Sunday, January 31, 2010

Obama Math: 599,108 jobs counts as two million


Obama said this during his State of the Union speech:

"because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed."

 Meanwhile at recovery.gov, we see this as the job tally:

Recovery Funded Job
Reported by Recipients
 October 1 - December 31, 2009

599,108

Job calculations are based on
the number of hours worked in a quarter
and funded under the Recovery Act.

That my friends, is Obama math!

Apple's own version of "photoshop"

AAPL hates Adobe (Steve Jobs--they're lazy) and Flash support doesn't exist on the iPhone. Thus, a lot of stuff/content on the Internet can't be accessed by the iPhone browser, or for that matter, by the iPad.

But AAPL's PR department seems to forget that.
This screenshot was taken from AAPL's website, hyping it's relationship with the NY Times. Flash video? It's clearly visible.


Here's Steve Jobs at the live demo, accessing the front page of the NYT, showing you how it actually looks.


And what you see on an iPhone.

It's Apple's flash in the iPad photoshop!

AI

"They buy suitcases for their suitcases"

(CNN) -- Talk about a hefty baggage fee:

For months now I have not been able to get the $27,100 suitcase out of my mind.

The economy is rocky. People are out of work. Yet the $27,100 suitcase exists. It's not a joke.

At first I thought it was. Last fall I was traveling through Naples, Florida, and a cover line on a glossy local magazine caught my eye.

The magazine was called Gulfshore Life, and the cover line said:

"The $58,000 brooch... The $27,100 suitcase... Check Out Our Luxury File."

Perhaps, I thought, this was a teaser to a satirical story using literary exaggeration to whistle past the graveyard of America's fiscal hard times.

But when I flipped open the magazine, the feature seemed to be serious.

The $27,100 suitcase, the story said, was sold by Hermès, the luxury retailer, which has a store in Naples. The suitcase was called the Hector, and was "constructed of Officier canvas with Evercalf calfskin."

I closed the magazine, but could not stop thinking about the suitcase. A suitcase is something that gets banged around. It sits out in the rain and snow on airport runways. Baggage handlers toss it roughly onto conveyer belts. Sometimes it gets lost on flights.

Why would anyone pay $27,100 for a suitcase?

Weighty and important matters dominated the news. But there it was, always in the back of my mind: the suitcase, and the parallel world of wealth it represented.

Over the holidays, I was in New York City. One morning I walked to the Hermès store at the corner of 62nd Street and Madison Avenue. I took a deep breath and walked in.

"May I help you?" a clerk asked.

"I'd like to see the $27,000 suitcase," I said. (I shaved $100 off the price; the phrase sounded smoother that way.)

"Which bag specifically?" she said.

"You have more than one that costs that much?" I said.

"There was one that cost $200,000," she said. "It featured diamonds."

"Why would someone spend that kind of money on a suitcase?" I said.

"Hand-stitching," she said. "Sometimes exotic material."

She looked around, as if to be certain no one was listening, then half-whispered:

"I use my Samsonite."

She said that the $27,100 suitcase was not, on that day, on floor display. I left New York, still mulling: How could a person take such a suitcase on a trip? It would be like putting a baggage tag on $27,100 in cash.

At Midway Airport in Chicago, I went in the slush and slop to Southwest Airlines' curbside baggage-check area to commiserate with my baggage-handler friends there. I told them the story.

I would like to report their response, but it was so cold outside, and they were so bundled up head to toe, that all I could discern was their muffled laughter.

In recent days I was in southwest Florida again. This time I went to the Hermès store there, in the elegant Waterside Shops outdoor mall.

"I'm interested in the $27,000 suitcase," I said to the first clerk I saw.

She absolutely beamed, and I immediately realized she had mistaken my intentions.

"No," I said. "No. I don't want to buy it."

The wattage of her smiled dimmed a bit. She said I would have to give her more information about the product; she said some specially made Hermès bags sold for $40,000 or $50,000. "The people who pay that much for a bag usually fly on jets," she said.

"Most people fly on jets," I said.

She gave me a don't-be-dense look.

"Oh," I said, surmising that, in these circles, "jets" was a synonym for "private jets."

