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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/565 | Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Faces Big Risks from Tax Havens
Tags: #Norway #oil #tax #PanamaPapers #Oslo #SWF #Fund #Investment #europe #government #money #NBIM #SPUThe original version of this article (in Norwegian) appeared today in the leading Norwegian business newspaper DN.no and can be veiwed here: http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikk/Kronikk-Oljefondets-etisk-ris...
The findings on which this piece is based can be found in the latest Re-Define Report: http://www.forumfor.no/assets/docs/The-SPU-and-Tax-Havens_FINAL_.pdf
The Panama Papers sparked a loud, but rather limited debate on the Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund and its use of tax havens. Here we present some new facts, discuss what risks the Fund really faces and suggest concrete steps for reform.
Taken together, the Oil Fund’s direct investments in tax havens amount to as much as 8%-10% of its total value. These include its investments in real estate through subsidiaries in Luxembourg and Delaware, fund managers who use tax havens and direct stakes in companies registered offshore. Most discussions so far have focussed on getting the Fund to reduce or eliminate this kind of direct use of tax havens.
While this is important, the largest financial, reputation and ethical risks for the Fund arise indirectly from its investments in companies that use tax havens and aggressive tax avoidance strategies.
Companies within the financial, information technology, pharmaceutical and extractive sectors (many of which are aggressive users of tax havens) account for more than half of the Fund’s investments. On the basis of conversations with specialists, we estimate that about 10% of the Fund’s total investments are exposed to an aggressive usage of tax havens and avoidance strategies that may not withstand full public scrutiny.
For example, Apple, Alphabet (formerly Google) and Microsoft, all of which feature in the Fund’s top six investments, have been under investigation for their highly aggressive use of tax havens and extensive use of tax avoidance strategies. Apple, for example, is accused of having $8 bn of unpaid taxes in the EU, while Alphabet has had pay to settle with tax authorities in the UK and now in France. Microsoft has stashed almost $100 bn of earnings offshore, on which it will have to pay $30 bn in taxes when these are repatriated back to the US. For the top 10 US tech firms, many of which the Fund is heavily invested in, the earnings stashed offshore amount to more than $600 bn. The Oil Fund has also made large investments in many other firms outside of the IT sector that have been accused of, or are under investigation for, aggressive tax avoidance.
DN, the Norwegian business newspaper, has reported that more than 1,105 listed firms that had subsidiaries revealed by Panama Papers lost $ 24 bn in market capitalisation over and above normal stock market movements in the week following the revelations. This highlights the significant financial risk we believe the Oil Fund exposes itself to by investing in firms that are heavy users of tax havens.
Even more problematic are the Fund’s large investments in the financial sector, particularly banks. Many have been accused of and prosecuted for not just being aggressive users of tax havens themselves, but of actively promoting and facilitating tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and sanctions busting. The Oil Fund owns 4.94% of Credit Suisse, 3.08% of UBS, 2.07% of BNP Paribas and 1.98% of HSBC. This makes it one of the largest investors in companies promoting the use of tax havens. Last year BNP Paribas was fined a whooping $ 8.9 bn for its role in money laundering and sanctions busting. Credit Suisse and HSBC were also fined for such offences. In addition, Credit Suisse also paid a fine of USD 2.6 billion for its role in promoting tax evasion, and UBS has been fined $780 million so far with further action possible. Surely, as the largest shareholder of Credit Suisse, the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund bears a degree of moral complicity in the immoral, illegal and indefensible actions of that bank?
Taken together, the fact that almost 20% of the Fund’s value is exposed to tax havens poses serious financial, reputation and ethical risks. What are these and what can be done to mitigate them?
Let us first consider the 10% of the Oil Fund that is directly invested through tax havens. Havens such as Luxembourg also serve as offshore financial centres, which are used as “way stations” in the flow of international investments. They have honed their treaty networks and designed legal regimes to suit the needs of investors and can help reduce frictions and costs for cross-border capital flows. The Fund uses them for these reasons as well as to lower its effective tax burden.
The main risk that arises then is one of complicity through legitimising the same jurisdictions, which also serve as tax havens and can be used for more nefarious purposes. The best way to tackle this is through full disclosure and transparency. NBIM, the subsidiary of the Norwegian Central Bank that manages the Oil Fund on behalf of the government must, in its next report, list every such direct investment, the justification for it and additional costs, if any, of channelling the same investments through onshore, non-tax haven jurisdictions. The judgment on whether it should bear these additional costs to avoid complicity in promoting tax havens should be left to the Norwegian Parliament.
It is the indirect exposure of the Oil Fund to tax havens through its corporate investments that poses the biggest financial risks. Given the change in Zeitgeist, where tolerance of tax havens and aggressive tax avoidance tactics is on a sharp decline, policy and legislation will tighten and legal actions by tax authorities will multiply. As has happened in the past, it will seriously impact the market value and future post-tax profit expectations of the companies that are targeted. The more the Fund is invested in firms that bend the tax rules, the greater the financial risk it faces.
This policy risk is significant enough that it should be measured, reported and managed alongside the present categories of market, credit and operational risks. Investments in promoters of tax havens such as Credit Suisse and UBS carry further financial risks in the form of possible large penalties, reputation risks arising from moral complicity and even legal risk for the Oil Fund, arising from negligence as one of the largest shareholders.
As part of its responsibility as a large owner, NBIM should actively promote responsible tax practices in the firms it owns. As Norwegian Church Aid has suggested, “aggressive tax avoidance” should be added to the remit of the ethical council alongside “gross corruption” as a practice that is unacceptable. If the active engagement strategy fails, NBIM should divest from the most egregious offenders. In addition NBIM should, as lead sponsor, launch a group of “Investors for fairer tax”. As a sovereign investor, the Oil Fund already enjoys tax privileges not available to private investors. With such privilege comes additional responsibility.
The bottom line is “do Norwegians really want their financial returns to come on the back of money laundering, corruption and unpaid taxes in other countries, both rich and poor”?
Sony Kapoor is Managing Director of the International Think Tank Re-Define The findings on which this piece is based can be found in the latest Re-Define Report: http://www.forumfor.no/assets/docs/The-SPU-and-Tax-Havens_FINAL_.pdf sony.kapoor's blog | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/746 | For more information about WTP, press releases, articles, events, and webinars, please contact:PJ BrownPJ.Brown@wtpadvisors.comNews Archive2017201620152014201320122011
Tax Alert: IRS Targeting Small and Mid-sized Companies for Transfer Pricing Audits Tax Alert: IRS Targeting Small and Mid-sized Companies for Transfer Pricing Audits
In September 2015, the IRS announced a reorganization of its Large Business & International (LB&I) Division that houses transfer pricing specialists. At the time, the new structure was revealed with a single deputy commissioner and nine practice areas (four regional along with these subject matter areas: Pass-through Entities, Enterprise Activities, Cross-border Activities, Withholding and International Individual Compliance, and Treaty and Transfer Pricing Operations).
In addition, the IRS is taking a new approach to exams, shifting to a campaign strategy that is issue-based, focusing on potential areas of noncompliance.
What wasn’t revealed in that announcement was that the IRS has expanded its scope to include mid-sized and smaller companies. In October 2015, David Varley, acting director of the IRS’ transfer pricing group in Washington, D.C., said that middle market foreign-owned businesses, were now included in this initiative. This project encompasses U.S.-based companies that fall within $10 million to $250 million in assets and foreign parent companies operating limited-risk distributors in the United States.
As part of this initiative, the IRS is dropping its program of differentiating its emphasis on Controlled Industry Cases (approximately the 2,500 largest most complex corporations) and Industry Cases (the remaining 240,000 corporations with assets more than $10 million) to instead focus on the international and domestic campaigns identified above. We have already seen an increased IRS presence on international issues on smaller entities.
While there hasn’t been a formal announcement that the IRS is targeting smaller companies in this project, it has been shared in meetings with IRS personnel. It is also known that the IRS has been hiring economists to increase the enforcement team. This means relatively small companies, even those with less than $100 million of global revenue, can expect additional IRS scrutiny on their transfer pricing. In addition to risks of double taxation that can result from one-sided IRS adjustments to U.S. taxable income, companies that do not maintain transfer pricing documentation may be exposed to non-deductible penalties and interest. Penalties are 20 or 40 percent of the increase in tax. Taken over multiple years, this could cost unsuspecting companies millions of dollars of tax-related costs.
If you have any questions on how you should be preparing for this change, please contact WTP’s National Transfer Pricing and Valuation Services Practice leader, Guy Sanschagrin at guy.sanschagrin@wtpadvisors.com or WTP’s National International Tax Services Practice leader Brian Schwam at brian.schwam@wtpadvisors.com. | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/831 | Home > Columns & Papers > Macroeconomics >TPP negotiations and "safeguards"
English translated version of "Business Prospect" on NHK Radio Channel 1 on October 14, 2014
1.I often hear the word "safeguard" on the news in connection to the TPP negotiations. Could you explain it?
A safeguard is a measure taken to save domestic industries which suffer when the imports from foreign countries suddenly increase. At present, Japan and the US are negotiating over how much they should lower customs duty on Japanese beef and pork under the TPP. The US who wants to increase beef and pork exports to Japan is requesting a considerable decrease in customs duties. In TPP negotiations there is a push for the abolition, not reduction of customs duties, so perhaps the Japanese government may feel a reduction is unavoidable. However, in that case, Japanese domestic industry may suffer when imports suddenly increase. Japan and the US have been discussing possible measures to avoid this negative effect, namely a "safeguard." 2.What kind of safeguards exist?
Actually, there are several kinds of safeguard. The most typical one is the measure accepted in the GATT which is the predecessor of the World Trade Organization. The conditions to take this measure were made more specific in the WTO agreement. When this safeguard measure is taken, an investigation has to be carried out and the damage to the domestic industry has to be recognized as serious enough to warrant a safeguard. Also, once a safeguard measure is taken, it may not be applied to the same product for a certain period of time. As can be seen from this, the conditions for a safeguard to be put into effect are strict. However, under a safeguard customs duty on these products can be raised above the upper limit decided under the WTO agreement. For example the customs duty of a certain product could be raised to 20% even though an agreement or a commitment has been made under the WTO agreement not to exceed 10% for this particular product. Moreover, not only an increase in customs duty but also quantitative import restriction is allowed. Of course, if higher rate of customs duty is applied, the exporting country will be at a disadvantage. Accordingly the importing country is required to offer some compensation. In a case where the importing country can not offer any compensation, the exporting country is allowed to implement measures such as raising the customs duty of another item, in order to compensate.
Under the Agreement on Agriculture, made during the Uruguay Round negotiations, there is a safeguard applied only to certain agricultural products whose non-tariff measures were converted into a tariff at the negotiations. It was agreed during the negotiations that any measures to restrict imports, such as an import quota that restricts imports in excess of a certain quantity, would not be allowed and that all non-tariff restrictive measures had to be replaced by customs duties. This is called tariffication. Some of you may remember that there was objection to tariffication in Japanese agricultural circles from 1990 to 1993. Import restrictions that had been imposed on rice, wheat and dairy products were converted into a tariff in Japan. Concerning these items, an increase in customs duty is permitted without any investigation on damage to domestic industry when imports exceed a certain quantity or the price of imports become lower than a certain level. However, under this safeguard importing countries are not allowed to restrict the volume of imports. Also exporting counties are not allowed to take any measures to compensate. This is called the "special safeguard."
In the GATT Uruguay Round negotiations, Japan and the US agreed bilaterally that customs duty imposed on beef and pork can be raised to the upper limit decided under the WTO agreement when imports of pork and beef to Japan exceed a certain amount. Specifically, in the case of beef, the customs duty, which is 38.5%, can automatically be raised to 50% when the amount of imports becomes more than 117% compared to the same period the year before. The difference from the two safeguards previously mentioned is that the customs duty cannot be raised more than the upper limit agreed under the WTO agreement. There are some books and essays which call this the "special safeguard," but this is a mistake.
3.What kind of safeguards have been considered in the present TPP negotiations?
Basically the kind of safeguard which is similar in legal-terms to the one Japan and the US agreed in the Uruguay Round negotiations. However the current customs duty of 38.5% is going to be lowered and the upper limit will be set at 38.5% when the customs duty is triggered by the safeguard. There are some reports which claim that the US is demanding a lower limit, for example 30%. Also, concerning the agreed level of imports necessary to trigger the safeguard, there are reports that the US is demanding a level of around four hundred thousand tons - the same amount as before the decrease of exports to Japan caused by the BSE outbreak - while Japan is demanding two to three hundred thousand tons in order to activate the safeguard easily.
4.The negotiations between Japan and the US which were held in the end of this September ended in a stalemate.
In the US, Congress holds authority in trade negotiations. If the Republican Party, which promotes free trade, holds a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives as the result of the midterm election next November, there will be a higher possibility that the TPA Bill, which shifts the authority of the trade negotiations from Congress to the US government, will be concluded. In that case, the TPP negotiations will move forward quickly. At the same time, if the Republican Party holds a majority, demands in Congress for an abolition of customs duty rather than a reduction will increase. I think the Japanese government has been trying to reach an agreement about the reduction of the customs duty before this situation is realized in the US. However, even if they can reach an agreement, it will be after the midterm election before it can be approved by Congress. Additionally the US government will not be able to persuade Congress unless they can win concessions regarding liberalization of trade. The Japanese government's enthusiasm for concluding negotiations before the midterm election seems to have been in vain. I think the TPP negotiations will reach their key stage at the beginning of the new year after the TPA is concluded.
(This article was translated from the Japanese transcript of Mr. Yamashita's speech in the "Business Prospect" session of the radio program "First in the Morning News" broadcast by NHK Radio Channel1 on October 14, 2014.) | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1041 | "...And Justice For All...": The Case for Fiscal Equity and Equality
An End to "Them That Has, Keeps"
Institute Bulletin No.48
20.January.2003
Corporate Accountability: Concentration and Combination
The current spate of corporate theft in North America can be traced to one overriding element in continental corporate culture. Concentration. While the debate about concentration rages, the fact of concentration continues. The only end served is not efficiency but greed. While 80% of our new jobs are produced by small business, bank credit and tax breaks go to the conglomerates. While the top 20% of our corporations and citizenry exploit the levers of legislation for their own fiscal benefits, 80% of our total taxes are collected from small businesses and workingmen and women 45% of who have no more than two weeks of cash flow in savings. In the midst of an already inequitable environment we now hear calls from the banks to allow mergers. It is incumbent upon a progressive administration to impose a two-year moratorium on all combinations involving any of Canada’s 200 top corporations. At the same time a Royal Commission on Corporate Concentration should be empowered to consider the social and political effects of mergers and monopolies, not just the economic edge that big business seeks in order to pursue its worldwide activities. This Commission would also be mandated to force the pro-merger advocates to demonstrate how increased combinations would flow through benefits to the public at large. Today, many firms merge not merely because it is efficient, but because our tax laws permit the sheltering of profits in the financial structure of the acquired firm. The techniques of accountancy make firms look more profitable than they really are, causing massive over investment and subsequent rapid divestment thereby destabilizing working men and women’s futures and security while executives get golden parachutes. Recommendations on reforms of our fiscal codes would be part of this Commission’s mandate as well.
