I don't know what to think when I read articles like the one below. There are no protests in the streets, nobody seems to really care, and nobody seems to want to make it all better...
Enjoy the article anyway...
States' jobless funds are being drained in recession
By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 22, 2009; A01
The recession's jobless toll is draining unemployment-compensation funds so fast that according to federal projections, 40 state programs will go broke within two years and need $90 billion in loans to keep issuing the benefit checks.
The shortfalls are putting pressure on governments to either raise taxes or shrink the aid payments.
Debates over the state benefit programs have erupted in South Carolina, Nevada, Kansas, Vermont and Indiana. And the budget gaps are expected to spread and become more acute in the coming year, compelling legislators in many states to reconsider their operations.
Currently, 25 states have run out of unemployment money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government to cover the gaps. By 2011, according to Department of Labor estimates, 40 state funds will have been emptied by the jobless tsunami.
"There's immense pressure, and it's got to be faced," said Indiana state Rep. David Niezgodski (D), a sponsor of a bill that addressed the gaps in Indiana's unemployment program. "Our system was absolutely broke."
The Indiana legislation protected the aid checks, Niezgodski said, but it came after a give-and-take this spring in which Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (R) said the state had been providing "Rolls-Royce benefits" and several thousand union workers countered by protesting proposed cuts at the state capitol. In January, the legislature is slated to consider a bill to delay the proposed tax increases intended to refill the fund.
In Nevada, Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) and legislators have feuded over the unemployment program, which is $85 million in debt to the federal government, with Gibbons accusing the legislature of "callous disregard" for not setting a tax rate.
And last week, a state task force in Kentucky recommended cutting benefits about 9 percent and imposing a week's delay in their payment. The average benefit check there is about $309 a week. The task force also proposed raising taxes.
"There were some moments of high anxiety" during the negotiations between industry and labor groups, said Joseph U. Meyer, the state's acting secretary of education and workforce development. "But in the end, the realistic options became fairly apparent."
State unemployment-compensation funds are separated from general budgets, so when there is a shortfall, only two primary solutions are typically considered -- either cut the benefit or raise the payroll tax.
Industry and business groups often lobby against raising the payroll tax on employers, while unions and other worker groups protest benefit cuts.
"We want to make sure Kentucky remains competitive and also maintain an environment of fairness," Meyer said of the negotiations.
Nationally, the average tax is about 0.6 percent of payroll; the average weekly check is about $300.
The troubles the state programs face can be traced to a failure during the economic boom to properly prepare for a downturn, experts said.
Unemployment benefits are funded by the payroll tax on employers that is collected at a rate that is supposed to keep the funds solvent. Firms that fire lots of people are supposed to pay higher rates. The federal government pays for administrative costs, and in a recession, it pays for the extension of unemployment benefits beyond 26 weeks. But over the years, the drive to minimize state taxes on employers has reduced the funds to unsustainable levels.
"The benefits haven't grown -- that's not the problem," said Richard Hobbie, director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.
Even so, he said, he expects to see unemployment checks reduced.
A shortfall in a state unemployment fund, he said, "usually means cuts in eligibility or benefits."
In Virginia, the unemployment program has borrowed $89 million from the federal government, while Maryland has not borrowed, according to the federal data.
Wayne Vroman, an expert in unemployment insurance at the Urban Institute, said that entering the recession, state programs were on average funded at only one-third the level they should have been, according to generally accepted funding guidelines.
"If you fund a program adequately, you don't need to come to these kinds of difficult decisions," he said.
Before the recession, he said, the funding guidelines "were rarely honored."
While the amount of the states' loans from the federal government is expected to grow rapidly, it is not expected to add to the federal debt. "In the past, the federal government has always gotten its money back," Vroman said.
In the meantime, however, more states are struggling to fill the gap. West Virginia imposed a freeze on benefit levels this year, and legislators in South Carolina are considering one.
"We've obviously got problems with the fund," said South Carolina House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham (R), blaming the trouble in part on the state's unemployment rate of more than 12 percent.
The state owes about $654 million to the federal government for unemployment payments.
"We're not trying to cut benefits," he said. But "if you jack rates up, those business that are struggling to hang on, you make things more difficult."
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tiger, Tiger
Hey. Here is a great analysis of the Tiger Woods story from a different angle. I found it to be more believable than the one in the mainstream press...
Give it a read...
http://deadspin.com/5416948/chaos-in-tigerland-a-deadspin-investigation-into-the-sexual-habits-of-pro-athletes
See, I told ya...
Give it a read...
http://deadspin.com/5416948/chaos-in-tigerland-a-deadspin-investigation-into-the-sexual-habits-of-pro-athletes
See, I told ya...
Debt in the UK shocks the citizens...
I found this article on Marketwatch's website. It was of course quickly removed... But it is still amazing... Enjoy...
Dec. 4, 2009
U.K. government bank rescue cost $1.4 trillion
By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The British government aid to banks totalled 850 billion pounds ($1.4 trillion), according to a report by the country's National Audit Office released Friday.
The report tabulated both the cost of buying up shares in lenders Royal Bank of Scotland (NYSE:RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group (NYSE:LYG) as well as providing 250 billion pounds of guarantees, 280 pounds of insurance on toxic assets, 200 billion pounds of Bank of England loss indemnification and 40 billion pounds of loans. Treasury's net cash outlay for purchases of shares in banks and lending to the banking sector, including Northern Rock which was nationalized in September 2007, will amount to about 117 billion pounds.
How much the taxpayer will lose from the assistance remains in doubt, it said, though the Treasury estimated last April that the loss will range between 20 billion and 50 billion pounds.
And lending to businesses through 2010 by the partly state-held banks, RBS and Lloyds, isn't likely to meet targets.
But the NAO report said the taxpayer has received something for the money -- it said there's been no disorderly failure of U.K. banks and no retail depositor has lost money.
The British government in October 2008 rescued RBS and HBOS, which is now a unit of Lloyds Banking Group, with secret assistance that was only revealed last week.
The U.K. also nationalized Northern Rock, and then sold some of Bradford & Bingley and resolved problems at the U.K. operations of stricken Icelandic banks.
The government also racked up 107 million pounds in advisory fees -- mostly to the law firm Slaughter & May and accounting groups PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KPMG and BDO Stoy Hayward.
It also paid 15.4 million pounds to Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS) , 7.4 million pounds to BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) , 5.3 million pounds to Deutsche Bankm (NYSE:DB) , 5 million pounds to Citi (NYSE:C) , 4.5 million pounds to Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and 1.5 million pounds Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) . RBS and Lloyds will pick up the tab on just under 100 million pounds of those fees, the report said.
So much debt - So little time
Dec. 4, 2009
U.K. government bank rescue cost $1.4 trillion
By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The British government aid to banks totalled 850 billion pounds ($1.4 trillion), according to a report by the country's National Audit Office released Friday.
