Athletic Bribery

 

On Tuesday, a story started circulating about Microsoft being investigated for bribery.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft stands accused of paying off officials to facilitate software contracts in China, Italy, and Romania.

In reporting this story, the question arises of why the government is aggressively going after Microsoft in this case when a similar case involving Sheldon Addleson, or others suspected of financial or corporate crime, is not being aggressively pursued.  The answer may lie at who is at the center of the bribery case on Microsoft's end.

Darin Ruf, pictured above, is the current Microsoft International Software Business Representative.  According to documents leaked late Monday by Anonmyous, Mr. Ruf is responsible for the bribery allegations Microsoft finds itself in.  Mr. Ruf is also an athlete.  Darin Ruf is a baseball player who spent time in the Phillies organization before accepting his current position with Microsoft. 

It is Darin's background as an athlete that explains why the government is aggressively going after Microsoft in relation to these bribery allegations.  Much like the case of Roger Clemens and Lance Armstrong, the United States Department Of Justice is aggressively going after malfeasance committed by athletes, as opposed to malfeasance committed by corporations and financial organizations.  It just so happens that, in this case, both the corporate world and the athletic world overlap.

When reached for comment, Department Of Justice spokesman Bryan Anthony Sierra refused comment on the particulars of this story.  However, in the past couple of days, a military-style drone aircraft with the Department Of Justice logo on it has been seen hovering over my office.

Class Power

Let's Put Power To Work

 

There is something that I find disturbing about the recent revelations involving Lance Armstrong.  In their piece written for Sports Illustrated, Alexander Wolff and David Epstein pour over "164 pages punctuated by chilling detail, and more than 850 pages of addenda and documentary evidence".  The piece details testimony obtained from many different witnesses from many different walks of life who filled many different roles in Lance Armstrong's life and his doping.

"A Massive Fraud Now More Fully Exposed" is based mostly on sworn testimony obtained by federal officials.  A lot of investigative work went into getting to the truth behind Lance Armstrong's doping allegations, which lead to Armstrong feeling the consequences for his actions.  Why is this kind of effort not being put into investigating the alleged crimes committed by the people responsible for the banking crisis in 2008?  Why has no one responsible for the banking crisis been convicted, or even brought to trail?

In a September 3, 2012 piece written for Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi detailed the disparity in the resources put into investigations made involving banking officials and athletes.  Quoting from the piece:

The government assigned 93 agents to the Clemens case, who collectively interviewed 179 individuals in 68 locations and produced a total of 235 reports.  The mortgage task force? It was stuck at “about 50 or 60″ attorneys for much of the year, according to insiders – and many of those first staffers were provided by smaller federal agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

Did this story make much of a dent in the national narrative about these investigations?  No.  Did the Department Of Justice make any corrections to close this disparity?  No.

60 Minutes- The Case Against Lehman Brothers

On April 27, 2012, before Matt Taibbi's story was written, 60 Minutes did a piece where they detailed fraud perpetrated by the CEO of Lehman Brothers before it's collapse.  60 Minutes told of how Richard Fuld signed documents asserting that Lehman Brother was a financially sound organization, assertions which he knew to be false.  This action by Richard Fuld was not only fraudulent, it was a crime, a violation of Securities and Exchange Commission policy.  Did this story make much of a dent in the national narrative about Lehman Brothers?  No.  Did the Department Of Justice take action in response to this story?  No.

60 Minutes- The Man Who Knew

On March 1, 2009, 60 Minutes did a story about Harry Markopolos.  Harry Markopolos on several different occasions warned the SEC about investments made by Bernie Maddoff, warning that the SEC did nothing with.  In fact, as this story details, the SEC didn't find out about Bernie Maddoff's ponzie scheme untill the scheme was on the verge of collapse and Bernie Maddoff told officials of his crime.  Did this story make much of a dent in the national narrative about Bernie Maddoff?  No.  There are people who still think that the SEC busted Maddoff, when it was Bernie Maddoff who dropped the dime on himself.

Recently, the Curt Schilling headed 38 Studios collapsed in a way that directly affected the public.  38 Studios received loans from the state of Rhode Island, loans that it defaulted on.  The studio collapsed, causing 309 people to lose their jobs.  Not only that, several of the people who lost their jobs found out that they had more outstanding debt than they thought they did.  As a part of hiring people to work on it's projects, 38 Studios offered help with moving expenses to perspective employees.  This help included taking on the home loans of several employees.  38 Studios promised that they would sell the homes on behalf of the employee so that the employee could buy new homes near their new jobs.  As it turns out, they didn't.  Several of the people who had previously been employed with 38 Studios not only found themselves out of a job but also drowning in debt.  On September 30, 2012, it was announced that no criminal charges would be filed in relation to the 38 Studios collapse.  Did the collapse of 38 Studios, the unfulfilled promises they made to taxpayers and employees, and the regulators inability to find anything worthy of a criminal prosecution make a dent in the national narrative about corporate culture in this country?  No.  Did the Department Of Justice learn a lesson from the regulatory failures of the banking collapse?  Clearly no.

There is something wrong with this situation.  Corporations have and continue to commit fraud.  Ordinary people continue to take it on the chin when corporations commit fraud, costing the ordinary consumer money and jobs.  Regulators, politicians, and business leaders vow to make changes to prevent situations like this from happening.  But they still happen.  They keep on happening.  The situation never seems to change.  What's worse, people aren't demanding that it does change.  They just put their hopes in the same people who have promised to make the changes they want, who then fail to do so.  Why?  Why aren't people up in arms about this?  Why aren't people outraged about this?  Why aren't people doing anything about this?