We have had wage freezes and price freezes in the past. A merger freeze would at least give us time to think before these combinations destroy whatever is left of a supposed competitive economy. The absurdity of the very people who demand a free market devising constructs of monopoly accompanied by unyielding demands on government cash and credit cannot be lost on any rational, thinking citizen.
Corporate Governance: Institutional Intimacies and Unnatural Profits
Several decades ago, in the midst of an economic downturn, a commentator wrote, "the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple." Today it may well be said "the money managers have tumbled from their high perches on the tower." The intimate relationship between the funny-money specialists on the Street and the corporate titans in the boardrooms has already destroyed the financial economy of the securities markets and now threatens the real economy of the job market. We are living through a time of elimination of permanent jobs unprecedented, in gross numbers, since the Depression. It is commonplace to hear, almost daily, of corporations eliminating twenty, thirty and even forty thousand jobs in one cut. This malaise cuts across all sectors and all industries. In part, this is due to recessionary business cycles, the negative effects of which government can only seek to cushion the public from. But this is also due to mismanagement by many corporate chieftains characterized by the arrogance of avarice and a cynical smugness stemming from the incestuous intimacies between supposed competitors in the exchange of goods and services and supposed lenders and borrowers in the exchange of capital. All may be fair in a strictly private enterprise environment. But there is not one industrial or financial giant that does not benefit from government largesse. It is time to bring the behemoths to account and reduce the burdens on the ordinary citizen.
A six point plan should be undertaken to reform the current climate that makes it all to easy for the irresponsible, the unethical and the greedy to undermine the stability and security of this country and the lives of the ordinary working men and women that are its foundation:
1.Prohibit all interlocking directorates in the financial services sectors. We may finally see the return of competition and an end to the lock-step approach we have today that shuts credit. and facilities to small business and the individual. We may even get better service for customers.
2.Prohibit directors of competing businesses from sitting on the board of the same bank. This would close one ready forum for collusive or anti-competitive "off-the-record" discussions between corporations and their financiers. Supposed competitors may not tell all to each other, but they do say hello far too often.
3.Open up directorships to wider groups. By legislation if necessary. The adoption of policies at the board level in return for similar corporate favors is rampant, particularly in the financial services industries. Financial decisions critical to a community are undertaken with no reference to the people these decisions affect. Banks and insurance companies are chartered, serviced, protected and regulated by government. They cannot continue to collect obscenely unnatural profits made possible by public policy and political persuasion and still demand the autonomy of a purely private operation.
4.Close the tax loopholes protecting bank profits. Excess bad debt reserves, favored capital gains treatment—such breaks simply add to the tax burden of the wage earner.
5.Require bank investments in community and socially useful purposes. Our model should be the U.S. Community Reinvestment Act. Using federal funds to insure against high risks, federal law should require that a set percentage of profits be used for community reinvestment. Particularly in poorer areas where Canadian banks have been known to close six branches in one county because the people were not wealthy enough to make it worth their while. Banks like to claim that they are in the business of "wealth management". In fact, for the past thirty years, they have been in the business of debt creation. They cannot simply be allowed to cut costs, grab fees and abandon communities where their own created debtors make it less profitable for them to operate.
6.Tax the profits hidden by life insurance companies in tax-free reserves. By using outdated actuarial tables and underestimated investment income, insurance reserve funds are swollen by tens of billions. Taxing this hidden profit could produce billions in tax revenues.Few hold protest rallies against the over-all economic practices of corporate Canada. Only about their investments abroad or their participation in globalization policies. Yet corporate Canada’s domestic policies, particularly those of banks and insurance companies, are among the most important forces behind the unfair distribution of wealth and power in our land. Protected by law (including a largely unreconstructed Bank Act from 1895), given dozens of tax breaks, permitted to hold degrees of concentrated economic power long outlawed in other areas of economic life, they have used their power to deliberately and systematically redistribute wealth, power and, more importantly, equality of opportunity, away from working people and the poor and towards the rich.
Much of the needed reforms can be accomplished through existing financial and consumer legislation. Some will require radically new definitions of what corporate citizens may do, may not do and must do. But at the end of the day, Canadians will be able to eye a great prize---an equitable redistribution of power and profit, preference and privilege; and a generous redefinition of the dignity and debt owed to worker and depositor not just to stockholder and investor. Taxes: Pruning Privilege and Preference Someone making $25,000 a year spends almost all of it on the things they need to live. Food, shelter, clothing. Someone making $125,000 has a far wider range of choices. A fair tax system understands this and that is why a tax on incomes is graduated. It takes not just more, but a higher percentage of the income of the wealthy because they need a much smaller share of their incomes for necessities. A progressive tax system acts as a balance. Our system says to the wealthy, you have your wealth, but you will help pay for the schools to give all an equal chance at opportunity; and you will help finance the hospitals to give all equal and quality medical care; and you will help pay for the costs of solutions to pollution and disease caused by your industrial plants and their products.
This, at least, is the theory behind our tax system. In fact however, it has been so manipulated by the legal and political hired guns that it reinforces inequality rather than forcing equity. Middle income Canadians, those earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually, pay a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes than the richest 1% of our population. As mentioned earlier, 80% of our total taxes are collected from small businesses and working people even though they control less than 20% of national wealth. The source of these inequities flows from the special privileges granted to corporate Canada and its beneficiaries. In dozens of different ways the tax law says "All Canadians are equal, but the rich are more equal than others." The pattern of unfair tax advantage is total. The plush business lunch of executives in restaurants is deductible, but the soup and sandwich of the worker in the cafeteria is not. The cost of tax lawyers is deductible for the corporation, the cost of H&R Block for the individual is not. The truth is that money earned by the wealthy is taxed less severely than money earned by the average Canadian.
The damage to our political system spawned by this pattern of privilege cannot be overstated. A $500 a week employee may not know the details of the capital gains law, but if he knows that he pays a greater percentage of his income in taxes than the people who own the plant do, that is enough to breed cynicism into the most patriotic of citizens. And when he hears politicians defend our social security programs for the poor, he knows the rich will not be paying their fair share. Low and middle income working Canadians feel squeezed from the very rich and the very poor, and as much as they may intuitively support programs fostering social justice, they rightly feel that they are carrying too much of the load.
Despite the Byzantine complexities of the tax system, which by it itself amounts to a full employment program for the nation’s tax lawyers, its defenders insist that the tax code is not an instrument of social policy but merely a method of raising revenue. In fact this is total nonsense. Every exemption, deduction, credit and surcharge amounts to a statement of policy. Our system subsidizes trains, planes, and factories much more than it does people. The result that is produced is an encouragement of concentration. The use of capital to make maximum advantage of tax breaks. An economy driven not so much to start new enterprises and create new jobs, but one driven to absorb old enterprises and cut jobs. While our competition policies ostensibly encourage diversity our tax laws promote exactly the reverse.
The path to reform through the thicket of tax breaks for the rich may be politically difficult but is conceptually simple. The root principle is to stop treating money earned through prior wealth more favorably than that earned through hard work. It is time to tax the real earnings of our wealthiest corporate and individual citizens.
The following five initiatives are vital to core reform:
1. A drastic reduction of the favored treatment given to profits from securities. However much admiration may be due to someone with the initiative to invest inherited money into stocks and bonds, it is doubtful that they have worked harder to acquire profit than someone who operates a punch press or waits on retail customers eight hours a day. The twenty thousand dollars earned when a stock is sold should be counted and taxed the same as the twenty thousand that represents someone’s 1,000 hours of work.
2.Taxation of income no matter what the institution. If a religious institution operates a parking lot for its members on Saturday or Sunday and runs it as a commercial operation the other six days of the week it is entitled to make a profit on that operation. But it is not entitled to keep that income free of taxation. If it seeks to finance itself by running enterprises, it should do so under the same rules that apply to any other enterprise. When the religious vestments are removed and the sales apron is donned, the special privileges should not remain. When a professional association earns money from advertising placed in its journal, before that revenue is added to its lobbying budget, it ought to be taxed under the same rules as any other publication. If social clubs, universities, associations, foundations and charities maintain plush real estate holdings, they should pay the same taxes as any ordinary businessperson.
3. An end to charitable contributions that enrich the wealthy. Donations of securities, artwork and other possessions should not be deductible on their appreciated value. This is merely a method of avoiding tax that should fall on the earnings, which is the appreciation. These and other venerable dodges should be eliminated.
4. An end to depreciation and other intangibles write-offs. These kinds of deductions are given without any relation to the actual costs incurred by the company. Allowance for nonexistent "costs" should end and we should allow only true "out of pocket" expenses.
5. A flat limit on deductions for business travel and entertainment. If an executive wants to spend hundreds on a bottle of Chateau Margaux, his stock clerks should not pay more taxes because of that exercise in good taste. These expenses, and indeed the whole "expense account" form of compensation for the wealthy, are nothing but disguised income and should be treated as such.We need a conscious shaping of a tax policy that will discourage concentration of economic power, reduce the stifling tax burden on working Canadians 45% of whom have only two weeks of salary in the bank, and cripple socially disadvantageous programs. Since all tax decisions promote economic and social policies—whether intentional or not—a fair tax system should consciously promote the dispersion of economic power.
Beryl P. Wajsmann
Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1132 | Worries over Volksbanken hit Austrian banks
Simon Kennedy
Firm says it's well capitalized after report it was placed on watch list
SimonKennedy
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Worries over the state of the Austrian banking industry continued Tuesday after a report -- swiftly denied by the bank itself -- that Oesterreichische Volksbanken had been put on a watch list by a concerned central bank. The report in Austrian newspaper Die Presse said the country's fourth-largest financial institution was viewed as systemically important and had been asked to put forward a new strategy. It came a day after Austria said it had nationalized Hypo Group Alpe Adria, its sixth-biggest lender, on the heels of rising loan losses in Eastern Europe that threatened to bring down the bank. See story on Hypo Alpe's nationalization. Oesterreichische Volksbanken responded swiftly, saying it is well capitalized with an equity ratio nearly double the required minimum. "Volksbank is in no way comparable to Hypo Group Alpe Adria. We expect a comfortable equity ratio at the end of this financial year," said CEO Gerald Wenzel. He added that the group expects to be profitable again in 2010 but that "even under the most severe stress test conditions for next year we will still be above the required minimum capitalization ratios." The central bank also said that there is no watch list and that Volksbanken remains sufficiently capitalized, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing a spokesman for the central bank. The response, however, wasn't enough to stop fears about the wider banking industry in Austria from sending ripples through markets. The worries contributed to a decline for the euro against the dollar, with the single currrency changing hands at $1.4564, down from $1.4653. See story on the euros decline. Banking stocks moved lower in Austria, with Erste Group Bank (EBO) down 3.1% and Raiffeisen International (RAW) down 6.1%. The country's ATX index dropped 2%, giving up 49.15 points to 2,456.38. Also see Europe Markets. Oesterreichische Volksbanken had a pretax loss of 607 million euros ($888 million) in the first nine months of the year, as it was hurt by losses linked to its exposure to Eastern Europe. Hypo Alpe Adria also suffered from heavy losses in Eastern Europe, in particular in Croatia, Bulgaria and Ukraine, which contributed to the bank's prediction last month that it would incur an annual loss of "significantly more" than 1 billion euros. Larger problem The exposure of Western European banks to once-fast-growing Eastern European economies has been seen for months as a growing risk, with Moody's Investors Service warning toward the start of the year that it was concerned about potential losses among banks' subsidiaries in the region. See archived story on Moody's warning. Greek banks were also down Tuesday, retreating amid worries about the country's debt crisis. A speech by Prime Minister George Papandreou on steps to repair its finances did little to provide support for markets. Greek markets have been under increasingly heavy pressure in recent weeks amid mounting worries about the country's ability to repay debt, including a steep fall last week when Greece's credit rating was reduced by Fitch Ratings. Shares of National Bank of Greece NBG
dropped 4.9% on Tuesday, as Piraeus Bank BPIRY, +4.22%
fell 4.8%.
BPIRY
Piraeus Bank S.A. ADR
U.S.: OTC: BPIRY | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1209 | Politics 10 October 2011 Tired and cold on Wall Street, Laurie Penny finds an America she thought was lost
By Laurie Penny Follow @@pennyred
On a cold, wet Sunday morning, Manhattan's financial district is full of zombies. Halloween is weeks away, but members of the Occupy Wall Street protest, which has been in place for over two weeks in Liberty Plaza, have dressed up in facepaint as the "zombies of capitalism" and their presence in the large group meetings, where collective issues are shouted as one by 400 excited activists, can only be unnerving to anyone working weekends in the skyscrapers looming over the protest. From the windows of Wall Street, it must look like a scene from the Resident Evil games.
The protest, which was formed as a mirror of the square and university occupations in Egypt, Greece, Spain and Britain has one simple aim: to demonstrate to the "1 per cent" of American society, who control 40 per cent of the nation's wealth, that the other "99 per cent" are still here, still human, and increasingly angry. One of the "zombies" is Max, 26, who works as a carpenter in upstate New York "basically, making beautiful homes for rich people". Max has become one of the unofficial spokespeople for this occupation, which "started out as a movement to draw attention to the fact that the top 1 per cent of the country and of the world economically controls so much of the wealth and the resources of this world," he says. "The bankers write the laws, the lobbyists write the laws, and they don't write them for us."
On 2 October, merely raising this issue in a peaceful public forum saw 700 of Max's co-protesters kettled, cuffed and bussed to jail from Brooklyn Bridge, in the largest mass-arrest in US history. Numbers here have swelled since initial videos of police pepper-spraying female protesters went viral online at the end of September, and the subsequent crackdowns have confirmed the occupiers' conviction that the police are there to protect the "1 per cent" from the rest of society.
Much of the press has dismissed these protesters as a bunch of overprivileged, middle-class hippies, but walking through the Plaza, I meet people from all walks of American life - laid-off middle-aged workers, a serving marine, union activists and young black men from the Bronx helping out the media team in its makeshift tarpaulin tent. Behind the drum circle, where activists with floppy clothes and floppy hair who might have teleported here from a flower power party in 1968 are chanting, "Keep the fire burning, deep inside your heart", I meet an elegant young woman in a pinstriped suit.
She has worked in one of the nearby offices for eight years and holds a neatly printed sign: "Wall Street workers for realistic fiscal reform - there are more of us than you think."
“We've been watching the protesters here for the last week or two, watching the marches go past from the 50th floor, and almost unanimously people empathise with the general sentiment of discontent," says the young derivatives worker, who cannot give her name for fear of losing her job. "Everyone recognises that what happened in 2008 was a real problem and that [the system] needs real reform and change."