The report tabulated both the cost of buying up shares in lenders Royal Bank of Scotland (NYSE:RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group (NYSE:LYG) as well as providing 250 billion pounds of guarantees, 280 pounds of insurance on toxic assets, 200 billion pounds of Bank of England loss indemnification and 40 billion pounds of loans. Treasury's net cash outlay for purchases of shares in banks and lending to the banking sector, including Northern Rock which was nationalized in September 2007, will amount to about 117 billion pounds.
How much the taxpayer will lose from the assistance remains in doubt, it said, though the Treasury estimated last April that the loss will range between 20 billion and 50 billion pounds.
And lending to businesses through 2010 by the partly state-held banks, RBS and Lloyds, isn't likely to meet targets.
But the NAO report said the taxpayer has received something for the money -- it said there's been no disorderly failure of U.K. banks and no retail depositor has lost money.
The British government in October 2008 rescued RBS and HBOS, which is now a unit of Lloyds Banking Group, with secret assistance that was only revealed last week.
The U.K. also nationalized Northern Rock, and then sold some of Bradford & Bingley and resolved problems at the U.K. operations of stricken Icelandic banks.
The government also racked up 107 million pounds in advisory fees -- mostly to the law firm Slaughter & May and accounting groups PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KPMG and BDO Stoy Hayward.
It also paid 15.4 million pounds to Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS) , 7.4 million pounds to BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) , 5.3 million pounds to Deutsche Bankm (NYSE:DB) , 5 million pounds to Citi (NYSE:C) , 4.5 million pounds to Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and 1.5 million pounds Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) . RBS and Lloyds will pick up the tab on just under 100 million pounds of those fees, the report said.
So much debt - So little time
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Damn, I forgot to buy the gun...
Great information from Bloomberg. Enjoy...
Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public: Alice Schroeder
Commentary by Alice Schroeder
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
While we wait, Goldman has wrapped itself in the flag of Warren Buffett, with whom it will jointly donate $500 million, part of an effort to burnish its image -- and gain new Goldman clients. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also reversed himself after having previously called Goldman’s greed “God’s work” and apologized earlier this month for having participated in things that were “clearly wrong.”
Has it really come to this? Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology. Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage.
Pistol Ready
Common sense tells you a handgun is probably not even all that useful. Suppose an intruder sneaks past the doorman or jumps the security fence at night. By the time you pull the pistol out of your wife’s jewelry safe, find the ammunition, and load your weapon, Fifi the Pomeranian has already been taken hostage and the gun won’t do you any good. As for carrying a loaded pistol when you venture outside, dream on. Concealed gun permits are almost impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain in New York or nearby states.
In other words, a little humility and contrition are probably the better route.
Until a couple of weeks ago, that was obvious to everyone but Goldman, a firm famous for both prescience and arrogance. In a display of both, Blankfein began to raise his personal- security threat level early in the financial crisis. He keeps a summer home near the Hamptons, where unrestricted public access would put him at risk if the angry mobs rose up and marched to the East End of Long Island.
To the Barricades
He tried to buy a house elsewhere without attracting attention as the financial crisis unfolded in 2007, a move that was foiled by the New York Post. Then, Blankfein got permission from the local authorities to install a security gate at his house two months before Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.
This is the kind of foresight that Goldman Sachs is justly famous for. Blankfein somehow anticipated the persecution complex his fellow bankers would soon suffer. Surely, though, this man who can afford to surround himself with a private army of security guards isn’t sleeping with the key to a gun safe under his pillow. The thought is just too bizarre to be true.
So maybe other senior people at Goldman Sachs have gone out and bought guns, and they know something. But what?
Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and -- oh yes -- the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”
Torn Curtain
There you have it. The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses.
This slip-up let the other bailed-out banks happily hand off public blame to Goldman, which is unpopular among its peers because it always seems to win at everyone’s expense.
Plenty of Wall Streeters worry about the big discrepancies in wealth, and think the rise of a financial industry-led plutocracy is unjust. That doesn’t mean any of them plan to move into a double-wide mobile home as a show of solidarity with the little people, though.
Cool Hand Lloyd
No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.
And if the proles really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms. If nothing else, that pistol permit might go part way toward explaining why they won’t be standing outside with the rest of the crowd, broke and humiliated, saying, “Damn, I was on the wrong side of a trade with Goldman again.”
(Alice Schroeder, author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” and a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Click on “Send Comment” in the sidebar display to send a letter to the editor.
To contact the writer of this column: Alice Schroeder at aliceschroeder@ymail.com.
I love this stuff...
Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public: Alice Schroeder
Commentary by Alice Schroeder
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
While we wait, Goldman has wrapped itself in the flag of Warren Buffett, with whom it will jointly donate $500 million, part of an effort to burnish its image -- and gain new Goldman clients. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also reversed himself after having previously called Goldman’s greed “God’s work” and apologized earlier this month for having participated in things that were “clearly wrong.”
Has it really come to this? Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology. Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage.
Pistol Ready
Common sense tells you a handgun is probably not even all that useful. Suppose an intruder sneaks past the doorman or jumps the security fence at night. By the time you pull the pistol out of your wife’s jewelry safe, find the ammunition, and load your weapon, Fifi the Pomeranian has already been taken hostage and the gun won’t do you any good. As for carrying a loaded pistol when you venture outside, dream on. Concealed gun permits are almost impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain in New York or nearby states.
In other words, a little humility and contrition are probably the better route.
Until a couple of weeks ago, that was obvious to everyone but Goldman, a firm famous for both prescience and arrogance. In a display of both, Blankfein began to raise his personal- security threat level early in the financial crisis. He keeps a summer home near the Hamptons, where unrestricted public access would put him at risk if the angry mobs rose up and marched to the East End of Long Island.
To the Barricades
He tried to buy a house elsewhere without attracting attention as the financial crisis unfolded in 2007, a move that was foiled by the New York Post. Then, Blankfein got permission from the local authorities to install a security gate at his house two months before Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.
This is the kind of foresight that Goldman Sachs is justly famous for. Blankfein somehow anticipated the persecution complex his fellow bankers would soon suffer. Surely, though, this man who can afford to surround himself with a private army of security guards isn’t sleeping with the key to a gun safe under his pillow. The thought is just too bizarre to be true.
So maybe other senior people at Goldman Sachs have gone out and bought guns, and they know something. But what?
Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and -- oh yes -- the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”
Torn Curtain
There you have it. The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses.
This slip-up let the other bailed-out banks happily hand off public blame to Goldman, which is unpopular among its peers because it always seems to win at everyone’s expense.
Plenty of Wall Streeters worry about the big discrepancies in wealth, and think the rise of a financial industry-led plutocracy is unjust. That doesn’t mean any of them plan to move into a double-wide mobile home as a show of solidarity with the little people, though.
Cool Hand Lloyd
No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.
And if the proles really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms. If nothing else, that pistol permit might go part way toward explaining why they won’t be standing outside with the rest of the crowd, broke and humiliated, saying, “Damn, I was on the wrong side of a trade with Goldman again.”
(Alice Schroeder, author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” and a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Click on “Send Comment” in the sidebar display to send a letter to the editor.
