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Post by JoeRockss on Jan 12, 2015 12:05:49 GMT -5
Bernie Madoff NAKED SHORTING EXEMPTION
#2107564
ezal13 2 minutes ago
PCBM/SRCI
NOT SAYING THIS HAPPENED HERE...But I do remember trades happening on SUNDAYS: Ms. Walker-Lightfoot’s review of Madoff documents revealed inconsistencies, such as certain transactions purportedly conducted by Mr. Madoff’s firm that settled on a Sunday.
Did the SEC Have Any Experienced People Looking at Madoff? You Betcha!!
Posted by Larry Doyle on September 7, 2009 11:24 AM | shareshare
While the SEC Inspector General David Kotz would have the American public believe the SEC fell down in its oversight of Bernie Madoff largely due to inexperienced investigators, this claim is very shallow.
Former SEC lawyer Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot was investigating Madoff in 2004 but was reassigned when she started to ask the hard questions. The Wall Street Journal highlights Ms. Walker-Lightfoot’s time working for the SEC in writing, Ex-SEC Lawyer: Madoff Report Misses Point:
A former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who investigated Bernard Madoff in 2004 says the new report on how the agency failed to uncover his massive fraud places too much blame on staff examiners and overly generalizes about their “inexperience.”
Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot told Dow Jones Newswires on Thursday the SEC inspector general should have focused more of his attention on how supervisors, rather than the staff examiners and investigators, handled the agency’s many stillborn probes of Mr. Madoff.
SEC inspector general, H. David Kotz, reached by telephone, said he considered it premature for Ms. Walker-Lightfoot to criticize the summary before the full response was released. He described himself as “befuddled” by her remarks. Mr. Kotz noted the decision to release the summary was made by SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, not by his office.
An executive summary of the report, released on Wednesday, repeatedly emphasized what it described as the inexperience, confusion and limited expertise of staff assigned to at least six investigations involving Madoff since 1992.
Ms. Walker-Lightfoot ”” who recommended more action in a 2004 investigation that was shelved ”” said those descriptions were overly simple, and the summary generalized too much.
“My experience is a key example,” she said. “Here was someone who raised red flags and said “We need to look into these things.” But I wasn’t senior management, so it wasn’t my call.”
The full report is expected on Friday, and she said she would reserve final judgment on it until then.
Ms. Walker-Lightfoot, who is now a lawyer for the Federal Reserve Board, was part of a four-person team in the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, or OCIE, who investigated Mr. Madoff’s firm in 2004. She informed a supervisor of inconsistencies she learned of during her review and suggested following up.
Instead, her team was ultimately diverted to another case.
Who made this decision? Why?
The inspector general’s conclusions should have considered what other levels in the bureaucracy did, she said. “It would have been more insightful to take a more holistic approach”.
Her involvement in the case was first reported in July by the Washington Post, which said she left the SEC in 2006 after filing a hostile workplace complaint. It was settled in her favor, the Post reported.
In the interview with Dow Jones Newswires, she said members of the SEC’s investigative teams had varied skill levels that the inspector general, H. David Kotz, doesn’t adequately address in the summary. “He talked a lot about the team as an aggregate,” she said.
The lead person on any team, she said, typically had a breadth of knowledge or experience about the issues at hand.
Her team’s investigation required at least one examiner who understood options ”” a skill that Ms. Walker-Lightfoot had, having worked at an equity and options exchange for about two years prior to joining the SEC.
Ms. Walker-Lightfoot’s supervisors included Mark Donohue, who still works at the agency, and Eric Swanson, then an assistant director who ultimately married Mr. Madoff’s niece, Shana, the former compliance attorney for his firm. The inspector general found that Mr. Swanson’s romantic relationship didn’t influence the SEC’s conduct during its Madoff investigations.
Was Mr. Donohue or Mr. Swanson the individual who reassigned Ms. Walker-Lightfoot and her team? Isn’t this a natural question that needs to be answered?
Ms. Walker-Lightfoot’s review of Madoff documents revealed inconsistencies, such as certain transactions purportedly conducted by Mr. Madoff’s firm that settled on a Sunday. “Anyone in the securities business knows they don’t settle on the weekend,” she said.
She also noticed that equities transactions reported by Mr. Madoff often settled in one, four or six days instead of three, which is the industry standard.
Ms. Walker-Lightfoot said her role during nearly five years as an SEC staff attorney, where she worked from 2001 to 2006, was to provide advice and opinions. “My opinion was that we needed to ask more questions,” she said.
But the SEC boxed up that opinion, and there it sat, she said.
Ms. Walker-Lightfoot said she still hadn’t completely absorbed the effects of her SEC experience.
“For me, as a federal employee with almost 10 years of service, I’m disappointed that experienced people who contributed greatly on those teams are now going to have their reputations sort of blemished,” she said.
Is the American public getting the full story? Is there a semblance of a coverup being played out here? Clearly the government wants to maintain total focus on the SEC in this question of failed oversight. Why? In my opinion, the fact that the SEC has immunity walls off the Madoff victims from pursuing this entity for damages. The SEC was not the only regulator with oversight of Madoff over the years. Despite the assertion made by a number of regulators that FINRA did not have oversight of Madoff, do not forget that FINRA was formed from the regulatory arms of the NYSE and NASD in 2007. Madoff became a registered investment advisor in 2006. Prior to that, Madoff’s enterprise would have been regulated by both the SEC and the NASD, FINRA’s parent.
The investigation into what really happened within Bernard Madoff Investment Services will not be complete unless and until the light is shone inside the NASD and FINRA.
Perhaps Ms. Walker-Lightfoot and Harry Markopolos can make sure the light encompasses those organizations as well.
The American public deserves nothing less.
