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IBM and several large IT firms are beginning to outsource many engineering and technical jobs to places like India and China. The number one reason cited: lower overall costs.

Various posters at Slashdot went ape shit over this news, proposing the clichéd example of unionizing the workforce, because “American jobs belong to American people.”
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I’m sure all of you reading this are familiar with file-swapping services like Kazaa, Napster, etc. As some of you know the RIAA is not a big fan of such services and has issued subpoenas to unveil the identity of those using the software to trade files.

TechTV managed to get ahold of a partial list of users that will be investigated and possibly brought to trial under charges of involuntary manslaughter, treason and sexual assault.

Seriously though, as I mentioned previously, various politicians are dancing the two-step with the RIAA and would like to make copyright abuse equivalent not only to “theft” but categorized under as a criminal activity (because remember, terrible, evil things happen with every Britney Spears album swap).

Sorry to see that anyone else will have to face The Suits and Wigs in the coming months, here’s hoping that Y2K4 strikes the RIAA central computers early and often.

NEW YORK, New York – Financial markets closed down at record lows amid reports that Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, saw his own shadow, signaling a need for an additional time period in order for the highly anticipated recovery to take place.

Prior to the revelation, William Poole, president of the St. Louis branch of the Central Bank stated, “All the necessary indicators are signaling like a 19-year old coed at a keg party, we can expect tremendous growth anytime starting in the soon-to-be here, future. In fact, I recommend that we go ahead and get this orgy going asap – I heard my mom keeps a spare printing press by the Jack Daniels down in the basement.”

Following Poole’s lead, senior analysts from the Wall Street Journal, carrying freshly baked Apple Pies to a backroom, issued a list of conditions crucial for the success of a mid-year rally:

- Foreign war(s)
- Unbalanced budget
- Deficit spending
- Printing with impunity
- Loaning with impunity
- Loathsome regulations
- Crony kick-backs
- Softwood tariffs
- Farm subsidies
- Massive bureaucratic growth

Moments later Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, seconded the WSJ recommendations under a system he gayfully called “paramount, de rigueur and momentous” — while running around naked with a plastic bong and funnel screaming other synonyms for “necessary.”

Then at 3 pm EST, CNBC broadcast the burrowing Randian waking from its bittersweet stupor. Upon the Delphic revelation that not all is well in Nottingham, washed-out commentators repeated the words “bling bling” in juxtaposition with “recovery” in what Guinness Book of World Records called the “largest circlejerk in all of written history” passing the previous record held for over 1700 years by the authors of the Kama Sutra.

From the “personal-responsibility-does-not-exist” department:

Freddie Mac: ‘This is a painful day’:

Internal report shows problems with accounting, controls, disclosure and former management.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Freddie Mac, the nation’s second-largest housing finance company, suffered from accounting problems, defective internal controls and disclosure, and failures of governance by former managers, a report from outside counsel released on Wednesday shows.

McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac (FRE: up $1.10 to $52.19, Research, Estimates) also said it still expects it will restate retained earnings as of Dec. 31, 2002, higher by $1.5 billion to $4.5 billion.

“This is a painful day for Freddie Mac,” said Shaun O’Malley, installed last month as Freddie Mac’s chairman, in a statement. “Just as investors and the public have a right to know the unvarnished facts about Freddie Mac’s accounting mistakes, they should also know that our safety and soundness have never been compromised.”

The 107-page outside report was prepared by Baker Botts LLP after a seven-month investigation, Freddie Mac said.

“Our investigation found issues of (i) accounting policy and financial reporting, (ii) internal control adequacy, (iii) former management’s governance practices, and (iv) disclosure policy,” the report said.

It said Freddie Mac became “overly reliant” for basic accounting decisions on then independent auditor Andersen, several of whose members now work for Freddie Mac, under supervision of new Chief Financial Officer Martin Baumann.

Freddie Mac hired PricewaterhouseCoopers in March 2002 to replace Andersen, discredited for its role in Enron Corp.’s collapse.

The report also said former Chairman and Chief Executive Leland Brendsel and Vice Chairman David Glenn controlled the information flow to help “steady Freddie” report “nonvolatile” profit growth. As board members became worried about the quality of the accounting, starting in the fall of 2001, “Brendsel and Glenn failed to take prompt corrective action,” it said.

Freddie Mac fired Glenn in June, and Brendsel retired. Greg Parseghian replaced Brendsel as CEO.

This is nothing new as Robert Blumen has reported on this tom-foolery several times in the past few weeks (as have many others).

What is new, the sordid realization that something is rotten in the State of Denmark — another bubble is about to pop.

Note, I’ve got some snake oil and bridges I’d like to sell, if you know of anyone that invested in Fannie or Freddie please send them my way.