>From: Mina Kumar The other article I long for someone to write is about how
>job
>applicants
>have no right to privacy, not just having to hand over their urine but
>to
>sign releases for everything from credit reports to interviewing
>neighbors
>(!), and even get fired for something like having a spotty credit
>history.
Ashamed to say, I do this professionally. As our service is priced prohibitively, we're confined to some fairly high fliers, and I rather enjoy finding derogatory and unflattering information. This happens amazingly often, validating my suspicions and prejudices each time. Its not privileged sources - the kind you'd require a release for - that usually deliver the goods on a fella. Worry more about the public record, Mina. Why, with a few simple LexisNexis searches, you could, for instance, find which noted hedge fund manager shares an extremely uncommon name (down to the middle initial) with a fringe presidential candidate's former campaign treasurer. And I don't mean 'fringe' in the Ross Perot or even John Hagelin sense. Same person? Not Certain. Scary? Indeed.
These are the same types that as those, along with Conrad Black, reportedly picking up a two-third stake in The New Republic, which Daily News media reporter and everyone else continue to label a "liberal political magazine" as if the year were 1931. The News gave Michael Steinhardt and Roger Hertog as likely buyers. Steinhardt's the lovely fellow who paid tens of millions in civil fines in settling a case some years back involving the alleged attempt to manipulate the market for short-term T-notes. He retired to pursue his friendship with Israel full time. Hertog is a member of the barbaric Club for Growth, the sad collection of big money a-holes sharing the goal of "helping elect more Reaganite, economic growth-oriented office seekers," as their website says. Must have been all that taxation and regulation that prevented one funds managed by Mr. Hertog's Alliance Capital from delivering an annualized return of 1.5% in the early 1990s, when similar such funds were realizing returns at the rate of 10% per annum.
Perhaps you'll remember Alliance's embarrassment last year when Liar's Poker author Michael Lewis got hold of an Alliance etiquette manual and described in his Bloomberg column the "Basic Hygiene" section contained therein. The New Republic's editorial offices, I'm told, would benefit greatly should Hertog establish such a regime there as well.
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