To contact the writer of this column: Alice Schroeder at aliceschroeder@ymail.com.
I love this stuff...
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Why is the price of oil going up again?
Here's a great article explaining why oil prices are being manipulated. Enjoy...
What the obscure Vopak says about the oil market
Commentary: Vopak, A.P. Moller-Maersk say there's plenty of oil supplies
By MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The financial world isn't preoccupied with oil at the moment, not with issues like Goldman Sachs bonuses or Federal Reserve exit strategies to consider.
But it wasn't that long ago that oil was the number-one topic in the market, and should black gold resume prominence, the update on Thursday from a relatively obscure Dutch firm called Vopak (AMSTERDAM:NL:VPK) should be eyed.
Vopak is the world's largest independent tank terminal operator, so when it comes to storing oil, liquefied natural gas and the like, they know a few things. And on Thursday, the group raised earnings guidance for the second time this year. The reason? There are a few, but the main one is that demand for storing oil is strong.
A major reason to store, rather than sell, oil is if there aren't buyers for it. (Another would be a bet that prices in the future will grow significantly, but the futures complex at the moment is pricing in a 7% rise in 12 months and a 16% rise over five years -- hardly an irresistible siren song.)
Also take a look at what A.P. Moller-Maersk (SEAQ:UK:0LQM) , the shipping giant, said in its nine-month report on Thursday: "There are no short-term prospects of higher demand for oil and gas transports." About the only good news they reported in the third quarter from that division came as vessels were increasingly used as offshore storage facilities.
And what those European firms are saying tracks with what the admittedly-not-always-truthful OPEC has been maintaining all along -- the market is very well supplied. And similarly, while the International Energy Agency on Thursday hiked its 2009 and 2010 oil demand outlook, it pointed out that demand for gasoil used in railways and trucks is still pretty weak.
And, as the IEA also pointed out, the current price itself could derail recovery.
What it all suggests is that while demand for oil is certainly on the upswing, fundamentals aren't entirely behind the more than doubling in oil from February lows.
Speculators getting ahead of themselves? Nah, it couldn't be. In a market where oil reached as high as $147 a barrel, predicting prices is a fool's game. But know this -- there's plenty of oil sloshing around without a home.
-- Steve Goldstein
Thanks, Steve. Keep the information coming.
What the obscure Vopak says about the oil market
Commentary: Vopak, A.P. Moller-Maersk say there's plenty of oil supplies
By MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The financial world isn't preoccupied with oil at the moment, not with issues like Goldman Sachs bonuses or Federal Reserve exit strategies to consider.
But it wasn't that long ago that oil was the number-one topic in the market, and should black gold resume prominence, the update on Thursday from a relatively obscure Dutch firm called Vopak (AMSTERDAM:NL:VPK) should be eyed.
Vopak is the world's largest independent tank terminal operator, so when it comes to storing oil, liquefied natural gas and the like, they know a few things. And on Thursday, the group raised earnings guidance for the second time this year. The reason? There are a few, but the main one is that demand for storing oil is strong.
A major reason to store, rather than sell, oil is if there aren't buyers for it. (Another would be a bet that prices in the future will grow significantly, but the futures complex at the moment is pricing in a 7% rise in 12 months and a 16% rise over five years -- hardly an irresistible siren song.)
Also take a look at what A.P. Moller-Maersk (SEAQ:UK:0LQM) , the shipping giant, said in its nine-month report on Thursday: "There are no short-term prospects of higher demand for oil and gas transports." About the only good news they reported in the third quarter from that division came as vessels were increasingly used as offshore storage facilities.
And what those European firms are saying tracks with what the admittedly-not-always-truthful OPEC has been maintaining all along -- the market is very well supplied. And similarly, while the International Energy Agency on Thursday hiked its 2009 and 2010 oil demand outlook, it pointed out that demand for gasoil used in railways and trucks is still pretty weak.
And, as the IEA also pointed out, the current price itself could derail recovery.
What it all suggests is that while demand for oil is certainly on the upswing, fundamentals aren't entirely behind the more than doubling in oil from February lows.
Speculators getting ahead of themselves? Nah, it couldn't be. In a market where oil reached as high as $147 a barrel, predicting prices is a fool's game. But know this -- there's plenty of oil sloshing around without a home.
-- Steve Goldstein
Thanks, Steve. Keep the information coming.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Should have bought Goldman Sachs in October!!!!
Here is a perfect article explaining the reality of MONEY in America. Thanks Peter...
Why Wall Street pay will hit a record in 2009
by Peter Cohan
Jul 2nd 2009
2009 is turning out to be a great year for Wall Street pay. With unemployment at 9.5 percent and 6.5 million people out of work since 2007 wrapped up, you might be wondering how Wall Street could pull that off. The answer is simple: nobody makes the kind of campaign contributions that Wall Street does -- between 1998 and 2008, Wall Street made $1.725 billion in political contributions and spent another $3.4 billion on lobbyists.
So the taxes from American consumers coupled with trillions of new debt are being funneled into enriching the people who brought the financial world to its knees. How so? Government is rewarding Wall Street -- with $12.9 trillion in taxpayer funds, the Public Private Investment Partnership (PPIP), a $1 trillion no-lose deal for big asset managers and hedge funds to buy financial toxic waste, and new rules that will make it possible for private equity firms to own banks -- the very capital sources on which they depend for their highly leveraged deals.
How big will Wall Street bonuses be this year? Goldman Sachs Group (GS), which paid back its $10 billion in TARP money, is setting aside $20 billion for compensation this year -- $700,000 per employee, which is 6 percent more than it paid in its record 2007 compensation year. Morgan Stanley (MS) will give out between $11 billion and $14 billion in compensation -- close to the $340,000 per employee in record compensation that it paid in 2007.
How can these banks justify these huge compensation increases? Perhaps fear of comp cop, Kenneth Feinberg, is giving Wall Street a huge incentive to pay out as much as possible before he institutes pay limits. Morgan Stanley's pay is a much bigger than average 68 percent of revenues.
The record compensation is not related to superior financial performance. After all, financial results at these firms are way down from where they were in the first quarter of 2007. Goldman made $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2009, 44 percent less than the $3.2 billion it earned in the first quarter of 2007. And Morgan Stanley lost $177 million in the first quarter of 2009 -- while making $2.7 billion in the first quarter of 2007. Morgan Stanley also repaid $10 billion and is expected to post a 32 cents a share loss in the second quarter.
In addition to all this, the FDIC is loosening rules to permit private equity firms to own their lenders. With 45 banks having failed so far this year, the FDIC needs all the help it can get. Private equity firms like Carlyle Group have plenty of capital and the FDIC would like to use it to help bail out banks -- as it did with BankUnited Financial Corporation in Florida.
But the new rules require private equity firms to hold their investment for as long as two years, increase their capital if they buy banks, and limit their ownership to 24.9 percent unless they want to become bank holding companies. Private equity firms can get around this last restriction by teaming up -- in club deals.
