Wheels coming off

Betsy McCaughey

The central parts of ObamaCare don’t roll out until 2014, but the wheels are already falling off this clunker. The latest news from four federal agencies is that 1) insurance will be a lot less affordable than Americans were led to expect, 2) fewer people than promised will get insurance and 3) millions of people who have coverage through a job now will lose it, thanks to the president’s “reforms.” Oh, and children are the biggest victims.

The Affordable Care Act is looking less and less affordable.

Start with the IRS’s new estimate for what the cheapest family plan will cost by 2016: $20,000 a year to cover two adults and three kids. And that will only cover 60 percent of medical bills, so add hefty out-of-pocket costs, too.

The next surprise is for parents who thought their kids would be covered by an employer. Sloppy wording in the law left that unclear until last week, when the IRS ruled that kids won’t be covered.

Starting in 2014, the law will require employers with 50 or more full-time employees to offer coverage or pay a penalty. “Affordable” coverage, that is — meaning the employee can’t be told to contribute more than 9.5 percent of his salary. For example, a worker earning $40,000 a year cannot be required to pay more than $3.800.

But the law doesn’t specifically mandate family coverage — and now the administration says that won’t be required.

You can see why: If the lowest-cost family plan (again, two adults and three kids) is to run a whopping $20,000, and if the employee’s contribution is limited to $3,800, the employer’s tab would be $16,200 — adding about $7.40 an hour to the cost of that employee. Wisely, the IRS announced on Jan. 30 that employers won’t have to pay for dependents.

But the Congressional Budget Office’s much-cited prediction that ObamaCare would leave only 30 million people uninsured by 2016 was based on the assumption that kids would be covered by employers. At the very least, employers insuring their workers for the first time to avoid the penalty are unlikely to do that.

So how will the kids be covered? They won’t. The IRS shocked the law’s advocates by announcing that the insurance exchanges won’t provide subsidies for a child whose parent is covered at work.

Nor will these parents be penalized for not insuring their children — the IRS will kindly consider the kids exempt from the mandate.

Also exempt are millions of people who’ll stay uninsured because their state is wisely choosing not to loosen Medicaid eligibility.

Some background: Despite President Obama’s promises to help solve the problem of the uninsured by making private health plans more affordable, the law expands coverage mainly by forcing states to loosen their Medicaid eligibility rules. But the Supreme Court ruled that the feds can’t command states in this way.

At first, the CBO said that ruling would only prevent 4 million people from gaining coverage — but more states than it expected are refusing to go along; it could well be 8 million more without coverage.

Oh, and the CBO last week also doubled its previous estimate on how many people will lose the health coverage they now get through work, upping the figure to 8 million by 2016 and 12 million by 2019. Several top consulting firms put the figures even higher.

Yet the biggest setback is that most states are refusing to set up insurance exchanges. The exchanges are supposed to sell the government-mandated plans and hand out taxpayer-funded subsidies to most enrollees.

Here’s the glitch. The law says that in states that refuse, the federal government can set up an exchange. But the law empowers only state exchanges, not federal ones, to hand out subsidies. The Obama administration says it will disregard the law and offer subsidies in all 50 states anyway, but the case will likely go to the Supreme Court.

If the courts uphold the clear language of the law, then some 8 million people in the affected states won’t be eligible for subsidies to cover that $20,000 (or more) insurance bill. That’s another 8 million without coverage.

All in all, at least 40 million people could be uninsured in 2016, only 9 million fewer than before the law was passed.

Expect the momentum for repealing this law to grow as its flaws, perverse incentives and faulty predictions come to light.

Betsy McCaughey is the author of “Beating ObamaCare.”

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‘Gay? Roids?’ You don’t know squat!

Beloved Mets catcher Mike Piazza comes out swinging in a new memoir — confronting rumors about being gay and taking steroids, detailing his romantic home runs and finally settling the score with his hated rival, Roger Clemens.

The book, “Long Shot” (Simon & Schuster) comes a month after Piazza, arguably the greatest hitting catcher of all time, fell 98 votes short of being voted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Many think he missed because of persistent rumors he used performance-enhancing drugs during a 16-year career.

The 44-year-old makes no bones about holding a grudge against Clemens for beaning him during a July 8, 2000, game, and for the infamous bat-throwing incident later that season against the Yankees during the World Series.

Jeff Zelevansky

MR. CLEAN: Piazza denies using steroids but took supplements.

HONEY: Debbe Dunning of “Home Improvement.”

ZUMA Press

WIFE: Playboy hottie Alicia Rickter at 2005 nups.

The 98-mph fastball to his helmet could have been deadly.

“I truly believe that if I hadn’t gotten my head down at the last instant, Clemens’ two-seamer would have struck me in the eye and possibly killed me,” he recalls.

The Yankees hurler called the Mets dugout to apologize during the game, but Piazza wasn’t hearing it.

“I grabbed [the phone], threw it and said, ‘Tell him to go f--k himself,’ ” Piazza said.

“Roger Clemens had near-perfect control. I wouldn’t have batted an eye if he had just brushed me off the plate — of course that’s what he said he was trying to do . . . But to stick it in my forehead, that’s another story altogether.”

Piazza tells how he mapped out a plan for revenge — taking karate lessons and visualizing the next time they would go at it.

“I would approach with my fist pulled back. I figured he’d throw his glove out for protection. I’d parry the glove and then get after it,” Piazza writes.

He would get his chance in October — when the upstart Mets met their crosstown rivals in the World Series. The coming confrontation between the Mets’ 12-time All-Star catcher and the Bombers’ hard-case hurler was the talk of the city.

The climactic moment came at Yankee Stadium, during Clemens’ fourth pitch to Piazza in the first inning of Game 2. The sizzling fastball sawed Piazza’s bat into three pieces, with a shard flying toward the mound. Clemens picked up the splintered barrel and, inexplicably, chucked it in Piazza’s direction as the hitter ran down the first-base line.