Back in my hotel room, I called Hermès' U.S. corporate headquarters.

There, a spokeswoman, Bernice Kwok-Gabel, said that for many customers, only the best that money can buy will do. "They want the finest," she said. "No compromises." She said that for people who might spend $27,000 on a work of art, $27,000 for a suitcase is not excessive. "If they want it, the price is not a big concern."

She said that the $27,100 Hector suitcase is actually a twinned piece of luggage: two compartments carried by a single handle. For a customer on a tight budget, a single Hector compartment can be bought by itself.

For $14,000.

I ended my quest where it began: at Gulfshore Life magazine, where I had seen the original mention. I called the editor-in-chief, David Sendler, to ask if he thought his readers had greeted the item about the suitcase with a shake of the head.

"Some probably did," he said. "But I'm sure there were others who saw it and thought: 'I'd like to have that bag.' We have a very high-demographic readership."

I will leave you with this thought. At that Hermès store in New York, I asked the clerk why someone would pay so much for a suitcase that would inevitably get scuffed and scratched in transit.

"Some people buy metal cases in which to enclose their suitcases," she said.

She saw the disbelief in my eyes, smiled, and said:

"They buy suitcases for their suitcases."

Saturday, January 30, 2010

"How'd you get caught?"

When John Edwards got nailed for cheating on his wife, Bill Clinton gave him a call and asked, "How'd you get caught?"

Since Edwards was a lawyer by training, here's his methodology of his affair:


Get a cell phone and use it exclusively for your affair. Once the affair took off, Edwards bought a cell phone to take calls exclusively from Hunter, which he dubbed the "Batphone." Edwards failed, however, to keep the phone hidden from his wife. Elizabeth discovered it ringing one night in his bag, answered it, and heard Hunter launch into a "romantic monologue." That's when Edwards confessed to Elizabeth that he'd had a "one-night stand." (An understatement.) From then on, Edwards and Young arranged handoffs so Edwards wouldn't have the Batphone while Elizabeth was around.

Use your calling plan's enhanced features. When Edwards didn't have the Batphone, Young set up three-way conference calls and had both Edwards and Hunter dial-in. That way there would be no record of the call when Elizabeth would check Edwards' call log, as she routinely did.


Make fake hotel reservations. When Hunter traveled with Edwards, Young would reserve a room in his own name and tell the hotel staff that his "wife" would be checking in on that account. That way, there would be no evidence Hunter stayed in the hotel. Hunter would then join Edwards in his suite and leave before aides came to wake him up.

Use separate doors. And don't forget to stagger your entrances. Heading back to the campaign office in South Carolina after a rally, Edwards had Young drop him off in the parking garage, and he took the elevator up. Hunter entered through the front, where she ran into Elizabeth. Elizabeth later "confronted her husband about the glowing blond woman who had obviously arrived with him from the road."

Use cash. When Edwards gave Hunter his bank card, Elizabeth noticed money inexplicably withdrawn in New York. From then on, Edwards—through Young—gave her cash stipends and her own separate credit card. As one Edwards donor tells Young: "Old Chinese proverb: Use cash, not credit cards."

Funnel money. When Edwards started paying Hunter's living expenses, the money came from the nonagenarian philanthropist Rachel Lambert "Bunny" Mellon, who didn't ask any questions about where the cash was going. Mellon would pay her interior decorator, who would pass the money along to Young. The cash would be concealed in boxes of chocolates.

Destroy all evidence. Edwards was not as careful as he could have been. At one point, Edwards' nanny discovered a Marriott key card on the kitchen counter. Young noticed that when Edwards would receive notes from "eager women" on the campaign trail, he "occasionally pocketed" them instead of handing them off for disposal. And many nights, Edwards would take mysterious 2 a.m. "jogs."

Seriously, destroy all evidence. Elizabeth spent days going through the footage Hunter shot for the never-aired "Webisodes" of the Edwards campaign, searching for evidence of cheating. However, she was never able to find the tapes shot at the Edwards house while she was away. Young and his wife later allegedly found a half-destroyed tape, allegedly shot by Hunter, of her and the senator allegedly having sex. Allegedly. (Hunter has now filed for a restraining order to keep Young from releasing it.)