Wall Street rules Washington. And even though the comp cop is scaring Wall Street on pay, he can't stop it from paying itself record bonuses despite far weaker financial performance.
As our children and grandchildren assume the burdens of all the debt America has taken on to bail out Wall Street for its errors, it is worth asking whether we have a true Democracy or merely the best government that Wall Street can buy.
Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College. His eighth book is You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.
Unbelieveable...
Why Wall Street pay will hit a record in 2009
by Peter Cohan
Jul 2nd 2009
2009 is turning out to be a great year for Wall Street pay. With unemployment at 9.5 percent and 6.5 million people out of work since 2007 wrapped up, you might be wondering how Wall Street could pull that off. The answer is simple: nobody makes the kind of campaign contributions that Wall Street does -- between 1998 and 2008, Wall Street made $1.725 billion in political contributions and spent another $3.4 billion on lobbyists.
So the taxes from American consumers coupled with trillions of new debt are being funneled into enriching the people who brought the financial world to its knees. How so? Government is rewarding Wall Street -- with $12.9 trillion in taxpayer funds, the Public Private Investment Partnership (PPIP), a $1 trillion no-lose deal for big asset managers and hedge funds to buy financial toxic waste, and new rules that will make it possible for private equity firms to own banks -- the very capital sources on which they depend for their highly leveraged deals.
How big will Wall Street bonuses be this year? Goldman Sachs Group (GS), which paid back its $10 billion in TARP money, is setting aside $20 billion for compensation this year -- $700,000 per employee, which is 6 percent more than it paid in its record 2007 compensation year. Morgan Stanley (MS) will give out between $11 billion and $14 billion in compensation -- close to the $340,000 per employee in record compensation that it paid in 2007.
How can these banks justify these huge compensation increases? Perhaps fear of comp cop, Kenneth Feinberg, is giving Wall Street a huge incentive to pay out as much as possible before he institutes pay limits. Morgan Stanley's pay is a much bigger than average 68 percent of revenues.
The record compensation is not related to superior financial performance. After all, financial results at these firms are way down from where they were in the first quarter of 2007. Goldman made $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2009, 44 percent less than the $3.2 billion it earned in the first quarter of 2007. And Morgan Stanley lost $177 million in the first quarter of 2009 -- while making $2.7 billion in the first quarter of 2007. Morgan Stanley also repaid $10 billion and is expected to post a 32 cents a share loss in the second quarter.
In addition to all this, the FDIC is loosening rules to permit private equity firms to own their lenders. With 45 banks having failed so far this year, the FDIC needs all the help it can get. Private equity firms like Carlyle Group have plenty of capital and the FDIC would like to use it to help bail out banks -- as it did with BankUnited Financial Corporation in Florida.
But the new rules require private equity firms to hold their investment for as long as two years, increase their capital if they buy banks, and limit their ownership to 24.9 percent unless they want to become bank holding companies. Private equity firms can get around this last restriction by teaming up -- in club deals.
Wall Street rules Washington. And even though the comp cop is scaring Wall Street on pay, he can't stop it from paying itself record bonuses despite far weaker financial performance.
As our children and grandchildren assume the burdens of all the debt America has taken on to bail out Wall Street for its errors, it is worth asking whether we have a true Democracy or merely the best government that Wall Street can buy.
Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College. His eighth book is You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.
Unbelieveable...
Friday, June 26, 2009
A Dark Day for Music
Michael Jackson is dead. I am speechless and hurt. I feel like a piece of my childhood has been permanently removed. I'll miss you, man. We all loved you and will always remember you...
Sunday, June 21, 2009
WE ARE SUCKERS!!!!
Read this one and enjoy the raping by Goldman Sachs...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/21/goldman-sachs-bonus-payments
Goldman to make record bonus payoutSurviving banks accused of undermining stability
Phillip Inman
The Observer, Sunday 21 June 2009
Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.
A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.
Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company's prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses if, as predicted, it completed its most profitable year ever. Figures next month detailing the firm's second-quarter earnings are expected to show a further jump in profits. Warren Buffett, who bought $5bn of the company's shares in January, has already made a $1bn gain on his investment.
Goldman is expected to be the biggest winner in the race for revenues that, in 2006, reached £186bn across the entire industry. While this figure is expected to fall to £160bn in 2009, it will be split among a smaller number of firms.
Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are among the European firms expected to register bumper profits, along with US banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley following the near collapse and government rescue of major trading houses including Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland.
In April, Goldman said it would set aside half of its £1.2bn first-quarter profit to reward staff, much of it in bonuses. It is believed to have paid 973 bankers $1m or more last year, while this year's payouts are on track to be the highest for most of the bank's 28,000 staff, including about 5,400 in London.
Critics of the bonus culture in the City said the dominance of a few risk-taking investment banks is undermining the efforts of regulators to stabilise the financial system.
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, said: "The investment banks more than any other institutions created the culture of excessive leverage, excessive risk and excessive bonuses that led to the downfall of the financial system. Now they are cashing in and the same bonus culture has returned. The result must be that we are being pushed to the edge of another crash."
Goldman Sachs said it reviewed its bonus scheme last year and switched from a system of guaranteed rewards that were paid over three years to variable payments that tied staff to the firm. It told employees last year that profit-related bonuses would be delayed by 12 months.
Until the release of its first quarter profits in April, it seemed inconceivable that a firm owing the US government $10bn would be looking to break all-time records in 2009.
David Williams, an investment banking analyst at Fox Pitt Kelton, said: "This year is shaping up to be the best year ever for investment banks, or at least those that have emerged relatively unscathed from the credit crisis.
"These banks are intermediaries in the bond markets where governments and companies are raising billions of pounds of new money. There is also a lack of competition that means they can charge huge sums for doing business."
Last week, the firm predicted that President Barack Obama's government could issue $3.25tn of debt before September, almost four times last year's sum. Goldman, a prime broker of US government bonds, is expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from selling and dealing in the bonds.
By the way, I looked for an article in the US press on this subject by could not find one...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/21/goldman-sachs-bonus-payments
Goldman to make record bonus payoutSurviving banks accused of undermining stability
Phillip Inman
The Observer, Sunday 21 June 2009
Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.
A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.
Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company's prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses if, as predicted, it completed its most profitable year ever. Figures next month detailing the firm's second-quarter earnings are expected to show a further jump in profits. Warren Buffett, who bought $5bn of the company's shares in January, has already made a $1bn gain on his investment.
Goldman is expected to be the biggest winner in the race for revenues that, in 2006, reached £186bn across the entire industry. While this figure is expected to fall to £160bn in 2009, it will be split among a smaller number of firms.
Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are among the European firms expected to register bumper profits, along with US banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley following the near collapse and government rescue of major trading houses including Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland.
In April, Goldman said it would set aside half of its £1.2bn first-quarter profit to reward staff, much of it in bonuses. It is believed to have paid 973 bankers $1m or more last year, while this year's payouts are on track to be the highest for most of the bank's 28,000 staff, including about 5,400 in London.
