Fed Intends to Hire Lobbyist in Campaign to Buttress Its Image – Bloomberg.com – Robert Schmidt – 5 June 09

The Federal Reserve intends to hire a veteran lobbyist as it seeks to counter skepticism in Congress about the central bank’s growing power over the U.S. financial system, people familiar with the matter said…Linda Robertson …headed the Washington lobbying office of Enron Corp…also an adviser to all three of the Clinton administration’s Treasury secretaries….Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin and Lloyd Bentsen…”People have been asking whether the Fed is capable of getting its job done right,” said Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Hiring a former lobbyist from Enron will surely make one wonder.”..

Threads and Leather Straps Bind a Business – New York Times – Adam B. Ellick – 27 April 09

… deep in the nation’s commercial capital, just next door to a mosque and the offices of a radical Islamic organization, in an unmarked house two Pakistani brothers have discovered a more liberal and lucrative use for the scourge: the $3 billion fetish and bondage industry in the West.

Their mom-and-pop-style garment business, AQTH, earns more than $1 million a year manufacturing 2,000 fetish and bondage products, including the Mistress Flogger, and exporting them to the United States and Europe….

It helps that the dozens of veiled and uneducated female laborers who assemble the handmade items – gag balls, lime-green corsets, thonged spanking skirts – have no idea what the items are used for. Even the owners’ wives, and their conservative Muslim mother, have not been informed.

“If our mom knew, she would disown us,” said Adnan, seated on a leopard-print fabric covering his desk chair…

Even customs officials were perplexed at how to tax the items, not quite sure what they were, they said.

Recently, when a curious employee inquired about the purpose of the sleep sack, a sleeping bag-like product used in certain kinds of bondage, she was told it was a body bag for the American military in Iraq…

Still, word of the business has at times escaped. Last year four “powerful guys” from a conservative Muslim group threatened to burn down the factory if it was not closed within a week. The brothers calmly explained that it was merely a business, and that the items were not used in Pakistan. The next day they bribed a local Islamic political organization to ensure their safety…

Then, they discovered a kind of straitjacket online. At first, they thought it was used for psychiatric patients, but it quickly led them to learn about the lucrative fetish industry.

Today, they sell their products to online and brick-and-mortar shops, and to individuals via eBay. Their market research, they said, showed that 70 percent of their customers were middle- to upper-class Americans, and a majority of them Democrats. The Netherlands and Germany account for the bulk of their European sales.

“We really believe that if you are persistent and hard working, there is an opportunity, in any harsh environment, even in an economically depressed environment like Pakistan,” Rizwan said.

A major perk, they say, is attending international fetish shows to see how their products hold up in action.

“I go to Sin City every year,” said Rizwan, referring to Las Vegas in a sheepish laugh. It’s all business, he said. “Clients know our country and culture, and they don’t invite us to participate. We’re a little bit shy.”