LD
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Post by JoeRockss on Jan 22, 2015 22:27:27 GMT -5
smeagle DIAMOND JEDI WARLORD ***** Post by smeagle on 13 hours ago He calls it like it is......IMO www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/american-sniper-is-almost-too-dumb-to-criticize-20150121'American Sniper' Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticize Almost. By Matt Taibbi | January 21, 2015 I saw American Sniper last night, and hated it slightly less than I expected to. Like most Clint Eastwood movies – and I like Clint Eastwood movies for the most part – it's a simple, well-lit little fairy tale with the nutritional value of a fortune cookie that serves up a neatly-arranged helping of cheers and tears for target audiences, and panics at the thought of embracing more than one or two ideas at any time. It's usually silly to get upset about the self-righteous way Hollywood moviemakers routinely turn serious subjects into baby food. Film-industry people angrily reject the notion that their movies have to be about anything (except things like "character" and "narrative" and "arc," subjects they can talk about endlessly). This is the same Hollywood culture that turned the horror and divisiveness of the Vietnam War era into a movie about a platitude-spewing doofus with leg braces who in the face of terrible moral choices eats chocolates and plays Ping-Pong. The message of Forrest Gump was that if you think about the hard stuff too much, you'll either get AIDS or lose your legs. Meanwhile, the hero is the idiot who just shrugs and says "Whatever!" whenever his country asks him to do something crazy. Forrest Gump pulled in over half a billion and won Best Picture. So what exactly should we have expected from American Sniper? Not much. But even by the low low standards of this business, it still manages to sink to a new depth or two. The thing is, the mere act of trying to make a typically Hollywoodian one-note fairy tale set in the middle of the insane moral morass that is/was the Iraq occupation is both dumber and more arrogant than anything George Bush or even thingy Cheney ever tried. No one expected 20 minutes of backstory about the failed WMD search, Abu Ghraib, or the myriad other American atrocities and quick-trigger bombings that helped fuel the rise of ISIL and other groups. But to turn the Iraq war into a saccharine, almost PG-rated two-hour cinematic diversion about a killing machine with a heart of gold (is there any film theme more perfectly 2015-America than that?) who slowly, very slowly, starts to feel bad after shooting enough women and children – Gump notwithstanding, that was a hard one to see coming. Sniper is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism. The only thing that forces us to take it seriously is the extraordinary fact that an almost exactly similar worldview consumed the walnut-sized mind of the president who got us into the war in question. It's the fact that the movie is popular, and actually makes sense to so many people, that's the problem. "American Sniper has the look of a bona fide cultural phenomenon!" gushed Brandon Griggs of CNN, noting the film's record $105 million opening-week box office. Griggs added, in a review that must make Eastwood swell with pride, that the root of the film's success is that "it's about a real person," and "it's a human story, not a political one." Well done, Clint! You made a movie about mass-bloodshed in Iraq that critics pronounced not political! That's as Hollywood as Hollywood gets. The characters in Eastwood's movies almost always wear white and black hats or their equivalents, so you know at all times who's the good guy on the one hand, and whose exploding head we're to applaud on the other. In this case that effect is often literal, with "hero" sniper Chris Kyle's "sinister" opposite Mustafa permanently dressed in black (with accompanying evil black pirate-stubble) throughout. Eastwood, who surely knows better, indulges in countless crass stupidities in the movie. There's the obligatory somber scene of shirtless buffed-up SEAL Kyle and his heartthrob wife Sienna Miller gasping at the televised horror of the 9/11 attacks. Next thing you know, Kyle is in Iraq actually fighting al-Qaeda – as if there was some logical connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Which of course there had not been, until we invaded and bombed the wrong country and turned its moonscaped cities into a recruitment breeding ground for… you guessed it, al-Qaeda. They skipped that chicken-egg dilemma in the film, though, because it would detract from the "human story." Eastwood plays for cheap applause and goes super-dumb even by Hollywood standards when one of Kyle's officers suggests that they could "win the war" by taking out the evil sniper who is upsetting America's peaceful occupation of Sadr City. When hunky Bradley Cooper's Kyle character subsequently takes out Mustafa with Skywalkerian long-distance panache – "Aim small, hit small," he whispers, prior to executing an impossible mile-plus shot – even the audiences in the liberal-fanny Jersey City theater where I watched the movie stood up and cheered. I can only imagine the response this scene scored in Soldier of Fortune country. To Eastwood, this was probably just good moviemaking, a scene designed to evoke the same response he got in Trouble With the Curve when his undiscovered Latin Koufax character, Rigoberto Sanchez, strikes out the evil Bonus Baby Bo Gentry (even I cheered at that scene). The problem of course is that there's no such thing as "winning" the War on Terror militarily. In fact the occupation led to mass destruction, hundreds of thousands of deaths, a choleric lack of real sanitation, epidemic unemployment and political radicalization that continues to this day to spread beyond Iraq's borders. Yet the movie glosses over all of this, and makes us think that killing Mustafa was some kind of decisive accomplishment – the single shot that kept terrorists out of the coffee shops of San Francisco or whatever. It's a scene that ratified every idiot fantasy of every yahoo with a target rifle from Seattle to Savannah. The really dangerous part of this film is that it turns into a referendum on the character of a single soldier. It's an unwinnable argument in either direction. We end up talking about Chris Kyle and his dilemmas, and not about the Rumsfelds and Cheneys and other officials up the chain who put Kyle and his high-powered rifle on rooftops in Iraq and asked him to shoot women and children. They're the real villains in this movie, but the controversy has mostly been over just how much of a "hero" Chris Kyle really was. One Academy member wondered to a reporter if Kyle (who in real life was killed by a fellow troubled vet in an eerie commentary on the violence in our society that might have made a more interesting movie) was a "psychopath." Michael Moore absorbed a ton of criticism when he tweeted that "My uncle [was] killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards …" And plenty