“What the f--k is your problem?” Piazza, still holding the handle of the broken bat and walking toward the pitcher’s mound, asked Clemens. But Piazza went no further — and never realized his dream of revenge.

“There were complications,” he recalls. “The least of them was the realization that Clemens was a big guy, and I stood a pretty fair chance of getting my ass kicked in front of Yankee Stadium and the world. That was a legitimate concern.”

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The Dow at 14,000: not as good as gold

What an illuminating week for Wall Street — the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been bobbling just above and below the record high 14,000 mark, even as the country comes to grip with the reports that its economy has actually been slumping, with GDP shrinking 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012.

The Obama administration is trying to put a bright face on things — but the rest of us feel like we’re smoking more now and enjoying it less.

Well, guess what: While the Dow Jones Industrials have been edging past 14,000, the actual value of those stocks has been going down.

Bernanke: Has kept the Dow floating high by sinking the dollar’s value.

By this, I mean that if you take one share of each of the stocks in the Dow index, their combined value as measured in gold is lower than it used to be. The price in paper money may be going up, but the real value is slumping.

At about 14,000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stands at nearly twice the 7,949 at which it stood on the day in January 2009 when President Obama first took the oath of office. But value of the stocks in the index has drifted downward; a portfolio of one share of each stock is worth only 8.3 ounces of gold, down from 9.3 ounces on Jan. 20, 2009.

There are those who will say that this is a trick, that no one measures things in ounces of gold anymore. Not since 1971, when President Richard Nixon finished taking America off the gold standard — which then still defined the dollar by law as a 35th of an ounce of gold.

Nixon’s move put us on a system of fiat money, in which the dollar isn’t backed by specie but nonetheless must be accepted in payment of debts.

Throughout history, though, people all over the world thought of gold and silver as the real money — and thinking of it that way can still be illuminating.

In his weekly radio address two years ago, the president spoke on soaring gasoline prices, saying there is “no silver bullet” to solve the problem.

It was a funny choice of words. It turns out that the value of gasoline — measured in ounces of silver (or gold) — hadn’t been going up at all. It had been going down.

In other words, it wasn’t the price of gasoline that was going up. It was the value of the United States dollar that was going down.

This is the part of the policy partnership of Barack Obama and Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernankethat no one likes to talk about. What it means is that there’s little joy on the street — Wall Street or (especially) Main Street — even in a week when the Dow Jones Industrial Average touches a historic high of 14,000.

Track the Dow in terms of gold, and you see what a collapse it’s been: The index was valued at 41.3 ounces of gold as recently as 2000.

Rep. Ron Paul is practically alone in Congress in paying attention to this warning. He confronted Bernanke with the question at a congressional hearing two years ago. The Fed chairman dodged by suggesting that consumers didn’t want to buy gold.

That was a funny argument to make at a time of soaring gold prices. And it’s a hard sell at a time when the Dow Jones average is at a historical high, yet the value of the stocks in it is slumping in terms of gold. Call it “the fiat Dow.”

It’s not just gadflies who are sounding these warnings. John Taylor, one of America’s savviest economists, argued in The Wall Street Journal this week that the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” policy has not only failed to solve the economic problems in the country but has actually made things worse.

If you want to draw your own conclusions as to whether he’s right, track the value of your IRA or pension fund in terms of ounces of gold.

Lipsky@nysun.com

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Jersey sure bet

Nj Gov. Chris Christie has changed his mind.

In a gamble to save an embattled Atlantic City, the governor essentially legalized online gaming yesterday — paving the way for bets being placed via a computer from anywhere in the Garden State.

The first online bets could be placed sometime in September, insiders predict.

Gov. Christie’s okay came after he vetoed on online gambling measure for the second time in less than two years — but this time with certain conditions that he and lawmakers agree on.

“The conditions are minor changes,” state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, a sponsor of the bill, said in a phone interview, talking about the governor’s insistence that the law expire after 10 years and that funding for programs to help gambling addicts get pumped up.

Gov. Christie also insisted on boosting the tax on online gambling winnings to 15 percent from 10 percent.

“This is going to be wildly successful, and it’s going to bring in millions of dollars of additional revenues for the casinos and the state,” the Democratic lawmaker added.

As word of the conditional veto spread from Trenton to Wall Street, shares of Caesars Entertainment, which operates three AC casinos, including Harrah’s, soared 18.6 percent, to $10.07.

Boyd Gaming, which operates the Borgata, jumped 2.8 percent, to $7.10.

Under the bill, only NJ residents could bet online. Any casino bet could be made from any computer anywhere in the state — whether it’s in your kitchen or at a Starbucks.

Only AC’s 12 casinos could run online betting operations, and the software would be based in AC.

Lesniak predicted that gambling revenue could increase as much as $300 million in the first year — and that thousands of jobs would be saved.

That would help Atlantic City’s 12 casinos, which have seen revenues fall for six straight years as competition has popped up in neighboring states.

Since 2006, AC revenues have fallen nearly 42 percent, to $3.05 billion last year.

“Now is the time for our state to move forward, again leading the way for the nation, by becoming one of the first states to permit Internet gaming,” Christie wrote in a statement. “While Atlantic City’s reputation and stature as one of the premier resort destinations on the East Coast are well-chronicled, it is no secret that revenue from the region’s most important industries, gaming and tourism, has been in decline.

New Jersey will be the third state to legalize online gambling — after Nevada and Delaware passed similar laws.

Lesniak is now in the courts, fighting the National Football League over a bill Gov. Christie has signed allowing sports betting only at casinos and race tracks.