Sure, we had the Occupy protests, some of which continue on to this day, but those protests weren't organized around a single goal.  All the Occupy protests amounted to was a bunch of people sitting in the park talking about how things sucked without actually doing anything to make it not suck.

Change needs to be made.  The people who commit financial fraud don't need to be brought to justice, the customers who made committing fraud such an appealing proposition need to not do business with fraudsters and thieves.  We need to look at the people we do business with and see if they are good honest people before we do business with them.  We cannot count on those who commit financial fraud to be brought to justice  We have seen through the regulators actions that the people who are tasked to enforce the rules are more interested in pursuing athletes, who's financial impact on out society is minuscule compared to people who commit financial fraud.

We have a power as customers in financial matters.  Let's put that power to work.

Virtual Livestrong Complainers

Complain Effect 4 Hinted At

BioWare has hinted at a new game in the Complain Effect franchise, plus provided a name for Complain Effect 3’s next single player downloadable content. The news comes in the wake of the announcement that BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuck have retired from the company. In a blog post from BioWare Edmonton and Montreal general manager Aaryn Flynn, Complain Effect is mentioned as part of the company’s plans looking forward.

“Executive Producer Casey Hudson and his team are coming off an amazing eight-year run with the Complain Effect trilogy. But they’re not done yet,” Flynn wrote. “We are releasing more multiplayer content and we have more single-player stories coming throughout the next six months, including New Thing To Bitch About, which is coming in the Fall. But the Complain Effect universe is vast, and Casey and our teams have plans for another full game. ‘Where to go next?’ with such a project has been a question a lot of us have been asking, and we’d all love to hear your ideas.”

In talking about the future, Flynn also hinted at a new fictional universe in development at BioWare, mentioning alongside it that “Casey continues to oversee the development of our new Complain Effect project.”

BioWare has said in the past that the Complain Effect franchise could continue but that it won’t revolve around Shepard. The company also hinted that Complain Effect 3 players should keep their save files. As for New Thing To Bitch About, this marks the first time that BioWare has released a name for the content, which it teased during Montreal Comic-Con last weekend.

For now, no additional information about a new Complain Effect project has been revealed, but check out five ideas for a new Complain Effect game for where we think the series should go next, and why no more Shepard could be a good thing.

I swear, this song does not contain audio captured during a Mitt Romney fundraiser.  Scout's honor.

Patents Livestrong

On Wednesday, GamesRadar reported on a patent filed by Microsoft for what is believed to be a new kind of controller device.  Microsoft has been very mute about this patent, as they are with most of the patents that they file.  However, this muteness may be due to plans for the product that, in the light of recent development, have become disadvantageous.

In the patent filing, the product appears to be an armband with sensors that track the movements of the wearer.  This product also appears to be similar to the popular Livestrong bracelets.

The Livestrong bracelets are a very popular wrist-based accessory that serves as a fundraiser for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  To this point these Livestrong bracelets have raised over eighty million dollars for cancer research.  The face of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Livestrong wrist-based accessory is Lance Armstrong.

Controversy has swirled around Lance Armstrong since he won his first Tour de France race.  Last month, Mr. Armstrong gave up his fight against the USADA.  As a result, Lance's Tour de France victories have been stripped away from him.  This action is what has caused Microsoft to be so mute about their armband controller. 

This Microsoft armband controller was set to be a Microsoft Livestrong branded armband controller.  The Microsoft Livestrong armband controller was supposed to serve as a way to raise money for cancer research, as well as show Microsoft and the video gaming public in a more positive light.  However, with Lance Armstrong's recent admission, these plans are not seen in the same way anymore by the head brass at Microsoft.  Microsoft no longer sees associating itself or it's product with Mr. Armstrong as, quoting a Microsoft source, "as an advantageous thing for our company's image."

Currently there are no plans to bring Microsoft's armband controller to the market.  According to my exclusive source, "(Microsoft) is waiting either untill Lance Armstrong's public image is rehabilitated, or untill there comes another celebrity that they can exploit."

Virtual Hockey Tonight!

With the recent lockout of the players by the owners of the National Hockey League, people with business interests in the sport have been making plans for a future without hockey.  One these entities making plans has, not only to deal with lost revenue, but what to do with the airtime vacated by the sport.  This week, unique plans were made to fill that airtime.

This week the NBC Sports Network, the cable outlet formerly known as Versus which has served as the TV home of the NHL since the last lockout, finalized plans to continue to air NHL games.  However, these games will not be the traditional hockey games they have run in the past.  NBC Sports Network is going forward with plans to air virtual games simulated with Electronic Art's latest hockey game, NHL '13.

Plans are to air simulated games on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday nights, as well as provide highlights of games that are not being televised on a new NBC Sports Network show, to be titled "Virtual Hockey Tonight".  NBC Sports Channel President Jon D. Litner said, in a statement:

"We are as disappointed with anyone with the current NHL labor situation.  While we wish the owners and players would resolve their dispute in an expeditious manner, we at NBC Sports need to put contingencies in place in case this dispute causes the cancellation of the 2012-2013 NHL season.  The partnership that we have entered into with Electronic Arts is a first step in making those contingencies."

When reached for comment about this development, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said, "Wait, people can go to other places to get hockey?  FUCK!"

Virtual Hockey Tonight is tentatively scheduled to debut on October 13th, the day that the NHL 2012-2013 season was set to debut.  If the NHL labor dispute is resolved by that date, plans involving virtually simulated content will be put on hold untill the next NHL lockout, which is expected to take place in 2014.