Critics of the bonus culture in the City said the dominance of a few risk-taking investment banks is undermining the efforts of regulators to stabilise the financial system.
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, said: "The investment banks more than any other institutions created the culture of excessive leverage, excessive risk and excessive bonuses that led to the downfall of the financial system. Now they are cashing in and the same bonus culture has returned. The result must be that we are being pushed to the edge of another crash."
Goldman Sachs said it reviewed its bonus scheme last year and switched from a system of guaranteed rewards that were paid over three years to variable payments that tied staff to the firm. It told employees last year that profit-related bonuses would be delayed by 12 months.
Until the release of its first quarter profits in April, it seemed inconceivable that a firm owing the US government $10bn would be looking to break all-time records in 2009.
David Williams, an investment banking analyst at Fox Pitt Kelton, said: "This year is shaping up to be the best year ever for investment banks, or at least those that have emerged relatively unscathed from the credit crisis.
"These banks are intermediaries in the bond markets where governments and companies are raising billions of pounds of new money. There is also a lack of competition that means they can charge huge sums for doing business."
Last week, the firm predicted that President Barack Obama's government could issue $3.25tn of debt before September, almost four times last year's sum. Goldman, a prime broker of US government bonds, is expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from selling and dealing in the bonds.
By the way, I looked for an article in the US press on this subject by could not find one...
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Here's what it's all about...
A story from the NY Post:
BAILOUT BONUS AT BOFA
By MARK DeCAMBRE
June 18, 2009 --
Bailed-out Bank of America has been doling out millions in bonuses in an effort to lure talent and keep investment bankers who management views as vital, sources tell The Post.
Among those who are said to have received payouts are two former Merrill Lynch bankers, Fares Noujaim, who was recently appointed as BofA's vice chairman of investment banking, and Harry McMahon, a well-connected West Coast-based banker. Both were offered guarantees not to leave the firm.
Noujaim, a former Bear Stearns banker who joined Merrill last year, is said to have received roughly $15 million over two years.
Sources say Noujaim -- a well-regarded banker focusing on the Middle East -- was offered a vice-chairman role, and may have been offered at least $5 million more to stay. His earlier employment contract was nullified once Merrill merged with BofA earlier this year, sources said.
The guarantees being shelled out by the embattled bank run by CEO Ken Lewis are raising eyebrows on Wall Street because BofA has taken $45 billion in capital from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and hasn't been allowed to refund that money.
A BofA spokeswoman argued that paying talented employees top dollar to stay is necessary because rival firms are poaching its best execs at an alarming rate.
"Competitive recruiting in investment banking and capital markets continues to be very intense and we're taking the steps necessary to retain key talent in response to competitive pressures," said spokeswoman Jessica Oppenheim.
She added, "Any reference to [a] specific associate's compensation in this story is inaccurate."
The issue of bonus payments by TARP recipients became a flash point earlier this year when Congress discovered that American International Group shelled out $454 million in retention bonuses after receiving a total of $182.5 billion in rescue cash.
Since then, Washington has clamped down on how banks in general, and TARP banks in particular, pay their employees. Last week, the Obama administration named Kenneth Feinberg its pay czar to oversee how TARP recipients pay their top 100 employees.
However, compensation is also a sore spot for banks under the government's thumb, as they try to compete with foreign banks not subject to restraints on pay.
Meanwhile, internally, BofA's guarantees have added to the friction that already exists between former Merrill workers and BofA employees, the latter of whom complain Merrill bankers are more often getting the guarantee bonuses.
mark.decambre@nypost.com
Hey we are in the wrong jobs. We should risk everyone else's money and then get bailed out and take a bonus for our hard work...
BAILOUT BONUS AT BOFA
By MARK DeCAMBRE
June 18, 2009 --
Bailed-out Bank of America has been doling out millions in bonuses in an effort to lure talent and keep investment bankers who management views as vital, sources tell The Post.
Among those who are said to have received payouts are two former Merrill Lynch bankers, Fares Noujaim, who was recently appointed as BofA's vice chairman of investment banking, and Harry McMahon, a well-connected West Coast-based banker. Both were offered guarantees not to leave the firm.
Noujaim, a former Bear Stearns banker who joined Merrill last year, is said to have received roughly $15 million over two years.
Sources say Noujaim -- a well-regarded banker focusing on the Middle East -- was offered a vice-chairman role, and may have been offered at least $5 million more to stay. His earlier employment contract was nullified once Merrill merged with BofA earlier this year, sources said.
The guarantees being shelled out by the embattled bank run by CEO Ken Lewis are raising eyebrows on Wall Street because BofA has taken $45 billion in capital from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and hasn't been allowed to refund that money.
A BofA spokeswoman argued that paying talented employees top dollar to stay is necessary because rival firms are poaching its best execs at an alarming rate.
"Competitive recruiting in investment banking and capital markets continues to be very intense and we're taking the steps necessary to retain key talent in response to competitive pressures," said spokeswoman Jessica Oppenheim.
She added, "Any reference to [a] specific associate's compensation in this story is inaccurate."
The issue of bonus payments by TARP recipients became a flash point earlier this year when Congress discovered that American International Group shelled out $454 million in retention bonuses after receiving a total of $182.5 billion in rescue cash.
Since then, Washington has clamped down on how banks in general, and TARP banks in particular, pay their employees. Last week, the Obama administration named Kenneth Feinberg its pay czar to oversee how TARP recipients pay their top 100 employees.
However, compensation is also a sore spot for banks under the government's thumb, as they try to compete with foreign banks not subject to restraints on pay.
Meanwhile, internally, BofA's guarantees have added to the friction that already exists between former Merrill workers and BofA employees, the latter of whom complain Merrill bankers are more often getting the guarantee bonuses.
mark.decambre@nypost.com
Hey we are in the wrong jobs. We should risk everyone else's money and then get bailed out and take a bonus for our hard work...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
What the hell is this all about.... - Part 2
Here is a following up commentary found on Bloomberg.
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a62_boqkurbI
Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge: William Pesek
Commentary by William Pesek
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- It’s a plot better suited for a John Le Carre novel.
Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear.
Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea’s cash in a Swiss vault? Bagmen for Nigerian Internet scammers? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit?
The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realize. At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.
The trillions of dollars of debt the U.S. will issue in the next couple of years needs buyers. Attracting them will require making sure that existing ones aren’t losing faith in the U.S.’s ability to control the dollar.
The dollar is, for better or worse, the core of our world economy and it’s best to keep it stable. News that’s more fitting for international spy novels than the financial pages won’t help that effort. It is incumbent upon the U.S. Treasury to get to the bottom of this tale and keep markets informed.
GDP Carriers
Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia. Yes, they could have built vacation homes amidst Genghis Khan’s Gobi Desert or the famed Temples of Angkor. Bernard Madoff who?
These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors. It makes you wonder if some of the time Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner spends keeping the Chinese and Japanese invested in dollars should be devoted to well-financed men crossing the Italian-Swiss border.
