Eric Holder, on hold

Senate Republicans are holding up the nomination of Eric Holder, President Obama’s pick for attorney general. I explored one reason why and spoke to the San Diego attorney at the center of it in this Voice of San Diego piece.

Newspaper Bankruptcy Watch: Lee Enterprises

It’s ironic that Lee Enterprises, a company that prides itself on the transparency and openness of its journalism, is engaging in a bit of financial trickery to fool investors.

Lee is a sinking ship. Its anchor has snagged on $2 billion in debt while the company is being pounded by a fierce gale.

To keep investors from fleeing in the lifeboats, Lee Enterprises announced today that it’s resorting to the financial equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs: a reverse stock split.

This is an utterly meaningless gesture designed to make it seem that the company’s worthless shares actually have more value. If you’re stupid enough to buy Lee stock after that, you deserve what you get.

Investors weren’t fooled. Shares of Lee fell nearly 14 percent today to close at 31 cents.

A reverse stock split means that instead of 100 shares of Lee worth $31 at today’s closing price, you will have 5, 10, 20, or 50 shares of Lee worth $31. It’s like exchanging 310 dimes for 124 quarters.

Nothing changes. It does nothing to address Lee’s huge problems in either the short-term or the long-term. That’s why the list of companies that went into bankruptcy after a reverse stock split is long.

But Lee is desperate to rejoin the New York Stock Exchange, which doesn’t want to trade piddly-ass penny stocks. If only the company cared as much about journalism as it does about its stock price.

Addendum: The company did receive a temporary reprieve from certain “covenants” on its Pulitzer debt, which means that Lee isn’t in default, yet. However, if I’m reading the company’s release correctly, Lee still owes a $306m balloon payment due in April. (background here).

The Real Cost of Gold II

The Economist: According to the Tanzania Albino Society, at least 35 albinos were murdered in Tanzania last year to supply witch doctors with limbs, organs and hair for their potions.

Investigators say the body parts of a single murdered albino sell for over $1,000, with the skin and flesh dried out and set into amulets and the bones ground down into a powder. Artisanal miners in the gold and diamond fields directly south of Lake Victoria are the main buyers. Some sprinkle albino powder on the walls of their narrow pits, hoping for glitter. Uneducated and desperate to strike riches, they are taken in by witch doctors’ stories of the wealth-giving properties of the potions.

Sweet Deal!

OK, I know Mitch Wade got a good deal at his sentencing but this is going too far:

Update: I just got off the phone with the Bureau of Prisons. What this means is that Mitch is in bureaucratic limbo. He’s been given a date to get himself to prison, but as of now (Jan. 23), he’s still a free man. In short, he’s en route.