Briefs in the case have been filed, and the lawmaker believes there is a 50-50 chance the judge rules in his favor.

New York is moving forward with its own gaming initiatives. Albany will likely vote this year on whether to legalize brick-and-mortar casinos outside of racetracks.

Online gaming, for the moment, is not on the agenda.

jkosman@nypost.com

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Ralph Lauren’s profit jumps 27%

Ralph Lauren posted a 27 percent increase in its fiscal third-quarter profit as the clothing company enjoyed continued momentum in spending among affluent US shoppers and improving trends in Europe during the winter holidays.

The news lifted Lauren stock 6 percent yesterday.

The results are an improvement from the first half of the year, when cotton costs soared and the company was bearing costs to eliminate some of its businesses to focus on the most profitable ones. But the company managed to navigate through the rough patches and delivered better-than-expected results.

Lauren’s performance also shows that even in challenging times, the affluent will spend on trusted brands.

The New York-based company said it earned $215.7 million, or $2.31 per share, in the three months ended Dec. 29. That compares with $169 million, or $1.78 per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 2.2 percent, to $1.79 billion.

Analysts had expected earnings of only $2.20 per share on revenue of $1.85 billion.

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Dan tops

Investors in Dan Loeb’s Third Point hedge fund who went to its annual meeting last night hoping to learn whether he has sold, hedged or added to his trades in Herbalife were disappointed.

“He said nothing with regard to the [controversy surrounding] Herbalife,” said one attendee of the presentation at the Museum of Modern Art.

Loeb did reveal that he first bought Herbalife shares in the last days of 2012, when they were trading around $30.

That was shortly after the stock fell almost 40 percent following hedgie Bill Ackman’s crusade against the nutritional products company.

Ackman called Herbalife a pyramid scheme that should be shut down by regulators and took a $1 billion short position in the company.

Herbalife’s rise from the Ack-attack low of $26.06 — shares were up 10.4 percent in January — helped Loeb post a better overall return than his rival during the month.

Loeb’s $11.2 billion Third Point finished January up 4.8 percent, according to a letter to investors — a copy of which was obtained by The Post.

Despite the beating he took on Herbalife, Ackman and his Pershing Square fund still pulled down a 3.7 percent gain.

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It’s hammer time

NBCUniversal boss Steve Burke anointed Bonnie Hammer his cable queen.

Hammer yesterday solidified her grip on NBCU’s cable-TV empire in a management shake-up that also saw her closest rival, Lauren Zalaznick, stripped of her cable powers.

Burke handed Hammer control over women-focused channels Bravo, Oxygen and Style — properties that were overseen by Zalaznick — in addition USA, Sci-Fi, E! and a handful of other channels.

Zalaznick was put in charge of NBCU’s digital initiatives and will continue to oversee online properties including Fandango and Daily Candy.

Charles Trainor/Bravo

A scene from Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Miami”

As part of the restructuring, NBCU put Joe Uva, the former CEO of Univision, in charge of its Spanish-language channel Telemundo, which was also overseen by Zalaznick.

While Zalaznick’s new role was widely seen as a demotion, NBCU portrayed her as having executive parity with Hammer. Zalaznick, for instance, will get an office next door to Burke. All three executives will report to Burke.

“Lauren is being promoted to a new role in which she will be responsible for harnessing the power of the NBCUniversal content portfolio to drive revenue across the company, including TV Everywhere and alternative windowing strategies,” Burke said yesterday in an memo.

The Post first reported the cable reshuffling yesterday on its website.

After Comcast completed its takeover two years ago, Burke carved up the media giant’s cable empire, giving each woman her own channel portfolio.

But the separate fiefdoms created additional overhead and competition for ad dollars, sources told The Post.

Hammer was said to have been fed up with the current structure and made a play for the whole portfolio as part of her recent contract negotiations, sources said.

Burke had considered removing Telemundo from Zalaznick’s purview a few months ago, according to sources,

Uva, the new chairman of Hispanic Enterprises, will be tasked with boosting affiliate and ad rates for Telemundo, which has historically lagged Univision.

Ironically, Univision is now run by ex-NBCU President Randy Falco.

Exiting NBCU with no immediate position is Salil Mehta, sources said.

Mehta, a lieutenant of former NBCU chief Jeff Zucker, had reported to Zalaznick and was chief operating officer and chief financial officer at NBC Universal Entertainment and Digital.

Mehta follows a handful of top executives out the door, most recently NBC News boss Steve Capus, who announced his exit last week.

Hammer has her work cut out for her, as the cable assets — which account for 50 percent of the media giant’s cash flow — did not have a great 2012.

The cable channels saw an 8 percent dip in the 25-to-54 year old demographic during primetime.

NBCSports cable network fell 22 percent during an Olympic year, while cash cow USA was down 13 percent.

Comcast, which owns 51 percent of NBCU, reports fourth-quarter and full-year earnings Feb. 13.

catkinson@nypost.com

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60 Seconds with Gary Shapiro

How are successful businesses like black-clad Japanese assassins?

The ninja is a clever, out-of-the-box, fast-moving, fast-responsive warrior.

And to succeed in business today, a business or someone who works in it has to respond to the situation with the tools at hand, be flexible, clever and overcome bigger forces.

What are “ninja” companies looking for in their employees?

I’ve gotten to know a lot of CEOs, and they’re very similar. They don’t want yes-men. They want someone who’s going to challenge the status quo, who’s going to come up with a solution. If you see a brick wall, you don’t go back to your boss and say, “There’s a brick wall, I can’t get over it.” You get around it: Jump over it. Tunnel under it.

If an employee finds himself in a non-innovative business, what’s the first step he needs to make to effect change?

Volunteer to try different things. I’ve looked at the people we’ve promoted in our little 150-person corporation. The person who runs the biggest part of our department has no college degree, and she would volunteer for anything.