Don't canoodle in front of aides. While Elizabeth was on a book tour in 2006, Hunter came over to Edwards' house and the two spoke openly in front of Young about getting married in a rooftop ceremony with music played by the Dave Matthews Band. (The band didn't like her when they met her.) Hunter and Edwards would kiss in front of Young and cuddle in front other another aide, prompting him to ask Young, "What the hell is going on?"

Choose a discreet lover. Hunter was a noticeable presence on the trail, according to Young. She dressed in bright colors, talked loudly, and flirted constantly. She spoke to "close friends" about their affair, but trusted them because of their "spiritual connection." She recounted their sexual exploits to Young and his wife. She even talked to Newsweek's Jonathan Darman about having an affair with a powerful man whom she wouldn't name. (Darman knew she worked with the Edwards campaign.) When rumors of the affair started circulating, she continued to risk getting spotted in hotel lobbies and grocery stores. "I think she wanted to get caught," Young writes.

Maintain plausible deniability. Even after Young learned about the affair, Edwards continued to use vague language while on the phone with Hunter—just in case he or Young, who overheard them, had to deny it. When Hunter said she loved him, Edwards "would say only, 'Me too.' And if she asked him if he missed her, he would say, 'That's correct' … but never, 'I miss you.' " On calls with Young, top Edwards donor Fred Baron would refer to Edwards as "the principal" and to Hunter as "her."

Don't sign any cards you send to the new mother of your child. When Hunter gave birth to their daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, Young asked Edwards if he wanted to send her flowers. "Yeah, that's a good idea," Edwards said. "But don't sign it from me. Someone might see it.


Wear a condom. Edwards claims that Hunter told him she couldn't get pregnant. You know the rest.

State of Wisconsin pension enhancement strategy

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board, with their $68 billion pension fund, is turning to Wall Street to leverage its returns.

112% allocation in 2011.

120% allocation in 2012.

The quants, devising this strategy for Wisconsin say this:

“'Downside protection' improves with increased leverage in absolute terms, i.e., lower worst-case costs minus higher expected costs.”


Here's what Wisconsin approved for their mix:

The new target allocation is 28% U.S. equities, 25% international equities, 26% fixed income, 7% TIPS, and 6%  private equity, 6% real estate and 6% multiasset.

Supposedly, they'll leverage less risky assets.

In other words, they get the free lunch, coupled with Wall Street fees to get it.

How do more fees increase the return?

Wisconsin currently pays over $220 million a year in fees to manage their portfolio. If they shift 6% of their portfolio, (which has diminished almost $20 billion) into private equity with a standard 2/20 fee structure, and that $4 billion returns 10%, then they would pay $80 million in management fees and an additional $80 million in performance fees.

Wall Street would garner another $160 million from the pensioners of Wisconsin.

Today we saw that one of the most successful private equity buyouts; that of HCA, is paying a dividend to its private equity holders of $1.75 billion. They are, of course borrowing it.

HCA made $673 million in 2008, and $1.05 billion in 2009.

Thus, this $33 billion in revenue hospital, paid out every penny they made the last two years, to the greedy, blood sucking owners of the firm, in a dividend borrowed from the banks.

Now The State of Wisconsin, has a flim flam argument to leverage their returns, just so Wall Street can take money out of their pensions and give it to people that strip companies of their assets, lay off people, and pay themselves all that the company makes.

California's foray into private equity was a disaster. So Wall Street hooked their next fish.

Wisconsin.

There isn't any Peacock Bass in Wisconsin, and they shouldn't have any private equity in their portfolio either.

You want enhancement for your portfolio?

Get it from Go Daddy, and tell Wall Street to take a hike!

Sarkozy at Davos


"That those who create jobs and wealth may earn a lot of money is not shocking. But that those who contribute to destroying jobs and wealth also earn a lot of money is morally indefensible."

Bear wakes up and chases man

She was shot with a sleep inducing drug.

The bears, lately have shown they have a bit more life!

The "Cougar" in the State Department

 
  
 


January 21, 27, and 28th. Now you know why she skipped Obama's State of the Union speech.

Run Hillary run!

