The report by healthcare analysts Dr Foster found that 12 trusts are putting patients at serious risk because of life-threatening errors and ’systemic’ safety failings  -  even though eight of them were praised as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ by the Care Quality Commission health watchdog only last month.

It also found that 27 trusts  -  a fifth of the total  -  have unusually high death rates  -  equating to almost 5,000 excess deaths.

More than half of the 27 are supposedly elite foundation trusts. The joint-tenth-worst, Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre, is said by Dr Foster to have a death rate 15 per cent higher than the national average.

5,000 excess deaths? That is beyond ridiculous. And while 15 percent may not sound that high when your tipping your waiter, that kind of percentage is outrageous when you’re comparing death rates.It only gets worse from there.

The Dr Foster report uncovered a litany of failings in the NHS, showing that shocking safety lapses are widespread across the Health Service. It concluded that some trusts, many of them foundations, were guilty of ’systemic under-performance’ and were subjecting patients to ‘life-threatening errors’.

The report found that almost four in ten trusts do not routinely investigate unexpected deaths, or cases of serious harm, on their wards; and one in ten trust boards does not routinely discuss patient safety.

Last year, 2008/09, saw at least 209 incidents in which foreign objects, such as swabs and drill bits, were left inside patients after surgery.

There were also 82 cases of surgeons operating on the wrong part of the body.

More than 5,000 patients died last year after being admitted for low-risk conditions, including 220 with asthma and 56 with appendicitis.

I don’t actually know what’s worse – operating on the entirely wrong part of your patient, or just happening to leave drill bits in their bodies. Hospitals should always be held to the highest standards. When it comes to people’s lives, there is no room for error, or sloppy work.

Not only were the men and women in charge of these hospitals not punished, they were actually rewarded for their negligence.

“I’m dead if this leaks. I really am . . . and my career is over. I’ll be like Martha f- – -ing Stewart,” she allegedly said on wiretaps recorded by the feds.

Chiesi, 43, an Upper East Sider, faces six counts of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud in an indictment announced yesterday. She could end up imprisoned for decades.

Chiesi, who worked for New Castle Funds LLC, a former Bear Stearns affiliate, expressed fear in wiretapped talks of being caught for gathering insider information, which she used for her own company’s trading and shared with hedge-fund kingpin Raj Rajaratnam.

AP

‘I’M DEAD’: Danielle Chiesi, who was allegedly caught on wiretaps fretting about her involvement in an insider-trading ring, is led in handcuffs from FBI headquarters downtown yesterday.

She made the Martha Stewart crack in August 2008 discussing inside data about computer-chip maker AMD, the feds say. Stewart was convicted of insider trading in 2004 and served five months in prison.

Chiesi allegedly expressed similar fears to Rajaratnam a week earlier that authorities would learn she’d spread inside data about AMD and IBM.

“If it leaks, I think I’m out of business . . . Because . . . who knows IBM? And who, who’s in bed with AMD? Put Danielle’s name on the f- – -in’ ticket,” she said.

Chiesi was freed on $2 million bond at a Manhattan federal court hearing yesterday. Her lawyer, Alan Kaufman, said she plans to plead not guilty at an appearance in November. (NY Post)

Federal prosecutors say they expect Frank DiPascali, the longtime chief financial officer for the disgraced money manager Bernard L. Madoff, to plead guilty next week to unspecified charges.

In a letter to a federal judge in Manhattan dated Friday, the prosecutors said Mr. DiPascali had agreed to enter a plea on Tuesday. His lawyer declined comment.

Earlier Friday, prosecutors had notified the court they intended to charge Mr. DiPascali. Such a notification usually indicates a plea deal is at hand and suggested that Mr. DiPascali could be cooperating in the investigation of Mr. Madoff’s immense Ponzi scheme.

Mr. Madoff, 71, pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges that his investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme run at least since the early 1990s.

The fraud demolished the life savings of thousands of people, wrecked charities and shook confidence in the financial system. Mr. Madoff was sentenced in June to 150 years in prison.

(New York Times)

Former CEO of insurance giant AIG will have to pay to $15 million to settle charges with the SEC, CNNMoney reports. Hank Greenberg’s been accused of inflating earnings at his headline-attracting company and the SEC sued him for accounting fraud. Of course, this is a small comfort for the Little Guys, considering that Greenberg still has millions sitting in the bank.

Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, former chief executive of American International Group, has agreed to pay $15 million to settle charges related to an accounting scandal, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday.