This tale has gotten little attention in markets, perhaps because of the absurdity of our times. The last year has been a decidedly disorienting one for capitalists who once knew up from down, red from black and risk from reward. It almost fits with the surreal nature of today that a couple of travelers have more U.S. debt than Brazil in a suitcase and, well, that’s life.
Clancy Bestseller
You can almost picture Tom Clancy sitting in his study thinking: “Damn! Why didn’t I think of this yarn and novelize it years ago?” He could have sprinkled in a Chinese angle, a pinch of Russian intrigue, a dose of Pyongyang and a bit of Taiwan-Strait tension into the mix. Presto, a sure bestseller.
Daniel Craig may be thinking this is a great story on which to base the next James Bond flick. Perhaps Don Johnson could buy the rights to this tale. In 2002, the “Miami Vice” star was stopped by German customs officers as he was traveling in a car carrying credit notes and other securities worth as much as $8 billion. Now he could claim it was all, uh, research.
When I first heard of the $134 billion story, I was tempted to glance at my calendar to make sure it didn’t read April 1.
Let’s assume for a moment that these U.S. bonds are real. That would make a mockery of Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano’s “absolutely unshakable” confidence in the credibility of the U.S. dollar. Yosano would have some explaining to do about Japan’s $686 billion of U.S. debt if more of these suitcase capers come to light.
‘Kennedy Bonds’
Counterfeit $100 bills are one thing; two guys with undeclared bonds including 249 certificates worth $500 million and 10 “Kennedy bonds” of $1 billion each is quite another.
The bust could be a boon for Italy. If the securities are found to be genuine, the smugglers could be fined 40 percent of the total value for attempting to take them out of the country. Not a bad payday for a government grappling with a widening budget deficit and rebuilding the town of L’Aquila, which was destroyed by an earthquake in April.
It would be terrible news for the White House. Other than the U.S., China or Japan, no other nation could theoretically move those amounts. In the absence of clear explanations coming from the Treasury, conspiracy theories are filling the void.
On his blog, the Market Ticker, Karl Denninger wonders if the Treasury “has been surreptitiously issuing bonds to, say, Japan, as a means of financing deficits that someone didn’t want reported over the last, oh, say 10 or 20 years.” Adds Denninger: “Let’s hope we get those answers, and this isn’t one of those ‘funny things’ that just disappears into the night.”
This is still a story with far more questions than answers. It’s odd, though, that it’s not garnering more media attention. Interest is likely to grow. The last thing Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke need right now is tens of billions more of U.S. bonds -- or even high-quality fake ones -- suddenly popping up around the globe.
(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at wpesek@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 16, 2009 15:00 EDT
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a62_boqkurbI
Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge: William Pesek
Commentary by William Pesek
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- It’s a plot better suited for a John Le Carre novel.
Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear.
Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea’s cash in a Swiss vault? Bagmen for Nigerian Internet scammers? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit?
The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realize. At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.
The trillions of dollars of debt the U.S. will issue in the next couple of years needs buyers. Attracting them will require making sure that existing ones aren’t losing faith in the U.S.’s ability to control the dollar.
The dollar is, for better or worse, the core of our world economy and it’s best to keep it stable. News that’s more fitting for international spy novels than the financial pages won’t help that effort. It is incumbent upon the U.S. Treasury to get to the bottom of this tale and keep markets informed.
GDP Carriers
Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia. Yes, they could have built vacation homes amidst Genghis Khan’s Gobi Desert or the famed Temples of Angkor. Bernard Madoff who?
These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors. It makes you wonder if some of the time Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner spends keeping the Chinese and Japanese invested in dollars should be devoted to well-financed men crossing the Italian-Swiss border.
This tale has gotten little attention in markets, perhaps because of the absurdity of our times. The last year has been a decidedly disorienting one for capitalists who once knew up from down, red from black and risk from reward. It almost fits with the surreal nature of today that a couple of travelers have more U.S. debt than Brazil in a suitcase and, well, that’s life.
Clancy Bestseller
You can almost picture Tom Clancy sitting in his study thinking: “Damn! Why didn’t I think of this yarn and novelize it years ago?” He could have sprinkled in a Chinese angle, a pinch of Russian intrigue, a dose of Pyongyang and a bit of Taiwan-Strait tension into the mix. Presto, a sure bestseller.
Daniel Craig may be thinking this is a great story on which to base the next James Bond flick. Perhaps Don Johnson could buy the rights to this tale. In 2002, the “Miami Vice” star was stopped by German customs officers as he was traveling in a car carrying credit notes and other securities worth as much as $8 billion. Now he could claim it was all, uh, research.
When I first heard of the $134 billion story, I was tempted to glance at my calendar to make sure it didn’t read April 1.
Let’s assume for a moment that these U.S. bonds are real. That would make a mockery of Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano’s “absolutely unshakable” confidence in the credibility of the U.S. dollar. Yosano would have some explaining to do about Japan’s $686 billion of U.S. debt if more of these suitcase capers come to light.
‘Kennedy Bonds’
Counterfeit $100 bills are one thing; two guys with undeclared bonds including 249 certificates worth $500 million and 10 “Kennedy bonds” of $1 billion each is quite another.
The bust could be a boon for Italy. If the securities are found to be genuine, the smugglers could be fined 40 percent of the total value for attempting to take them out of the country. Not a bad payday for a government grappling with a widening budget deficit and rebuilding the town of L’Aquila, which was destroyed by an earthquake in April.
It would be terrible news for the White House. Other than the U.S., China or Japan, no other nation could theoretically move those amounts. In the absence of clear explanations coming from the Treasury, conspiracy theories are filling the void.
On his blog, the Market Ticker, Karl Denninger wonders if the Treasury “has been surreptitiously issuing bonds to, say, Japan, as a means of financing deficits that someone didn’t want reported over the last, oh, say 10 or 20 years.” Adds Denninger: “Let’s hope we get those answers, and this isn’t one of those ‘funny things’ that just disappears into the night.”
This is still a story with far more questions than answers. It’s odd, though, that it’s not garnering more media attention. Interest is likely to grow. The last thing Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke need right now is tens of billions more of U.S. bonds -- or even high-quality fake ones -- suddenly popping up around the globe.
(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at wpesek@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 16, 2009 15:00 EDT
What the hell is this all about....
This is a good read and here is the actual link:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090611/italy-seizes-135b-us-bonds-from-two-japanese-citizens.htm
Italy seizes $135B of US bonds from two Japanese nationals
Two Japanese citizens carrying $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds were detained last week by Italy's financial police at Chiasso (40km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland, an Italian daily said Wednesday.
According to the report, they include 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, plus 10 Kennedy bonds and other U.S. government securities worth a billion dollar each.
The two unidentified Japanese citizen were searched on June 3 when they were in Chiasso. They were detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it.
The bonds were found hidden in the bottom of the suitcase, in a closed section separated from the part of the bag containing personal items.
Apart from the securities the Japanese men were carrying a considerable sum of original bank documents.
Investigations are underway to establish the identity and the origin of both the bonds and the bank documents that have also been impounded.