Workers are being asked to do more with less. How can workers define their goals while in a constant frenzy of activity?

Figure out what is being asked that is unnecessary. Are reports being prepared that no one is reading? That is common in every corporation. You do things because you’ve always done them. Or are you doing things that make sense from the customer’s perspective? Businesses waste a lot of time and money. It’s not a matter of putting more time into your job. It’s also a matter of working smarter and coming up with ways to do things better.

As an employee, how can you ensure you’ve accounted for every possible obstacle that can come between you and a successful career and the success of your company?

I have no problem, as a president of a company, when any employee asks me what they can do to move forward. It’s like dating. Men think women are really smart if they ask them a lot of questions. Same thing in a job interview or even with the CEO. If you ask them questions about what they’re thinking and you’ve done your homework, it makes a lot of sense. But 90 percent of the time, I realize that people who are trying to sell me something, or even employees sometimes,haven’t done their homework. It is a risk if you haven’t done your homework.

What kind of environment should employers be creating to get the most out of their employees?

Don’t treat employees as just a cost. Treat them as individuals. They have issues in life. You have to show that you care about them. And you should care about them. Things happen to employees, with their families, with themselves — and you have to respect that.

Why do you think so many employers have a difficult time doing that?

Obviously there are costs associated with that, but you have to focus on the long term. And the best predictor of an organization’s success is the engagement of the employees. If they’re not engaged, you’re doing something wrong and you need to rethink that.

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How Ed fixed New York

Michael Goodwin

Ed Koch was one of New York’s three great mayors in the 20th century, joining LaGuardia and Giuliani in that hallowed circle. Each faced different problems with unique style, but all turned the city away from disaster and toward prosperity.

That Koch departs in an election year, accompanied by an outpouring of praise and gratitude, is his final gift to the city he loved. The current crop of candidates for City Hall now has before them clear lessons on how he achieved greatness. If Gotham is lucky, one of them will also rise to the occasion.

In Koch’s case, the key was courage. The courage to confront the big problems, even when it meant breaking with some longtime supporters.

NY Post: Vic DeLucia

A liberal congressman from the East Side, Koch first tried for City Hall in 1973, quitting after seven weeks when he couldn’t raise money or support. He told a reporter, “That’s the last mayoral race I’m ever going to make.”

But as red ink swamped the city, Koch realized that Mayor Abe Beame wasn’t up to the task. Koch would run again in 1977.

This time, he didn’t dance around the edges, vowing to confront “the threat of bankruptcy, the loss of more and more jobs and the steadily increasing crime rates.” He called Beame, a fellow Democrat, “incompetent” and said Abe “couldn’t run a candy store.”

Koch’s team, led by the brilliant David Garth, was smart enough to let Koch be Koch — up to a point.

TV ads, some showcasing his puckish humor, were crafted to identify his name with a fresh approach.

All that is pretty standard, but the key was Koch’s willingness to buck party orthodoxy. Among outer-borough voters, especially those dismissed as “white ethnics,” most Dems were seen as too liberal and too Manhattan.

Koch was fierce in his determination to overcome that image with populist, common-sense ideas. He knew that success was possible only if his policies matched the problems and the mood of voters.

His election was just the start of his challenge — now he had to actually do something. His stroke of brilliance was to introduce a new word to New Yorkers: No.

No, no, no — we’re not going to spend money we don’t have. No, we’re not going to let the unions bring us to our knees.

No, it’s not OK to litter and loot and commit crimes and have prostitutes take over Times Square.

Koch became Dr. No with a shtick that was brash and infectious. He made it cool to say no.

Most important, he meant it and soon everybody knew he meant it. Those who tested his seriousness did so only once.

Koch did not pretend to be an expert on municipal bonds, housing or anything else. Instead, he was the leader of a team and, once a solution was settled on, used the bully pulpit, the camera and the megaphone to make it happen. He was relentless.

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Google’s Schmidt warns on China hack attacks

China is the world’s “most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies, says Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt in a book called “The New Digital Age,” which will be published in April.

The book, co-written with Jared Cohen, a former State Dept. biggie who now runs Google’s think tank, brands China as the most dangerous superpower on the globe.

Advance copies of “The New Digital Age” were obtained by the Wall Street Journal. News Corp. owns both the WSJ and The Post.

In a 2010 essay, Schmidt and Cohen anticipated uprisings in the Middle East by predicting that “governments will be caught off-guard when large numbers of their citizens, armed with virtually nothing but cell phones, take part in mini-rebellions that challenge their authority.”

Schmidt says that “the willingness of China’s government and state companies to use cyber crime gives the country an economic and political edge,” according to wsj.com.

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The hammer falls

Russell Wasendorf Sr., who earned the nickname “Midwest Madoff” for running a 20-year fraud from his Iowa brokerage, was sentenced to a whopping 50-year prison term yesterday — the most the judge could impose.

“I feel I fully deserve whatever sentence I am given,” a noticeably withered Wasendorf told federal Judge Linda Reade.

Few showed up to support the pathetic, disgraced businessman — who attempted suicide in his office parking lot as his fraud unraveled.

One supporter was the 64-year-old former local business leader’s pastor, Linda Livingston, who told the judge to go easy on Wasendorf — whose $250 million scam robbed workaday folks of their hard-earned savings — because he has been sick.

AP

Convicted fraudster Russell Wasendorf Sr. knows where he will die behind bars.

Also, David Nagle, a former US congressman, begged the judge for mercy, citing Wasendorf’s generosity.

But Reade wasn’t buying it.

“It’s easy to be generous with other people’s money,” she said as she got ready to throw the book at him — including an order to repay the $215.5 million he swiped from customers.

Wasendorf covered up his fraud in a very low-tech way — via Photoshopped statements and a rented post office box, prosecutors said.

