Bob Diamond has challenged assertions that response he gave to questions “lacked candour” while the regulators were accused of abusing their powers by pushing Bob Diamond out of his role as chief executive.

While any firm changes are not going to be suggested until the Wheatley review is finalised, what can we draw from the report?

1. The culture of Barclays, and banking, is still in a “poor state”

Barclays’ management turned a “blind eye to the culture of the trading floor” where manipulation of Libor was “shouted about across the dealing room floor”. This isn’t just about Barclays, though, and the reputational damage reflects badly on everyone working in the industry. While the report fell short of clear recommendations for addressing this, it said that: “Urgent reform, by both regulators and banks, is needed to prevent such misconduct flourishing.” If more banks are exposed, expect similar investigations into working practices currently being performed by Anthony Salz at Barclays.

2. Until the scandals end, working in banking will not make you popular at dinner parties

Banker bashing shows no signs of ending, globally, but particularly in the UK. While an end to this would “highly desirable”, bankers have to realize that they have “brought much of this on themselves”, says the report.

“While banks continue to provide evidence that wrongdoing persists the popular mood is likely to remain hostile,” it says.

3. Pub talk should focus on the football

Again, on the issue of trusting people working in banking, the only reason traders at Barclays were caught was because they left an electronic trail, but the assumption is that this is merely the “tip of the iceberg”, because (says Stuart Hosie MP) people speak “informally orally in the pub” away from the prying eyes and ears of compliance.

“We know in general that market abuse or manipulation of any category is incredibly difficult to spot, because often people are clever enough to do it in a verbal, off-the-record, off-the-legal-trail basis,” said Lord Turner.

4. Compliance departments will be both bigger and more intrusive

It’s no secret that investment banks have been investing in their compliance staff over the past few years, but the Libor investigation is only going to increase this. Barclays’ compliance department is painted as lacking power or credibility within the organisation and undoubtedly this is not a brush other banks want to be tarred with.

“If [the compliance department] is weak or ignored in the practices of the bank that is reflective of a poor culture which does not take seriously enough abiding by the rules essential to proper functioning of the bank and the wider financial system. The serious failings of the compliance function during the period under examination suggest there was this kind of culture at Barclays,” said the report.

5. The Governor’s eyebrows need to be reined in

If the ousting of Bon Diamond was unpalatable to some (particularly to many investment bankers at Barclays), at least the Mervyn King and “senior FSA staff” discussed the issue and worked together. Once the Bank of England assumes full responsibility, the governor’s powers will increase exponentially – this needs to be checked.

“The Governor of the Bank of England will stand all-powerful and able, by dint of raising his eyebrows, effectively to dismiss senior banking executives without discussing it with, or consulting, anyone. This is unsatisfactory,” says the report.

A few weeks back we reported on the stink being raised by the discovery that hotels were bribing their guests with discounts and free room stays if they wrote positive reviews about a property.

We noted the corrupt or compromised reviews seemed most prevalent  in UK, and quoted TripAdvisor’s UK spokesperson as being rigorously opposed to the practice.

Now we read in the usually reliable industry site, hotel marketing.com that the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is  officially investigating the review giant because complaints have ” reached monumental levels.”

The clear implication is that without review safeguards, the reviews are worthless, and worthless reviews spell the end for TripAdvisor or any site whose reason for being are reviews.

If the ASA finds against TripAdvisor it could spell trouble for spin-off Expedia, a huge ad monger.

Argophilia an east European travel site, headlined the story as ” TripAdvisor’s Fake Review Sickness Goes Critical” and concluded that too many of TripAdvisor’s 50 million plus may not be reliable.

In fairness, it can be said that any on line review site can be bought or weighted… and this covers Yelp, books on Amazon, Tweets, product reviews and technology.

Of course credible reviews exist, but how can they be identified?

Google + may have sidestepped the issues by requiring the use of real identities, an approach TripAdvisor may, unwillingly, have to adopt.

