Spitzer–Mortgage Industry Connection

Amid all the vengeful glee on Wall Street, the Ashleymania, and the coverage that has accompanied Spitzer’s fall, one aspect of the story has been underexplored, according to journalist Greg Palast: Could the Lonesome Gov’s fall have had something to do with the Fed's $200 billion bailout of the subprime-mortgage industry, which Spitzer conspicuously opposed and which coincidentally occurred on the same day as his resignation? It was a federal investigation which uncovered Spitzer, Palast points out, and his outing could be seen as unusual.

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him. Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer — rarely done in these cases — was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.

Palast, a cult hero in underground journalism circles (he’s the winner of six “Project Censored” awards), doesn’t really unload any evidence as much as speculate at sinister motives, but it's interesting, and better than watching Ashley’s maddeningly chaste dance moves on some scrub’s cell-phone camera. —Josh Ozersky Eliot’s Mess [Greg Palast] Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime [WP]

Posted 03/14/08 in Daily Intel : White Men With Money

Tags: eliot spitzer, finance, george w. bush, kristen, politics, subprime, the emperors club, white men with money

Kristen Is Rich

Last night, Ashley Alexandra Dupré, a.k.a. "Kristen," told the New York Times she was worried about paying her rent in the fancy Flatiron district building in which she lives. But in fact, in the less than 24 hours since that interview took place, Dupre's personal wealth has increased considerably. The two songs on her Amie Street profile, which each cost 98 cents, have reportedly been downloaded more than two million times, and according to that site's business model, Dupré should receive 70 percent of the total profit. Plus! Playboy and Penthouse are both reportedly interested in setting up photo shoots. "We've already discussed some options," Penthouse publisher Diane Silberstein tells Radar, adding that they'd pay in the "high six figures." Book publishers, however, are dragging their feet. "I don't think it's worth anything," HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham tells Portfolio today, making us want to wrap our hands around his neck and administer a light throttle. "There's no story there." Seriously? Does no one remember for instance the best-selling Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, soon to be an HBO series with Darren Star? Hookers are so hot right now.

Posted 03/13/08 in Daily Intel : In Other News

Tags: amie street, ashley alexandra dupre, ashley youmans, diary of a manhattan call girl, economics, eliot spitzer, harper collins, In Other News, kristen, penthouse, politics, prostitutes, prostitution, publishing, the emperors club

Among Other Things, Eliot Spitzer Has Contributed to Hooker Inflation

When we were little, our grandpa used to tell us stories about the olden days. "Used to be, you could get a hooker for a dollar!" he'd say. "Those were the days." Sigh. If Grandpa had seen the complaint filed in the bust of Emperor's Club — well, he'd have about keeled over. The preferred escort service of former governor Eliot Spitzer, according to the complaint, charged between $1,000 and $5,000 an hour. And, as one potential prostie was heard to complain, that didn't even include dinner. Inflation affects even the oldest profession, and according The Wall Street Journal, the "wealth boom — and the explosion in the number of multi-millionaires — has created entirely new pricing levels for escorts." Of 661 people who own private jets, a survey from Prince & Associates, a Connecticut-based wealth-research firm, found, 34 percent of males and 20 percent of the females had paid for sex. And that's just of people who owned private jets. If you apply those percentages to, say, people who own BMWs, that's enough to skew the numbers for everyone. But at least one thing remains the same since Grandpa's* day: The most popular reason the people surveyed gave for using escorts was “unique experiences." How the New Rich Are Changing the Oldest Profession [WSJ] Earlier: You Can Say This About the Girls of the Emperor's Club: They're No Morons *We made this bit up. Our real Grampy, God rest his soul, was a wonderful man and a devout Catholic who never ran with loose women. With the exception of his second wife. But they were married.

Posted 03/12/08 in Daily Intel : White Men With Money

Tags: eliot spitzer, grampy, hookers, inflation, sex scandals, the emperor's club, the second gilded age, white men with money