In order to stop money laundering Italian law sets a ceiling of €10,000 per person for importing or exporting money without declaring it. The penalty for violating the law is 40 per cent of the money seized.
If the certificates were real, the fine alone would amount to US$ 38 billion, five times the estimated cost of rebuilding quake-devastated Abruzzi region. It would help Italy’s eliminate its public deficit.
If the certificates are fakes the two Japanese nationals could get a very lengthy jail sentence for fraud.
The US Embassy in Rome was informed.
Great story - any comments!!!
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090611/italy-seizes-135b-us-bonds-from-two-japanese-citizens.htm
Italy seizes $135B of US bonds from two Japanese nationals
Two Japanese citizens carrying $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds were detained last week by Italy's financial police at Chiasso (40km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland, an Italian daily said Wednesday.
According to the report, they include 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, plus 10 Kennedy bonds and other U.S. government securities worth a billion dollar each.
The two unidentified Japanese citizen were searched on June 3 when they were in Chiasso. They were detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it.
The bonds were found hidden in the bottom of the suitcase, in a closed section separated from the part of the bag containing personal items.
Apart from the securities the Japanese men were carrying a considerable sum of original bank documents.
Investigations are underway to establish the identity and the origin of both the bonds and the bank documents that have also been impounded.
In order to stop money laundering Italian law sets a ceiling of €10,000 per person for importing or exporting money without declaring it. The penalty for violating the law is 40 per cent of the money seized.
If the certificates were real, the fine alone would amount to US$ 38 billion, five times the estimated cost of rebuilding quake-devastated Abruzzi region. It would help Italy’s eliminate its public deficit.
If the certificates are fakes the two Japanese nationals could get a very lengthy jail sentence for fraud.
The US Embassy in Rome was informed.
Great story - any comments!!!
Saturday, May 16, 2009
What's really going on here...Part 2
I have copied this from another posting. The author wanted the news spread before the information was taken down. I have included all information and give credit to the author. Give it a read...
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Mark Patterson: "It's A Sham. The Banks Are Insolvent"
Posted by Tyler Durden at 8:40 PM
Update 2: Please see the most recent post in this thread, in which I disclose that representatives of Mr. Patterson dispute the original Ambrose Evans-Pritchard article was "fabricated" and have succeeded in getting the Daily Telegraph to remove it.
Update: Daily Telegraph story now "mysteriously" taken down.
The chairman of $7 billion distressed Private Equity firm and TARP beneficiary MatlinPatterson calls a spade a spade and in the process exposes the entire Geithner plan for the complete sham that it is. His comments before the Qatar Global Investment Forum were captured by the Daily Telegraph's Evans-Pritchard earlier, and Zero Hedge republishes the piece in its entirety as it presents every nuance of our predicament with masterful simplicity.
***
US 'sham' bank bail-outs enrich speculators, says buy-out chief Mark Patterson
The US Treasury’s effort to stabilise the banking system through the TARP programme is a hopelessly ill-conceived policy that enriches speculators at public expense, according to the buy-out firm supposed to be pioneering the joint public-private bank rescues.
“The taxpayers ought to know that we are in effect receiving a subsidy. They put in 40pc of the money but get little of the equity upside,” said Mark Patterson, chairman of MatlinPatterson Advisers.
The comments are likely to infuriate Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, because MatlinPatterson took advantage of the TARP’s matching funds to buy Flagstar Bancorp in Michigan. His confession appears to validate concerns that the bail-out strategy is geared towards Wall Street.
Under the convoluted deal agreed earlier this year, MatlinPatterson has come to own 80pc of the shares while the US government has ended up with under 10pc.
Mr Patterson said the US Treasury is out of its depth and seems to be trying to put off drastic action by pretending that the banking system is still viable.
“It’s a sham. The banks are insolvent. The US government is trying to sedate the public because they are down to the last $100bn (£66bn) of the $700bn TARP funds. They think they’re doing this for the greater good of society,” he said, speaking at the Qatar Global Investment Forum.
Mr Patterson said it would be better for the US to bite the bullet as Britain has done, accepting that crippled lenders must be nationalised. “At least the British are not hiding the bail-out,” he said.
MatlinPatterson said private equity and hedge funds were deluding themselves in hoping to go back to business as usual after the trauma of the last 18 months.
“This is not a normal recession and there will be no V-shaped recovery. The crisis has destroyed leveraged companies. We’re going to see a catastrophic increase in the number of LBO’s (leveraged buyouts) going into default because they’re knee-deep in debt and no solution exists since they can’t refinance,” he said.
“Alfa hedge funds have been making their money by gambling with excessive leverage, so the knife that cuts off leverage is going to cut off their heads as well,” he said.
Like many bears, Mr Patterson expects the great crunch to end in deliberate inflation, deemed a lesser evil than outright depression.
“The US government has thrown 29pc of GDP at this crisis compared to 8pc in the early 1930s. The Fed’s balance sheet has risen from $900bn to $2.7 trillion to bail out the system. America has to do it because the only way out is to debase the currency, but that is going to lead to some very high inflation three years down the road,” he said.
Matlin Patterson, however, has missed the Spring rebound, the most powerful rise in equities in over 70 years. “We shorted the equity rally because we thought it was lunatic. We’ve kept adding positions seven times, and we’re still holding,” he said. Ouch!
Wow!!! Again I credit the author, Tyler Durden. Thanks, man...
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Mark Patterson: "It's A Sham. The Banks Are Insolvent"
Posted by Tyler Durden at 8:40 PM
Update 2: Please see the most recent post in this thread, in which I disclose that representatives of Mr. Patterson dispute the original Ambrose Evans-Pritchard article was "fabricated" and have succeeded in getting the Daily Telegraph to remove it.
Update: Daily Telegraph story now "mysteriously" taken down.
The chairman of $7 billion distressed Private Equity firm and TARP beneficiary MatlinPatterson calls a spade a spade and in the process exposes the entire Geithner plan for the complete sham that it is. His comments before the Qatar Global Investment Forum were captured by the Daily Telegraph's Evans-Pritchard earlier, and Zero Hedge republishes the piece in its entirety as it presents every nuance of our predicament with masterful simplicity.
***
US 'sham' bank bail-outs enrich speculators, says buy-out chief Mark Patterson
The US Treasury’s effort to stabilise the banking system through the TARP programme is a hopelessly ill-conceived policy that enriches speculators at public expense, according to the buy-out firm supposed to be pioneering the joint public-private bank rescues.
“The taxpayers ought to know that we are in effect receiving a subsidy. They put in 40pc of the money but get little of the equity upside,” said Mark Patterson, chairman of MatlinPatterson Advisers.
The comments are likely to infuriate Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, because MatlinPatterson took advantage of the TARP’s matching funds to buy Flagstar Bancorp in Michigan. His confession appears to validate concerns that the bail-out strategy is geared towards Wall Street.
Under the convoluted deal agreed earlier this year, MatlinPatterson has come to own 80pc of the shares while the US government has ended up with under 10pc.
