CMKM Diamonds Inc. (fka CMKX)

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We Made Forbes Mag !!!! from r*b,


Recently I was reading through a lawsuit filed last week by a little mining company called CMKM Diamonds. CMKM, based in the all-American city of Las Vegas, was the subject of a vigorous stock promotion a few years ago, in which it accumulated $200 million from shareholders--60,000 small investors all over this great country. The company alleges in its lawsuit that all but $558 of that $200 million is gone, the rest having been "looted," the suit alleges, by the former management.

This kind of allegation, albeit with less massive numbers attached, has become lamentably commonplace in our society--which might explain why the CMKM suit has received zero publicity. Yet this is a real scandal, with tens of thousands of real people allegedly hurt, and not a trumped-up political circus.
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Muckraker Defending Wolfowitz Gary Weiss 05.03.07, 6:00 AM ET

http://www.forbes.com/home/opinions/2007/05/02/gary-weiss-wolfowitz-oped-cx_gw_0503weiss.html

I'm having a hard time whipping myself up into a state of indignation over Paul Wolfowitz. Sorry. Could it be me? Could it be the onset of delightful weather? Or could it be that Paul Wolfowitz is being railroaded? Could it be that the World Bank, which Wolfowitz has used as an instrument of a significant anti-corruption crusade, would be better off if he stays on as president?

I know, it's tempting to pile on this former deputy secretary of defense, this architect of a vastly unpopular war, this unpretty man with the abrasive style. He is, after all, an official Washington piñata, who is snared in a controversy involving such mom-and-apple-pie concepts as "ethics" and "conflicts of interest." He arranged for a hefty compensation increase for his companion (horrible!), at precisely the same time that he was pushing a drive against corruption (hypocritical!).

In Pictures: Most Corrupt Nations

Forum: Tell us whether you think Paul Wolfowitz deserves to be snared.
Wolfowitz once said, "If you want to make poverty history, you have to make corruption history." Wolfowitz actually meant what he said, and upset countries such as China--the second-largest recipient of World Bank loans--by linking the Bank's lending policies to a country's record at fighting corruption. Yet this veritable Eliot Ness of development is now a subject of scorn, with the European Parliament proclaiming the other day, with unsuppressed glee, that Wolfowitz's "withdrawal from the post would be a welcome step toward preventing the bank's anti-corruption policy from being undermined.''

To make the whole thing even more of a "slam dunk" (pardon the expression) from the lynch-mob standpoint, it is increasingly apparent that Wolfowitz is being cornered into a forced resignation.

And yet, the more I look at this whole affair the more I think it stinks, and that Wolfowitz is being railroaded not because of lofty "ethical" issues but because of bureaucratic resistance to his anti-corruption drive--and that he is being punished for being the epitome of political incorrectness as a leading neoconservative and Bush administration official.

As best as I can tell, the man did absolutely nothing wrong. So it's hard for me to figure out precisely how his resignation would "restore the credibility of the institution," as his critics contend.

At issue is the very smallest of small potatoes. Let's dwell on it for a moment, because this anthill has been turned into an Everest by the people who want to kick him out. Did Wolfowitz bend or break the bank's ethics rules when he arranged a hefty pay increase for his girlfriend, bank staffer Shaha Riza? At the time, she was being forced to transfer to the State Department to avoid a conflict of interest. Riza didn't want to leave. She--rightly--didn't think it was fair that her career at the bank was being cut short. So Wolfowitz arranged for her transfer, and for her to get additional cash as recompense for the forced departure.

If Wolfowitz had been a rogue elephant, scheming behind everybody's back on behalf of his girlfriend, I could understand why this might be a slightly distressing incident. However, it has been known for weeks--since Rich Behar broke the story on FoxNews.com April 14--that the bank's own ethics committee "had known the terms of the settlement with Riza for at least a year." Fox found that while Wolfowitz "did indeed dictate the lucrative terms of Riza's salary to the bank's human resources chief, he also took steps to try and determine if what he was doing was right--seemingly trying to navigate his way through an arcane bureaucracy with a maze of unusual rules and procedures."

Wolfowitz has already apologized for what he describes as a "mistake"--about as severe a term as one can use--so he has already shown the requisite remorse. So why not let him stay?

The reason is that this whole, grotesquely exaggerated "conflict of interest" baloney is a ploy to remove a man who is actually fighting corruption. To me, that is the central irony--not that a corruption fighter engaged in corruption, as Wolfowitz clearly did nothing wrong, but that a corruption fighter is being forced out on trumped up charges. "Smears," as he rightly puts it.

Wolfowitz has made some powerful enemies who would be delighted to see him leave precisely because of his anti-corruption fight.

Let's not forget that in late March, word leaked out that China had threatened to stop borrowing if the anti-corruption drive wasn't watered down. "Making loans to developing countries is central to the bank's very reason for existence," FoxNews reported at the time, "so the threat to quit borrowing is a blow at its mission, and to the job security of some 26,000 World Bank bureaucrats, staffers and consultants around the world."

Not long afterward, word about the stale and insignificant "girlfriend affair" leaked out to the media. Wolfowitz became a full-fledged piñata, with the World Bank's staff association being among the chief voices calling for his head. A coincidence? I don't think so.

So let's stop the phony indignation. If you're in the mood to be indignant about real conflicts of interest or real corruption, there's plenty of raw material out there--and you don't have to go to developing nations or even Washington D.C. You can find plenty of examples right in the heart of middle America.

Recently I was reading through a lawsuit filed last week by a little mining company called CMKM Diamonds. CMKM, based in the all-American city of Las Vegas, was the subject of a vigorous stock promotion a few years ago, in which it accumulated $200 million from shareholders--60,000 small investors all over this great country. The company alleges in its lawsuit that all but $558 of that $200 million is gone, the rest having been "looted," the suit alleges, by the former management.

This kind of allegation, albeit with less massive numbers attached, has become lamentably commonplace in our society--which might explain why the CMKM suit has received zero publicity. Yet this is a real scandal, with tens of thousands of real people allegedly hurt, and not a trumped-up political circus.

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between a nonscandal and the real thing. And sometimes--as in the case of Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank--it is grotesquely easy. That is the tragedy of the Wolfowitz affair