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Home“White House Could Grant Mary Jo White a Waiver From Ethics Pledge”
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 19th, 2013 6:04 AM |
If Mary Jo White were to be confirmed as the new head of the SEC, might she be the most conflicted individual to be our nation’s chief financial cop since the first person to occupy that seat, that being Joe Kennedy himself?
The White House and Washington would like to position Ms. White’s confirmation as nothing more than a formality. Our democracy deserves better than that. (more…)
Weekend Read: The Pension Fund That Ate California
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 16th, 2013 9:38 AM |
If anybody still has any confidence in the manner in which our nation’s largest state has been run, this is a MUST READ. Steven Malanga of City Journal writes of how California has methodically gone about screwing its future generations.
CalPERS’s corruption, insider dealing, and politicized investments have overwhelmed taxpayers with debt.
After spending years dogged by unpaid debts, California labor leader Charles Valdes filed for bankruptcy in the 1990s—twice. At the same time, he held one of the most influential positions in the American financial system: chair of the investment committee for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, the nation’s largest pension fund for government workers.
Valdes left the board in 2010 and now faces scrutiny for accepting gifts from another former board member, Alfred Villalobos—who, the state alleges, spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to influence how the fund invested its assets. Questioned by investigators about his dealings with Villalobos, Valdes invoked the Fifth Amendment 126 times. (more…)
Taibbi on HSBC: Blood Money
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 15th, 2013 7:22 AM |
There are few writers today who hit as hard as Rolling Stones’ Matt Taibbi. That is a good thing for those who actually care about free market capitalism, let alone a sense of moral decency.
Two months ago, the European based bank HSBC was hit with a $1.9 BILLION fine for allowing — if not promoting — its operations to be used as little more than a laundromat by a host of very unsavory characters for a protracted period. Huge story, right? RIGHT!
Where are the major media outlets to dig in, unearth the dirt, clean out the residue in this laundromat, and bring the unbridled truth to the public? I will tell you where the media is: in the tank.
Leave it to Taibbi to make the contacts and expose the dirt, the grime, and the blood that was (is?) HSBC. In a Sense on Cents classic, Taibbi writes>>>>>>>>> (more…)
‘Beggar Thy Neighbor’ Leads to Currency Wars
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 14th, 2013 6:56 AM |
The United States still has an official policy of pursuing a strong dollar, right?
Yes, right, and if you were to believe that, might I interest you in a bridge in Brooklyn?
The simple fact is that five years into our economic crisis, the major economic centers of the world, those being the USA, the EU, and now Japan are all employing the same central bank policy to support their economies. This policy of quantitative easing is an attempt to accomplish a combination of the following, with different emphasis depending on the region: (more…)
Raising The Minimum Wage Is a Job Killer
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 13th, 2013 9:56 AM |
I would like to think that I have a heart and detest the fact that there are millions of people living in poverty in our nation. This said, basic economics is less a function of what is one’s heart than what is in one’s head.
The number of people living in poverty in America is now approaching a 50 year high. That fact is certainly regrettable but President Obama’s call to increase the minimum wage is not the answer to this problem. (more…)
Dr. Ben Carson Elevates The National Discussion
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 12th, 2013 3:01 PM |
I so appreciated the delivery given by Dr. Benjamin Carson at the National Prayer Breakfast the other day, that I welcome highlighting a 7-minute clip in which he continues to attempt to elevate our national discussion.
Who in our nation would disagree with Carson’s assessment that we need to have a truly engaged debate rather than the normal clanging and bantering that resonates from Washington? Watch. . . listen . . . learn from our newest inductee to the Sense on Cents Hall of Fame, Dr. Benjamin Carson. (more…)
POGO Opens Wall Street-Washington Revolving Door
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 12th, 2013 7:04 AM |
A few years back in the course of an interview with Fox Business host David Asman, I was asked what I thought of the exceptionally close relationships between the regulators and the industry. I responded, “David, I think the term there is ‘incestuous’.”
Fast forward three plus years and we receive a scathing review of just how widely developed and deeply embedded the incest runs. Let’s navigate as the folks at the Project on Government Oversight take us round and round through this revolving door in releasing,
SEC’s Revolving Door Blurs Line Between Regulator and Industry
A Project On Government Oversight (POGO) study of thousands of government records found that former staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) routinely: (more…)
George Hartzman Blows Whistle on Wells Fargo’s Envision Plans
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 11th, 2013 8:55 AM |
A week ago I cautioned people on two fronts in writing about Top Ten Investor Threats and How Much Are You Really Paying for That Fund?
In serendipitous fashion, over the weekend I read about a former financial advisor at Wells Fargo who blew the whistle on his firm for not properly informing clients of investment fees embedded in one of its programs. Which one? The Wells Fargo Advisors Envision plans. Let’s navigate and see exactly what this whistleblower, George Hartzman, has to say as he writes: >>>>> (more…)
Weekend Video: Dr. Benjamin Carson’s Sense on Cents Instant Classic (Strongly Recommended)
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 9th, 2013 7:43 AM |
There have been few deliveries I have heard since writing this blog over the last four years that have inspired me as much as that which I watched and heard last evening. I so appreciated it I watched it twice.
I thank the longtime reader who shared this speech given by Dr. Benjamin Carson, a leading pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins. If you were to ever wonder what Sense on Cents hopes to convey, Carson touches almost all the bases in this delivery at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on February 7th.
In a mere 25 minutes, Carson knocks it out of the park multiple times in his eloquent remarks on faith, family, respect, speaking one’s mind, the danger of a politically correct society, education, determination, self-destiny, charity (the Carson Scholars Program), fiscal sanity, health care, tax policy, patriotism, and so much more. (more…)
Libor Scam/Tom Hayes: Goes Much Higher Than Me
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 8th, 2013 9:04 AM |
I have long maintained that senior executives on Wall Street were very much aware of the collusive racketeering in the Libor rigging scandal. Why so? When a trader ‘makes it rain,’ that is, he is connected to a P/L that generates hundreds of millions of dollars, you better believe that the execs up the chain of command will want to know how the money is being made.
To think otherwise would display a level of naivete not found in these markets.
What evidence do we learn this morning that supports my premise that senior execs on Wall Street were aware that Libor was being manipulated? Let’s navigate as the WSJ writes about the “Rain-Man” >>>>>>>> (more…)
