You don't have to be a filthy rich hedge-fund titan to get preferential treatment in prison.
Even common drug dealers are finding ways to make their stay behind bars a little easier to handle by getting their hands on some added amenities — everything from a few cigarettes to new sneakers — according to one prison guard who wrote to me recently.
The guard wrote after reading a previous column on Raj Rajaratnam, the fallen hedge-fund mogul. Rajaratnam used to run the $7 billion Galleon Group hedge fund until he was convicted of operating a massive insider-trading operation.
The 57-year-old disgraced Wall Streeter is now doing an 11-year stretch at Federal Medical Center Devens — a federal prison for the sick in Ayer, Mass.
I wrote last August that Rajaratnam had paid off the families of fellow inmates to provide him special treatment. One inmate was seen as a "manservant" to Rajaratnam, I reported, based on conversations with an ex-inmate.
Some scoffed, writing that this wasn't possible.
Then in June, Rajaratnam's driver filed a lawsuit claiming he was the one who was paying off the families of fellow inmates.
Now, a prison guard writes me to say that prisoners of way less means have also learned to game the system.
The guard, whose name and place of employment shall be kept secret, said common drug dealers behind bars have learned how to use the cellphones of corrections officers to their advantage.
"I've been a correction officer for a long time and I can tell you from experience that cellphones are a serious problem in the jails," the guard writes. "Did you know that dogs can be trained to [sniff out] cellphones?"
"While it is a felony in my state for a corrections officer to lend an inmate his cellphone — some have been told sob stories and have done it," the guard writes.
Once the phone has been lent, an inmate — knowing he has the guard over a barrel — starts to squeeze him for favors, the guard said.
In one case, the guard wrote, a prison guard agreed to take orders for expensive sneakers and smuggled them into the prison inside his lunch cooler. (You would think correctional officers are going on a picnic with the size of their lunch "pails.")
"Please keep in mind, however, that the majority of correctional employees are honest and professional," he wrote, adding that counselors, nurses, teachers and even a religious contact have been guilty at times of handing a cellphone to an inmate.
The ironic part of the guard's tale is that Rajaratnam, the supposed smart guy with the financial expertise, likely paid a lot of cash to get favors in prison while the common drug dealers got their favors for free.
The Social Security Administration reported last week that it has a large and growing surplus. The retirement system to which you and I have contributed for decades will have a $2.8 trillion surplus by the end of the year.
Great! But where is all that money?
That's the key question when you hear numbers like this being thrown around.
Well, that $2.8 trillion has been loaned to the US government. Social Security gives the Treasury cash and in return gets bonds (or, rather, a digital IOU on the government's books). So, in reality, the money exists only as part of the $17.6 trillion that Uncle Sam owes to all its creditors.
In fact, "intragovernmental holdings" of Treasury securities total $5.02 trillion. Most of that is owed to Social Security.
We all know that demographics are working against the Social Security system. The population is aging. Younger people can't find jobs or, at least, good jobs. And immigrants aren't going to be contributing to Social Security unless they can find legitimate jobs.
So, I'm glad the Social Security folks are running such a great surplus — for now. But just how are they planning to get the money from Treasury if the country continues to run huge deficits?
Insurance.com says three-quarters of the 2,000 licensed drivers it surveyed said they would be very likely to buy, or at consider buying, a self-driving car. "Autonomous cars" is what they are being called.
And nearly a third of the people said they would not continue to drive once an autonomous car was available.
So, I guess we'll all be doing 55 mph soon in the left lane. And if we go over the limit we'll just send the ticket to the car manufacturer because you can't blame the driver.
What will municipalities do for revenue when no car is going over the limit anymore?
Now I get it.
Gov. Cuomo is catching hell these last few days for protecting people who contributed to his campaign. Could that also be why his office refuses to collect the sales tax that some industries owe the state?
I'm talking about the issue of "zapper" cash registers, which are more correctly called Point of Sale (POS) terminals. These high-tech registers x-out transactions so that stores, restaurants and others can pretend these sales weren't made. And if the sales didn't occur, then taxes aren't due.
Albany has been unresponsive to the matter since I uncovered it several years ago, even as California took action.
Among Cuomo's top campaign contributors are a lot of hotel and restaurant operators, who kicked in nearly $200,000 during the governor's last campaign.
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