As long as social media continues to be such a powerful influence in travel and other fields, there will always be reviews for sale or offers of  “hundreds of live visitors to your site for 100 bucks”

In the meantime, the investigations go on.

TripAdvisor is still a valuable resource for travelers, but the cheats and the good guys continue to battle it out.

As always, buyer or reader beware.

Guidelines don’t curb unnecessary treatment

Doctors overusing stents  – article quote

“Hochman’s findings apply to about 100,000 Americans a year, suggesting that
about 50,000 people are having the $20,000 procedure done unnecessarily every
year.”  [if you remember from a previous post - a prominent interventional cardiologist considered 50,000 "a rare event".]  It’s also a billion dollars worth of unnecessary procedures..

From 13 June 2011

More cases of overstenting make the news – again.. This time it’s a cardiologist and a radiologist in Tennessee.  Both are accused of ordering unnecessary tests, including angiography (cardiac caths) and performing unnecessary stenting in a scheme to defraud insurance.. The radiologist received kick backs for his patient referrals..

Article by Reed Miller  (June 10, 2011) over at Heartwire.com re-posted here.

Unnecessary stenting cases grabs government attention in Tennessee

Jackson, TN – The US Department of Justice is looking into charges of fraudulent billing leveled by a Tennessee cardiologist against another cardiologist and two hospitals.

Dr Wood Deming (Regional Cardiology Consultants, Jackson, TN) is accusing Dr Elie Hage Korban (Heart and Vascular Center of West Tennessee, Jackson) of “blatant overutilization of cardiac medical services, including, but not limited to, cardiac sonography, scintigraphic stress imaging, angiography, angioplasty, and stenting” in order to defraud government insurance programs, according to documents filed with the US District Court for Western Tennessee. Deming also alleges that the executives of Jackson-Madison County General Hospital and the Regional Hospital of Jackson and radiologist Dr Joel Perchik (Advanced Radiology, Jackson, TN) condoned or assisted in Korban’s fraud in addition to engaging in a bilateral kickback and self-referral scheme [1].

Deming is seeking to collect a portion of whatever fines the government collects from the defendants in this case, as provided for by the “whistleblower” provisions in federal antikickback and false-claims laws.

According to Deming’s complaint, from 2003 onward the hospitals’ executives allowed Korban to routinely order numerous unnecessary diagnostic studies at the hospitals, including transthoracic echocardiography, scintigraphic stress imaging, and transesophageal echocardiography, and then ordering that the patients be transported by ambulance to one of the hospitals for unnecessary catheterization, coronary angiography, and other coronary and peripheral intervention procedures. The complaint alleges that many of these patients underwent coronary angiography after a negative stress test on the premise that they were still having chest pain, but the records were fraudulently dictated to reflect symptoms that were not present. In many cases, Korban subsequently performed unnecessary interventional procedures including stenting, and patients were then admitted to one of the hospitals for recuperation, Deming alleges.

Deming also alleges that Perchik and the hospitals’ leadership “engaged in a pattern of bad-faith peer review of any physician who chose to oppose the hospitals’ drive for excess and inappropriately collected remuneration, such that such physicians were eliminated from the medical staff if they chose to speak out as whistleblowers concerning any aspect of the scheme,” according to the documents. He also accuses Jackson-Madison County General Hospital of paying for referrals from Medical Specialty Clinic, a group practice led at the time by the hospital’s chief of the medical staff, Dr Charles Hertz. Deming alleges that these illegal payments for referrals were concealed in a series of real-estate transactions.

A statement issued to heartwire from Jackson-Madison County General said that the hospital “is fully cooperating with government investigators and because this is an ongoing investigation we have no further comment.” In a prepared statement, the Regional Hospital of Jackson said it is “pleased that the United States chose not to intervene in the portion of the relator’s lawsuit that named the hospital and a former administrator.”

Likewise, staff at Korban’s office responded saying, “At this time, we have no comment,” and the lawyer for Deming did not return calls.

