Former Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt surface as candidates for commerce secretary in the Obama administration, Bloomberg News reports. The Bloomberg story doesn't mention it, but Reuters reported upon Mr. Kindler's departure in December 2010, "few shed tears over Kindler's exit. Over the course of his tenure, which began in July 2006, Pfizer's shares have lost 27 percent of their value, underperforming a 10 percent decline in the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical index of large drugmakers." Hey, if Mr. Kindler had done any worse — say, if his company had lost a third of its value under his tenure, like GE's Jeffrey Immelt — he might qualify not just for a cabinet post but to be chairman of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

News of the death of Washington Post columnist David Broder, the dean of national political reporters, sent me back to have a look at this New York Sun editorial from 2007.

George Soros says Republican spending cuts are going to slow down the American economy, according to a Reuters dispatch that goes on to claim, "Republicans have so far refused to consider tax increases as part of any deficit-cutting effort."

The Reuters reporters must have missed the New York Times article yesterday about Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, and Alan Simpson, a former Senate Republican leader from Wyoming, both of whom say revenue increases must be on the table as part of deficit reduction efforts.

The Wall Street Journal has a preview, with a focus on the prosecutors, of the "insider trading" trial of money manager Raj Rajaratnam. It includes this passage:

Prosecutors have faced criticism for their handling of the Galleon case and investigation, which could introduce tension in the courtroom between the two sides.

John Dowd, Mr. Rajaratnam's lead attorney, attempted to persuade the judge overseeing the Galleon case to throw out wiretap evidence, asserting the government left out details about a cooperating witness's history and was dishonest when applying to a judge for the wiretaps.

U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell, who is overseeing the case, criticized the government for "glaring" omissions in its applications but allowed the recordings to be admitted as evidence.

Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff has a piece up at Bloomberg News running the numbers on whether college and graduate school are worth the time and tuition: "Does education pay? Not necessarily."

He acknowledges that his analysis treats higher education "as purely a financial investment" and ignores "its tremendous personal and social non-pecuniary rewards."

Everyone — the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, the American Spectator, even National Public Radio's chief executive Vivian Schiller — is pronouncing themselves appalled at the comments made by two NPR executives in a video put out by James O'Keefe's Project Veritas. That's understandable, because the comments are troubling.

As fascinating as it is to see what NPR executives are saying privately about Tea Party members, Zionists, and Jewish owners of newspapers, though, it seems to me that the techniques used to obtain the video are also troubling. The self-described "citizen journalists" lied.

A Republican candidate for Congress in Oregon against Democrat Peter DeFazio, Art Robinson, claims that his three children are being expelled from the nuclear engineering graduate program at Oregon State University in retaliation for his political activity. He also says "department students complained of sexual assault at wild drunken parties of OSU nuclear engineering students during taxpayer-financed trips to scientific meetings."

The New York Times, astonishingly, today publishes a 2115-word adulatory profile of Stanford professor Francis Fukuyama — "Few people have yet read the book, but it has created a considerable stir in universities where he has talked about it...Unlike some scholars who flame out after a single brilliant book, Dr. Fukuyama has produced a steady and wide-ranging body of work" — without a single mention of Professor Fukuyama's consulting to Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy. It's not as if it is a secret: The Boston Globe wrote about it, and Carl Gershman mentioned it in his presentation of the Democracy Service Medal to Professor Fukuyama: "It's not every time that you have a Board Member who is invited to engage in a one-on-one consultation with the likes of Moammar Kadafi."

The New York Times has a serviceable front-page roundup of the lobbying fight over debit card interchange fees, a topic we mentioned here yesterday. The Times has a couple of paragraphs devoted to the revolving-door aspect of the lobbying and legislating:

The lobbying has been intense over the last year with the card companies and banks hiring, among others, Sam Geduldig, a former adviser to Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the House speaker, and Regina Mahony, formerly a senior adviser to Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks lobbyists.

Representatives of the retailers include the former Republican Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma, and Sheryl Cohen, a former chief of staff for Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the Democratic senator who sponsored the financial regulation bill and is now retired.

"Buffett Says $550 Million Wesco Deal May Be Disadvantageous to Berkshire" is the headline over a Bloomberg News article about the sage of Omaha's claim, in response to an effort by a Wesco director to get Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway to up its bid for the 19.9% of Wesco it doesn't already own, "We regard the transaction as disadvantageous to Berkshire if a substantial number of Wesco shareholders elect to take Berkshire stock."

Thanks to all of you who responded to last week's drive for paying members or subscribers to FutureOfCapitalism.com. The quarterly report will go out later this week only to paying subscribers, so if you've been meaning to join or renew an existing membership but didn't find the time to do so last week, this is the last reminder you'll get here. As we've been saying, paying customers are what keep this site going and what will enable us to grow and expand. An entry-level subscription starts at just $49 a year, or less than $1 a week. You'll be sending an important signal that you appreciate what's happening here. The link is here; please just go ahead and do it. Thanks.

,

Senator Schumer has issued a press release with a copy of a letter to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, urging Mr. Donovan to approve a $16.5 million government loan ("Typically Section 108 loan interest rates are 50% less than commercial market rate loans," the press release helpfully explains) to a company called Paetec for the purpose of building a new headquarters in Rochester, New York.

The press release goes on to explain that the government loan isn't the only government backing Paetec would get for its new headquarters. "Additional tax credit investment is being sought in partnership with the City of Rochester," the release says, and "Last year Schumer secured $1.4 million in federal funding for the Midtown Plaza Revitalization Project that will be used to build new infrastructure and access roads to make the 9-acre site shovel-ready for new private development."

The subscription-only Publisher's Lunch newsletter reports that an effort is under way to respond to the closing of a reported 200 Borders outlets with a "Neighborhood Bookstore Development Bank" that would include "Government (including Small Business Administration) involvement though grants or guarantees."

Advocates of the idea cite as a model the supermarket subsidy that Michelle Obama and Timothy Geithner have celebrated.

From a Washington Post editorial published Friday (link via Economic Policies for the 21st Century):

Congress could stop asking Mr. Bernanke to referee its disputes on fiscal policy and other matters about which he obviously should not comment publicly. No more games of gotcha about tax increases or spending cuts; no more loaded questions about dealing with China. In short, give the man a break. Yes, members of Congress have a legitimate interest in probing Mr. Bernanke about matters within the Fed's purview. But the public as a whole has a stronger interest in preserving the Fed's political independence, both actual and perceived.

This distinction drawn between "actual" independence and "perceived" independence is an intriguing one. It's almost as if the Post is advocating that the public should be left laboring under a false impression the Fed is more independent than it actually is. Otherwise, why bother with the difference between actual and perceived independence?

Goldman Sachs is working with the Russian government on a $10 billion fund "to lure buyout firms such as Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group LP to invest in one of the nations where they are least active," reports Bloomberg News.

Maybe Goldman will figure out a way to give these buyout firms property rights and due process protections against government seizure that ordinary Russian businessmen lack?