What do they want, this eclectic cast of characters? The point that much of the mainstream media has missed in its rush to criticise the occupation for not having any clear "demands" is the space itself is very much its own demand, a demand for a new kind of society set up provocatively in the uncaring shadow of Wall Street, the symbolic heart of free-market capitalism. "I'm here to learn about how to build a new community," says Max. "We've essentially built a little town right in the middle of Wall Street where people are fed, clothed, housed, taken care of."
The atmosphere here is uniquely welcoming. As night draws in and the rain begins to beat down, the zombies begin to shamble more authentically, cold and worn-out from two weeks of sleeping in the open, their make-up worn and smeared. Jetlagged and full of flu, I stumble to the medical centre, where I am provided with a warm coat, hot coffee, medicine and a hug: a far cry from the pitilessness of America I'd come to believe in. Despite the cold, the exhaustion and the arrests, the occupiers of Wall Street aren't going anywhere.
“My whole generation has kind of been conditioned to believe that we don't have a voice, we don't have the ability to change anything," says Max. "It's cool to believe again."
Laurie Penny is a contributing editor to the New Statesman. She is the author of five books, most recently Unspeakable Things.
from just £1 per issue This article first appeared in the 10 October 2011 issue of the New Statesman, The next great depression
Why the value shift favours EuropeBy John Bennett | 金融 |
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The American Lawyer, March 30, 2015 cover story
Marty Lipton's War on Hedge Fund Activists
Michael D. Goldhaber, The American Lawyer March 30, 2015 Steven Laxton In November 2012, the corporate law guru who is most revered by managers faced off against the corporate law guru who is most feared by managers, at the Conference Board think tank in New York, in a friendly debate that was about to turn hostile. Martin Lipton has defended CEOs against all comers since forming Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz 50 years ago. Lucian Bebchuk, a Harvard Law School professor, champions the "activist" hedge funds that assail CEOs in an intensifying struggle for control of America's boardrooms.
Speaking with a thick Israeli accent ("Vock-tell is wrong"), Bebchuk argued that shareholder activism helps companies in both the short and long term. Lipton, whose voice carries a trace of Jersey City ("The bawd is right"), countered that activism is awful for companies and the economy over the long run. "Nor do I accept [your] so-called statistics," said Lipton fatefully. "Your statistics are all based on things like 'What was the price of the stock two days later?'"
As Lipton finished the thought, Bebchuk twitched his foot. He unfolded his right leg over his left knee, and then reset his body. He licked his lips, pressed the button of an imaginary pen with his thumb, then lunged for a pad and started scribbling with a real one. Thus was born "The Long-Term Effects of Hedge Fund Activism," the paper that turned a genial debate into a nasty war over the direction of corporate America. (It's to be published in June by the Columbia Law Review.)
At 83, Lipton is a blue chip stock. He's one of two people to make every list of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America since it was launched by the National Law Journal 30 years ago. (The other is Beltway legend Thomas Hale Boggs Jr., who died last September, just months after ailing Patton Boggs merged with Squire Sanders.) Wachtell Lipton remains The Am Law 100's runaway leader in profits per partner, as it has been for 15 of the past 16 years.
Lipton is most famous as the inventor in 1982 of the "poison pill" defense to corporate takeovers, which enables a company to dilute the value of its shares when a hostile bidder draws near. He's also heavily identified with the "staggered board," which deters takeovers by spreading the election of a board's directors over several years. It's often forgotten that Lipton helped to pioneer the concept of the corporation that undergirds corporate social responsibility. In his seminal 1979 work, "Takeover Bids in the Target's Boardroom," Lipton argued that directors should protect the interests of not only shareholders, but all who have a stake in the company: creditors, community members and most notably employees. Lipton's whole career (and much of Wachtell Lipton's business model) has been organized around these few ideas. His lifelong goal has been to safeguard managers against hostile takeovers and, increasingly, activist campaigns conducted in the name of shareholders.
Lucian Bebchuk, age 59, likes to attack blue chip stocks. His astonishing success has made him the only law professor listed among the 100 Most Influential People in Finance by Treasury and Risk magazine. A lowly student clinic led by Bebchuk—the Shareholder's Rights Project—has destaggered about 100 corporate boards on the Fortune 500 and the S&P 500 stock index since 2011. As a critic of CEO compensation, Bebchuk paved the way for the Dodd-Frank Act rules that give shareholders more "say on pay." Shareholder activism has drawn him into debates with Lipton in 2002, 2003, 2007, and more or less continually since 2012.
In 2012, Lipton still referred to Bebchuk with senatorial decorum, as "my friend," and teased him about reenacting the Hamilton-Burr duel. But something soon changed. Perhaps Lipton was disturbed by the effort to debunk his deepest belief about the long-term effects of activism. Or perhaps what changed were the tides of fortune. For the only thing that the two can agree on is that, in Lipton's words, the "activist hedge funds are winning the war." And so the iconoclast is no longer amusing to the icon.
With a revolving cast of big-name partners, Lipton has churned out ever more frequent and vicious memos. He called Bebchuk's paper "extreme and eccentric"; "tendentious and misleading"; and "not a work of serious scholarship." He gleefully noted that a sitting SEC commissioner called another paper by Bebchuk so "shoddy" as to constitute securities fraud. (Thirty-four professors rallied in Bebchuk's defense and jumped on the commissioner for abusing his power.) Bebchuk and Lipton lobbed posts back and forth on the Harvard corporate governance blog with "na-na-na-na-na" titles. "Don't Run Away From the Evidence" led to "Still No Valid Evidence," which led to "Still Running Away From the Evidence."
When Lipton was recently asked what he'd say to Bebchuk over a cup of coffee, he could no longer contemplate the idea: "I am afraid that professor Bebchuk is so invested in, and obsessed with, his mistaken views as to business and the economy that any conversation about governance and activism over a cup of coffee, or other venue, would be a waste of time."
Lipton blames "short-termist" hedge funds for America's economic stagnation and inequality since the financial crisis. He even touts a study blaming them for the financial crisis. His memos on activism are themselves obsessive, overgeneralized, and over-the-top. They also may be right.
Age of the activist investor
it has become a common meme that we live in the "age of the activist investor." Estimated assets under activist management in 2014 ranged from $120 billion to more than $200 billion. On the low end, that's up 269 percent since 2009, or 4,344 percent since 2001, according to the Alternative Investment Management Association, a trade group.
Activists attract funds because they win. Nearly three-quarters of activist demands were at least partially satisfied in 2014, according to the data collector Activist Insight. Ernst & Young says that half of S&P 500 companies engaged with activists in 2013. But even that understates their impact, because the way to pre-empt an attack is to adopt their mindset. Boston Consulting Group advises companies to "be your own activist."
Wachtell is rare among top law firms in categorically refusing to advise activist hedge funds. It helped 20 companies to quell activism in 2014, and Wachtell dealmakers spend an increasing amount of time playing firefighter. Lipton put the portion of his time devoted to manning the fire hose at 25 to 30 percent. Daniel Neff, one of the co-chairmen of the firm, estimates that activism consumes about 20 percent of his own time; he had answered an alarm from a Fortune 200 CEO just before we spoke.
Lipton urges directors to go through a "fire drill" at least once a year, practicing how they would respond to an activist demand. Sometimes the fire drill takes the form of play acting. Who gets to play billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn, they wouldn't say.
The Wachtell lawyers didn't see the comic potential because they take activism so seriously, and so personally. When asked if the tone of their memos was perhaps a touch Scalia-esque, Steven Rosenblum, the mild-mannered corporate co-chairman, replies that activists are far more shrill. "They are flat-out uncivil, rude, loud and obnoxious," he says. "They are incredibly unpleasant and total bullies. People should not conduct themselves that way." Sabastian Niles, a young counsel whom Lipton jokingly calls the firm's activist defense department, says that over the past three months, three separate activists had said to three CEO clients of Wachtell: "I will destroy you" if they didn't do XYZ.
Lipton rose to prominence in the 1980s defending against corporate raiders like Icahn, when they needed to win an outright majority of the board to gain corporate control. For Lipton, the only difference between corporate raiding and modern activism is that the Icahns of the world figured out how to get their way with only 2 percent of the share register. To seize effective control of the board, activists harness the voting power of the largest investors. Their secret is that giant stock funds outsource their votes to proxy advisory firms, which routinely side with activists. And thanks in no small part to Bebchuk, there are few staggered boards left to retard shifts in voting power.
The activist trend has snowballed in recent years for several reasons, some observers say. First, share ownership has consolidated among a handful of giant asset managers, so the top few shareholders can swing control of the board. Second, the giant asset managers are rapidly losing market share to low-fee Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). That makes the institutional investors desperate to show high immediate returns. So instead of activists going hat in hand to the institutions, the institutions now approach the activists with "requests for activism." This practice is so common that there is even a name for them in the industry: RFAs.
Competing perspectives
Whether all this is for good or evil, or both, depends on which narrative you accept. According to the hedge fund narrative, activists champion little-guy shareholders against fat-cat CEOs of lousy companies, who feed at the corporate trough with their cronies. "Wachtell has a great business defending corporate America and particularly Lipton himself," says Marc Weingarten of Schulte Roth & Zabel, the dominant firm for activists along with Olshan Frome Wolosky. "It gives no credit to what activists are clearly doing, which is making managers more focused on maximizing shareholder value than on self-aggrandizement and lining their own pockets."
According to the corporate narrative, activists are billionaire hedgies who are out to make a quick buck, while driving great companies and the economy into a ditch. Studies find that activists typically hold a stock for only nine months before bailing out. In that short time, they will aim at all costs to hack employment, R&D and capital expenditures; overload the company with debt; return money to shareholders through dividends and buybacks; and, as the ultimate goal, goose the stock through M&A activity. "At bottom, every activist campaign is one or two steps to sell the company," says Wachtell's Neff.
There's truth to both perspectives, as shown by the two 2014 activist deals profiled elsewhere in this issue. Both involved takeovers—for while Neff may overstate matters, Activist Insight confirms that 49 percent of last year's activist campaigns made public demands related to M&A outcomes. In the CommonWealth REIT deal, the Icahn protégé Keith Meister appears to have created real value for shareholders by throwing out the father-and-son directors to whom the CEO had given exclusive power to manage the REIT's real estate, and who were botching the job.
Allergan, the activist standard-bearer William Ackman made a failed $53 billion run at the admired maker of Botox. Allergan typically devoted 17 percent of sales to R&D. It cut that back to 13 percent during the takeover battle, and the white knight buyer cut it to 7 percent of combined sales. Ackman's bidder historically held R&D at 3 percent.
"Ackman said this is the most accretive deal he'd ever seen," notes Wachtell's Neff, who advised Allergan. "Why? Because they would slash R&D. They took out the best performer in its sector. Allergan didn't need fixing." For Neff, Allergan is a cautionary tale of killing innovation. And while Botox isn't exactly a life-saving drug, it is innovative. The author of "A Culture of Narcissism" might have noted that America is now too superficial to invest deeply in cosmetic surgery.
Despite Allergan, the hedge fund account of shareholder activism prevails in the press and the legal academy. As Lawrence Fink, CEO of the giant money manager Blackrock Inc., noted last year in an interview critical of hedge funds: "The narrative today is so loud now on the activist side."
Some are searching for a middle ground. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Harvard professor Guhan Subramanian laments a debate characterized by "shrill voices, a seemingly unbridgeable divide between shareholder activists and managers, rampant conflicts of interest, and previously staked out positions that crowd out thoughtful discussion."
The outspoken Chief Justice Leo Strine Jr. of the Delaware Supreme Court ["Tell Us What You Really Feel, Leo," March 2012] relates a story that lies somewhere in between the two poles. In Strine's telling, the little-guy investor needs to be protected from the self-dealing of both company managers and activist money managers.
"The media and academia are captive to intellectual laziness," Strine says. "It's easier to write a story about the bad, bad managers against the innocent shareholders, as if it's still 1935. It's much harder to write about the current complexities of a system of monied interests (money manager stockholders) versus other monied interests (corporate managers), and how the poor incentives of that system often give the shaft to ordinary Americans, both as investors who have to invest through money manager intermediaries to save for retirement and college for their kids, and as workers who need employment from corporations to feed their families."
At 88, Ira Millstein of Weil, Gotshal & Manges is perhaps the only corporate law guru to outrank Strine and Lipton. ("If I don't have a long-term perspective at my age, when am I ever going to have one?" he jokes.) "As far as Marty's concerned, I disagree because he's damning the whole movement," says Millstein. "I know activist hedge funds that are in the business of promoting long-term growth. I know other activists who are only interested in jerking the stock a little bit. I think there are plenty of both."
Fishing with dynamite
What Bebchuk does in "The Long-Term Effects of Hedge Fund Activism" is to see which narrative dominates if you ignore the anecdotes and study the data. Working with University of Chicago-trained financial economists Alon Brav and Wei Jiang, he tracked the performance of every activist-targeted company over the long term. Not over two days, but over five years. Bebchuk writes drily, "When available, economists commonly prefer objective empirical evidence over unverifiable reports of affected individuals."
The finding that made Lipton go ballistic is put simply by University of Chicago professor Steven Kaplan: "When you get these activists involved, the stock price goes up and stays up, and if anything, the operating metrics improve. Done. End of story."
To its critics, Bebchuk's paper is far from the end of the story. Scholars ranging from Columbia Law School's John Coffee Jr. to Yvan Allaire of the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations find the data ambiguous and methodologically flawed. Both attribute any gains by shareholders to a combination of fleeting takeover premiums and wealth transfers from employees (as the result of layoffs or wage cuts) or bondholders (as the result of downgrades or bankruptcies). In other words, Ackman and some shareholders are getting rich on the back of workers and pensioners.
"I don't agree with Bebchuk, because you can't prove a case with a number," says Millstein. "I'm not saying he's twisting the numbers, but he's coming up with the conclusions he believes in the first place." Says Lynn Stout of Cornell Law School: "He's trying to prove his own theories."
In Stout's view, Bebchuk is looking at the wrong thing. "He should be looking at what activists do to the economy as a whole," she says. "If Bebchuk went to a fishing village, he would find that people catch more fish with dynamite than nets, and he would conclude that everyone should fish with dynamite." That doesn't mean the dynamite is good for the pond. For instance, Bebchuk's study says nothing about the fate of the many activist targets that disappeared from the sample. By Bebchuk's own numbers, activist intervention increased the chance of corporate death over the study period from 42 to 49 percent. "To me, that says we're dynamiting a lot of fish here," says Stout.
Bebchuk's supporters say it takes a model to beat a model. So why doesn't Wachtell fund counterresearch? "If we wanted to phony up a model, we could do the same thing he does," retorts Lipton. He thinks the evidence, "empirical, experiential, and overwhelming," is already on his side.
