Entries Tagged 'Investing' ↓

Author’s note: It’s no surprise this week that the Financial Times ran an article titled “Republicans drop plan to gut ethics office after outcry“. Even Donald Trump sent a tweet rebuking them. Think our Congress doesn’t need guidance on ethics? Think again!

Protection of others or sheer hypocrisy?

If Mr. Trump was serious about cleaning up corruption in Washington DC, the first place he needs to start is with the US House of Representatives and the Senate.

In recent news, it was reported that Senators Bob Corker and Mark Warner made a bundle back in 2008. They made it off of Goldman Sachs’ subprime mortgage-based CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) called Abacus. Both Senators reported that they made millions of dollars from shorting the Abacus fund.

As is typical with the US government regulators, such as the SEC and Department of Justice, no CEO, top executives, or board members at Goldman were prosecuted for this notorious scam.

In fact no one was ever criminally prosecuted for actions in the Financial Crisis of 2008. Continue reading →

This weekend Donald Trump settled multiple cases related to his Trump University for alleged scams that bilked 5,000 students out of $40 million of their hard-earned savings with the promise that they’d be taught how to make money in business.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the judge whom Trump alleged was biased because he is Mexican-American, kindly gave Donald an “out” by suggesting that President-elect Trump would be too busy to fight his lawsuits. And that was the reason Trump gave when he paid $25 million to settle.

But was it the real reason? Hardly! Donald Trump settled his previous scams because he has way bigger fish to fry.

The tell

On Friday, MSNBC news featured Hollywood Reporter, Michael Wolff on the Chris Hayes’ show. Wolff was first to interview Steve Bannon, Trump senior counselor.

In this interview Steve Bannon gave us a hint of what he’s really up to.

The media and many Americans have been consumed with worry about the racism, sexism, homophobia, and other prejudice that Trump voiced during his campaign and that Bannon’s Breitbart website fuels.

Asked about this, Bannon hastened to assure Wolff those things were not “what he was about.”

Next, Bannon claimed his chief goal is to create new jobs for Americans.

I can believe Bannon’s first assertion, but not his second.

Here’s what led me to discount Bannon’s second statement. Continue reading →

Reprinted from Huffington Post

This time around, it’s Greeks who should beware of foreigners bearing gifts…

Ever since the financial crisis of 2008 hit Greece, I’ve wondered who really should pay.

Today, trying to find a reason for my unease with what’s happening to the Greek people, I took a look at the definitions of two forms of risk that investors can incur when buying foreign debt: Systemic Risk and Sovereign Risk.

Systemic Risk

Systemic risk is a term that came up quite frequently during the global Financial Crisis of 2008. I could never quite figure out what the term meant just by reading about systemic risk as part of a larger context in news stories.

Recently, however, I saw that familiar term used in relation to medical treatments. What I read was that chemotherapy imposes a systemic risk on the body while surgery and radiation treatments for cancer are more targeted risks to the patient.

In regard to investing, Wikipedia says, “In finance, systemic risk is the risk of collapse of an entire financial system or entire market”

We all know, or think we know, what an entire body is, but what is meant by “an entire market”? Continue reading →