of other commentators, comparing Kyle's book (where he remorselessly brags about killing "savages") to the film (where he is portrayed as a more rounded figure who struggled, if not verbally then at least visually, with the nature of his work), have pointed out that real-life Kyle was kind of a thingy compared to movie-Kyle. (The most disturbing passage in the book to me was the one where Kyle talked about being competitive with other snipers, and how when one in particular began to threaten his "legendary" number, Kyle "all of the sudden" seemed to have "every stinkin' bad guy in the city running across my scope." As in, wink wink, my luck suddenly changed when the sniper-race got close, get it? It's super-ugly stuff). The thing is, it always looks bad when you criticize a soldier for doing what he's told. It's equally dangerous to be seduced by the pathos and drama of the individual solider's experience, because most wars are about something much larger than that, too. They did this after Vietnam, when America spent decades watching movies like Deer Hunter and First Blood and Coming Home about vets struggling to reassimilate after the madness of the jungles. So we came to think of the "tragedy" of Vietnam as something primarily experienced by our guys, and not by the millions of Indochinese we killed. That doesn't mean Vietnam Veterans didn't suffer: they did, often terribly. But making entertainment out of their dilemmas helped Americans turn their eyes from their political choices. The movies used the struggles of soldiers as a kind of human shield protecting us from thinking too much about what we'd done in places like Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos. This is going to start happening now with the War-on-Terror movies. As CNN's Griggs writes, "We're finally ready for a movie about the Iraq War." Meaning: we're ready to be entertained by stories about how hard it was for our guys. And it might have been. But that's not the whole story and never will be. We'll make movies about the Chris Kyles of the world and argue about whether they were heroes or not. Some were, some weren't. But in public relations as in war, it'll be the soldiers taking the bullets, not the suits in the Beltway who blithely sent them into lethal missions they were never supposed to understand. And filmmakers like Eastwood, who could have cleared things up, only muddy the waters more. Sometimes there's no such thing as "just a human story." Sometimes a story is meaningless or worse without real context, and this is one of them. I just returned from seeing the movie and completely disagree with his opinion. He needs to concentrate again on financial subjects. And although someone on the board posted that he said in the past he wouldn't write about CMKX, we need to ask again. I too saw the movie. As I reflect since (3dy) I pulled the focus back to a "BIG PICTURE" Sure if I was a Seal in the tours described-I too would do the best I could in IRAQ or wherever. The big picture refocused say in the USA shows the same type of activity in your bank & Investment accounts. Chris Kyle performed well in his theatre, We are not performing as well in ours. JUST A THOUGHT
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Post by JoeRockss on Jan 27, 2015 13:59:10 GMT -5
SEC Charges Oppenheimer With Securities Law Violations Related to Impr...
#2112725 BlackDeath 1 hours ago
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2015-14 Washington D.C., Jan. 27, 2015 —
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Oppenheimer & Co. with violating federal securities laws while improperly selling penny stocks in unregistered offerings on behalf of customers.
Oppenheimer agreed to admit wrongdoing and pay $10 million to settle the SEC’s charges. Oppenheimer will pay an additional $10 million to settle a parallel action by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding, Oppenheimer engaged in two courses of misconduct. The first involved aiding and abetting illegal activity by a customer and ignoring red flags that business was being conducted without an applicable exemption from the broker-dealer registration requirements of the federal securities laws. The customer was Gibraltar Global Securities, a brokerage firm in the Bahamas that is not registered to do business in the U.S. Oppenheimer executed sales of billions of shares of penny stocks for a supposed proprietary account in Gibraltar’s name while knowing or being reckless in not knowing that Gibraltar was actually executing transactions and providing brokerage services for its underlying customers, including many in the U.S. The SEC separately charged Gibraltar in 2013 for its alleged misconduct.
The SEC’s order finds that Oppenheimer failed to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) as required under the Bank Secrecy Act to report potential misconduct by Gibraltar and its customers, and the firm failed to properly report, withhold, and remit more than $3 million in backup withholding taxes from sales proceeds in Gibraltar’s account. Oppenheimer also failed to recognize the resulting liabilities and expenses in violation of the books-and-records requirements, and improperly recorded transactions for Gibraltar’s customers in Oppenheimer’s books and records.
According to the SEC’s order, the second course of misconduct involved Oppenheimer again engaging on behalf of another customer in unregistered sales of billions of shares of penny stocks. The SEC’s investigation, which is continuing, found that the sales generated approximately $12 million in profits of which Oppenheimer was paid $588,400 in commissions. The firm’s liability stems from its failure to respond to red flags and conduct a searching inquiry into whether the sales were exempt from registration requirements of the federal securities laws, and its failure reasonably to supervise with a view toward detecting and preventing violations of the registration provisions.
“Despite red flags suggesting that Oppenheimer’s customer’s stock sales were not exempt from registration, Oppenheimer nonetheless allowed unregistered sales to occur through its account, failing in its gatekeeper role,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “These actions against Oppenheimer demonstrate that the SEC is fully committed to addressing lax AML compliance programs at broker-dealers through enforcement action. The sanctions imposed on Oppenheimer, which include admissions of wrongdoing and $20 million in monetary remedies, reflect the magnitude of Oppenheimer’s regulatory failures.”
The SEC’s order requires Oppenheimer to cease and desist from committing or causing any violations and any future violations of Section 15(a) and 17(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 17a-3 and 17a-8, and of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933. In addition to the monetary remedies, Oppenheimer agreed to be censured and undertake such remedial measures as retaining an independent consultant to review its policies and procedures over a five-year period.
