U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Shakedown: The HCAD Appraisal Game

HCAD fights owners of moderate housing for every single assessment penny. So why is it routinely handing out tax breaks worth several millions to big corporations?

George Jarkesy: Conservative Talking Head, Host to Radio Show in Investments, Gets Slammed by SEC

A local radio host who splits his time between spouting right-wing dogma and offering investment advice has been hit with a cease-and-desist order from the Securities and Exchange Commission. George R. Jaresky, Jr. hosts a show on KTEK-AM 1100 (Official motto: "Yes, We Exist") and is semi-syndicate ... More >>

Johnny "Football" Manziel: How Badly Did Vegas Miss On The 2012 Heisman?

Any way you slice it, the "Johnny Manziel for Heisman" story (covered ad nauseum in this space over the last few days) is one of the most unlikely sports stories certainly of this calendar year and perhaps in the history of college football. Lightly recruited, undersized redshirt freshman quarterba ... More >>

Laura Pendergest-Holt: Former Stanford Financial Head Gets Three Years In Prison

Laura Pendergest-Holt, 39, the former chief investment officer for the Ponzi-scheming Stanford Financial Group, got her prison sentence today: up to three years in a federal pen. She got her sentence, prosecutors say, for "obstructing a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation in ... More >>

Friday Night: Journey at The Woodlands

Journey Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion August 24, 2012 Rewind: Saturday Night: Styx & REO Speedwagon at The Woodlands Journey's enduring popularity might seem a little improbable at first, but it's not that hard to figure out. Core members Neil Schon, the former Santana guitarist, and bassist R ... More >>

Laura Pendergest-Holt: Stanford Financial CIO Pleads Guilty To Obstruction Charges

The chief investment officer of Allen Stanford's disgraced Ponzi-scheme firm has pleaded guilty to obstructing investigations of it, the U.S. Attorney's Office says. Laura Pendergest-Holt, 38, said she had hoped to stall an SEC investigation into Stanford International Bank (SIB), the Antiguan offs ... More >>

State and EPA Battle Over Fracking, Flaming Well Water

When Steve Lipsky blamed fracking for turning his water well into a flamethrower, he set off an epic battle between the EPA and Texas.

Some Modest Suggestions for Bud Selig, MLB Commissioner For Life

Yep, we're still stuck with this bozo​In case you missed the news last week, Bud Selig's contract to be the commissioner of Major League Baseball has been extended another two years -- this coming after Selig had announced several years ago that he was retiring at the end of his current contra ... More >>

For Texas A&M: A Guide to the SEC

Welcome to the family, Aggies.​Earthshaking news that you might have missed if you're not a sports fan: Texas A&M is leaving the Big 12 to go to the Southeastern Conference. If you're not a sports fan, perhaps your earth has remained unshaken, but it's a monster step for the Aggies. To help ... More >>

Wells Fargo Hit for Funding Allegedly Badly Run Private Texas Prison

Wells Fargo hit by protests.​Wells Fargo just can't win: All the bank wants to do is make good on its underwriting of a private prison company with a history of inmate deaths, sexual abuse and record-tampering, and now a group called Texas United for Families wants the bank to pull out. Speci ... More >>

Daniel Frishberg: Houston's "MoneyMan" Settles With SEC

The MoneyMan settles with the SEC.​Breaking news: There is something called "BizRadio" in Houston, as far as we can tell on 1110 AM, and its big personality is Daniel "The MoneyMan" Frishberg. More breaking news: Frishberg has just settled a complaint from the SEC and will be reimbursing inve ... More >>

Dynegy: Homeless Man Comes ThisClose to Buying It

Meet the (almost) new boss, not the same as the old boss​The Houston Business Journal has ferreted out a nice nugget from the reams of paper surrounding the sale of Houston's Dynegy Inc.: Goldman Sachs tracked down and talked to a homeless guy who put in a bid to buy it. SEC filings show that ... More >>

Greed, Interrupted

Part meltdown memoir, part essential finger pointing, Inside Job will make you seethe.

Blowing Smoke

Could Valero empty the coffers of Texas schools?