Roughly 95 percent of S&P 500 profits last year were funneled back to shareholders through buybacks or dividends, according to a Bloomberg projection. A study by J.W. Mason of the Roosevelt Institute found that only 10 percent of profits plus borrowings were being reinvested in public companies today—compared with 40 percent in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Center for American Progress cites a recent study showing investment by private companies to be more than double today's rate for public ones. Chicago economists say that shareholders are allocating all that capital efficiently. Others, like Pavlos Masouros of Leiden University, think the shortfall in investment is retarding GDP growth, and amplifying inequality.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is persuaded that hedge fund activism is a macroeconomic problem. "We are having an epidemic right now of activism directed at getting management to choke off investment," he says. "It seems unlikely to me that there has been a major increase in managerial abuse the last few years. It seems unlikely to me that American business has been chronically over-investing the last few decades. That makes me think there is likely too much aggressive activism," sometimes at the expense of employees.
'How do we fix things?'
Lipton speaks of the lifetime contract between a company and its employees, and Neff says that philosophy carries over to law firm management. Wachtell Lipton resisted pressure from some partners during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, and refused to lay off a single summer associate or staffer. "We would not put a family's breadwinner out on the street and change his and his family's life so the partners can make a couple more dollars," says Neff. "That attitude comes down from the white-haired gentleman."
Some critics find it a bit rich when Lipton echoes liberal think tanks on distributional inequality. They note that Lipton never met an executive pay plan he couldn't defend, including the $210 million that The Home Depot Inc. awarded in 2006 to CEO Robert Nardelli despite its flagging share price. Lipton's consistent loyalties lie not with stakeholders, they suggest, but management.
"Has there ever been an issue where Marty Lipton sided with shareholders against management?" asks Yale Law School's Jonathan Macey. "I believe the answer to that question is no."
Macey goes further, and queries whether Lipton's loyalty to CEOs should disqualify his law firm from acting for directors. "Suppose I'm a director of a public company, and we are faced with activist investors. Suppose the CEO says, let's hire Wachtell. If I really thought that law firm took Marty Lipton's radical view"—and Macey takes pains to say that although it is possible, he does not really think the firm would do that—"then I think it would be a violation of the fiduciary duty of loyalty to hire that firm. Because Marty Lipton is not interested in protecting shareholders; he's interested in protecting management."
Lipton replies that while his memos speak only for the lawyers who sign them, they are absolutely consonant with fiduciary duties. All Wachtell lawyers advise directors to consult with activists, Lipton said, and sometimes advise them to change business strategy. "I've had clients with mediocre management," added Neff, "and I said to the activist: 'OK, you're right, how do we fix things?'"
So would Lipton concede that in a bad company, activists can be good for the economy? "No!" he shoots back. "They'll push to fire more people and cut more R&D and go too far. They'll want two times too much. It's terribly macroeconomically harmful."
Though his memos chronicle every shot fired across the activists' bow, Lipton knows he's still losing. The only recent development that truly comforts him is the letter sent to CEOs a year ago by Blackrock's Larry Fink. "It concerns us," Fink wrote, "that, in the wake of the financial crisis, many companies have shied away from investing in the future growth of their companies. Too many companies have cut capital expenditure and increased debt to boost dividends and increase share buybacks." As Fink later put it more succinctly, activists "destroy jobs."
Fink's opinion matters more than most, because he speaks for $4 trillion in assets.
Lipton will never win his war until institutional shareholders vote against activists more. He is the first to say so, and others agree. Chief Justice Strine of Delaware urges institutional shareholders to tailor their voting policies to their investors' investment horizons—and to recognize the unique long-term outlook of people relying on index funds for college or retirement.
That change in mentality could be promoted through systemic reform. Summers says that policy changes to give long-term shareholders more voting power or managers more tools to fend off activists deserve serious consideration. But change could also be achieved through the exercise of old-fashioned good judgment. "Companies and pension funds are getting smarter," says Millstein. "If the real investors think the activists are wrong, then they don't have to go along."
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1501 | Bankrupting America’s Spending Daily
Posted: January 2, 2013 at 5:00 pm / by Bankrupting America 0shares Facebook0 Twitter0 Google+0 Pinterest0 LinkedIn0
Spending Daily | January 2, 2013
New Campaign: Talk is Cheap, Overspending is Not
Bankrupting America, a project of Public Notice, announced today a new campaign, “Talk is Cheap, Overspending is Not,” holding Washington lawmakers accountable for promises to cut wasteful spending and get America’s debt and deficits under control. The campaign features advertising at Capitol South and Union Station metro stops in Washington, D.C., as well as online advertising. Bankrupting America uses quotes from the current and former presidents and key members of Congress to remind them in their own words of the importance of reducing the deficit and reining in government spending. Click here to view a sample of the ads.
Fiscal Cliff Deal “will do little to address the nation’s long-term debt problem”
The Washington Post editorializes, “The compromise bill passed by Congress to avert the worst effects of the ‘fiscal cliff’ is a small, imperfect package that will do too little to address the nation’s long-term debt problem. But for all its weaknesses, the bill’s enactment is far better than a failure by this Congress to act before it adjourns Thursday. Most important, the deal will delay the ill-targeted and unwise spending cuts known as sequestration and cancel sharp tax increases for most Americans. … Yet despite these desirable structural changes, the deal will not reduce future deficits much, even though Congress engineered the fiscal cliff to force ambitious budget reform.”
“Analysis: 77% of Households to See Tax Increase”
The Wall Street Journal reports, “The fiscal cliff bill’s impact would be far-reaching for American taxpayers, and particularly painful for very high-income households, according to a new analysis. About 77% of American households would see a tax increase compared to their 2012 tax levels, according to the analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. The biggest impact for most households comes from the expiration of a two-percentage-point payroll-tax break that existed for 2011 and 2012. It basically hits all working people.”
“112th Congress legacy: Unfinished business”
Jonathan Allen writes in Politico, “The 112th Congress came in with a bang, but it is crawling out with the soft whimper of failure. For two years, President Barack Obama and Congress ignored virtually every other pressing matter to engage in an ideological war over the size of government and who should foot the bill for it. They racked up more processes than policies: a blue-ribbon White House commission, Vice President Joe Biden’s working group, bilateral talks between Obama and Speaker John Boehner, a ‘supercommittee,’ a ‘Gang of Six’ that became a ‘Gang of Eight’ and, finally, Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) coming to a deal that leaves open as many politically thorny issues as it solves. They didn’t even hit their deadline. … The deal also sets up yet another budgetary Armageddon in March, when Congress and the president will have to deal with raising the debt ceiling, the hanging sword of sequestration cuts and the expiration of federal spending authority.”
California to Give Away Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Free Cell Phones
The Washington Guardian reports, “California is becoming the latest state to participate in a federal program that gives away hundreds of millions of dollars of free cell phones with prepaid service to indigent and homeless residents. After four years of navigating bureaucratic red tape, California recently hired a vendor to take on the job of offering the pre-paid cell phones to an estimated 4.6 million eligible residents. At an average cost of $100 per phone, the tab in the Golden State alone could eventually reach $460 million annually.”
AP: Economists Disappointed Deal Fails To Reduce The Deficit
The Associated Press reports, “A last-minute deal will keep the U.S. from driving off the so-called ‘fiscal cliff,’ but higher taxes and continued political fighting in Washington threaten to shake the fragile economy well into 2013. … Many economists were disappointed that Congress and the White House couldn’t reach agreement on a broader deal to significantly reduce the deficit over the next 10 years. That could have boosted business and consumer confidence and accelerated growth. ‘Nothing really has been fixed,’ said Joseph LaVorgna, an economist at Deutsche Bank. … Lawmakers postponed tough decisions on government spending, giving themselves a reprieve from cuts that were scheduled to start taking effect automatically Jan. 1.”
Gallup: Americans Believe 2013 Will Be A “Year Of Economic Difficulty” By 2-1 Margin
According to Gallup, Americans “Americans believe by almost a 2-1 margin that 2013 will be a year of economic difficulty rather than a year of prosperity. … The 65% of Americans who predict 2013 will be a year of economic difficulty is one of the more negative responses to this question since Gallup first asked it in 1965. There has been, however, a great deal of fluctuation over that time period, from a high of 65% who said 1965 would be a year of prosperity, to a low of 7% who predicted 1974 would be a year of prosperity.”
Samuelson: Fiscal Cliff “a massive failure of presidential leadership”
Robert J. Samuelson editorializes in The Washington Post, “The ‘fiscal cliff’ is a massive failure of presidential leadership. The tedious and technical negotiations are but a subplot in a larger drama. Government can no longer fulfill all the promises it has made to various constituencies. Some promises will be reduced or disavowed. Which ones? Why? Only the president can pose these questions in a way that starts a national conversation over the choices to be made, but doing so requires the president to tell people things they don’t want to hear. That’s his job: to help Americans face unavoidable, if unpleasant, realities. Barack Obama has refused to play this role.”
“Nothing Is Certain Except More Debt and Taxes”
David Malpass editorializes in The Wall Street Journal, “Whatever ultimately emerges from the fiscal-cliff negotiations over the past 48 hours, the country will survive. But the damage can’t be undone. Taxes are going up for all working Americans. And so is the size of government. Businesses have been waiting to see whether a second Obama administration will encourage the economy. During the fiscal-cliff negotiations, however, the president made clear that his goal isn’t to get business going again but instead to expand government and redistribute income. He offered no real spending cuts and instead used the year-end deadline to divide America into classes—to the point of campaigning on New Year’s Eve against higher earners.”
“Obama insisted on sequester buy down in final fiscal cliff deal”
CNN reports, “Fiscal cliff negotiations between the White House and Congressional leaders involved late-night discussions in the Oval Office and an ultimate hardline from President Barack Obama, according to a source familiar with the process. … The source said it was the president who insisted the final deal include a pay down on the sequester, and a tax increase that hit individuals making at least $400,000 a year and $450,000 for households. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell started negotiations at $750,000, and then moved to $550,000 before giving in and agreeing to $450,000 for households.”
“House pulls plug on Sandy aid bill”
Politico reports, “House Republicans abruptly pulled the plug Tuesday night on their promise to take up this week an emergency supplemental disaster aid bill for Northeast states damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The decision is a stunning reversal since just hours before New Jersey lawmakers were preparing for floor debate Wednesday as outlined under a strategy promoted by no less than Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). … Absent a change of heart, the upshot now is that the Senate bill will die with this Congress on Thursday at noon.”
BankruptingAmerica.org is an educational project of Public Notice, an independent, nonpartisan, non-profit, 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to providing facts and insight on the effects public policy has on Americans’ financial well-being.
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1705 | Oracle defends CEO's pay amid shareholder unrest
Share Tweet SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Oracle is facing a potential shareholder revolt against a compensation formula that has consistently made its billionaire co-founder, Larry Ellison, one of the best-paid CEOs in the world.The business software maker staunchly defended Ellison's pay in a letter sent to shareholder activist firm CtW Investment Group in an effort to rally support for its board of directors before the 11 members stand for re-election at Oracle's annual meeting on Oct. 31.The letter released in a Wednesday regulatory filing came in response to a scathing attack that CtW launched last week against the compensation that Ellison has been receiving from the Redwood Shores, Calif., company for years.CtW doesn't own any Oracle shares directly, but the Washington D.C. group is paid to fight for shareholder causes. It is vowing to organize the pension funds of labor groups that are stockholders unless the company changes its ways. Oracle's letter gave no indication that the company is going to relent, setting the stage for an attempt to oust at least three of Oracle's directors at the annual meeting."It seems pretty clear that they aren't willing to listen to the concerns of shareholders," said Rich Clayton, a research director at CtW. A truce could still be reached during a meeting with an Oracle representative that Clayton said is scheduled for Thursday morning in Washington.Shareholders expressed their displeasure with Oracle's compensation practices at the company's annual meeting last year. About 59 percent of the shareholders voted against a "say-on-pay" proposal seeking an endorsement of the board's compensation policies. That vote was non-binding, and Oracle's compensation committee decided that no significant changes to its practices were needed, according to the company's proxy statement for the upcoming annual meeting.Oracle Corp. awarded Ellison a pay package valued at $78.4 million in its last fiscal year ending in May, down from $96.2 million in the previous year.Ellison, 69, could have made even more last year if he hadn't turned down a $1.2 million bonus. He also limited his salary to $1 annually, a symbolic measure that has been embraced by several other Silicon Valley CEOs who are already billionaires, including Google Inc.'s Larry Page and Hewlett Packard Co.'s Meg Whitman.Oracle has primarily paid Ellison through stock options and other long-term incentives designed to prompt him to boost the company's market value and enrich shareholders. Ellison's pay packages have included an award of 7 million stock options in each of the last six years. Those awards are the main reason Ellison has ranked among the top-paid CEOs in each of those years.The ultimate value of Ellison's stock options hinge on how Oracle's stock fares. In its response to CtW, Oracle pointed out that some of the stock options issued in Ellison in past years haven't made him any money because the cost of exercising them was higher than the price of the company's stock.Millions of other stock options have yielded windfalls that have helped Ellison build upon a fortune estimated at $41 billion by Forbes magazine. Since the end of Oracle's fiscal 2007, Ellison has realized gains totaling $851 million by exercising 55.4 million stock options, according to the company's regulatory filings. More than $151 million of those gains came in Oracle's most recent fiscal year.If Oracle refuses to change its policies CtW plans to wage a campaign aimed at persuading its labor union allies and other major Oracle shareholders to oppose the re-election of the three directors on the company's compensation committee.Those directors are: Bruce Chizen, a former CEO of Adobe Systems Inc. who has chaired the compensation committee for nearly three years; venture capitalist George Conrades, who is also chairman of Akamai Technologies Inc.; and Naomi Seligman, a partner at technology consultant Ostriker von Simson.Earlier this year, CtW led shareholder protests against Hewlett-Packard's board. Although the directors were re-elected, the opposition was strong enough to culminate in former Oracle executive Ray Lane's resignation as HP's chairman and the departure of HP's two longest-serving directors.In its letter, Oracle accused CtW of trying to orchestrate a misleading campaign against the company's board and hailed Ellison as "its most critical strategic visionary, a role that he has served and continues to serve our shareholders extremely well."With Ellison in charge, Oracle said it has returned nearly $40 billion to shareholders during the past decade. The company's stock rose by 28 percent in its last fiscal year, outperforming the 24 percent increase in the Standard & Poor's 500 over the same period.Even without options, Ellison benefits more than any other Oracle shareholder when the stock rises because he owns a 25 percent stake in the company.Ellison has used his wealth to buy luxurious estates around the world, as well as his own Hawaiian island, Lanai. He also bankrolled two victories in the America's Cup, with the most recent triumph in sailing's most prestigious event coming last week in San Francisco. Oracle's brand was featured prominently in the competition. | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1733 | HSBC to Pay Record Settlement to Department of Justice
Eric Volkman, The Motley Fool, AOL.com
Dec 11th 2012 10:57AM
HSBC will pay a record $1.92 billion to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle a long-running investigation into its lack of compliance with money laundering laws and economic sanctions, the company said in a statement.The settlement includes a deferred prosecution agreement, an accord under which one party pledges to implement certain measures in lieu of standard prosecution. The bank has been tasked to improve its oversight; an independent party is to monitor the progress over the five-year duration of the agreement.Stuart Gulliver, group chief executive with HSBC, said in a statement: "We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organisation from the one that made those mistakes." The banks said it has also "reached agreement to achieve a global resolution with all other US government agencies that have investigated HSBC's past conduct related to these issues and anticipates finalising an undertaking with the United Kingdom Financial Services Authority shortly."This is the third time since 2003 that HSBC has been penalized for failures in compliance and control, Reuters reports.link
The article HSBC to Pay Record Settlement to Department of Justice originally appeared on Fool.com.