The SEC’s investigation is being conducted by Robert Giallombardo, Margaret W. Smith, Robert Nesbitt, Gary Peters, and Jesse Grunberg with assistance from Christian Schultz. The case is being supervised by Doug McAllister and Nina Finston. The SEC appreciates the assistance of FinCEN and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. ###
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Feb 2, 2015 10:29:41 GMT -5
www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/02/02/child-like-wonder-central-bank-action/?cmpid=prn_dailyfinanceThe Child-Like Wonder of Central Bank ActionMarkets are presently a bloated, dysfunctional leviathan. Stock market sentiment continues to be glum – with the fourth-quarter 2014 earnings peak behind us, traders have grown disheartened by the slew of multi-nationals who’ve nervously reported half-empty outlooks on their companies - given the most recent resetting of currency and oil prices. Just last month, analysts were hotly debating over the S&P 500 2015 earnings per share estimate. As forecasters grappled with a sturdy earnings figure of $126 - $128 per share, the market quickly decided both figures were naive – offering a new normal circa late 2013 of sub $120 per share. Although resolute in my conviction of lower oil being a net economic virtue, that simply continues not to be so as energy earnings – in aggregate – have managed to trip over a fundamentally low bar. Sifting through the earnings reports, it appears a large swath of capital goods and industrials have suffered far more than any resultant benefit seen or heard from the consumer-oriented sector. Lately, snap and/or surprise currency movements have prompted alarm among policymakers about the dangers and inferences of financial fragility and its general influence on the global economy. Central bankers – seated around long, oak tables like suited academics who speak calmly in dense polysyllabic terms, roll their eyes over the bourgeois impulse of classic currency intervention. They cleverly disguise the same through slashing interest rates (Canada, Turkey, and Denmark twice), possibly stalling a rate hike (England, U.S.), or extracting one peg to another (Switzerland). Even late-arriving guests from diverse, faraway lands including Norway and Singapore have raised eyebrows - asking if it’s not too late to drink from the dovish punchbowl. Or, the stalwart Royal Bank of Australia – long dissatisfied with the party and its partygoers – may in fact play host next week! Despite a shrinking consensus (including me) calling for a symbolic Fed rate hike in June, the market (inferred by futures and options) is now calling for lift-off in the fall. The Fed dilemma has turned fanatically ludicrous – the U.S. jobs market continues to show strength, economic data continues to thread the needle of recovery – all suggesting a Fed funds rate somewhere above zero. All that surety and yet, the 30-year Treasury bond has the audacity to trade at all-time lows late Wednesday! Since 2013, the chief driver of U.S. dollar strength was the subtle yet real heightening up of U.S. economic data and thus an appropriate anticipation of turning in our monetary policy. It should be clear that higher growth begets higher rates which beget a higher U.S. dollar which in turn begets a lower gold price. Ironic yet most recently, U.S. yields have fallen back (yield curve has flattened), gold has found a bid and yet the U.S. dollar remains firmly resolute – obtuse to what is supposed to be. Perhaps economic theory needs to once again be re-written? Perhaps the European Central Bank (ECB) is now in the driver’s seat? Growing up, I was surrounded by a host of urban legends – enough to make a N.J. turnpike diner menu look sullenly costive. Stories including cereal box super-star Mikey who allegedly died from a lethal combination of soda and pop rocks candy abounded as the sheer lack of information (i.e. internet) created a fertile environment where tales could linger and grow longer with each passing summer. One such legend was New York’s Chinatown’s restaurants sharing one large central kitchen. As a young boy, this made perfect sense to the how their overly-cramped restaurants could offer such a lengthy menu and to the why their restaurants looked fastened together on a few streets in lower Manhattan. I was fascinated as I imagined wait staff descending steep, narrow staircases – navigating the subterranean tunnels - into the labyrinth of the gigantic central kitchen and forgetting daylight for hours on end. This childhood wonderment draws creative parallels over today’s central banks and their cozy mandates. Are they working together? Should they be? Can they jointly or independently keep currency skirmishes at bay while winning this war against deflation? Some would argue that banding together makes us stronger – we can together create any rate of inflation simply by pulling a lever marked “money supply.” Perhaps, but the Japan experiment – not to mention the Great Depression – would argue otherwise which, brings to mind, that every new dawn brings a new market as the forces of supply versus demand attempts to digest sentiment and momentum mixed by both monetary and fiscal policies. Late winter is a unique period that draws a peculiar similarity to our current market environment. I look out my window and observe landscapes full of old, tired snow seemingly holding hostage any life that remains beneath it. I note the bare trees, their branches limping with exhaustion, or the bramble best fit for next year’s fire pit. Combine with that, the days are getting longer, the gauze color skies become brighter and this morning’s singing of a male red winged black bird. The signs are apparent – yet, I simply can’t imagine this period of deadness can possibly give birth to a renewal of flowers and fauna. And yet, like winter, the markets will reset and revive and are currently doing so as we wallow in the various and sundry risks revolving around us.Larry Shover is a former derivatives trader turned portfolio fund manager with 30 years of experience in the financial industry. He is a frequent guest on FOX Business Network. He can be reached on Twitter at @larryshover1.