Obama Administration is reviewing the legality of the BCS

In the letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch, obtained by The Associated Press, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that the Justice Department is reviewing Hatch's request and other materials to determine whether to open an investigation into whether the BCS violates antitrust laws.

"Importantly, and in addition, the administration also is exploring other options that might be available to address concerns with the college football postseason," Weich wrote, including asking the Federal Trade Commission to review the legality of the BCS under consumer protection laws.

Maybe Gloria Allred can get a consulting gig!

The January effect

When January is negative, the average return for February over the last 80 years has been -0.8%.  The average return for January, in an up year for stocks is about 3.7%. We had that in the first two weeks of this year, before they let the air out of the market.

Barrons came out this weekend and discussed the January effect. The one that I think had it right was BTIG who said this:

Mike O'Rourke, strategist at institutional broker BTIG, wrote to clients, "correcting on Washington and [other] jitters is a healthy way to keep the bulls honest....We would be more concerned if it appeared the economic and earnings data were going off track, which we do not believe is the case. We anticipate this corrective move will establish stability and have run its course by the middle of next week."
I'm with them on that--after all, how could I not be? I thought we'd be up 7% in January, setting us up for a 5-6% pullback, and then off to the races again.

It looks like "Internet" time, we got the January move in the first two weeks, and the February pullback in the same month. But this time, we have ugly looking and broken charts everywhere. They're as ugly as my January call!

But in order to fix these charts, you need a much broader and deeper rally, than just what a snapback rally can provide.

And with that rally, no-one will care about January. They'll use it as an entry point to get long.

Goldman re-iterates a mid year target of 1300 for the S&P 500

Goldman Sachs Portfolio Strategy: Q4 '09 Earnings, Top-line Strength, Macro Concerns                                                     

Friday, January 29, 2010

Bree Condon impersonator swindles millionaires on dating site

And worse, her impersonator was a guy! I just had to bring this story up today, because it's Friday, and this weekend, just like last Friday, it's the most emailed story on the WSJ.

Anyone think some Wall Street types have been getting action from that site or planning a weekend hook-up?

WSJ:
“Where you bring together wealthy individuals and those who seek their companionship, you have a lot of potential for fraud,” Stephan Smith, a spokesman for SeekingMillionaire.com, told ABC News

Mr. Smith was speaking in response to the latest online millionaire swindle, where a man posing as model Bree Condon is alleged to have swindled tens of thousands of dollars (and maybe much more) from members of SeekingMillionaire.Com.

Apparently, the con man was able to disguise his voice as a woman and employed various personal photos and details of Bree’s life to persuade site members to send him cash.

One Austin, Texas, man sent the fraudster more than $10,000 after “Bree” said via email and phone conversations that she was having financial difficulties. Yes, it can be that easy.

Mr. Smith added that reports of blackmail and extortion on his site are “all too often.”

Obama's church record

ABC news found out that Obama only went to church three times the last year in Washington DC, and that he even skipped during Christmas.

Maybe Obama didn't like the clergy in DC.He didn't miss church in Chicago.

Remember Jeremiah Wright? Obama's previous pastor? Who recently said this:

"Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me," Wright said. "I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ..."They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: He's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do."

Thus Obama, who had to keep up his image, and had to pretend that he still wasn't a disciple/schill of Jeremiah Wright, so he came up with this beauty.

"My Faith and Neighborhood Initiatives director, Joshua DuBois, he has a devotional that he sends to me on my BlackBerry every day," Obama said. "That's how I start my morning. You know, he's got a passage, Scripture, in some cases quotes from other faiths to reflect on."
 
Showing that his only conviction is what the polls say, despite him saying otherwise this morning!

Phil Mickelson becomes a "banker"

Here's that story! And let's see Joe Kernen spin this. Phil's been hanging out with Barclay's President Robert Diamond too much!

The PGA Tour season's not even a month old, and we've already got our first major controversy. And Phil Mickelson has played exactly 18 holes, and he's smack-dab in the middle of it.

At issue are new club groove rules that went into effect on Jan. 1. Long story short: golfers were using specially-cut grooves on their clubs to spin the ball more sharply and play more effectively out of the rough; the penalty for putting a shot into the rough was thus minimized. So the USGA and the Royal & Ancient, two of golf's major governing bodies, decreed that such grooves were illegal and could not be used on Tour starting this year. (For more detail, check our handy guide to the new rules right here.)

