dozen bidders for radio spectrum, which is a license to use a portion of the airwaves in a particular region.

Call it the friends-and-family plan: Each of the principals had social, business or family ties to Mr. Gabelli. They included Trent Tucker, a Gabelli client and former New York Knicks basketball player with a graceful outside shot; Alfred Angelo, a New Jersey accountant who had referred clients to Mr. Gabelli; Nara Cadorin, an 82-year-old retired administrative assistant for a Gabelli associate; and Kathy Stafford of Moose, Wyo., a property manager at one of his vacation homes.

They all got small-business discounts despite their dependence on Mr. Gabelli, whose extensive assets would have made him ineligible for such breaks. Many of the bidding companies were formed just weeks or days before the auctions.

None of those who told the FCC they controlled these firms had experience in building or running a cellphone service. None provided such service to customers after winning a license. Gabelli affiliates put up most of the money for the bids and took 49.9% stakes in most bidding firms. Then, when the licenses acquired at auction were sold, the Gabelli firms collected the majority of the proceeds.

The FCC didn't say small bidders couldn't borrow from big business, and many other bidders did. But to exclude speculation and fraud, the FCC said backers couldn't control the bidding firms. Bidders had to stand "not merely as fronts for other companies, but as active entrepreneurs," the FCC said. FCC rules also said winning bidders were expected to start building cellphone systems.