Eric Volkman has no positions in HSBC. The Motley Fool has no positions in HSBC. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Copyright © 1995 - 2012 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1875 | Compare All The Changing Landscape of Socially Responsible Investing: Q&A With an Expert
Allison Kade
NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- If you've ever bought shares of a mutual fund and silently grimaced at the prospect that it might be investing your money in unsavory ways--how do you feel about investing in Big Tobacco or oil companies or anything else that makes you uncomfortable?--then you might want to give a little thought to socially responsible investing. This is oft-misunderstood field suffers from a great number of misconceptions. Are socially responsible investors all a bunch of hippies? Do they have to forego portfolio returns in order to put their money where their values are? What is socially responsible investing, sometimes called simply SRI, and how do people's definitions of "socially responsible" differ? For these answers and more, we talked to Jared Peifer, assistant professor at Baruch College and expert on socially responsible investing. The author of studies on SRI and why people choose to invest this way, Peifer participated in a MainStreet Q&A on how the industry is changing and what prospective investors in SRI mutual funds should know. When people invest in socially responsible mutual funds, do they expect to earn the same or better returns than in a typical mutual fund? Jared Peifer: Most outsiders and financial types think that all people care about are returns on their investments, so I've been trying to find empirical evidence about why we're motivated to invest. It's not just about returns. Some of the research I'm doing in this vein has been finding evidence that in addition to being interested in returns, people are also moral actors. Prev
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1880 | Dubai's Noor Islamic may break even in 2011
Singapore, June 8, 2011
Dubai's Noor Islamic Bank could break even in 2011, a year ahead of target, and will consider merger and acquisition opportunities later to expand overseas, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
Noor Islamic Bank focuses mainly on corporate banking deals such as sukuk issues. It is 25 per cent owned by Dubai Investment Group, the investment arm of Dubai Holding which, in turn, is owned by the ruler of Dubai.
Business has been unaffected by the Middle East conflict and the bank posted a profit of Dh58 million ($16 million) in the first four months of 2011, Hussain Al Qemzi said.
'We've seen a lot of flow of liquidity and cash and we've seen a growth in retail and travel,' Al Qemzi said in an interview on the sidelines of an Islamic banking conference in Singapore. 'Actually, it's not negative.'
Noor Islamic had earlier said it expected to close a healthy number of Islamic syndicated loans and Islamic bonds in the first half of 2011, with Turkey emerging as an active market for Islamic finance.
Al Qemzi said sukuk deals would start flowing again after a slow 2010 but most issues would be of a smaller size. Traditionally Gulf issuers have tended to sell Islamic bonds in billions of dollars.
'We are working on a few transactions, we'll do some transactions in Turkey and we're also hopeful of the Asia market,' he said.
A Gulf aid package for Bahrain and Oman would also create opportunities for sovereign Islamic bond issuance, he said.
In March, Gulf oil producers launched a $20 billion aid package for Bahrain and Oman to help them upgrade housing and infrastructure over 10 years, in the aftermath of widespread protests.
Noor Islamic Bank could consider merger and acquisition opportunities after it becomes profitable, Al Qemzi said. 'We'll look at it in time, but I'd like to see us getting out of the woods and becoming profitable,' he said.
'For us, I will look at banks that will really give us international reach.'
Noor Islamic Bank had said it has no plans to merge with any other financial institution after being named as a possible candidate to absorb troubled Islamic lender Dubai Bank, which was recently taken over by the Gulf emirate's government.
When it first launched in 2008, the bank wanted to be the world's largest Islamic bank within five years through acquisitions in countries such as Indonesia, Egypt and Britain.
But difficult global market conditions have forced the company to rethink its strategy.-Reuters Tags:
Dubai | Noor Islamic Bank | break even | Islamic lender | More Finance & Capital Market Stories | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/1930 | Unthinkable, thought
The Economist presents an article on 02 DEC 2010 on How to resign from the club.The 'club' in question is the Eurozone, and resigning from it is presented as a showing how Nation States can get over a debt crisis via examining past such crises in other Nations. The EU has a problem in that it is not a Nation State but a cooperating agreement amongst Nation States and, thusly, more of a confederation than a federation (as these things are normally termed for such governmental arrangements). Thus leaving the EU would be done to localize debt to those debtor Nations within the EU and as a result end the Euro as a currency. The article presents the rationale for this, but does not come down in an advocacy position, but a neutral one as this is an article to examine the process not the implications of it beyond the economic.To start the reasons for leaving are put into question form:The idea of breaking up the currency zone raises at least three questions. First, why would a country choose to leave? Second, how would a country manage the switch to a new currency? Third—and perhaps most important—would leavers be better off outside the euro than inside it?Why LeaveFirst is the 'why' question for a country - what is the rationale for this leaving of a common currency?The primary reason is economic independence from the common currency and there is a reason for doing so for both strong and weak economies (as measured in their economic activity, debt load and state of solvency).Germany, with a relatively robust manufacturing economy that has been shedding social programs and increasing the retirement age, is seen as able to cover its debt better than other Nations in the EU. Thus their portion of the common debt would have the backing of a strong currency and even see an influx of funds from other countries from individuals seeking a 'safe haven' for their cash. This would require massive changes to the banking regulation which seeks to get at savings accounts outside the country, but that could be put down as effective for EU funds only, and those converted to other currencies (like the brand new Deutschmark) would not have that regulatory overhead. This would be kept in check, to a small extent, by keeping lines of credit open for liquidity to foster economic activity. The change-over would cause an export problem as the strong DM would mean that the value of its goods would rise as compared to under the Euro, but that would be from a stable economic base that has actual liquidity to it. Thus a transition, though hard, would not be expected to be long.Greece and weak countries, at the other end of the scale, also need economic policies that reflect their populations. The Euro has been no boon to these countries, either, as the ability of the earned Euro to purchase goods from stronger Nations within the Eurozone has decreased. Weaker economies having to compete inside the Eurozone are unable to do so and they are pressed from the outside by Asian manufacturers able to undercut Eurozone production costs. Thus, while holding to a Euro means having a more powerful currency, you have far less of it due to lack of economic activity and governmental promises on retirement and other payouts to selected groups of people within their Nations. Leaving the zone means that these countries (Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland) can put out currencies that can be devalued and yet find a stable floor based on the state of the economy. These Nations would become quite poor as they have a non-economical basis for their social structure in regards to working life, labor costs, and taxing policy, all of which would return to local control without EU overhead. And independent Nation is better able to navigate social policy, as an example, than a larger Confederation forcing an end social policy via a currency and regulatory system that does not take local conditions into account. These Nations did not change their policies coming into the Euro, beyond some one year benchmarks, and continued their spending policy for a generation based on lower interest loans garnered by joining the EU. Now that all comes due with defaulting on debt looming on the horizon.How to LeaveThe 'how' part is the mechanical part - the way to get from Point A to Point B.Here the article is short and sweet, with some analysis after:How could this be done? Introducing a new currency would be difficult but not impossible. A government could simply pass a law saying that the wages of public workers, welfare cheques and government debts would henceforth be paid in a new currency, converted at an official fixed rate. Such legislation would also require all other financial dealings—private-sector pay, mortgages, stock prices, bank loans and so on—to be switched to the new currency.That plus have the printed and coined new currency ready to go, and having the banks exchange the old and new. The original set conversion ratio would last for a period of time and then the old scrip is no longer legal tender (although a minor collector's item for numismatic enthusiasts for generation after). This has been done a few times in the history of the US and happens far more frequently outside the US.Argentina is a Nation that did this during its fiscal crisis and, as a result, destroyed its own banking system with a contraction in available credit to cover losses on loans that had a more favorable exchange rate than other items so as to keep savers mollified.Germany would tend to have a stronger currency than an abandoned Euro, not only because Germany has left the Euro but due to the Euro having represented an average value across all Nations: the less capable Nations brought the value of the Euro down as they did not change social and fiscal policy to that of thrifty Nations like Germany. A new DM would gain its own adherents and those that then convert their local currencies on the basis of the DM for purposes of trade and commerce. The cost of the value of its debt would fall, over time, if it could keep its fiscal house in order and maintain a productive economy with low economic overhead by the national government. Its current holdings in other EU countries would be devalued while its own currency gained strength, and limitations on capital movement from weak countries would limit the ability of Germans to shift those funds or convert capital into liquid assets.Weaker Nations would have to set limits on the amount of withdrawals per person, per year to transfer into a DM. This is on top of the losses that all people would suffer (personal, commercial, financial and institutional) due to the sudden change in value of the Euro in regards to the currencies leaving it. Those in weak countries paid in devalued currency would not like that state of affairs and yet see that they have limits on exactly how much of that currency can leave the Nation. This acts in the form of a firewall that limits currency trading and capital flight at the expense of internal accounts being devalued. Thus some capital is retained even during a general currency devaluation. Here good laws would allow for a legal process of wealth transformation to take place so as to avoid lawsuits over the incurred costs of devaluation. The internal scrip for these Nations would be debt obligation (or IOU) scrips that would, over time, be converted to a real currency. It would be an extremely devalued currency, yes, but the only one for legal tender in the Nation after all the Euros had been converted to them.While a shrunk Euro would still have its member Nations to back it, those outside of it would be faced with the EU board acting to the interests of members... although the question of how long the Euro would survive comes into being with Germany leaving or one or more of the weak economies deciding to 'go it alone' to survive.FalloutShifting a National currency, even when done via normal means such as the need to replace one format of bank notes with another or going on/off a gold/silver standard is one that does happen for normal Nations. In the latter part of the 20th century this has happened more often than most people think as you consider the Nations that have gone off of a worthless internal scrip to create one of value: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany (moving to the DM then Euro), and Russia. These Nations all faced a scrip that was uniform under Communist rule, but of no real value outside of its trading block. Dollars went for ten to one hundred times the official exchange rates inside these Nations, and when time came to break away their currencies got unhooked from the centralized system run from Moscow. We don't notice those change-overs, in the West, but they did happen quietly and efficiently as the Eastern Bloc vanished in a matter of years, taking Russia with it out of the Communist era.Argentina has been more problematic, but while facing a set of challenges for having a currency not pegged to a foreign currency, it is a set of problems largely under the control of the Nation and its policies. That is the goal of the exercise, to bring the financial house under sovereign control and have a Nation set its own path on what is agreeable and disagreeable to it and suffer what fate hands out to those choices.The USThe United States has many artifacts of the EU in its common currency arrangement: member States taking on huge debt load at rates that they could not normally get, a massive decrease in productivity due to the overhead of the State, and the flight of capital and individuals from some States to others. Additionally the National system has taken part in multiple Ponzi schemes for public programs, these being Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, all while enacting laws and regulation that increase the cost of manufacturing causing a flight of capital overseas for decades, thus lower the rate of economic growth. On a National level spending, regulation and social payouts are the mirror of that in some European Nations now looking to cut back on them severely: Great Britain, Germany, France. Meanwhile there is also a debtor State problem with a number of States with their own social programs that are fiscally unsound in the realm of public spending: CA, NY, IL, MI, MA all come to mind.There is already the start of a debt scrip system going on in CA as the State is now offering IOUs to those who should receive refunds on their income tax. At this point CA does not accept such scrip to pay off debt to the State, but the moment it does so it has its own and devalued currency. NY has made some similar sounds as well as a few other States so highly in debt that they cannot offer standard refunds on taxes.This state of affairs of States having their own currencies existed right up to the Civil War and is perfectly legal but how you do it is important, and CA is not headed into good territory there.Here are the powers of the Constitution in this realm:Section. 8.The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;[..]Section. 10.No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.CA is running afoul of Section 10 of the US Constitution and to complete its system of scrip would be required to offer gold or silver backing for its debt obligations. Basically a gold or silver debt scrip.Just how much gold and silver does CA have? Beyond what is in 'them, thar hills' not much due to the FDR Administration having gold taken into Ft. Knox from all over the Nation as it was illegal to have large quantities of gold. Which brings up the question: is it legal for the US federal government to have done that? As the States are permitted to make legal tender of gold and silver, does the US government have the power to stop them from doing so by confiscating the gold and silver from those States?Consider a proposal to have CA, say, ask to have its portion of the US held gold and silver reserves returned to it via population size. It would be recognized that the federal government has its own need of reserves and that could be made at 30% of the total held for the Nation.Just working with gold the US has 4,603 tons, or 147.4 million troy ounces, the latter of which is easier to work with for numbers (going via Wikipedia for ballparking here), and this isn't including other bullion reserves like those at West Point.So a proposal to keep 1/3 in reserve for the federal government means the following is available to the States via population: 98.27 million troy ounces.Current population of the US at the census site: approx 311 million people.Current population of CA: approx 37 million.Call that just a bit shy of 12% of the population, which would yield it 12% of the gold: 11.8 million troy ounces.Total long and short term debt issued by CA (Source: CA Treasurer's Office): approx. $53.3 billionNote that CA's debt is huge compared to any price of gold today.With that said the State would have the legal basis to offer a currency with a conversion rate to the US dollar for CA incurred debt. If set sufficiently above the current rate of conversion, say at $1,500 per ounce, the new Golden Bear (which I invent for this purpose) currency would have a lower valuation than US currency but have full gold backing to it. CA could start issuing this currency to those who would be getting tax refunds or other forms of funds from the State and create a dual currency system within the State for its own gold tender and standard US greenbacks. In addition CA would probably place a holding time limit for cashing out gold, so that the Golden Bear will have time to circulate and get a real value, perhaps as much as 5 years for that.CA would then have to decide if it wanted to incur debt via US dollars or its own Golden Bears. While 11.8 million troy ounces sounds like a lot, that is less than 1/3 troy ounce per citizen in the State. If CA can get its fiscal house in order in 5 years, stop the debt outflow and get a sane tax climate in place for investors, it can offer a 'safe haven' currency that is gold backed (possibly have silver backed ones as well, but it is difficult in getting the silver reserve figures) and holds the State to the value of the currency.The Golden Bear would be a 'hard' currency and if set above the current conversion price of gold, then gain few attractors but serve as a reserve system to pay off internal debts owed to the citizenry. Citizens would be faced with a currency that would take a few years to convert to physical gold (with 1 troy ounce = 1.0971428571 ounce = 31.1034768 gram) with each Golden Bear dollar only about 0.02 gram weight or waiting to get paid in US greenbacks once CA got more of those to go around... which it might do by marketing Golden Bears or converting a portion of its debt into Golden Bears for payout (possibly the short term debt). Once in circulation the value of the US greenback would float compared to the Golden Bear and it is possible that CA might even see an influx of some cash if it can get its fiscal house in order.Of course CA and probably AK would see a major uptick in the gold prospecting business as getting gold and getting gold backed tender in return makes the gold portable. CA might see an increase in gold reserves, over time, if it got its house in order. Other States might take this route to try and get some foundation to their economies and find some, final bottom to their fiscal woes as they have a new and much smaller economic platform to move to. This would mean that most of the 'services' in the way of regulations, 'entitlements' and even such things as public pensions would either get liquidated or devalued or have a final gold backed tender put into their holdings which they can sell at market prices.Congress did not have the power to stop this after the Civil War and no power was given to it during or after then to allow it to stop such things: they are allowed in Article 10 explicitly. While paying off debts to the federal government would still be done in greenbacks, if those are seen as getting worth less and less, then the States would have a means of fall-back currency by issuing gold and silver backed tender based on the holdings being held for all of the people at the bullion depositories. The US federal government would still have a substantial gold and silver deposit for the Nation, but the rest would be used by the States to create legal tender in the States for State obligations. And as it is circulated debt backed by gold, it is not normal valued currency and might be impossible to tax (can you tax debt? my guess is: no).A two-track system would be a PITA, to be sure, for each State, yes. But this might be a way to give the people of those failing States some assurance that there is a final, much smaller, fall-back position for their States that would have an opportunity to shed obligations and right their economies. And with a gold backed system the people would be assured of being able to get some useful currency after their State's bankruptcy and re-ordering to become solvent. We would still be a common Nation, but those in financial crisis would be allowed to figure their way out on their own and not put the entire Nation at peril for the spendthrift ways of the few.