The Midwest Madoff used the money to live large and become a pillar of the small town of Cedar Falls, where his Peregrine Financial Group was based.

“I am satisfied,” Joe Berger, a ripped-off Peregrine customer said of the sentencing. “I can’t be happy about this because I am still nursing a $100,000 wound that will never heal,” he said.

Wasendorf’s son, Russ Wasendorf Jr., wasn’t present at the sentencing and wasn’t among those asking the judge for leniency.

“I wish I could somehow fix what he did, but it is impossibly large and the damage too immense,” the son said in a statement.

With Post wires

kwhitehouse@nypost.com

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Chirping mad over A ‘Sac’ed $1M nest egg

Ronald Weiland realized he’d made a bad bet in 2008, when he lost his $1 million nest egg trading shares of drug company Elan. What he didn’t know then was that the cards were stacked against him.

Weiland now believes that he and other investors were played by Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors when the hedge fund giant — acting on information from a former trader accused of insider trading — abruptly dumped its huge long position in Elan and Wyeth and started shorting both stocks.

“They had information that I didn’t have access to,” said Weiland, a 53-year-old former consultant for Arthur Andersen. “It’s totally a matter of seeing very wealthy people being able to game the system.”

Douglas Zimmerman

Ronald Weiland (above) lost his life savings when shares of Elan Corp. plummeted in 2008. He and other investors plan to sue Steve Cohen's SAC Capital for allegedly using insider-information to short Elan shares.

The big trading swing that netted $276 million for SAC and led to the arrest of former trader Mathew Martoma has also landed the firm in hot water. Elan investors have filed at least two lawsuits against SAC, accusing the firm of costing them millions, and several class-action law firms are looking to tee up more.

The suits are part of the growing trend of shareholders seeking damages for being on the opposite end of a bad trade, in particular those involving allegations of insider trading.

“People’s realization that restitution is available [for insider trading cases] is rising,” said Pablo Quinones, a former prosecutor now with Reed Smith in New York.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent a so-called Wells notice to SAC, warning the firm that it faces civil charges tied to the trade. A spokesman for SAC and Cohen has said they acted appropriately in connection with the trades.

In 2011, former FrontPoint manager Chip Skowron was ordered to pay millions of dollars to five investors for selling them stock that he later admitted he knew was poised to plunge, including $2.4 million to Deutsche Bank and $877,000 to T. Rowe Price.

Skowron pleaded guilty to helping his former firm avoid $30 million in losses on Human Genome Sciences thanks to a tip he gleaned from a doctor overseeing a clinical drug trial.

The accusations against Martoma are similar. Prosecutors say he was tipped by a doctor overseeing clinical trials for an Alzheimer’s drug that Elan and Wyeth were developing.

The doctor, Sidney Gilman, allegedly told Martoma that the trial had hit a brick wall ahead of a presentation about the results. In the week leading up to the presentation, SAC dumped its Elan and Wyeth shares and shorted the two stocks, prosecutors said. SAC sold as much as $500 million Elan shares, representing more than 20 percent of the stock’s trading volume.

Weiland upped his Elan stake the same week that SAC was dumping the stock, he said.

Weiland, who lives in Concord, Calif., said the financial blow forced him to rejoin the work force.

“I had to reinvent my career again,” he said. “When I lost that working capital, which was pretty much my life’s savings, I had to move back to California to work for my father’s business.”

kwhitehouse@nypost.com

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Ground Zero’s new face: No substitute for the twins

The Issue: The almost complete 1 World Trade Center at Ground Zero and its affect on the skyline.

***

If Steve Cuozzo thinks that freedom is singing at Ground Zero, he is seriously tone-deaf (“Freedom Sings,” PostScript, Jan. 27).

If Cuozzo were really a part of the common rabble, he would never have written a column that tried to build the Freedom Tower up by tearing the Twin Towers down.

Doesn’t he understand that when he attacks the Twin Towers, he is attacking the millions who thought they were marvelous?

Doesn’t he know that his propaganda gives aid and comfort to those who feel free to blow the public’s money?

J.C. Rice

View of 1 World Trade Center from Jersey City.

For years he has been cheerleading for a building that almost no one wanted and that is sucking commuters dry at Port Authority crossings.

It’s bad enough that the public is heavily subsidizing the rebuilding of Ground Zero, while Larry Silverstein gets a free ride.

Cuozzo’s effort to demolish the Twin Towers’ reputation was way over the top. M. L. Donovan

Manhattan

In regard to the newly built One World Trade Center, as beautiful as it looks, we need to have a second tower built.

Our hearts and the New York City skyline cry out for its twin.

James Lautier

Windsor, Conn.

Neither I nor anyone I know has anything but contempt for that travesty of a building.

It belongs in Cincinnati or Singapore, but not where the Twin Towers once stood.

Cuozzo didn’t like the Twin Towers, and he’s welcome to his opinion, but many of us did.

Furthermore, unlike 1 WTC, the Twin Towers were memorable, inspiring and the recognized signature of the Big Apple.

They were used as the establishing shot for almost every movie filmed in New York City from the time they were finished to the time they came down.

They were us. The Freedom Tower will never represent New York to the world.

It’s just another mediocre building in the skyline.

Now the Port Authority, meaning the toll-paying public, is on the hook for at least $7.5 billion for a project we don’t want and shouldn’t have had to pay for.

We’ve been played for suckers by Silverstein and his shills in the press. Only in New York.Richard Hughes

Manhattan

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Weak tax laws give NYC potheads a high

John Crudele

Take an unlit cigar, point it top down and roll it between your thumb and forefinger until tobacco starts falling out. There’s now space in the wrapper for your favorite illicit substance.