A complaint filed by the SEC said Greenberg and former chief financial officer Howard Smith were involved in “numerous improper accounting transactions” that inflated AIG’s reported financial results between 2000 and 2005.

Smith agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle the charges, the SEC said.

“Corporate leaders cannot avoid the truth and consequences of their companies’ performance by using improper accounting gimmicks and signing off on distorted financial reports,” said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement.

AG Andrew Cuomo’s findings indicate that Citigroup gave $5.33 billion in bonuses for its employees in 2008, despite receiving government assistance last fall. That’s not $5.33 billion for salaries. That’s $5.33 billion for bonuses alone. And they’re not the only ones when it comes to bloated bonuses. More shocking: Cuomo found “no clear rhyme or reason” to the bonus compensation plans and rejected the idea that these banks pay for performance, the go-to line for the criticized financial giants.

From AP News:

Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money, gave employees $5.33 billion in bonuses for 2008, New York’s attorney general said Thursday in a report detailing the payouts by nine big banks.The report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office focused on 2008 bonuses paid to the initial nine banks that received loans under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall. Cuomo has joined other government officials in criticizing the banks for paying out big bonuses while accepting taxpayer money.

Citigroup, which is now one-third owned by the government as a result of the bailout, gave 738 of its employees bonuses of at least $1 million, even after it lost $18.7 billion during the year, Cuomo’s office said.

The New York-based bank received $45 billion in government money and guarantees to protect it against hundreds of billions of dollars on potential losses from risky investments.

“There is no clear rhyme or reason to the way banks compensate and reward their employees,” Cuomo said in the report, noting banks have not in recent years actually tied pay to performance as they claim when describing their compensation programs. Cuomo added that when banks’ performance deteriorated significantly, “they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well.”

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee approved legislation that would let regulators ban incentive pay at banks and give shareholders a vote on bonuses in response to public outrage over Wall Street pay.The bill, adopted 40-28 today, would allow banking agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission to bar compensation practices that push financial companies to take “inappropriate risks.” The House and Senate must pass the bill before the president signs it into law. The House may vote by July 31.

“There is a risk to the system when the incentive structure is huge,” Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said as the committee debated the legislation during a meeting in Washington.

Members of Congress have faulted Wall Street banks for basing employee compensation on revenue generated in a given year without adequate regard to whether those transactions succeed over time. The legislation, which goes further than the Obama administration’s proposals to regulate compensation, also is aimed at quelling a political uproar over bonuses paid to executives whose companies took aid from U.S. rescue programs.

Now that the Financial Services Committee has weighed in, it’s time to wait for the rest of the House as well as the Senate to stand up for us Average Joes. We’re waiting- don’t disappoint us!

There’s been some dramatic developments in the Greenlight project happening in North Carolina. Essentially, the big US ISPs are doing everything in their power including lobbying the state to make it illegal to set up a superior ISP in the area. Now, reports are coming in that say that the big US ISPs are using push polling over the phones to get customers to side with legislation that would kill faster and cheaper broadband.

It’s a staple in every conspiracy theory against a mega corporation. A mega company that has overwhelming power in a set market place locking away any kind of innovation that would pose a threat to its business model. Right now, it’s happening with high speed internet.

For those that have missed this controversy, Daily Tech has a very nice round-up of the big controversy surrounding government initiated broadband. In a nutshell, a city in North Carolina got tired of slow internet for prices that have gone through the roof and getting even more expensive. So, the city took matters in their own hands and rolled out fibre optic cables throughout the city.

The service, currently named Greenlight Inc., approached the Time Warner Cable and Embarq, proposing they use the infrastructure for a more reliable and faster internet connection for a cheaper price. The big cable companies refused, so the government was left with all this infrastructure with no support from the big telecom companies. After doing some research, the government found out that the service would be extremely cheap to run and would give the government huge profits. So, they decided to run Greenlight Inc. themselves.

Oh no! Time Warner can’t have that! What? Healthy competition? Unheard of! In retaliation to the city for having the gumption to think they could offer a competative price on ISP service, Warner and Embarq set their sites on lobbying for legislation to ban such internet provision. So much for the free market. Read on for the whole sordid story.

TV Still from a Kutner advertisement

Adam Kutner puts on a good face in his ads. He looks helpful as he assures potential customers that he can help them in their times of legal crisis. But back in his office it’s a completely different story. His personnel report that he becomes a tyrannical monster, barraging them with foul language and racial slurs (most of the women working at his firm are Hispanic). He’s also been known to swing golf clubs at the employees, and even threaten to actually hit them.