Future, Past
All I needed to know to fix things was to read Ins...
States on the brink
Some thoughts on Julian Assange | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/2100 | Home'Trinidad and Tobago Guardian : May 9th 2013ContentsBG6 | NEWS BUSINESS GUARDIAN www.guardian.co.tt MAY 2013 • WEEK TWO The First Citizens bank initial public offering (IPO) of shares has been postponed from May to June, said deputy chief exec- utive officer Sharon Christopher. In early January, the bank s chair Nyree Alfonso said the IPO was sched- uled to be launched in May. Christopher anticipated the issuance of shares would be a big deal. "We expect that the value of the issue to be in the range of $1 billion, so it would be big for T&T," she said. Asked the reason for moving from May to June, Christopher said: "Get- ting together the documentation for the IPO, the valuation of the bank--- the number of things that had to be done---was taking a little longer than expected. We are on the ball now. This is like the countdown period." A share price has not yet been deter- mined because the valuation process is incomplete. At each stage, Christopher said more information would be made to the public but, to the "big institutional investors, we would be going to them with some harder figures than we have now. "It is worth everyone s while to have a share in this significant indigenous institution." Asked when she anticipated a share price to be determined, Christopher said: "All these things have to be dis- cussed with the Government; it s not just First Citizens by itself. "After we get the valuation, the val- uation is going to say this is what your bank is valued at. We would then be able to say, if that is our value, we look at our share price in this kind of range, then we go back to Government and then they would agree, okay, you can do it at that price. So that should take three weeks before we have a price." Christopher said the IPO is long overdue. "When First Citizens started 20 years ago, it was always the intention that the bank would come back to the public and would be listed on the stock exchange. What is going to happen this year is really the realisation of that vision." Christopher said large institutions and the public have expressed interest in the launch. "If you look at this institution for the last three years coming out of the current financial crisis, this bank has been named by Global Finance as the safest bank in the Caribbean. Commenting on dividend payout, she said: "We expect our dividend payments to be reasonable. The reason we have been so successful is (due to) the way we have managed our busi- ness: in a very stable and consistent manner. Certainly, your return on your investment is going to be good." In January, Alfonso, commenting on dividend payout, said: "First Cit- izens expects to time the half-year dividend so that the new shareholders of the bank would benefit by receiving a distribution within 30 days of the completion of the IPO. "The bank paid out 37 per cent of its after-tax profit of $718 million as a dividend in the year ending Sep- tember 2011, and 24 per cent of the $446.4 million that the company earned in 2012." First Citizens IPO set for June Sharon Christopher, deputy chief executive officer, First Citizens Group. nadaleen.singh@guardian.co.tt NADALEEN SINGH First Citizens head office, Queen's Park East, Port-of-Spain. LinksArchiveMay 8th 2013May 10th 2013NavigationPrevious PageNext Page | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/2169 | Home / News / FPA Congress sets financial planners on growth trajectory FPA Congress sets financial planners on growth trajectory
Thu 1st December 2016
The Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) attracted over 1,000 delegates from around the country to the 2016 FPA Professionals Congress in Perth from 23-25 November, where the ‘Future Ready’ theme was enthusiastically embraced by the financial planning community.
The sold out Future2 Gala Dinner and the record attendance at the Women in Financial Planning breakfast were just two of the highlights of the Congress that featured an impressive line-up of speakers including Andrew Denton, Anna Meares OAM, Tracey Holmes, Ange Postecoglou and Catherine McGregor AM.
Commenting on the success of this year’s Congress, Dante De Gori CFP®, CEO of the FPA, said, “This was the first time our annual gathering was held in Perth since 1994 and we were very pleased to see 75% of delegates make the trip from other parts of Australia, demonstrating the appeal of the program.”
In the opening address, Mr De Gori revealed the future growth of financial planning will be built on three pillars: student engagement, professionalism and consumer awareness. This followed the FPA’s announcement earlier in the day that it welcomed the Government’s introduction of legislation on the Professional Standards and Education Framework into Parliament.
Another significant step in the development of the profession was ASIC’s approval of the FPA’s Professional Ongoing Fees Code, which was also announced on Wednesday.
“From July 1 next year, our members will have the option of signing up to a new section of the FPA’s code covering opt-in, which will remove them from the need to comply with the legislative version of opt-in contained in the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) laws,” said Mr De Gori.
In line with its goal to increase consumer awareness, the FPA also announced a new online destination called Money & Life will be launched in the New Year. The website is designed to help Australians improve their financial wellbeing and will offer regular content that empowers and educates readers with up-to-date information, practical tips and inspiring real life stories to help them manage their finances.
The FPA recognised the outstanding achievements of its members with a series of awards at the FPA Congress, including two new awards for 2016, the FPA Professional Practice of the Year and FPA Paraplanner of the Year award. The FPA’s first-ever Paraplanner workshop was a success, with over 100 delegates registered to attend. The FPA Professional Practice workshop was a sell-out.
Thanks to the dedicated fundraising efforts of the FPA community, the Future2 Foundation announced $147,000 in Future2 grants. The grants will go to community not-for-profits around Australia, helping bring opportunity and hope to socially and financially disadvantaged young Australians.
Building on the success of this year’s Perth event, the 2017 FPA Professionals Congress has been confirmed to take place in Hobart from 22-24 November, where financial planners will have more opportunities to grow, share and connect.
< Prev Post Next Post > CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® and are certification marks owned outside the US by the Financial Planning Standards Board Ltd (FPSB). Financial Planning Association of Australia Limited is the marks licensing authority for the CFP marks in Australia, through agreement with the FPSB. | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/2186 | Gov’t owes UDC millions A review of the Urban Development Corporation’s books by the Auditor General’s Department has shown that the Government owes millions in rent to the agency. The report highlights that the government has failed to pay $137 million in rent for office spaces it occupies. It was noted that this accounted for 71 per cent of the total $194 million owed to the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) in receivables.
The remaining 29 per cent, which translates to $56 million, is owed by private tenants. It was noted that $148 million of the total receivables has been outstanding for more than 120 days.
The report also pointed out that the UDC does not have an effective system in place to ensure that contractual agreements with tenants are kept current. The department said a list provided by the Corporation shows that 116 properties are leased to government and private tenants. It said 46 of those leases have expired and there were no formal agreements for another 23 of the properties. The Auditor General’s Department said the failure to collect outstanding rent is resulting in a reduction in the value of the assets and prevents the UDC from meeting its objective of transforming its receivables into cash or tangible assets. Like our new Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/gleanerjamaica Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/JamaicaGleaner radio@gleanerjm.com © Copyright Gleaner Company Limited | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/2338 | commentsEx-Goldman director indicted in insider caseBy Susan Candiotti and Jessica Dickler @CNNMoney October 26, 2011: 6:00 PM ET Ex-Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, pictured at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 28, 2010, in Davos, Switzerland (See correction below) .NEW YORK (CNN) -- Former Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble director Rajat Gupta was indicted on insider trading charges Wednesday, U.S. prosecutors say.According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gupta was charged with six counts of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Print
CommentGupta surrendered Wednesday morning. "Today's surrender is the latest step in an initiative launched by the FBI in 2007 targeting hedge fund insider trading," said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice Fedarcyk. Gupta's attorney, Gary Naftalis, said that "the government's allegations are totally baseless.""He did not trade in any securities, did not tip Mr. Rajaratnam so he could trade, and did not share in any profits as part of any quid pro quo," Naftalis said in a statement. Gupta appeared in court Wednesday afternoon and pled not guilty to the charges against him. Gupta is out on bail after using his Connecticut home as collateral to post the $10 million bond.The Securities and Exchange Commission also charged Gupta with insider trading Wednesday and filed new insider trading charges against hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam after first charging him with insider trading in October 2009. According to the SEC's complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Gupta illegally tipped Rajaratnam with insider information about the quarterly earnings of both Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble (PG, Fortune 500), and leaked the $5 billion investment in Goldman at the height of the financial crisis by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500). The complaint says that immediately after Gupta and other members of the board agreed to accept that investment, Gupta tipped off Rajaratnam. A few minutes later, prosecutors say Rajaratnam bought 217,200 shares of Goldman Sachs for approximately $27 million. A day later -- and after Goldman Sachs publicly announced the investment by Berkshire Hathaway -- Rajaratnam sold those shares, generating an illegal profit of more than $800,000, according to the indictment. If convicted, Gupta faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on the conspiracy charge and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gain from the alleged crime. He also faces 20 years in prison on each of the securities fraud charges plus a maximum fine of $5 million for each count or twice the gain from the crime.The investigation against Gupta, who led consulting firm McKinsey & Co., stems from the trial of Rajaratnam.According to the indictment, Gupta relayed insider information to Rajaratnam with the understanding that Rajaratnam would use that information to purchase and sell securities. "Rajat Gupta was entrusted by some of the premier institutions of American business to sit inside their boardrooms, among their executives and directors, and receive their confidential information so that he could give advice and counsel for the benefit of their shareholders," said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. "As alleged, he broke that trust and instead became the illegal eyes and ears in the boardroom for his friend and business associate, Raj Rajaratnam, who reaped enormous profits from Mr. Gupta's breach of duty," Bharara said. Rajaratnam, former manager of the defunct hedge fund Galleon Group, was sentenced this month to 11 years in federal prison -- a record for insider trading -- and fined $10 million. He was found guilty on May 11 of all 14 counts of conspiracy and fraud, after netting $64 million on a long-running insider trading scam.Rajaratnam's kidney transplant could cost taxpayers $300,000Rajaratnam was accused of profiting on trades he made using non-public information.During the trial, prosecutors played dozens of wiretapped phone calls, in which Rajaratnam discussed proprietary information on big companies, including Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500).The prosecution said the recordings showed Rajaratnam receiving information from Gupta that he used to make $17 million in illegal profits. Rajaratnam managed $7 billion at Galleon before the hedge fund shut down following his indictment in 2009."There were legitimate reasons for any communications between Mr. Gupta and Mr. Rajaratnam -- not the least of which was Mr. Gupta's attempt to obtain information regarding his $10 million investment in the GB Voyager fund managed by Mr. Rajaratnam," said Naftalis, Gupta's attorney. "In fact, Mr. Gupta lost his entire investment in the fund at the time of the events in question, negating any motive to deviate from a lifetime of probity and distinguished service."Correction: An earlier version of the story contained a caption misidentifying Gupta's job. First Published: October 26, 2011: 8:41 AM ET Related ArticlesGalleon manager Rajaratnam sentenced Who are the 1%? Preet Bharara: The enforcer of Wall Street | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/2492 | Governance | New Pocket Guide to IFRS
By Elizabeth Kennedy July 1, 2016
The IFRS® Foundation, the oversight body of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), has published the 2016 edition of the Pocket Guide to IFRS® Standards: the global financial reporting language. Written and developed by former IASB board member Paul Pacter, the guide introduces IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) and gives an overview of the standards-setting process. The analysis of reporting standards was conducted across 143 jurisdictions (which together represent 98% of global GDP). Most of those jurisdictions permit the use of the standards, and 119 of the jurisdictions (83%) require their use by domestic publicly accountable companies and financial institutions.
The guide also shows that 80 jurisdictions now either permit or require use of the 2009 IFRS for SMEs® Standard, targeted to small and midsize companies without public accountability. Additional major developments this year are in the Asia-Pacific region, where 74% of jurisdictions now require use of the standards and most others major Asian economies are progressing toward adoption.
IASB Chairman Hans Hoogervorst said, “It is great to see continued strong momentum in the progress towards IFRS standards across the major Asian economies. In an ideal world, we would have one single, trusted global standard for financial reporting. Users of financial reports can now easily compare information from companies across nearly 120 jurisdictions, in every region of the world.”
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/2638 | Adient wins “Best Investor Relations for an IPO” award from IR Magazine
Adient wins “Best Investor Relations for an IPO” award from IR Magazine Awards
3/23/17 Adient, the global leader in automotive seating and interiors, was recognized by IR Magazine for “best investor relations for an initial public offering (IPO) or spinoff” on Thursday, March 23, 2017 at Cipriani Wall Street.
“The Adient team is honored to have won ‘best IR for an IPO or spinoff’,” says Mark Oswald, executive director of investor relations for Adient. “It was extremely exciting to launch as an independent company and witness the tremendous value creation for our shareholders.”
Adient spun off from Johnson Controls, a world leader in building products and technology, integrated solutions and energy storage, and launched as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange on October 31, 2016.
"The success achieved was made possible thanks to the enormous contributions from those that support Adient’s IR efforts… including the company’s leadership team… in particular our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bruce McDonald and our EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Stafeil, Adient’s investment banks, market intelligence team, public relations & marketing team, and the New York Stock Exchange," said Oswald.