Porn-Loving SEC Employees Deserve A Helping Hand

​ When we heard news that Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) employees were watching porn while our country's economy was crashing, it didn't surprise us ... at all. Yeah we know, the SEC was formed to police Wall Street, and while the culprits were getting away like bank robbers, 33 SEC emp ... More >>

Welcome to Arizona

Judge who helped BP went on junket party on their tab.

The Big Secrets In Bill White's Tax Returns, Revealed

​You know things have gotten off on the wring foot challenging Rick Perry when the state's leading political writer compares your operation to Kay Bailey Hutchison's.Here's how things have gone in the Texas governor's race since the primaries: Rick Perry has been in Patton mode, ostentatiously "ac ... More >>

No Justice

We've bailed out the banks. When do we go after the crooks behind our financial collapse?

Halliburton Corruption: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

​Earlier this year, Halliburton agreed to pay nearly $560 million in fines to the federal government to end an investigation into its former subsidiary, KBR, and its involvement in bribing Nigerian officials to get construction contracts. It was reportedly the largest fine ever paid by a U.S. comp ... More >>

The Rise and Fall of the Stanford Financial Group

Castles and corruption lead to criminal charges.

At Least This Financial-Scandal Houstonian Is More Eccentric Than Ken Lay

Photo by yomanimusBloomberg is reporting that the Houston-based Stanford Group Co. is under investigation by the Feds. In the aftermath of the Bernie Madoff scandal, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority want to know how Stanford can keep payin ... More >>

The College Football Preview, Week Ten: Reality TV Bites

Texas coin companies target elderly investors

Heads you lose, tails you lose

Monkey Business

Primates -- destined for laboratory research -- are being brought into a compound in Houston so carefully and quietly that no one knows they're here

Who Is Marc Sparks?

Wize Guys

Here's your chance to get rich quick -- or lose your shirt, in which case, GlobalTec disavows all responsibility for, well, anything

Fool's Gold

Desperate clients hand over thousands of dollars for a chance at a job

Who Cares?

Celester Hall went to Afghanistan to help the troops and make his fortune. He came back deaf, in diapers and looking for benefits.

News to Use

A Pearland guy causes a Beltway firestorm

The Smartest Film at Sundance

Alex Gibney tells the story of Enron's rise and fall -- and you won't need an economics degree to understand it

Children of Enron

One of Ken Lay's many legacies: the families whose lives were disrupted by the fall

Welcome to Fire Island

While communities across the country block LNG terminals, Quintana just shrugs

Honey, I Implicated the Kids!

Location will be a trying problem for Fastow's legal team

Bashing Bush

The Chronicle's film critic doubles as a pinko commie naysayer

Living in a House of Cards

Rank-and-file employees suspected something was wrong at Enron. Now they want someone to pay.

Up In Smoke

Enron used political ties to rid itself of regulators. But in the end, its supposed free-market trailblazing only burned investors.

Catching a Big One

Moody hooks a $75 million verdict against a fish farm and a law firm

Red Light, Green Light

With billboards of windmills promising gentle, nonpolluting energy, Green Mountain offers Texans a new power avenue. Will they take it? Should they?

From PACman to Port Chairman

After a career serving kingmakers, can Jim Edmonds really be his own leader?

All's Dell

So long to slackers and laid-back lifestyles. Now that cash-rich techies have taken over, can Austin survive the great digital divide?

$tocks and Bonding

Boiler Room steams with the stark greed of go-for-brokers

Monkey Business

Who needs a product when you can sell stock? The mind-boggling success of PinkMonkey.com.

Time Lines

Buyers are the real prize in vacation-share pitches

Don't cry for me, Amarillo

How once-fearsome corporate raider T. Boone Pickens was beaten at his own game -- by a one-time protege

Watch out, stock market,, here come the SOES BANDITS

And they're ready to make money the old-fashioned way: By outsmarting the big guys.

Feature

Headline:The Case Against Hurwitz In one of the last big S&L cases from the '80s, two federal agencies are pursuing Charles Hurwitz over the failure of united Savings. And for once, Hurwitz may have no place to hide.

The Wendy Card

Wendy Gramm's all-American success story is a centerpiece of her husband's fledgling presidential bid. But there's more to the story than what's being packaged and sold by the Phil Gramm campaign.

Following the Money

Aggie Alchemy

John Bockris was known around Texas A&M as a chemist interested in "weird science." Joe Champion gave him all he could handle.