Deming filed his complaint in 2007, but it remained under seal until Assistant US Attorney William Siler notified the court in May that his office intends to pursue a case against Korban [2]. The US attorneys have agreed to investigate only Deming’s allegations against Korban for false and fraudulent billing for unnecessary cardiac stent procedures that caused the submission of false claims by the hospital. The US attorney’s office in Memphis will file its own complaint against Korban within the next two months.

However, the Department of Justice will not intervene on any of the other charges against any of the other defendants, including the hospitals, but charges against the other defendants cannot be dismissed without approval of the Department of Justice, which also reserves the right to intervene in those actions later.

As first reported in the Jackson Sun [3], last week, US District Judge Dernice Bouie Donald acknowledged the US Attorney’s plan to intervene and ordered that Deming’s complaint be unsealed and served on the defendants with 120 days [4].”

I still think this is only the tip of the iceberg.  If cardiology researchers themselves estimate that over 11% of stents were not ‘appropriate’ with another 38% being ‘undetermined’ (statistics from a previous post) - well, that’s a heck of a lot of folks that got stents that didn’t really need them.

I met Larry at our usual spot. I  got a slice of pumpkin loaf this time and joined Larry, who was stuck on the lemon pound cake. This time, I leaned over and gave him a half hug.

“Hey, Larry. I gotta ask you something,” I started.  He looked at me and I couldn’t ask.  “How come you know so much about tunnels?”

“You know, Norah. I have a ‘fascination,’ let’s say,” he snorted.

“Do you mind if I ask you how you came to own your tunnel?” I asked.

“Well, it’s kind of an interesting story,” he smiled.

“Bring it,” I said.

Larry laughed. “Okay, so when I was 16, I won what’s called the GE prize now. Back then it was called the Westinghouse prize. Do you know what that is?” he asked.

“Of course, I do.  It’s a country-wide search for great, future scientists,” I answered.

“Sort of,” he continued. “So anyhow, I was one of the prize winners that year.  I was the prize winner in physics.”

“What was your project?” I asked.

Larry giggled. “I invented a kind of bomb that would put the lights out in a city.”

“Come again?” I said.

“Norah, how can I explain it? It shuts off all of the electricity in a city. It’s sort of non-violent.”

“What the fuck? Non-violent? People can die from that. What about hospitals? Airports? Elevators?”

“Norah, it’s not a friggin nuke.  Calm down,” Larry laughed. “I was 16, I won and they took me to DC to meet Schlesinger, who was head of the DOE at the time – James, not Arthur, by the way.”

I made a mental note about Schlesinger. Larry went on. “So Schlesinger became a kind of mentor to me, Norah. I have a picture of him with me from the weekend I won the prize.”

“I believe you, Larry,” I smiled.

“No, really. He was head of the DOE,” he repeated. “He was a big shot, let’s say. And there’s something about him that people don’t know.  He was a student of James Forrestal – the guy who was at Roswell.  Supposedly he spent 3 days locked up with the alien at Roswell.”

“”Okay,” I said. The alien thing was a bit much, but Larry had this hypnotic effect on me.  Plus, I don’t believe we’re the only intelligent life in the universe.  “So, this alien mentee becomes your mentor. Did he teach you stuff about Roswell?” I asked.

“He did download certain information, if that’s what you’re asking,” Larry said.

“Hmmm. Sort of,” I said.

“Norah, sometimes I know stuff and I don’t know how I know it,” Larry said.

“I know what you mean,”  I said.  “So was the bomb ever developed?”

“It was.” Larry did his wheezy snicker.  “They tested it over a small village in Italy. The whole town went dark.”

“Good goddess,” I said, wondering what Ra would think of that. No one puts out the lights without asking him first.

“It’s called the E-bomb,” Larry said proudly.

“Hmmm. I have to think about that one,” I said. I took a swig of my coffee and tried to remember how we’d wound up in Roswell, when I’d come to talk about a tunnel shoot.

“Larry,” I ventured. “How is it they gave you a tunnel?”

“It was part of a payment, let’s say,” His roly eyes twinkled.

“For the E-bomb?”

“In part.”