Mr Patterson said the US Treasury is out of its depth and seems to be trying to put off drastic action by pretending that the banking system is still viable.
“It’s a sham. The banks are insolvent. The US government is trying to sedate the public because they are down to the last $100bn (£66bn) of the $700bn TARP funds. They think they’re doing this for the greater good of society,” he said, speaking at the Qatar Global Investment Forum.
Mr Patterson said it would be better for the US to bite the bullet as Britain has done, accepting that crippled lenders must be nationalised. “At least the British are not hiding the bail-out,” he said.
MatlinPatterson said private equity and hedge funds were deluding themselves in hoping to go back to business as usual after the trauma of the last 18 months.
“This is not a normal recession and there will be no V-shaped recovery. The crisis has destroyed leveraged companies. We’re going to see a catastrophic increase in the number of LBO’s (leveraged buyouts) going into default because they’re knee-deep in debt and no solution exists since they can’t refinance,” he said.
“Alfa hedge funds have been making their money by gambling with excessive leverage, so the knife that cuts off leverage is going to cut off their heads as well,” he said.
Like many bears, Mr Patterson expects the great crunch to end in deliberate inflation, deemed a lesser evil than outright depression.
“The US government has thrown 29pc of GDP at this crisis compared to 8pc in the early 1930s. The Fed’s balance sheet has risen from $900bn to $2.7 trillion to bail out the system. America has to do it because the only way out is to debase the currency, but that is going to lead to some very high inflation three years down the road,” he said.
Matlin Patterson, however, has missed the Spring rebound, the most powerful rise in equities in over 70 years. “We shorted the equity rally because we thought it was lunatic. We’ve kept adding positions seven times, and we’re still holding,” he said. Ouch!
Wow!!! Again I credit the author, Tyler Durden. Thanks, man...
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
What's really going on here...
I am copying a posting from a blogger called, Greed is Good, because I do not want it to disappear before everyone can read it... All credit for this information goes to Greed and thanks...
"The Turner Radio Network has obtained "stress test" results for the top 19 Banks in the USA.
The stress tests were conducted to determine how well, if at all, the top 19 banks in the USA could withstand further or future economic hardship.
When the tests were completed, regulators within the Treasury and inside the Federal Reserve began bickering with each other as to whether or not the test results should be made public. That bickering continues to this very day as evidenced by this "main stream media" report.
The Turner Radio Network has obtained the stress test results. They are very bad. The most salient points from the stress tests appear below.
1) Of the top nineteen (19) banks in the nation, sixteen (16) are already technically insolvent. (Based upon the “alternative more adverse” scenario which had a 3.3 percent contraction of the U.S. Economy in 2009, accompanied by 8.9 percent unemployment, followed by 0.5 percent growth of the U.S. Economy but a 10.3 percent jobless in 2010.)
2) Of the 16 banks that are already technically insolvent, not even one can withstand any disruption of cash flow at all or any further deterioration in non-paying loans. (Without further government injections of cash)
3) If any two of the 16 insolvent banks go under, they will totally wipe out all remaining FDIC insurance funding.
4) Of the top 19 banks in the nation, the top five (5) largest banks are under capitalized so dangerously, there is serious doubt about their ability to continue as ongoing businesses.
5) Five large U.S. banks have credit exposure related to their derivatives trading that exceeds their capital, with four in particular - JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Bank America and Citibank - taking especially large risks.
6) Bank of America`s total credit exposure to derivatives was 179 percent of its risk-based capital; Citibank`s was 278 percent; JPMorgan Chase`s, 382 percent; and HSBC America`s, 550 percent. It gets even worse: Goldman Sachs began reporting as a commercial bank, revealing an alarming total credit exposure of 1,056 percent, or more than ten times its capital! (HSBC is NOT in the top 19 banks undergoing a stress test, but is mentioned in the report as an aside because of its risk capital exposure to derivatives)
7) Not only are there serious questions about whether or not JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs,Citibank, Wells Fargo, Sun Trust Bank, HSBC Bank USA, can continue in business, more than 1,800 regional and smaller institutions are at risk of failure despite government bailouts!
The debt crisis is much greater than the government has reported. The FDIC`s "Problem List" of troubled banks includes 252 institutions with assets of $159 billion. 1,816 banks and thrifts are at risk of failure, with total assets of $4.67 trillion, compared to 1,568 institutions, with $2.32 trillion in total assets in prior quarter."
All you can do is hope that it's not true... If it is true, what have these guys done to you average folk?
Thanks, again to "Greed is Good"
"The Turner Radio Network has obtained "stress test" results for the top 19 Banks in the USA.
The stress tests were conducted to determine how well, if at all, the top 19 banks in the USA could withstand further or future economic hardship.
When the tests were completed, regulators within the Treasury and inside the Federal Reserve began bickering with each other as to whether or not the test results should be made public. That bickering continues to this very day as evidenced by this "main stream media" report.
The Turner Radio Network has obtained the stress test results. They are very bad. The most salient points from the stress tests appear below.
1) Of the top nineteen (19) banks in the nation, sixteen (16) are already technically insolvent. (Based upon the “alternative more adverse” scenario which had a 3.3 percent contraction of the U.S. Economy in 2009, accompanied by 8.9 percent unemployment, followed by 0.5 percent growth of the U.S. Economy but a 10.3 percent jobless in 2010.)
2) Of the 16 banks that are already technically insolvent, not even one can withstand any disruption of cash flow at all or any further deterioration in non-paying loans. (Without further government injections of cash)
3) If any two of the 16 insolvent banks go under, they will totally wipe out all remaining FDIC insurance funding.
4) Of the top 19 banks in the nation, the top five (5) largest banks are under capitalized so dangerously, there is serious doubt about their ability to continue as ongoing businesses.
5) Five large U.S. banks have credit exposure related to their derivatives trading that exceeds their capital, with four in particular - JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Bank America and Citibank - taking especially large risks.
6) Bank of America`s total credit exposure to derivatives was 179 percent of its risk-based capital; Citibank`s was 278 percent; JPMorgan Chase`s, 382 percent; and HSBC America`s, 550 percent. It gets even worse: Goldman Sachs began reporting as a commercial bank, revealing an alarming total credit exposure of 1,056 percent, or more than ten times its capital! (HSBC is NOT in the top 19 banks undergoing a stress test, but is mentioned in the report as an aside because of its risk capital exposure to derivatives)
7) Not only are there serious questions about whether or not JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs,Citibank, Wells Fargo, Sun Trust Bank, HSBC Bank USA, can continue in business, more than 1,800 regional and smaller institutions are at risk of failure despite government bailouts!
The debt crisis is much greater than the government has reported. The FDIC`s "Problem List" of troubled banks includes 252 institutions with assets of $159 billion. 1,816 banks and thrifts are at risk of failure, with total assets of $4.67 trillion, compared to 1,568 institutions, with $2.32 trillion in total assets in prior quarter."
All you can do is hope that it's not true... If it is true, what have these guys done to you average folk?
Thanks, again to "Greed is Good"
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