Periscope

Twins: Sarkozy Is Looking More Like The 'French Rudy' Every Day
By Christopher Dickey

Rudy Giuliani has a dream. actually, the GOP presidential candidate says he's had it about five times and it's always the same: French President Nicolas Sarkozy is on a plane, and out over the Atlantic it almost crashes head-on into another one. As the planes pass one another, Sarkozy waves at the Democratic presidential front runners aboard the oncoming aircraft. As Giuliani tells it, Sarkozy is on his way to the United States to learn the virtues of a free economy, while the Democrats are headed to Paris "to see how they can take all the policies that failed in France."

This week, Sarkozy heads to Washington for real on a whirlwind visit that includes an address to a joint session of Congress and a state dinner at the White House. His aides say he won't be meeting—or waving to—any presidential candidates, but they note that as a government minister he encountered John McCain and Barack Obama. And he has met Giuliani at least three times since 2002. "They know each other well," says one close associate of Sarkozy. Part of their rapport is based on shared beliefs in the benefits of lower taxes. Both men cultivate tough law-and-order images. Giuliani recently said he would "give the death penalty to the death tax," adding with apparent pride that this was "the program of the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy." "I love France," Giuliani said recently, and not only because some French pundits have called Sarkozy "the French Rudy."

But now the similarities may be growing too close, at least for Sarkozy's comfort, in matters of personality. As New York's mayor, Giuliani underwent a high-profile divorce, and was known for a raging temper. Sarkozy, who just went through his own very public divorce, has a short fuse, too, and his critics say his manic energy is offset by dark moods and angry outbursts. The French president enjoys popular support, but his personal quirks are increasingly obvious. Indeed, some of his appearances are so weird, they're now staples of YouTube and its French variants. At a G8 meeting in June, Sarkozy was giddy, if not downright tipsy, at a press conference. During his August vacation, a couple of American photographers followed him out onto a New Hampshire lake, and he jumped on their boat to dress them down. Most recently, while taping a CBS "60 Minutes" interview, the president called his spokesman an "imbecile" and worse before storming out. "I hope there are no psychiatrists in the audience," Giuliani likes to joke when he starts to tell the story of his recurrent dream. Sarkozy might say the same thing to viewers at home and abroad.

The Debunker: My Sham Launderette
By Patrick Falby

The complex "structured investment vehicles" at the heart of the credit crisis are opaque by nature. So it's no surprise banks are targeting SIVs as a possible channel for money laundering. A July survey by KPMG said the boom in these investments is a major reason banks' anti-money-laundering spending rose by an average of 58 percent over the last three years. But banks still haven't caught anyone using SIVs to funnel ill-gotten gains, suggesting they may be just the latest money-laundering bogeyman. Newcastle Business School professor Jackie Harvey says most money launderers use vehicles a lot simpler than SIVs. But the bogeyman serves one purpose--advancing the interests of consultants and technology firms. Banks expect anti-money-laundering spending to increase by an average of 34 percent in each of the next three years.