“I was warned he was tough to work with,” says Begley, a single mother of two. “I was told he has a temper and that he yells a lot.” But Begley says she’d never expected the humiliating treatment that she claims brought on chest pains and anxiety attacks, and made her seek treatment for depression. “The staff was like stepkids living under an abusive dad,” she says.

“I’ve worked for a lot of attorneys, and I understand working for attorneys is high-stress as it is, but Adam was very degrading. He works you to the bone and then kicks you like a dog,” says LaDonna Blake, who worked for Kutner several times over about a 10-year period beginning in 1994.

I’m behind these women 100%. This jerk definitely deserves to be sued for his treatment of his employees. Some do argue that the secretaries and clerks are paid extremely well ($75,000 a year was quoted), that really only amounts to hazard pay. When they threaten to leave, Kutner bribes them back with more money. While having plenty of income is a good thing, a person shouldn’t have to put up with abuse in the workplace in order to “earn” it.

Click here for the entire story. The list of abusive incidents just goes on. Warning: the article has lots of language since they are quoting the jerk.

So it’s an unnerving event when employees of a company start falsely posting positive comments about their company. There’s no factual bases for these comments – it’s purely false advertising!

This is exactly what happened with the plastic surgery clinic Lifestyle Lift in New York. And what’s more, the employees wrote these posts at the direction of the management! All in an effort to drive sales. What jerks!

Internal emails discovered by Attorney General Cuomo’s investigation show that Lifestyle Lift employees were given specific instructions to engage in this illegal activity. One e-mail to employees said: “Friday is going to be a slow day – I need you to devote the day to doing more postings on the web as a satisfied client.” Another internal email directed a Lifestyle Lift employee to “Put your wig and skirt on and tell them about the great experience you had.”

In addition to posting on various Internet message board services, Lifestyle Lift also registered and created stand-alone Web sites, such as MyFaceliftStory.com, designed to appear as if they were created by independent and satisfied customers of Lifestyle Lift. The sites offered positive narratives about the Lifestyle Lift experience. Some of these sites purported to offer forums for users to add their own comments about Lifestyle Lift. In reality, however, Lifestyle Lift either provided all the “user comments” themselves, or closely monitored and edited third-party comments to skew the discussion in favor of Lifestyle Lift. Examples of these narratives can be downloaded at www.oag.state.ny.us/bureaus/internet_bureau/pdfs/LifestyleLiftStories.pdf.

Read the entire article here.

Siddiqui allegedly often bought the goods at higher prices than he could have received in exchange for kick backs of up to 31% of the total sales price according to the Associated Press. The kickbacks were funneled into a company that Siddiqui set up called PC International.

The IRS reports that five unnamed vendors had made deposits into accounts owned by PC International totaling $65.6 million. Of the amounts deposited, a massive sum of $17.9 million was paid out to Las Vegas Sands Corp, the operator of the Venetian Casino Resort in Las Vegas according to complaints filed in the case.

Siddiqui’s gambling habits were so massive that the casino would charter private jets to fly him to Las Vegas to gamble.

He managed to embezzle $65.6 million dollars. That is not a small number! And, of course, he blows it all in casinos. You know he was losing the big bucks when the casino flies the guy out. Vegas was practically importing money in the shape of one loser millionare.

But despite the gambling, in order to shave that much money off of your company, you’ve got to be pretty smart, right? You’ve really got to stay ahead of the game when that much money is involved. You know, be organized. And I know what’s organized…spreadsheets! Those’ll keep all those pesky bribes and kickbacks in order.

The IRS claims that the deals for the massive commissions that Siddiqui had brokered were in exchange for guaranteeing that he’d keep the products stocked on shelves. The elaborate and lucrative scheme toppled when Siddiqui left spreadsheets on his desk outlining the payments and alleged kickbacks.

The spreadsheets were discovered by another Fry’s executive while Siddiqui was away from the office. The other unnamed executive took the spreadsheets and turned them over to authorities. After receiving the spreadsheets, the IRS looked into Siddiqui’s bank records and found evidence that a total of $167.8 million had been deposited into the shell company’s accounts. The five Fry’s suppliers had made a total of 70 wire transfers into the accounts totaling $65.6 million. The suppliers were not named as defendants in the case. (source)

Yes, you read that right. The man organized his illegal ventures into one handy dandy spreadsheet, then left it on his desk for anyone to see. Talk about a paper trail.