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A San Francisco venture capitalist who was once dubbed 'Silicon Valley's Party Animal' has been convicted of fraud totalling $19 million - and now faces up to 60 years in prison. Michael Brent Rothenberg, who was raised in a Jehovah's Witness family in Georgetown, Texas, used his dense network of successful Ivy League friends to set up his own VC fund in 2012 based on the strategy of throwing opulent parties. He rubbed shoulders with Mark Zuckerberg, rented out baseball stadiums for networking events, and threw all-day-and-night parties in a bid to attract investors and companies to invest in. This...

The Mozilla Foundation, the entity that oversees the Mozilla Firefox internet browser, is now accepting donations in cryptocurrency. One of the browser's founders is not happy about it. The company tweeted on Dec. 31: "Dabble in @dogecoin? HODLing some #Bitcoin & Ethereum? We're using @BitPay to accept donations in #cryptocurrency." Jamie "jwz" Zawinski, who helped build the Mozilla Project that was released in 2002, tweeted in response that he's "here to say f.. you and f... this."... ...He wasn't the only one to level criticism at Mozilla's move on Twitter this week. Peter Linss, the founder of Gecko — the...

Hi FRiends, Happy Thanksgiving I hope you are having good weather and a relaxing time. I have a Question on Medicare Plans. My Wife and I are thinking about Advantage Plans to replace Traditional Medicare. We are 81/83 now and active. We currently have Traditional Medicare with a Gap Policy. The latest offerings from United Healthcare Advantage Plans seem to have taken care of out-of-network services with their Passport which create instantaneous in-network charges in most States that we visit. Emergency care is Covered in any State. Our current Doctors accept this Advantage Plan. Our Saving would be about $5000./year...

Have you ever wondered who that allusive “Nigerian Prince” is who might be sending you those emails looking for money? Look no farther than the Clinton Family Tree. As the saying goes, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. Bill and Hillary Clinton learned this lesson the hard way when Chelsea Clinton decided she wanted to marry Marc Mezvinsky. Edward Maurice “Ed” Mezvinsky, Chelsea Clinton’s father-in-law and her daughter’s grandfather, is a convicted Felon. The former Democrat Congressman from Iowa’s 1st Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, served two terms, from 1973 to...

In fact, it’s not “inexplicable” at all. ___ Tesla shares rose to $313.38 this morning, giving the company a market capitalization of about $51 billion, surpassing GM for a moment as the most valuable American automaker. This left some industry insiders wondering about tulip bulbs. “It’s either one of the great Ponzi schemes of all time, or it’s all going to work out,” mused Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation, the largest dealer group in the US. He was speaking at a conference hosted by the National Automobile Dealers Association and J.D. Power. “It’s totally inexplicable, as far as its valuation,”...

Earlier today the Kersten Institute for Governance and Public Policy highlighted an updated pension study, released by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, which revealed some fairly startling realities about California's public pension underfunding levels. After averaging $77,700 per household in 2014, the amount of public pension underfunding for the state of California jumped to a staggering $92,748 per household in 2015. But don't worry, we're sure pension managers can grow their way out of the problem...hedge fund returns have been stellar recently, right? Stanford University’s pension tracker database pegs the market value of California’s total pension debt at...

No one ever accused Florida attorney Scott Rothstein of being subtle -- or of skimping. Some investors say they were impressed by the ties Scott Rothstein, left, had with Florida luminaries, including Gov. Charlie Crist, right. .At an Eagles concert this year, Don Henley, the band's drummer, singled out Mr. Rothstein and his wife, Kimberly. "I don't normally do this, but this goes out to Scott and Princess Kimmy on their one-year wedding anniversary," Mr. Henley told the audience as the band ripped into "Life in the Fast Lane," its paean to the perils of excess. Mr. Rothstein paid $100,000...

BY JACKIE CALMES WASHINGTON — President Obama is eager to seek a bipartisan solution to ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security, people who have spoken with him say, but he is running into opposition from his party’s left and from Democratic Congressional leaders who contend that his political capital would be better spent on health care and other priorities. Mr. Obama considered announcing the formation of a Social Security task force at a White House “fiscal responsibility summit” that he will convene on Monday. But several Democrats said that idea had been shelved, partly because of objections from House...

New online program can replace trip to a field office WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration, envisioning the near-future prospect of 10,000 baby boomers applying for benefits every day, has put together a new online service that will allow people to get their benefits without ever traveling to a Social Security field office. The agency, in introducing the program Tuesday, said most people will be able to apply for their retirement or disability benefits in 15 minutes or less.

Derivatives consultant Janet Tavakoli is onto something. In a note to her clients, she says the biggest Ponzi scheme of all may be the one that brought the world financial markets to its knees. That’s the scheme that united Wall Street bankers with mortgage lenders in a bid to funnel more and more money into the market for supbrime homes loans. She says packaging of iffy home loans into securitized bonds that could be sold to insitutional investors—many of them relying on borrowed money—was a system born to fail. “The largest Ponzi scheme in the history of capital markets is...

WASHINGTON, June 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The immigration bill being debated by the Senate would allow over two million illegal workers who received Social Security numbers prior to 2004 to receive more than $966 billion in Social Security benefits by 2040. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison introduced an amendment to the bill (S.A. 1415), subsequently passed by voice vote, that would prevent illegal workers who performed illegal work and then obtained a Social Security number after January 1, 2004 from receiving credit for Social Security taxes paid in previous years. However, the amendment does nothing to prevent aliens who obtained "non-work" Social...

More young Americans believe in the existence of UFOs than the future existence of Social Security. But in spite of our generation's deep skepticism, we've been left out of the national debate. Ostensible concern for our generation is invoked incessantly under the hackneyed banner of "for our children and grandchildren," but the opinions of these very people are nowhere to be seen on the national stage. Students for Saving Social Security is beginning to fill this void. Social Security reform concerns our generation more than any other, and it concerns us now: When we graduate, our jobs and salaries will...

The Social Security payroll tax, better known to workers as FICA (or SECA for the self employed), is now levied at a rate of 12.4 percent on workers earnings up to $90,000 a year. Employees and employers split the tax, meaning that they nominally pay 6.2 percent each. The Social Security trustees now project that the program has a deficit over the next 75 years equal to 1.89 percent of the payrolls on which the tax is levied (taxable payroll). Various commentators have thus pointed out that, in theory, the entire shortfall could be eliminated by levying a tax increase...

If Americans of all ages ever recognize the degree to which they've been conned by the proponents of failed government programs such as Social Security, they will likely respond in a manner reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party. And it is not hard to imagine a few career politicians floating in the harbor alongside King George's cargo. Consider the caterwauling from Democrats in response to President Bush's efforts to reform Social Security. Originally promoted as merely a retirement supplement, Franklin Roosevelt's scheme initially involved a miniscule payroll tax. Once the tax was implemented, however, the road was clear to incrementally...