I’m not suggesting you smoke anything illegal. But you should know about one of the hottest trends in New York City — so hot that it is sparking a boom in the cheap cigar business.

Why should taxpayers care? Because the trend is also costing Albany a small fortune in lost tax revenue.

Today’s pot smokers, it seems, are too lazy to roll their own joints. And they are too smart to pay full price for their indulgence.

Convenience isn’t the only reason cigars are being used as the “delivery system” for marijuana and other drugs.

Potheads are also lighting up cigar sales because their cigar “joints” don’t give off that pungent, sickly sweet smell that makes the people around them snicker, roll their eyes and maybe call the cops.

And flavored cigar wrappers — called “blunts” — are also showing a sales spike because they make the smell of your illicit smoke even harder to detect.

Apple Brown Betty-flavored blunts work well disguising the pot smell, I’m told, as do Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Cherry Vanilla wrappers.

It’s like Betty Crocker met Bob Marley.

If I were writing a “How To” piece for the magazine High Times I could stop here.

But since this is the financial section, the point of this column is this: NYC’s mainstream cigar sellers — tobacconists — and the state are being hurt by the booming sales of what one expert calls “inner-city cigars.”

Mark Goldman, who once owned cigar wholesaler House of Oxford, tells me “sales of inner-city cigars are way up.”

“The state government is getting hurt because they are not collecting the tobacco tax,” he said.

“And if they are not collecting the tobacco tax they are certainly not paying the sales tax,” he adds.

There are no statistics on statewide cigar sales.

But five sources with knowledge of the tobacco and cigar industry and another in law enforcement filled me in on what’s been going on.

New York State doesn’t require a tax stamp on cigars like it does on cigarettes, so sellers are left on their own to collect the 75 percent excise tax in addition to the regular 8.875 percent sales tax.

New York State’s stiff tax — which was raised from 46 percent to 75 percent in 2010 by then Gov. Paterson — has enticed owners of candy stores and bodegas to get their merchandise from other states, sources said.

My sources estimate that the state could be losing $1 billion a year in tax revenue.

Pennsylvania is said to be getting the bulk of the business from the New York stores because it doesn’t tax cigars. The economics of those deals are irrefutable.

Not only can these Pennsylvania-bought cigars be sold for the usual profit margin, but once the smokes are in New York the prices are jacked up to near what they would be if bought through legitimate in-state wholesalers.

Altruistic store owners, of course, could pass the entire savings on to customers but they don’t — for good reason.

If their cigars were priced too low it would be a dead giveaway that the smokes are from out of state.

So store owners simply price the out-of-state cigars at a level that would indicate that the 75 percent tax is included and they pocket the extra money rather than send it to Albany.

“Sales have plummeted in these [legitimate] stores” since the cigar tax was jacked up, says David Schwartz, a spokesman for the New York Association of Grocery Stores.

Between when the tax increase was implemented in 2010 and the beginning of 2011, sales at tobacconists have fallen by 25 percent. At the same time, the number of retailers selling high-end cigars dropped to just 40 from 48.

So even as there is a boom in cheap, pothead cigars imported illegally from other states, the fancy tobacconist shops are disappearing.

***

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee is meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday so you can expect the usual array of rumors.

Since former Treasury Secretary and former Fed Vice Chair Tim Geithner is no longer around you shouldn’t expect anyone to leak information to Wall Street friends ahead of this meeting.

People will be watching for more opposition to Chairman Ben Bernanke’s economic policies.

The Catch-22 is this: If the economy is doing as well as some experts think — and, incidentally, I don’t agree with this view — the Fed should start to tighten monetary policy soon.

In order to keep interest rates as low as they are the Fed (and everyone else) would have to admit that the economy is still weak, something that politicians won’t want to do going into talks about the federal budget and debt limits.

It’s a damn tough predicament.

john.crudele@nypost.com

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Firing lines

Anyone with any common sense knows you can lose your job by posting party photos of yourself on Facebook. But there are some lesser-known acts — also unrelated to job performance — that can get you canned. Read on to discover other types of seemingly innocent behavior that can morph into firing offenses.

You can be fired for publishing a group photo: The National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that employees can’t be terminated for publishing certain social media posts about their jobs, provided the posts cover working conditions. However, the ruling does not cover tweeting or Facebooking other — often innocuous — details about your company, and other civil laws can still land you in the hot seat.

PHOTO FINISH: Publishing a picture of your clients and customers can land you in hot water with your employer, thanks to civil laws.

For example, an employee can get in trouble if he or she is at a company picnic with co-workers, clients and customers, and whips out an iPhone to snap a group photo. The employee later posts the photo on Facebook with a nice caption about the customers.

As innocent as this seems, it could result in the would-be Annie Leibovitz getting fired, says Pedram Tabibi, an attorney at Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone on Long Island, which specializes in social media and business law.

“Under New York civil rights law . . . you can’t a use person’s name, picture, portrait or voice in commercial advertising without their consent,” says Tabibi.

“Arguably those customers could have a claim — you used their image for commercial purposes without their consent,” he adds.

You can be fired for tweeting something nice about your company: Gene Morphis, once the CFO of fashion retailer Francesca Holdings Corp., was active on Twitter, often posting good news tweets such as “Board meeting. Good numbers=Happy Board.”

The company fired him in May, citing failure to comply with company policies.

Posting sensitive information — even if done in a flattering or unwitting manner — could result in termination: “You just sent out information the company wasn’t ready to release to the public,” says Tabibi.

If this happened today, would the recent NLRB ruling have protected Morphis? Not likely.

“The types of comments he made, more geared towards his own well-being, are really not ‘concerted,’ because he is not necessarily discussing conditions that affect other employees,” Tabibi says.

You can be fired for having a (side) job: Given the sluggish economy, companies everywhere are asking employees to work more while paying them less — so many workers are burning the candle at both ends, taking second jobs or freelance work which could, in turn, waltz them out of their primary position.