Nominees for the IR awards are identified by in-depth research and any publicly traded company is eligible for consideration. Tens of thousands of analysts and investors then vote on each category.
Adient plans to continue strengthening the market, diversify revenue base and further margin enhancement. For more information about Adient’s investor relations, please follow this link. | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/2780 | Harvard Economist: US Should Phase-Out All Currency Larger Than $10 Bills
By Barbara Hollingsworth | September 16, 2016 | 11:24 AM EDT Harvard Economics Professor Kenneth Rogoff. (Harvard University) (CNSNews.com) – The Unites States should phase-out all denominations of the U.S. dollar larger than a $10 bill to thwart money launderers and tax evaders, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff told attendees at a Council on Foreign Relations event this week in Washington, D.C.“Cash is not used in ordinary retail transactions. It’s used by tax evaders and in a lot of crime of all types, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, racketeering, you name it,” said Rogoff, a member of the economic advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and author of The Curse of Cash.“Cash is being used less and less in ordinary transactions,” Rogoff pointed out, noting that the average middle-class American holds about $150 in cash, compared to more than $100,000 in total assets.“Cash is nothing,” he said.Rogoff envisions a gradual phase-out of bills larger than $10 over a 15-to-20 year period “to deal with the unintended consequences” of moving to a cashless economy, and scoffed at those who fear the government would then be able to monitor every transaction. “If you don’t trust the government and all your money is in cash, you’re pretty stupid,” he said.According to the Federal Reserve, there were 38.1 billion Federal Reserve notes in circulation last year. An order to print 7.1 billion more in 2017 worth $209 billion has been submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The order includes 2.4 billion $1 bills and 1.5 billion $100 bills.“There are 11.1 billion $100 bills in circulation, and about 75% of them are held in other countries, in part because the U.S. dollar is the dominant international reserve currency,” according to the Wall St. Journal.Noting that many of the $100 bills in circulation are used for “illegal activities abroad by Mexican drug lords, Colombian rebels and Russian oligarchs,” Rogoff argued that the “wholesale elimination” of high-denomination bills would mostly affect organized criminals and tax evaders. “Every transaction inevitably leaves a trail. Cash doesn’t,” he said.(AP photo)“Big [cash] purchases are dirty money,” the Harvard economist stated. “Cutting crime by 5 percent would be a good trade. And if the government can collect 15 percent of taxes that it is not getting, you could cut everybody’s taxes."The Nordic countries have already reduced cash transactions to about 5 percent of the total, he noted. The impetus to go cashless in Europe was terrorism. “Something bad could spark things here, too,” he said.But Dr. Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University, pointed out that many criminals use “trade-based money laundering,” such as exchanging banned elephant ivory for Chinese imports.CNSNews.com asked Shelley if eliminating most cash – which Rogoff said he did not recommend for developing markets and emerging economies – would stop terrorist groups and other criminals from laundering money.“You have to be kidding!” she replied. “They [terrorists] are at the forefront of inventing new methods and refining old methods of trade-based money laundering. Illicit trade has exploded with the Internet.”In May, Shelley testified before Congress that such illicit trade makes up an estimated 8 to 15 percent of the global economy and “is growing in almost all identified categories,” providing funding for terrorist groups and drug cartels.“But this illicit trade does not exist in a vacuum. It is supported by banks, it is supported by law firms, it is supported by professional services that write contracts, that develop contracts, and help mask the illicit trade,” she testified. “You can hide money in a shell corporation in Delaware, no questions asked,” agreed Porter McConnell, director of the Financial Transparency Coalition. “It’s so easy to do. It’s actually quite easy to move billions.”Criminals and terrorists use phony invoices, inflate prices of intangible intellectual property, and other tricks to launder money, McConnell told CNSNews. “This stuff is such a bigger game than cash. You can’t move billions of dollars in a briefcase.”
Rogoff also argued that reducing the amount of cash would also give the Federal Reserve another monetary policy tool because it would eliminate the current constraints on cutting interest rates.“My basic take is that it’s a good idea to get rid of big bills, period, over the longer term,” Rogoff said, especially since U.S. banks may follow the lead of Switzerland and Sweden at some point and “effectively use a negative interest rate policy.”“Cash is in the way because if you charge a relatively large interest rate to hold money,” large institutional depositors such as pension plans and insurance companies “will take it out,” he explained.“Right now, central banks are at a loss about what to do about monetary policy. European banks are looking at negative interest rates. We need to be able to do something,” he said, adding that “central bankers are doing a lot of things more dangerous, such as buying 20 percent of the corporate bond market in the next round.”Rogoff added that he was not worried that criminals would just switch to alternative currencies such as gold or Bitcoin (“which is not really anonymous”) if most cash transactions were eliminated. “There are creative ways to do anything, but you can only use them [alternative currencies] sometimes,” he said. “The government can just say to the banks and retail stores: ‘You can’t take that’,” he explained.CNSNews asked Rogoff how people could get their money out of a failing bank if large denominations are phased out.“If the bank wants to give you the money, it can do so with an electronic transfer,” he replied, adding that "we still insure deposits up to $250,000.”But not everybody at the event was convinced that phasing-out currency was a good idea.Routine cash-based transactions not only ensure privacy, but protect people from credit card and financial fraud as well as identity theft, Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, pointed out, adding that "the greatest abuser of cash is the government, which sent pallets of cash to Iraq to pay out money without accountability."Related: Terrorism Expert: ‘Radicalized Criminals’ Pose New Terror Threat to Europe, US FollowBarbara HollingsworthBio | ArchiveMore from Barbara Hollingsworth Printer-friendly version | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/2992 | Mortgage horror: Lender won't help after couple's child dies
By: Jen A. Miller, December 04th 2012
Your sick child means nothing to your mortgage lender.
Not even if he dies.
You've drained your life savings. Pay me.
You've gone deep into debt. Pay me.
You've buried your boy. Pay me.
Your tragedy is an "insufficient hardship."
What happened to Noel and Debra Lesley is the biggest horror story I've seen to come out of the real estate mess of the last few years.
But were it not for the death of their son, Brad, the family's situation would be just another sad example of how screwed up the home loan business really is.
Instead, their story shows something more. The lenders and the companies that service loans lack a basic moral compass. They appear incapable of doing the right thing.
Refinancing, then illness
In 1998, the Lesleys bought their Orange County, Calif., home. In 2006, they refinanced on the basis that the property was worth about $400,000. They did the refi with a 3/1 adjustable-rate mortgage from Countrywide Financial, the reckless subprime lender later bought by Bank of America.
Two years later, Brad fell gravely ill after being diagnosed with cancer.
Insurance wouldn't cover the cost of treatments, so Noel and Debra drained their savings and maxed out their credit cards to pay the medical bills.
And then their 17-year-old son died of heart failure attributed to his cancer.
Loan modification denied
Grieving and saddled with debt, the value of the couple's home also had plummeted to about $200,000, leaving them unable to refinance, according to the couple’s attorney, Anthony G. Graham.
So, they asked for a loan modification in 2008, knowing the payments would balloon in 2009 when the loan was scheduled to reset at a much higher 8.05% interest rate.
They sought no principal reduction but were looking for a fixed-rate loan of 3%, which would have reduced their monthly payments by about $750. “They’re not moochers," Graham says. "They want to pay the full balance on the loan,” which is about $350,000.
In May 2009, Litton Loan Servicing, which serviced the Lesleys' loan on behalf of Bank of America, denied the request, writing in a letter that the death of a child was not a "sufficient hardship," according to a lawsuit filed in Orange County.
That Lesleys' lawsuit outlined several allegations, including breach of contract. The suit argued the only "justification" for Litton and the other defendants to deny the modification was "to cause as much emotional pain … as possible."
Unbelievably, the lender and its paper-pushers absolutely failed to show "basic humanity," the lawsuit alleged.
“I wish I could say any of this surprises me a little bit, but the fact is, none of it surprises me," says Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. But, Rheingold says, “The callousness of it is breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking.” Lender fails again
Who is modifying loans?
Permanent modifications
CitiMortgage
GMAC Mortgage
Source: Propublica.org, June 2012
Unfortunately, the torment doesn’t end there. After Noel and Debra sued, they fell further down the awful rabbit hole that is the loan modification process. And this is where the story starts to look familiar to anyone who has tried to get the terms of their loan changed. The lawsuit did what the Lesleys' initial plea for help didn't: It got the lender's attention. In June 2009, all parties agreed to put the lawsuit on hold in an attempt to reach an agreement.
The couple filed the required paperwork as part of the modification request. Then they were asked to file again. They didn’t get the modification offer until February 2011, when they were told by Bank of America they would be granted a modification if they made three trial payments, which would be held in a trust.
The Lesleys did so. And heard nothing until January 2012 when Bank of America sold their loan to Ocwen Financial Corp., a firm that specializes in servicing "high-risk loans." I should note here that Ocwen also owns Litton.
This is important because in March, Ocwen rejected the loan modification, claiming the Lesleys failed to make trial payments — payments Litton had already said it had received. In fact, the Lesleys made timely trial loan payments for eight months last year.
And yet, through pure incompetence, the Lesleys have incurred $72,000 in penalties and fees.
The Lesleys’ credit was wrecked after the loan was reported to credit reporting agencies as in default. Their credit score dropped from 720 to just above 500. And so they sued again this year, arguing that Bank of America (which has since been dismissed from the lawsuit), Litton and Ocwen breached their contract to modify the loan and have intentionally inflicted emotional distress. “What more can they put this poor family through?” Rheingold asks. “The family’s done everything they were supposed to do, and the servicer just keeps screwing up because they can.”
Ocwen Financial did not respond to a request for comment. I did talk to Bank of America. A spokesman declined comment other than to remind me that the bank no longer holds the loan and therefore is no longer part of the lawsuit.
I can only hope Ocwen is shamed into settling this mess, but that would mean it has to find some of that "basic humanity" the defendants in this case are sorely lacking. | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3082 | New Home Building Approvals Up By 6.9 Percent In WA
by Christopher Levay
Despite the news on the negative sentiment of the economy of Western Australia, new home building approvals in the region rose to about 17 percent in August this year. This new figure was reported by HIA. In a press release which covered the overall status of the Australian new homes market, HIA reported that Western Australia is considered to be the third fastest growing region for new homes in the country just after South Australia and Tasmania. The figure likewise revealed that new home approvals in New South Wales and Victoria are declining.
During last August, the total seasonally adjusted new building approvals in South Australia grew by 27.9 percent, Tasmania by 17.3 percent, Western Australia by 6.9 percent and Queensland by 4.5 percent. The seasonal adjusted approvals registered declines in Victoria and New South Wales by approximately .7 percent and 28.5 percent respectively. According to the trend patterns, the approvals increased by about 8.3 percent inside the Aussie capital territory. But the figure declined by .7 percent in its Northern Territory. A senior economist at HIA noted that the new building home market in Australia registered record levels of activities during the years 2014 and 2015. The new dwelling commencements reported to have reached about 215,000.
The figures released showed that while the approvals for buildings which are multi-unit are weighed on the overall result, the approvals for detached building structures remained to be strong in August as confirmed by the Housing Industry Association. The HIA is the official voice of the residential building industry in Australia. Last August, the total number of homes for approval was declined by about 6.9 percent in the seasonally adjusted terms from the level of the previous months. The approvals declined during the month despite of a 4.4 percent growth in detached house approvals.
The sector of the home renovations Perth will likely be affected also by this development in the market. Compared to a year ago, the activity is still higher on both of the sides in the market. The increase of detached house approvals only amounted to 3 percent compared to August 2014.
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3094 | Paulson Says Wachovia Was Systemic Risk Sep 29 2008, 8:52AM After the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury facilitated the acquisition of Wachovia by Citigroup, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the failure of Wachovia posed a systemic risk to the U.S. economy, and he praised the FDIC's handling of the situation. "I commend the action taken by Chairman Bair and the FDIC today to facilitate the sale of Wachovia Bank to Citigroup in an orderly fashion to mitigate potential market disruptions," said Paulson. "The FDIC's actions help to mitigate potential systemic risk to our financial system."
All of Wachovia's deposits are protected and the move should help limit the financial market disruptions, added Paulson. The Treasury Secretary pledges to continue taking all necessary measures to help protect the U.S. financial system and economy.
The news comes just as the U.S. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act reaches the House floor on Monday for vote. Assuming it passes, the bill could give the Treasury the authority to purchase up to $700 billion in various illiquid assets in the U.S. financial system.
By Erik Kevin Franco and edited by Sarah Sussman©CEP News Ltd. 2008 | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3124 | Lending industry pushes for statewide regulation - KFDA - NewsChannel 10 / Amarillo News, Weather, SportsMember Center:Create Account|Log InManage Account|Log Out
Lending industry pushes for statewide regulation
Consumer Service Alliance of TexasFort Worth Star-Telegram ArticleUniversity of Texas Industry Study
Amarillo, TX -- Business and government in Texas are traditionally at odds - the Texas mentality is usually the less government oversight, the better. But the lending industry is pushing the legislature for more regulation. Payday and auto title loans are meant as short-term solutions to help someone through a financial rough patch. But both lenders and their critics say the status quo has to change for the good of the industry and consumers. Currently, there are about 4500 short-term loan businesses in Texas, and their clientele tends to be largely poor. And many customers take out multiple loans to pay off other loans, which perpetuates a cycle of poverty and debt and opens the door to predatory lending practices. "I have no doubt that industry has really helped folks out," says Matt Adams, an investment analyst at Money Methods in Amarillo. "There's been situations to where they have really been a lifesaver, so to speak, to somebody who's really in desperate need. However, there's a fine line between providing that need and taking advantage of somebody in a situation like that."
The Consumer Service Alliance of Texas is an industry group that pushes for rules and regulations that benefit business while protecting consumers. This legislative session, CSAT is hoping lawmakers will make some key changes, as CSAT spokesman Rob Norcroff explains, "What we've done in the best practices and other things that are being discussed by the legislators are limits on the number of times you can refinance a loan, no fees, no costs, extended payment plans, and mandatory principal reductions on other types of loans. The goal is to put someone on the path to repayment in a time certain, regardless of the type of loan obtained."