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Post by JoeRockss on Feb 10, 2015 6:10:48 GMT -5
alrich DIAMOND JEDI MASTER **** Post by alrich on 14 hours ago Rupert Murdoch's media empire reveals unprecedented $8+ trillion SEC scandal "several elements of the dismissed multi-trillion dollar CMKM Diamonds lawsuit – exclusively pertaining to allegations of a naked short selling tsunami under the SEC’s watch – no longer sound like they’re from Mars". Next: New Volcker Rule restricts profitable trading, while allowing risky practices June 21, 2011 12:04 AM MST Seal of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The United States Federal Government Several days ago, Steven Jones of Dow Jones Newswires – a News Corporation company – broke what may be the story of the Millennium, literally. According to 69 recent SEC filings that have now “vanished”, a Texan by the name of Johnny Earl Satterwhite claims to hold over $8 trillion in public companies like Microsoft, Exxon Mobil and City National Bank, among others. Jones also obtained documents that show Satterwhite falsely warranting his ownership of almost one trillion shares in Microsoft. This is 100% impossible, as Jones brilliantly notes: That is about 1,500 times more than company co-founder Bill Gates owns, and, in fact, more than the 8.4 billion shares Microsoft has issued in its 36-year history. Satterwhite's filings on Exxon Mobil, City National Bancshares and other companies claim similar-sized stakes, which exceed the number of shares outstanding at those companies. Ladies and gentlemen, a scandal far larger than Bernie Madoff has just been uncovered and this is one element of a much crazier narrative. Satterwhite told Jones he filed these false documents for a “group of individuals” that “don't want it known who they are”. This is apparently no issue for criminally negligent officials at the SEC; Satterwhite said no one at the SEC ever questioned his blatantly untrue assertions. In light of these developments, several elements of the dismissed multi-trillion dollar CMKM Diamonds lawsuit – exclusively pertaining to allegations of a naked short selling tsunami under the SEC’s watch – no longer sound like they’re from Mars. Vindication should now also emerge for the hardworking staff over at Deep Capture. Meanwhile, later in Jones’ Pulitzer Prize-worthy report, he refers to an even murkier SEC scandal; this one dates back to 2005 and involves former heads of governments and a former Federal Reserve chairman: Canadian company called Apollo Publication Corp. filed to go public in a $3.6 billion offering it hoped would fund its ambitions to found an ‘Imperial of Earth’ with one language, one culture and one currency. The company claimed a star-studded board that included a former Canadian Prime Minister, several former U.S. presidents and ‘Al Greenspan.’ The SEC later alleged that Apollo Publication had misled investors. Imperial of Earth sounds like it is from the circus of New World Order commentary. Beyond that – and more importantly – it also reeks of high treason against the Constitution of the United States. I would like to applaud Dow Jones Newswires and News Corporation – by extension, this also means Rupert Murdoch and his senior staff – for allowing Steven Jones to inform the public about unprecedented official corruption in the United States. Indeed, this also proves that high-quality American journalism still exists. At this juncture, federal prosecutors must uphold their sworn duties: at the very least, criminal negligence charges against current and former officials at the SEC must be pursued in order to restore confidence in our collapsing financial system. Criminal charges must also be filed against former US Presidents and anyone else engaging in massive fraud – which is akin to ongoing financial terrorism – around the world. Otherwise, the situations in Greece and Spain will soon emerge in every nation under God. Should we descend into such chaos, the fate of Pazzi bankers and their political cronies may fall upon similarly-situated people in the world today. I do not under any circumstances wish to see that happen, but it may if we do not act now. Ke$ha is right: “This place about to blow!” The better solution for the future of mankind is The Great American Renaissance; our success can be recreated in every nation that is willing to follow suit. Shady central banks and widespread corruption at the highest levels of governments are a thing of the past; we have the ability, here and now, to move forward peacefully. So let’s do it already. www.examiner.com/article/rupert-murdoch-s-media-empire-reveals-unprecedented-8-trillion-sec-scandal
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Post by JoeRockss on Feb 12, 2015 16:23:28 GMT -5
Keysone Pipeline passes Senate
#2117542 BlackDeath 21 hours ago
but Big O says no....we shall see if the Senate over rules Big O
#2117587 EricGreenField 19 hours ago
No drama Obama will have his way.
#2117597 moby 18 hours ago
Obama will block anything that creates economic growth. He only wants more government growth and more serfs. thingyTATERS rule that way
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Feb 18, 2015 11:15:46 GMT -5
finance.yahoo.com/news/ready-10-oil-230002605.htmlAt about $50 a barrel, crude oil prices are down by more than half from their June 2014 peak of $107. They may fall more, perhaps even as low as $10 to $20. Here’s why. U.S. economic growth has averaged 2.3 percent a year since the recovery started in mid-2009. That's about half the rate you might expect in a rebound from the deepest recession since the 1930s. Meanwhile, growth in China is slowing, is minimal in the euro zone and is negative in Japan. Throw in the large increase in U.S. vehicle gas mileage and other conservation measures and it’s clear why global oil demand is weak and might even decline. At the same time, output is climbing, thanks in large part to increased U.S. production from hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling. U.S. output rose by 15 percent in the 12 months through November from a year earlier, based on the latest data, while imports declined 4 percent. More from Bloomberg.com: Emerging Stocks Rise as Greek Stalemate Downplayed, Russia Gains Something else figures in the mix: The eroding power of the OPEC cartel. Like all cartels, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is designed to ensure stable and above-market crude prices. But those high prices encourage cheating, as cartel members exceed their