However, golfers are expert at wiggling their way out of tough situations, and they discovered that a lawsuit Ping filed against the PGA Tour and the USGA way back in 1993 exempted wedges made before 1990 from the new rules. (Don't try to figure it out, just accept it.) Lo and behold, what should turn up in the bags of golfers like John Daly and Phil Mickelson but some vintage Ping Eye 2 wedges, clubs that are old enough to legally drink.

The golfers' decision to squeeze through the loophole hasn't sat well with many of their peers. "It's cheating, and I'm appalled Phil has put [the grandfathered club] into play," Scott McCarron, a three-time Tour winner, told the San Francisco Chronicle."All those guys should be ashamed of themselves for doing that ... As one of our premier players, (Mickelson) should be one of the guys who steps up and says this is wrong."

Celebrity home tour

John Travolta's house in Ocala, FL

Halle Berry


Oprah


J-Lo



Eddie Murphy

Sly Stallone


Tiger Woods

David Rosenberg on today's GDP number--The Houdini Recovery

It looks like a lot of folks had Lunch with Dave today. So here's his take on today's GDP!
Lunch With Dave January 29 2010                                                    

Read between the lines!!

OK--look at what our Government (Goldman Sachs) is doing. They removed FCX and downgraded X the last few days from their CL. So that means you can now buy them!

That was just a trading maneuver.

Today they upgraded WMT, and they said that China would be fine.

Well, wasn't the thesis for getting sour on the materials was that China would tank, and stimulus money was yet too far away?

But X (45.58)  DE (51.11) CAT (51.86), FCX (68.82), CMI (45.55) have all corrected enough to give good entry points again.

Because now its Wall Street's turn to screw the shorts!

GDP prints at 5.7%---Goldman upgrades Walmart


Throw a sop to the plebeians by Goldman! An upgrade of Walmart. The Superheroes, now led by Walmart, Ben Bernanke, and a Goldman upgrade of the world's largest retailer, will lead the stock market recovery.

With a 5.7% preliminary GDP print to boot!

And now, we'll see the bankers, who were furiously dumping stock, so the world would think the market would collapse if Ben Shalom Bernanke wasn't re-appointed, can now come out and say that the Goldilocks is back!

No wasn't there anybone besides me, that thought all of that selling was fishy?

When they need to sell it that hard, you know it stinks!

 So now its back to Buy, Buy, Buy!

We can't say bye be bye to our fortune!

The correction is contained. Keep it within 5.6%!

The sell-off was just anothe rcase of "Let's Pretend!"

So now, Wall Street gets back to work.

And now Bill Miller's thesis can get some traction!
2010-01 Miller Commentary                                                          

Where are the "world is going to collapse" emails?

The Federal reserve, Timothy Geithner, and Hank Paulson all say they prevented Great Depression II, Armageddon and 25% unemployment. So where are the emails?

Where are the emails fretting about the health of the world economy?

Where are they?

Where are these bankers congrautaulting themselves for stopping Armageddon? GD II? 25% unemployment?

Can anyone even find one?

But why do we find 100s of phone calls to every crony of Goldman Sachs, and emails worrying about Goldman's hedge positions; something Timothy "I recused myself but I really didn't" Geithner admitted to seeing in his Wednesday pre-perp testimony?

Which is why you saw this email on the world collapsing, "(for example, I believe one counterparty had shorted AIG risk in order to balance their AIG exposure on the CDS deals, so tearing up the trades left them exposed with no hedge, etc.)"

Isn't that why there was no negotiations with AIG? Because Timmy "I recused myself" Geithner made it explicitly clear, that any discount would directly harm Goldman!

It's so egregious now that Bloomberg has stories like this:

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg
) -- The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all.

Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system -- apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout -- deserves further congressional scrutiny....

I had no involvement at all, in the payment to the counterparties, no involvement whatsoever,” Paulson said.