These workers are getting canned for two reasons, according to David Lewis, CEO of OperationsInc, a human resources outsourcing and consulting firm in Norwalk, Conn.

“The first thing we’ve seen is companies who have said, ‘Your performance is lacking. You’re showing up late. You’re leaving early, and we view this other job as a conflict,” he says.

Also, many workers get second jobs in the same field as their primary jobs — which can create a conflict of interest.

Lewis recalls the firing of an NYC digital-media employee who consistently refused to work past 5 p.m. When the employer found out he had a night job — also at a Web design company — he was fired the following week.

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Rights control

Alex Haller’s ideas make perfect sense (“One Sandy Hook Family’s Gun Ideas,” Ramesh Ponnuru, PostOpinion, Jan. 23).

They won’t be adopted because ghoulish progressives, like Gov. Cuomo and President Obama, love to exploit other peoples’ tragedies.

For them it is not about controlling guns, but us.

The ultimate question is a simple one: What do you call a people without access to guns?

O. Glazebrook, East Hampton

NFL wife woe

What has become of this world (“NFL Wife Hooters & Hollers,” Jan. 22)?

Anna Welker, wife of New England Patriot Wes Welker, stated her opinion and later had to apologize for it.

I don’t understand why, when all she was doing was stating verifiable facts about the Baltimore Ravens’ Ray Lewis.

For this, The Post brands her “not very lady-like in defeat.”

Michael Murphy, Mahopac

Phil’s tax facts

Phil Mickelson spoke his mind against the progressive tax agenda in California and was forced to apologize (“Had Your Phil of Taxes?” Editorial, Jan. 25).

Doesn’t the First Amendment apply to everybody?

When will conservatives stop apologizing for speaking truthfully about high taxes and the entire Obama regimen?

Lee Nieves, Charlotte, NC

Flu-shot flack

Dr. Evan Levine’s op-ed smacks of the typical complex that many doctors walk around with today (“NY Hospital Flu Horror,” PostOpinion, Jan. 18).

If an educated and licensed nurse doesn’t agree with his conclusion on the flu shot, he slams them personally and accuses them of making the wrong choice and taking a risk to themselves and the patients, instead of presenting evidence.

Many flu shots have an efficacy rate at best of about 60 percent and are filled with ingredients like aluminum, mercury, MSG and formaldehyde.

These nurses know the risks of taking chemicals and the benefits of taking the flu shot, and have made an informed choice.

Too bad Levine doesn’t respect their capabilities.

Lauren Kunis, Queens

Leo’s green idea

I can certainly understand why Leonardo DiCaprio would need to take a break, having starred in three movies in two years (“Leo Puts ‘Breaks’ on Acting,” Jan. 22).

His living “green” is admirable, but wouldn’t his plans to “fly around the world doing good for the environment” pollute the environment? Also, his electric car is plugged into a power source.

Surely, the electricity he is using is generated by fuel.

In the United States, some of that electricity is powered by coal.

Maybe DiCaprio needs to rest first before he speaks.

JoAnn Frank, Clearwater, Fla.

Listen to the Brit

Bill O’Reilly’s column concerning our president’s unapologetic sharp turn left was spot on (“Pumping Up the Liberalism,” PostOpinion, Jan. 25).

Our president’s use of the word “equality” is his term for socialism.

As the great Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

That’s the road we’re on.

Louie Rey, East Meadow

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Women in combat spells trouble

Linda Chavez

With little discussion or fanfare, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted the ban on women in combat that has been in effect for as long as there has been a US military.

Feminists and some women serving in the military are applauding the move as a victory for equal rights. They claim that justice requires nothing short of opening all positions to females, regardless of the consequences to combat effectiveness, unit cohesion or military readiness — factors whose importance they minimize in any event.

Panetta’s action reverses the combat-exclusion policy that was last reviewed thoroughly during the Clinton years — and which even Democrats embraced.

A number of women might make good combat soldiers, provided they pass the same physical, endurance and strength tests with the same acceptable scores that current combat troops achieve. But whether a handful of exceptional women might succeed — or opt into infantry units for that matter — isn’t the relevant standard. The question is, would women’s presence in combat situations enhance military effectiveness or compromise it?

One study of a brigade operating in Iraq in 2007 showed that women sustained more casualties than their male counterparts and suffered more illnesses. Female soldiers experienced three times the evacuation rate of male soldiers. And of those evacuated for medical reasons, a shocking 74 percent were for pregnancy-related issues.

The high rate of pregnancy among female soldiers is one of the best-kept secrets in the military. The various military branches are loath to publicize the figures regarding female soldiers becoming pregnant while deployed. But a study released just this week shows that military women have a higher rate of unplanned pregnancy than the comparable general population — some 50 percent higher. And the unplanned pregnancy rate for deployed women was as high as for those serving stateside.

And, of course, many of the pregnancies among deployed females involved sexual activity between soldiers in the field — which brings up one of the chief objections to women serving in combat roles.

Feminist ideologues have pooh-poohed the notion that sexual attraction is a major problem when you put young men and women together in close quarters for long periods of time under the stress of combat situations. They act as if both males and females will resist temptation — and there’ll be no significant consequences if they don’t.

Funny, those same feminists seem to believe quite differently when it comes to putting other young men and women together under similar, if less life-threatening situations.

Most college campuses these days take it for granted that students will have sex during their years on campus. Many schools provide condoms in the dorms, access to other forms of birth control, lectures on sexual activity. It’s just assumed, you put young people together and sex naturally follows.

But the consequences for love affairs gone wrong, rivalry among suitors or even the distraction that sex can provide from other duties are very different in a college setting than they are in the middle of battle. Unit cohesion is a major factor in the success of any military objective. Inject sexual rivalry and tension into a small group of soldiers whose decisions mean life and death, and you are likely to get more of the latter.