quotas. For the cartel to function, its leader -- in this case, Saudi Arabia -- must accommodate the cheaters by cutting its own output to keep prices from falling. But the Saudis have seen their past cutbacks result in market-share losses. So the Saudis, backed by other Persian Gulf oil producers with sizable financial resources -- Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates -- embarked on a game of chicken with the cheaters. On Nov. 27, OPEC said that it wouldn't cut output, sending oil prices off a cliff. The Saudis figure they can withstand low prices for longer than their financially weaker competitors, who will have to cut production first as pumping becomes uneconomical. More from Bloomberg.com: Kuwait Sees Crude Recovering Amid Plans to Add More Rigs What is the price at which major producers chicken out and slash output? Whatever that price is, it is much lower than the $125 a barrel Venezuela needs to support its mismanaged economy. The same goes for Ecuador, Algeria, Nigeria, Iraq, Iran and Angola. Saudi Arabia requires a price of more than $90 to fund its budget. But it has $726 billion in foreign currency reserves and is betting it can survive for two years with prices of less than $40 a barrel. More from Bloomberg.com: Problem Is No One Is Recapitalizing Greek Banks: Weinberg Furthermore, the price when producers chicken out isn’t necessarily the average cost of production, which for 80 percent of new U.S. shale oil production this year will be $50 to $69 a barrel, according to Daniel Yergin of energy consultant IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Instead, the chicken-out point is the marginal cost of production, or the additional costs after the wells are drilled and the pipes are laid. Another way to think of it: It's the price at which cash flow for an additional barrel falls to zero. Last month, Wood Mackenzie, an energy research organization, found that of 2,222 oil fields surveyed worldwide, only 1.6 percent would have negative cash flow at $40 a barrel. That suggests there won't be a lot of chickening out at $40. Keep in mind that the marginal cost for efficient U.S. shale-oil producers is about $10 to $20 a barrel in the Permian Basin in Texas and about the same for oil produced in the Persian Gulf. Also consider the conundrum financially troubled countries such as Russia and Venezuela find themselves in: They desperately need the revenue from oil exports to service foreign debts and fund imports. Yet, the lower the price, the more oil they need to produce and export to earn the same number of dollars, the currency used to price and trade oil. With new discoveries, stability in parts of the Middle East and increasing drilling efficiency, global oil output will no doubt rise in the next several years, adding to pressure on prices. U.S. crude oil production is forecast to rise by 300,000 barrels a day during the next year from 9.1 million now. Sure, the drilling rig count is falling, but it’s the inefficient rigs that are being idled, not the horizontal rigs that are the backbone of the fracking industry. Consider also Iraq’s recent deal with the Kurds, meaning that another 550,000 barrels a day will enter the market. While supply climbs, demand is weakening. OPEC forecasts demand for its oil at a 14-year low of 28.2 million barrels a day in 2017, 600,000 less than its forecast a year ago and down from current output of 30.7 million. It also cut its 2015 demand forecast to a 12-year low of 29.12 million barrels. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency reduced its 2015 global demand forecast for the fourth time in 12 months by 230,000 barrels a day to 93.3 million and sees supply exceeding demand this year by 400,000 barrels a day. Although the 40 percent decline in U.S. gasoline prices since April 2014 has led consumers to buy more gas-guzzling SUVs and pick-up trucks, consumers during the past few years have bought the most efficient blend of cars and trucks ever. At the same time, slowing growth in China and the shift away from energy-intensive manufactured exports and infrastructure to consumer services is depressing oil demand. China accounted for two-thirds of the growth in demand for oil in the past decade. So look for more big declines in crude oil and related energy prices. My next column will cover the winners and losers from low oil prices. More from Bloomberg.com •Internet Ideal to Show All Real Estate Options: Florance •`Believer: My Forty Years in Politics': Charlie Rose •What Is the Likelihood That Greece Exits the Euro?
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Post by thunkerdrone on Feb 18, 2015 12:50:36 GMT -5
interesting anecdote on purported Tesla short squeeze which drove Tesla stock sky high.
fast forward to: 11 minute mark
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Feb 18, 2015 12:58:04 GMT -5
When you begin investing for the first time, you are going to encounter something known as a holding company. In fact, many of the most successful companies in the world are really holding companies. This basic introduction the holding company will explain what holding companies are, why you need to understand how they work, and some things to consider before investing in one.
The Basics – What Is a Holding Company? A holding company is a company that doesn’t have any operations, activities, or other active business. Instead, it owns assets. These assets can be shares of stock in other corporations, limited liability companies , limited partnerships , private equity fund s, hedge funds , publicly traded stocks, bonds , real estate , song rights, brand names, patents, trademarks, copyrights, or virtually anything else that has value.
A Sample Holding Company To understand the concept better, imagine that you and I decided we wanted to invest together. We, and members of our family, create a new company called Blue Sky Holding Company, Inc. We file the paperwork with the secretary of state and pay the fees. Then, we issue 1 million shares of stock at $10 per share, raising $10 million in fresh cash. We vote on a Board of Directors , hire one of us as CEO, and build an office. The next day, we show up and start investing the money. We (meaning Blue Sky Holding Company) do several things:
•We incorporate a new business called Frozen Treats of America, LLC. It is 100% owned by Blue Sky Holding Company. We contribute $1,500,000 in cash to the business, hire a manager to run it, and open a Dairy Queen franchise that we expect to earn $170,000 in profit before taxes.