Bernanke’s Denials

Fed Chairman Bernanke also wasn’t involved. In a written response to questions from Representative Darrell Issa, Bernanke said he “was not directly involved in the negotiations” with AIG’s counterparty banks.
---------------

So I guess it was just a lowly staffer that gave billions and billions and billions to Goldman and its counterparties. And the 100s of phone calls from Geithner to Jester, and Paulson to Goldman, apparently were just to check how their kids were doing at school.

Never mind that Goldman was percieved as being a beneficiary of the Fed's largress:

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc., one of the biggest recipients of funds from the U.S. bailout of American International Group Inc., was seen by the public as favored by regulators, according to an internal Federal Reserve Bank of New York e-mail.

The public perception was a reason to reject a December 2008 media request for the names of securities purchased from banks during AIG’s rescue, according to the e-mail released yesterday. If the names of the assets were released, the banks, including Goldman Sachs, would be identified as beneficiaries, New York Fed employee Danielle Vicente wrote in the Dec. 4, 2008, e-mail to Fed counsel James Hennessy.

The New York Fed has said that releasing the names of banks that were paid to fulfill $62.1 billion in AIG guarantees could hurt the insurer and its counterparties. The internal e-mail, obtained this month by a House oversight committee, indicates Vicente was also concerned that the AIG rescue would be viewed unfavorably if it was known that Goldman Sachs and non-U.S. banks received funds.

“A major U.S. counterparty was Goldman, which has already been seen as favored by the Fed/Treasury in the public’s eye,” Vicente wrote. Regarding the non-U.S. banks, “it would be hard to sell the public on U.S. funds to buy foreign entities out of AIG risk.”
-------------

In other words, if the public knew the Fed was bailing out Goldman, the public wouldn't let them.

You want to know where the emails are about where the world is going to collapse, or Armageddon?

You have already seen them. They are the emails concerning AIG, Goldman and their counterparties!

Because that's the banking cabal's world.

Goldman.

But they sure dress up their bailout as though its your world and your bailout!
 
The world of jobs, foreclosures, lost benefits and closed factories.

And how do they address your world?

With banker bullsh*t and banker lies!

"They would sell their grandmother for a trade"

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG senior currency strategist Benedikt Germanier decided that he had become just another battery hen on a trading floor where money was everything that counted. So he ditched his bonus and banker life in the U.S. for a pair of handmade skis.

“I feel much more down to earth, and I have my destiny in my hands,” says Germanier, 43, sitting in his office in Disentis, an Alpine village 44 miles from Davos where global executives are meeting this week.

He is now chief executive of Zai AG and its 10 staff, including carpenters and craftsmen. Germanier says he halved his pay, without giving figures. He also gave up his $7,000-a-month, 250-square meter house with gardener, located 15 minutes from UBS’s Stamford, Connecticut trading floor, which is the size of two football fields.

Sometimes I even thought they would sell their grandmother for a trade,” he says, talking about East Coast bankers, and he realized that he had become one of these “hens” on a trading floor, reminding him of a battery farm.

Bin Laden now a spokesperson for Al Gore!

 CAIRO (AP) - Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming.

In the tape, aired in part on Al-Jazeera television Friday, bin Laden warns of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.

He says the world should "stop consuming American products" and "refrain from using the dollar," according to a transcript on Al-Jazeera's Web site.


(Somehow the FBI's "cutting edge" technology of how Bin Laden now looks isn't working too well. Maybe they listened too much to Chris "I forgot Obama was black" Matthews!)

Lottery millionaire found buried in concrete

(CNN) -- Human remains found buried under recently-added concrete at a home in Plant City, Florida, are likely those of missing lottery millionaire Abraham Shakespeare, police said Thursday.

Deputies made the discovery after a tip came in, suggesting investigators would find a body near a home in Plant City, according to CNN affiliate WFTV.

Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee said the body was slowly being uncovered. They are awaiting positive identification.

However, Gee said their investigation and information specifically led them to the area after they began to believe he might be dead because of "sinister means and motives."

Shakespeare, a 43-year-old truck driver, won a $31 million Florida lottery prize in 2006. A year later, he won a court challenge from a fellow trucker who accused Shakespeare of snatching the winning ticket out of his wallet while the two were delivering meat to Miami restaurants.

Shakespeare's family reported him missing on November 9, telling the Polk County sheriff's office they hadn't seen him since April.