“Listen, Larry,” I said, switching the subject. “I’d really like to shoot your tunnel and the Croton one. Will you let me come with a DVD guy?” I decided not to scare him off with the possiblity of a second cameraman.

“Name the day,” he said.

“The one behind the Met would be great to shoot first,” I said. “Day after tomorrow?  Afternoon?  Around 3?”

“I don’t see why not,” Larry said.

“Great, I’ll call you tomorrow to confirm,” I said. “Larry, you’re a physicist?”

“Sort of,” he said.

“It wasn’t local government that gave you the tunnel, then,” I said.

“Not really. You know, sometimes you get gifts and you just don’t ask,” he snickered. “One time I went into my bank account and there was close to half a million dollars in it.”

“Well, that I wouldn’t ask about,” I said.

FRUSTRATED community leaders in Queens have a message for the U.S. Census Bureau — get your act together.

Typographical errors in foreign-language versions of the census form and poorly trained operators on the bureau’s phone hotline are throwing an unnecessary hurdle into the process of getting an accurate count, advocates and some elected officials said.

The language snafus will hit Queens especially hard, advocates said, because it is the nation’s most ethnically diverse county and has a very poor response rate so far.

Asian-language speakers are encountering problems with hotline operators who are reading from awkwardly phrased scripts. Their poor language skills might also be discouraging callers, advocates said.

James Hong, an outreach coordinator for the civic group MinKwon Center in Flushing, tested the hotline on Wednesday, just as he had done two weeks prior. He was unimpressed by the progress.

“This guy’s Korean is just as bad as the last guy I told you about,” Hong wrote surreptitiously so he wouldn’t alert the operator that this was a test.

The operator didn’t understand the Korean word for “form” and “document,” Hong said.

Hong also asked two different operators if anything was wrong with the form. They said they didn’t know what he was talking about though reports of typos first emerged three months ago — and not just in Korean.

In the Vietnamese-language form, “dieu tra” was used to mean “census.” But it translates as “government investigation,” and is negatively associated with the Communist Party, said John Park, census outreach coordinator of the Asian-American Federation.

In the Korean-language form, the word “country” was used instead of “county.” Also, in Question 5, pertaining to race and ethnicity, survey takers are instructed to mark one box only, instead of “one or more boxes.” That has outraged civil rights advocates, who use that data in employment discrimination litigation, said Jackson Chin, counseling attorney for LatinoJustice PRLDEF.

The Census Bureau first learned of the mistakes three months ago, said spokesperson Stephen Bucker. The bureau’s Web site materials were immediately corrected, he said. But the “Be Counted” forms were published once, and therefore still contain the translation mistakes.

Buckner said the bureau has made unprecedented efforts to cast the widest, most culturally sensitive net ever. Still, community organizations have begun telling people not to use the hotline, said Julia Yang, census coordinator at the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing) wonders whether some funds in the almost $1 billion outreach campaign could have been better targeted.

“Handing out free mugs and T-shirts isn’t going to make someone fill out a census,” Meng said.

[To request a .pdf of this article, please e-mail me or leave a comment with your contact info. Thanks.]

And speaking of players and management, the Phillies announced yesterday that they have advanced some money to reliever Scott Eyre to help with his finances, as his money is presently frozen because of a government investigation of the Stanford Financial Group and the alleged $8 billion fraud of billionaire Robert Allen Stanford. With his account at Stanford frozen, Eyre was unable to pay his bills. The advancement will help him with that, as he and several other major leaguers have no idea when they will once again have access to their accounts. Good move on the part of Phils management. And hopefully this situation will be taken care of soon, and not just for the ballplayers, as there are also just normal joes who, for the moment, will not have access to their money while the government look over Stanford’s finances with a fine tooth comb.

An ex-nurse who worked at Madison Manor, a Kentucky Extendicare facility was charged this week with neglect of a patient.   The allegations were of physical and verbal abuse by the resident who was smart enough to film the behavior on a hidden video camera.  Seems that this is merely a small part of an ongoing investigation by the Attorney General’s office of this Extendicare facility.

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