•We have Blue Sky Holding Company open a brokerage account with Charles Schwab or another major institution. We deposit $3,000,000 in cash into the account and buy a collection of high quality blue chip stocks. We expect these stocks to generate $150,000 in pre-tax dividends each year. •We start a new company called Southworth Hospitality, LLC that is 100% owned by Blue Sky Holding Company. We contribute $2,000,000 of our cash and have this new subsidiary borrow $2,000,000 from a bank, giving it a capitalization structure of $4,000,000 in assets, $2,000,000 in liabilities, and $2,000,000 in book value. We use the $4,000,000 in cash to buy a Hampton Inn hotel franchise, which we expect to generate $320,000 in pre-tax profits for us after interest expense and all other costs. The debt is not guaranteed by the holding company because we decided to only allow non-recourse liabilities in case the hotel isn’t successful. •We buy $2,000,000 worth of tax-free municipal bonds, which we believe will generate $100,000 in annual interest income. •We use $500,000 to buy gold and silver bullion. •We park the last remaining $1,000,000 in cash at our local bank in institutional money market funds that pay 6% interest, generating $60,000 in pre-tax interest income each year. Holding Company Financial Statements The consolidated balance sheet of our holding company is going to show $12,000,000 in assets, $2,000,000 in debt, and a $10,000,000 net worth, or book value . Other than an office, which we will ignore for now for the sake of simplicity, our balance sheet appears as follows: Blue Sky Holding Company, Inc. Balance Sheet
•Frozen Treats of America, LLC – 100% ownership ($1,500,000 assets, no liabilities) •Southworth Hospitality, LLC – 100% ownership ($4,000,000 assets, $2,000,000 liabilities, $2,000,000 net worth) •Tax-Free Municipal Bonds ($2,000,000 assets, no liabilities) •Blue Chip Common Stocks in Brokerage Account ($3,000,000 assets, no liabilities) •Bank Balances ($1,000,000 assets, no liabilities). •Gold and Silver Reserves ($500,000 assets, no liabilities). The holding company income statement is going to show $800,000 in operating income (profit before taxes). That would be an 8% return on equity because $800,000 divided by $10,000,000 in net worth is 8%. It would be a 6.7% return on assets because $800,000 divided by $12,000,000 in assets is 6.7%.
How to Think About a Holding Company Imagine you were the CEO of our fake company, Blue Sky Holding Company, Inc. When you show up to the office each morning, turn on the lights, grab a cup of coffee, and go sit at your desk, what do you actually do ? As you can tell, he thing that makes us a holding company is that we have no day-to-day role in any of the investments! Each is run by its own management team. In other words, as a holding company, our job is executive oversight and / or passive investing, depending upon our corporate strategy. Our job is to put the money to work and determine if management is doing a good job. If we own enough stock to control an investment, we can fire the managers and replace them at our own discretion.
In other words, you aren't going to be making ice cream cones at our Dairy Queen franchise. That is the job of Frozen Treats of America, LLC, a 100% owned subsidiary with its own employees, managers, financial statements, contracts, bank loans, etc.
The Benefits of the Holding Company Model What if something horrible happened? For example, what if our Hampton Inn hotel franchise went bankrupt? If the holding company itself didn't co-sign on the debt, it isn't liable for the loss. Instead, we would record a $2,000,000 write-off in our net worth as a capital loss on our shares of Southworth Hospitality, LLC. The holding company model protected our other assets from this one subsidiary. We didn't lose our Dairy Queen franchise, or our stocks, or our bonds, gold, silver, or bank balances. We only lost the money we invested into that one subsidiary.
This is how large corporations protect themselves. Procter & Gamble, for example, is effectively a holding company because it has different subsidiaries for different purposes. Some subsidiaries own the brand names such as "Tide" detergent. Other, totally separate subsidiaries own the manufacturing plants that make Tide and pay the company that owns the brand name a licensing royalty. That way, if the firm is sued, Procter & Gamble could never lose the Tide brand name, the factory would go bankrupt.
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Feb 25, 2015 11:00:38 GMT -5
mike_tysons_tiger 23 hours ago Canada’s Saskatchewan second only to Finland as world’s top mining destination Cecilia Jamasmie | February 24, 2015 Saskatchewan is the most attractive jurisdiction for mining investment in Canada, and the second best worldwide, according to the latest annual global survey of mining executives released Tuesday by the Fraser Institute. Canada’s policy think-tank’s Annual Survey of Mining Companies 2014, rates 122 jurisdictions around the world based on their geologic appeal and the extent to which government policies encourage exploration and investment. This year, the potash and oil-rich prairie province was placed at the top by executives surveyed between August 26 and November 15, 2014. But what is it that makes Saskatchewan such a magnet to mining investors? According to Kenneth Green, Fraser Institute senior director of energy and natural resources and the survey’s leader, there are two key reasons: the province’s abundance of mineral potential, and Saskatchewan’s government transparent and productive approach to mining policy. The province offers a competitive taxation regime, good scientific support, efficient permitting procedures and clarity around land claims. “The province offers a competitive taxation regime, good scientific support, efficient permitting procedures and clarity around land claims. That’s what miners look for,” said Green. Canada as a country did fairly well, as four jurisdictions — besides Saskatchewan —finished in the top 10 worldwide: Manitoba (4), Quebec (6), Newfoundland and Labrador (8) and Yukon (9). Quebec rebounds, B.C. falls Quebec, which had got poor reviews in the last three years, climbed back up, which suggests the period of increased red tape, higher royalties and regulatory uncertainty may be coming to and end, the report shows. Two of Canada’s other geographically large jurisdictions — Ontario and British Columbia — didn’t fare as well. Internationally, Ontario was placed 23rd and B.C. ranked 28th, falling nine and 12 spots, respectively, compared to the 2013 survey. “In Ontario, the New Mining Act amendments regarding First Nations consultation have resulted in complete incomprehensibility of rights on all sides,” Green said. “Similarly in British Columbia, uncertainty concerning disputed land claims and ambiguity about what regions will be protected are deterrents to investment and exploration,” he added. The latest survey included responses of 485 mineral exploration and development company executives from around the world. Exploration budgets reported by companies that participated in the study totalled US$2.7 billion in 2014 and US$3.2 billion in 2013, the Fraser www.mining.com/canadas-saskatchewan-second-only-to-finland-as-worlds-top-mining-destination-55828/ 15 inShare
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Post by gabbyhayes on Feb 25, 2015 11:10:41 GMT -5
Thanks for bringing that over Roe…exciting happenings up there…now if we are aligned in some way with Shore Gold…THAT …would be incredible news..where is Oldepro when we need him…..