Yes, men and women can bond in non-sexual ways, but sexual attraction is one of the most powerful human emotions. To ignore it and pretend that it can be overcome without great effort is foolhardy.

And jealousy is nearly as powerful an emotion as love. What happens when a couple in a unit breaks up but must still work side-by-side, facing an enemy whose sole purpose is to kill them?

And when pregnancies occur — as they inevitably will — what happens then? Do you allow a physically fit pregnant solider to risk not only her life but that of her unborn child, too?

It is unfortunate that the Obama administration acted unilaterally without putting this issue up for open and honest debate before Congress and the public. By acting unilaterally — no accident I’m sure, right after the president’s re-inauguration — the administration has done a disservice to the American people and the finest military in the world.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Brewing profits at S’bux

Starbucks profit jumped 13 percent on a spike in US coffee consumption during the winter holiday season.

The world’s biggest coffee chain reported net earnings of $432.2 million, or 57 cents per share, for the first quarter that ended Dec. 30, matching the average analyst estimate.

That was up from $382.1 million, or 50 cents per share, a year earlier.

Overall revenue jumped almost 11 percent, to $3.8 billion, during the quarter, which is Starbucks’ biggest for sales.

Global sales at stores open at least 13 months were up 6 percent — topping the 5.5 percent rise analysts polled by Consensus Metrix had expected. Those sales were helped by a 4 percent increase in traffic and a 2 percent increase in average spending per visit.

Shares rose 3 percent, to $56.20, in after-hours trading.

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This time, Einhorn is ‘Einhorned’

David Einhorn should have had the courage of his convictions.

Einhorn told investors on Tuesday that he had been profitably short Herbalife last year, confirming months of speculation that he had bet against the controversial nutritional supplements company.

Sources told The Post that Einhorn had shorted Herbalife earlier in the year. But Einhorn bailed before he could benefit fully.

Herbalife had been falling since May, when Einhorn first questioned Herbalife execs about the company’s disclosures during a conference call.

Sources said that Einhorn covered his Herbalife short well before rival hedge fund manager Bill Ackman launched his $1 billion short attack on the company in December, driving the shares down as much as 40 percent.

Einhorn’s early exit caused him to miss out on some big gains. His Greenlight Capital hedge fund fell 2.7 percent during December.

In contrast, Ackman’s Pershing Square gained 5.9 percent that month, half of it from the Herbalife short. Ackman was up 13.3 percent in 2012 — far outdistancing Greenlight Capital’s 7.9 percent gain.

The news that Einhorn had shorted Herbalife sent the stock down 2.5 percent yesterday, even though the hedgie said he is no longer short.

Einhorn’s usual ability to crush a stock with one of his short calls, a process known as getting “Einhorned,” didn’t help him last year.

In a year-end letter to investors, Einhorn said the average short in his portfolio rose 10 percent last year.

Einhorn’s lackluster 2012 performance was due in large part to his short on Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which rose 74 percent, wiping out Greenlight’s 2012 profits on the position. Its long bet on Apple also stung.

“Our coffee was too hot, our apple was bruised,” Einhorn wrote in the letter.

Apple’s decline from $677 to $532 forced the firm to give back “all its third-quarter gains and then some,” Einhorn wrote.

mcelarier@nypost.com

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Lucky ‘7’ at 3 Hudson Blvd.

Lois Weiss

BETWEEN THE BRICKS

The skyline in the Hudson Yards area is taking shape — at least on paper.

Here’s the first look at a new rendering (see right) for developer Joseph Moinian’s 1.7 million-square-foot tower at 3 Hudson Boulevard, bounded by the new park, the Javits Center and West 34th and 35th streets.

Designed by Dan Kaplan of FXFOWLE, the roughly 1,000 foot-high tower will turn slightly to catch the sunshine as well as views of the Hudson River and public spaces within Hudson Yards.

As the Manhattan street grid is slightly off the true north-south axis, Kaplan said the tower will align to the street grid at the base, and then do the twist.

FXFOWLE

WOW! Far West makeover king at 3 Hudson Blvd.

“It has a subtle, elegant spin and only rotates the 22 degrees as you go up,” said Kaplan. “It’s enough to give it a distinctive form, but not so much that it contorts the building.”

While the eastern and western ends of the building will change as it rises, the long sides of the structure will stay consistent.

“So that is how we were able to marry floor efficiencies with the mechanics,” Kaplan said.

The twist is also “great for tuning the building to solar,” as a unique highlight of the project will be solar-paneled awnings, or “eyebrows,” that will shield the south-side occupants from the sun while generating electricity with photovoltaic cells.

“They are architectural projections, and the revisions to the zoning code anticipate these kinds of devices,” Kaplan explained. “You will start to see more of these.”

The building will also have several roof terraces and a rooftop deck shielded from the winds.

“He’s been a magician in making this design efficient and beautiful and LEED Platinum,” said Arthur Mirante, tri-state president of Avison Young, which is leading the tenant marketing for the Moinian Group.

Because the building features an entrance to the new No. 7 line inside and has the new Hudson Boulevard Park at its eastern foot, Mirante said he is pitching the best site in the “center” of the new West Side. Construction on bedrock can start in 2014, and the building will be ready in 2016 or 2017.

“It’s a great building,” said Moinian at last week’s Real Estate Board of New York banquet.

The base could be designed as either trading or retail, Mirante said, with residential added at the top of the tower should an anchor office tenant not object. Asking rents for the base will start in the $80s per foot and rise from there.

“The whole building could be office or mixed use,” said Mirante. “We really have a clean slate, which is really exciting and will allow us to go after the monster tenants.”

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