Gotta love a good conflict of interest story. The crew over at New York's "Daily Intelligencer" parsed a recent New York Times story on the botched demolition of the Deutsche Bank building.

Demolition work at Deutsche Bank was being handled by a Bronx firm named the John Galt Corporation. The name is not a joke; but there's the question of whether the company even exists in a substantial sense. According to the Times, the company is "not much more than a corporate entity meant to accomodate the people and companies actually doing the demolition job."

One of the companies that was subcontracted by John Galt is the Safeway Environmental Corporation. They're suspected of being responsible for the safety lapses that led to the deaths of firefighters at Deutsche Bank. They were also barred from working on New York public schools in 2003 after allegations of mob ties... And they just happen to have been one of the contractors who worked on the fancy new Times HQ. Here's the Times' disclaimer:

(Safeway Environmental was one of the subcontractors used in the development of a new headquarters for The New York Times, across Eighth Avenue from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.)

Insert your own Ayn Rand joke here, kids.