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Feb 26, 2015 7:21:30 GMT -5
Thanks for bringing that over Roe…exciting happenings up there…now if we are aligned in some way with Shore Gold…THAT …would be incredible news..where is Oldepro when we need him….. Your welcome Gabby. Not much to talk about anymore. But.... Yes it would be exciting if we were somehow connected to Shore Gold. IMO, it is not completely unfathomable as they turned out to be ...The outrageous "Lucky Winners", of ALL of our claims in the much talked about "Lottery". Tired of waiting.. but still hoping & praying for the best. ROE
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Feb 27, 2015 9:28:02 GMT -5
peterg2000 DIAMOND JEDI MASTER **** Post by peterg2000 on 2 hours agoOT : A movie about how corporate greed is affecting our life This is a free viewing until March 6th, 2015. www.boughtmovie.net/free-viewing/thank-you.php?AFFID=NONE&optin=1This is another perspective on how profit takes priority over health and well being. Money isn't everything. If you're healthy then you're richer than you think. Pete
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Mar 2, 2015 16:32:10 GMT -5
golden11029 DIAMOND JEDI WARLORDPost by golden11029 on 2 hours agoInteresting interview with a guy that goes by "Fisher" . . .Start around the 56 minute mark. Talking about the big picture, not CMKX, but GCR and Dinar. www.freeconferencecallhd.com/playback/?n=DeFL7%2FjbbdG
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Mar 3, 2015 7:54:48 GMT -5
What are Fed Funds Futures Telling Us About Rate-Hike Timing?Monetary activism is a relatively new dynamic that has played an integral role in the market economy over the past quarter century. For the sake of stimulating an economy in a downturn, a government’s central bank cuts interest rates and pumps in the liquidity. Since the Great Recession of 2008, the U.S. Federal Reserve has sliced interest rates 10 times and as of December, 2008 the Federal Reserve Rate “Fed funds” have been cut to a range of zero to 0.25%; bringing the U.S. to the zero-rate policies that Japan used for years in its own fight against deflation. Six years of a zero rate interest rate policy and we’ve finally started to see some green shoots. Our economy is not anywhere close to “escape velocity” – as judged by our GDP. However, the Fed is now increasingly more comfortable with job growth, PMI figures, that the market can surely adjust to a few symbolic rate increases and perhaps even begin to heal on our own. There’s been an increasingly amount of “interest rate lift-off rhetoric” cross the newswires and while there’s a lot of opinion, it isn’t yet clear whether liftoff will commence in June, September, or even later. Regardless of timing, Fed officials continue to warn of a disconnect between the market’s perceived policy path and the most likely FOMC course. Fed Chairs Williams and Bullard in particular have suggested that the market is too dovish on its outlook on rates. Last Tuesday, before Yellen’s testimony, Fed Fund futures were implying a 40 basis point rise by year’s end with a 60% chance of a 50bps point rise. One day after Yellen’s “interpreted as dovish speech”; Fed Fund futures quickly lowered expectations implying just a 36.5bps rise, with a 22% chance of “lift off” commencing in June. Data: James Schuler of BMOAs of Monday, with the BLS report standing ahead of us, the market is pricing similarly to last Wednesday – a 20% chance for a 25 basis point (bps) hike in June. As outlook accumulates about when the Federal Reserve will finally lift its target (from 0 - .25%) for the federal funds rate, trading in financial futures markets offer a window into the odds that markets put on the next Fed move. Futures and options contracts based on the Fed Funds rate are traded at the CME Group. www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/stir/30-day-federal-fund.html . The contracts are priced on the basis of 100 minus the average effective federal funds rate for the stated delivery month. For example, a published price of 99.885 for the March 2015 futures contract, would infer the markets expected rate of .1150bps (basis points) for that month (100 – 99.885 = .115% effective fed funds interest rate). To calculate the probabilities of a quarter-point rate hike in June, you would take the current June, 2015 futures price of 99.835 and subtract it from 100 giving you an effective rate of .165%. Next, you would subtract the .165% from the current rate of .115% leaving you with a difference of .05 % (.165 - .115 = .05). To find the probability of a .25% increase, you would then take your difference of .05bps and divide by .25 which would equal a 20% chance of a 25bps rate hike by June. (.05 /.25 = .20%). To evaluate where the market expects rates to go by the end of 2015, we look at the Fed funds January, 2016 contract which is currently trading at 99.41. Next, calculate the Fed funds rate that is implied by the price of this futures contract by subtracting the futures price from 100 (100 – 99.41 = .59%). Using the 99.41 futures price, the market expects the Fed fund rate to be .59% or slightly over one-half percent or, .475% (or, .475bps) more than the current rate of .115% In the above scenario, a half-percentage-point rate hike is fully priced into the market price but not into the probability. In order to determine the chances of a half-percentage-point hike, divide the difference between the real rate and the implied rate (.59bps - .115bps = .4750bps) by 0.50. For January that works out to a 95% chance of a .50% hike between today and the end of December, 2015. To estimate the chances of a three-quarters-percentage point hike, divide by .75%. That converts into a 63% probability. Of course, focusing one's gaze further down the path is easier said than done, especially when global central bank divergence may lob numerous obstacles into our direction. Whether manifested through monetary policy or economic growth trajectory, central bank divergence can lead to unexpected and occasionally unwelcome investment outcomes, particularly over short periods. U.S. economic news hasn’t been horrible but continues to both mildly and consistently undershoot expectations. This would include misses from personal spending, wholesale inventories, retail sales, PPI, and industrial production countered by employment gains, personal income, and global PMIs. www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2015/03/02/what-are-fed-funds-futures-telling-us-about-rate-hike-timing/?cmpid=prn_dailyfinance
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