Payday lending is actually banned in twelve states, and some states have caps on the maximum loan amount - Texas does not. If you'd like to learn more about the lending industry or its ongoing efforts in Austin, follow the links attached to this story. Today's Local News HeadlinesToday's Local NewsMore>> | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3130 | Banks Losing Billions in Fees Due to Overdraft Policy Implemented in 2010; Loss Could Affect Banks' Ability to Lend Article ID: 584754
Released: 17-Jan-2012 10:30 AM EST
Source Newsroom: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Business Ethics, Economics Tim Yeager, University of Arkansas
Newswise — FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A new study by finance researchers at the University of Arkansas shows that U.S. banks are losing anywhere from $3.8 billion to $5.3 billion in annual revenue due to the Federal Reserve’s 2010 changes to overdraft policy. “The lower fee revenue may further impair the ability of banks to lend money, which will prolong economic weakness,” said Tim Yeager, associate professor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. “This comes at a time when bank revenues are already strained by reductions in interchange fees, a weak economy and ongoing weakness from the financial crisis.” Yeager and student Kyle Mills examined the impact of changes to Regulation E, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, and found that low opt-in rates by consumers decreased the number of accounts from which overdraft fees were generated and thus adversely affected bank revenue both nationally and in Arkansas.Until recently, most banks automatically enrolled consumers in an overdraft protection service that charged a fee for one-time debit card transactions and automated teller machine withdrawals that exceeded a customer’s account balance. However, effective July 1, 2010, changes to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act required that consumers opt-in to these overdraft services. Accounts created after the mandatory compliance date of July 1, 2010, were immediately subject to the new opt-in procedure. If an existing account holder did not opt-in to a bank’s overdraft protection service by Aug. 15, 2010, then the bank was required to remove the fee-based, overdraft protection service from the consumer’s account. The overall effect of the Federal Reserve’s new policy has limited the banking industry’s ability to generate fees through overdraft protection services, Yeager said.He and Mills surveyed Arkansas banks and found that only 31.4 percent of all account holders opted for overdraft protection on one-time debit transactions and ATM withdrawals. Because their sample size was small, the researchers validated the accuracy of the low opt-in rate by comparing their study to a recent Center for Responsible Lending study, which revealed a similar rate – 33 percent.To quantify the revenue decline, Yeager and Mills analyzed quarterly report data from 7,034 U.S. banks from the fourth quarter of 2008 through the second quarter of 2011. They focused specifically on changes to quarterly deposit service charges relative to transaction deposits. Their analysis controlled for the effects of bank size, deposit growth, changes in deposit insurance and county unemployment rates, which can affect deposit service charges depending on whether customers overdraft more often to cover cash-flow shortfalls. The researchers found that for the median Arkansas bank, the estimated annual revenue loss was between $154,000 and $168,000. For U.S. banks with the same amount of deposits, the estimated annual revenue loss was between $105,000 and $120,000. “Clearly, changes to Regulation E have adversely affected bank revenue nationwide,” Yeager said. “It will be interesting to see how banks respond. Because the drop in revenue is quite sizeable, I think many banks will take steps to reduce overhead expenses or raise fees elsewhere to offset the lower revenue.”Yeager holds the Arkansas Bankers Association Chair in Banking. He was an economist at the Federal Reserve in St. Louis. Permalink to this article | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3264 | How to account for school fees
Paying for children’s education can be a costly business but options are available for parents who want to ensure they get a head start.
Sue Hoban
Many parents bracing for the inevitable post-Christmas influx of back-to-school bills might now be rueing the fact they didn’t put money aside earlier to help take the sting out of rising education costs.If you’re one of them, you’re not alone. The latest evidence suggests about 60 per cent of Australian families fail to make provision for future education costs and of those who do, most fall well short of the funding needed.
Cosy arrangement ... Kelly Kent has been putting money aside for her son Mason's education. Photo: Sahlan Hayes
An obvious reason is that in the preschool period, many families are going to be stretched to the limit just trying to pay the rent or the mortgage, particularly if they lose their second income during the early child-rearing years.Yet financial advisers such as James Gerrard, a partner at PSK Financial Services, contend that even small amounts set aside regularly can make a meaningful difference.‘‘It doesn’t have to be a massive burden on their cash flow; it could be as little as $100 a month and that will compound over a period until the child is ready to go to school and they need to draw down on some expenses,’’ he says.Gerrard suggests that another possible reason for inactivity may be that, apart from setting up a bank account in a child’s name – a potentially problematic option – many people just don’t know what strategies are available to them.
There are a few different ways to organise education savings. A popular and tax-neutral strategy is to make extra payments off the home loan to get ahead and then draw back down on it when the bills start coming in.If, as a couple, you are on higher marginal tax rates, you might be better off with the tax-paid options of investment bonds or special education savings plans, where the issuer pays tax on the growth at amaximumof 30 per cent.Or you might prefer to rely on traditional investments, such as high-interest savings accounts, managed funds or direct investment in shares or property.There is no single most tax-effective solution for everyone. Selecting the right one for your family will depend on a range of factors, such as your incomes and marginal tax rates, how much you can afford to put in, how long before you need the money, your saving discipline, investment experience and tolerance for risk.Never too late
While it’s advisable to start early to maximise the benefits of compound growth and allow moregrowth-focused investment choices, financial advisers insist it is never too late to start, particularly with rises in education costs continuing to outstrip inflation and wages growth and the prospect of hefty HECS fees beyond the school years.The director of NavigateWealth, Peter Alvarez, suggests that whatever strategy you adopt, investing for education should not be done in isolation; rather, it should always be considered as part of a holisticwealth-creation plan.‘‘It is going to be a lot more powerful if you can meet not just your education savings objectives but your other objectives at the same time; rather than trying to meet one but, really, failing in all the others that are maybe just as important things,’’ he says.Another factor to consider when deciding on an education savings strategy is in whose name the investment should be held. Since federal government changes six months ago, it has become even less advisable to put any sizeable investment in your child’s name.It used to be possible for minors to earn income up to $3333 a year tax-free from sources such as dividends and interest. In a bid to avoid parents diverting income to children’s names to avoid tax, this has been reduced to $416 and any non-work income minors earn between $417 and $1307 attracts the penalty tax rate of 66 per cent, with 45 per cent applied beyond that – a trap grandparents inclined to put lump sums aside for future education should also be aware of.In most cases, it’s best to put the investment in the name of the lowest-earning family member, a non-working parent or even a grandparent.Using your mortgage
The simplest method of setting money aside for education is to earmark a certain amount each month to pay off your home loan, then use an offset account or redraw facility from which to draw down later as the money is needed.‘‘When you do that, you are effectively generating a 6 or 7 per cent return because you are not paying that in interest on your home loan,’’ Gerrard says.‘‘The big advantage is the simplicity. There is no third company involved, so you also save on management and investment fees, and it’s easy to understand and implement the strategy.’’But a word of warning – be careful if you lack financial discipline.‘‘That’s the big negative here,’’ Gerrard says. ‘‘You have to be disciplined, first to put that money away off the home loan each month and then not be tempted to redraw it for any other expenses.’’Investment bonds
These are long-term managed investment products which, because of the time frame, can be an attractive vehicle for education saving.Because earnings and capital gains are tax-paid at 30 per cent and are not included as part of your taxable income – providing they are held for the minimum 10-year period – they are worth considering if you are on higher marginal tax rates.However, additional contributions cannot exceed 125 per cent of the previous year’s deposit, otherwise the 10-year period restarts.Locking money away for this length of time to achieve a tax advantagemay not appeal to everyone but it does reduce the likelihood you will be tempted to use the money for anything other than education.The managing director of Eureka Financial Group,Greg Cook, says investment bonds are now a more attractive proposition than they were in the past.‘‘The products have got more competitive,’’ he says. ‘‘They used to be old life insurance companies with fairly heavy management fees but they have got leaner and there is now a much wider range of investment options available.’’Managed funds
This is a similar instrument to an investment bond, with similar fees and charges but without the restricted time frame– or concessional tax treatment. However, that won’t be an issue if you are an average-income earner on a marginal tax rate of 31.5 per cent, including the Medicare levy, or you want to invest in the name of a non-working parent.Managed funds offer greater flexibility in being able to access money, the investment term and the scope you have to make additional contributions. They also offer a wider choice of fund options to suit your risk profile.Education savings plans
These are education-specific managed investment products, or scholarship plans, set up by friendly societies, again offering a tax advantage (30 per cent paid within the fund) if you are on higher marginal tax rates. Although heavily marketed, they have been a less popular option among financial advisers because of the relatively high fees charged for the amounts being managed and historically lower returns.But they do offer a simple, disciplined approach for education savings and can be made either via weekly contributions, lump sums or a combination of both.The most prominent are offered by Lifeplan and the Australian ScholarshipGroup. But be aware that under the ASG model’s foundation program, all earnings fromthe pooled funds are used to provide scholarship benefits to students who go on to post-secondary study.If your child does not, you will get back no more than the capital you put in. Make sure you do yourresearch and check the experiences others have had with this option.High-interest savings accounts
Setting up a dedicated education savings account is a good starting point if you are putting aside regular small amounts or trying to grow savings to the minimum level required for one of the managed investment options.Like other traditional forms of investment, interest earnings will be taxed at your marginal rate but you will retain full control over your money. Online savings accounts, now paying about 6 per cent interest, have lower fees and charges and can be linked to a bank account to allow a regular transfer from your wages.Gerrard says another option is BankWest’s Kids’ Bonus Saver account, which pays 10 per cent interest for the first 12 months. You only qualify for that if you maintain monthly deposits between $25 and $250 but the catch is that after 12 months, the rate drops back to 0.25 per cent.‘‘I recommend that parents make a calendar note every 12 months to go downto the bank, close the account and restart it again so they keep getting the 10 per cent,’’ Gerrard says.Direct investment
Creating your own investment portfolio of shares or property as a vehicle to save for education could suit if you are an experienced investor prepared to take a more hands-on approach, or if you get advice from a professional who deals in direct investment.It is potentially more risky than other options but, according to Alvarez, is more tax-effective for those who can invest enough to make it feasible.‘‘That’s because you control the buying and selling and the realisation of any capital gains or losses,’’ he says.‘‘You can choose not to buy and sell as often as funds that are managed by the institutions,therefore you are not going to be liable for capital gains tax as often.’’Alvarez says setting up a sufficiently diversified portfolio of eight to 10 stocks would probably require a minimum initial outlay of $40,000 to $50,000.Future-proof with a nest egg
WHEN salon owner Kelly Kent sets herself a goal, she isn't easily sidetracked. That determination has worked for her in business and now it is working to ensure she has the financial resources available to put her eight-year-old son, Mason, through school - and possibly university."I started putting money aside when I was six months' pregnant because I wanted to have choices as to where I sent him to school," she says."I just knew that if I wanted to send him to a private school, it was going to be very expensive and I wanted to make sure I had that money sitting there, if and when I needed to use it."Despite running a successful business for the past 15 years, Kelly was not prepared to leave anything to chance."You don't have a guaranteed income when you have your own business," she says. "You don't know what you are going to get each week and I didn't want to be six years down the track and not have the option of sending him where I wanted."She started by putting $100 a week into a credit union account, where her balance wasn't going to be eroded by fees, until she had built up a tidy nest egg."I wanted to buy a managed fund because I knew the money would accrue a lot more quickly and I wanted to get a wholesale one because I figured you get a lot more bang for your buck, so I spoke to my accountant and he recommended a balanced fund," she says."I don't have time to learn about the stock market so, for me, it was far better to have a managed fund run by people who know what they are doing. It was also good because if something happened where I really needed access to the money for some other reason, I could get it, it wasn't locked away."However, that hasn't proved a temptation. Kelly has continued to add to her initial $10,000 outlay - now putting in an extra $500 every month - and has never had to dip into it."While I can afford to pay the school fees, I don't touch it," she says. "At times, when I was renovating the salon or buying a different property, it would have been tempting to have used that money but even though I pay it, I don't consider it my money. It has always been about Mason's education.''Now I have a buffer that will get him through school if anything happens and then if he wants to go to university, that money will be sitting there ready for him."
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3384 | Vitter wants clean slate of overseers after Ponzi victims get no help
Friday, July 18 2014
BATON ROUGE- In another blow to people who lost around $1 billion in a Ponzi scheme, the SEC lost its appeal to recoup money for victims of R. Allen Stanford.
Stanford was convicted and sentenced in 2012 of using investors money to fund companies that went out of business. It is believed Stanford had more than a thousand accounts in the capital area.
People who lost money in the scheme have been trying to get some money back.
The SEC appeal was before the Securities and Exchange Commission, a target of U.S. Senator David Vitter who, in the wake of the scheme, has called it a broken system that is not working to protect people.
"I urge the SEC to continue its fight against SIPC and appeal this decision to the Supreme Court. However, the ruling today is exactly why we need to reform SIPC - both their members, and how they compensate fraud victims," Vitter said.
"The organization was created and tasked with the sole purpose of protecting investors and victims of fraud. The previous chairs of the board were only interested in protecting Wall Street, but the president has an opportunity to fix that now with new nominees."
Vitter has urged the president to nominate new members to the SIPC.
Stanford will likely die in prison, serving out his sentence related to the scheme.************Follow the publisher of this post on Twitter: @treyschmaltz More News | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3434 | The reversal of reforms on the New Pension System?
In December 2002, the NDA made a very big move in pension reforms. They decided that from 1/1/2004 onwards, all new staff recruited into the government would be switched out of the traditional defined-benefit pension and instead placed into a new individual-account defined contribution pension system. This was one of the major achievements of the economic reforms of that period. For a conceptual picture of the New Pension System (NPS), see this article, and for a story of that period, see this article.
An essential feature of the NPS was that it was a defined contribution system. India has a long history with getting into trouble with guaranteed returns. UTI's assured return schemes turned into a problem for the exchequer. EPS, run by EPFO, is bankrupt. When pension promises are made, they require peering into many decades into the future and arriving at estimates of longevity and asset returns. In the best of times, it is hard to make such estimates; honest mistakes are possible. In addition, when governance is weak, there are political pressures to make extravagant promises, which will look popular right now but generate staggering costs for the government in the future. As an example, rough calculations show that the implicit pension debt on account of the traditional civil servants pension in India (the one which was replaced by the NPS) stand at roughly 70% of GDP. This is a very big price to pay, for a tiny sliver of the workforce.
The NDA did the unpopular work of switching new recruits out of the defined benefit pensions. But the UPA did not follow through appropriately. At first, many years were lost in hoping that the CPI(M) would come on board the reform. After that, the legal engineering was put into place in order to get an NPS up and running without requiring the legislation. This process was slower than what one might have desired, but it has been making inexorable progress.
But now, a new existential threat seems to have come up : the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance seems to be saying that the fundamental idea of the NPS -- defined contributions -- should be scrapped. This would amount to a major reversal of India's economic reforms.
On this subject, see:
Reportage in the Hindustan Times.
How PFRDA Bill proposals change NPS structure, by Deepti Bhaskaran, in Mint.
Editorial in Mint.
pension reforms,
AnonymousWednesday, 7 September 2011 at 21:39:00 GMT+5:30Is this the only reversal. Look at what is happening to Sebi and it's chairman and members, look at the fact that Uti has no chairman for the last 6 months. Is anyone even caring?ReplyDeleteAdd commentLoad more...
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3706 | DiscoveryNew PBS Television Program Highlights NSF-funded Economics Research
NOVA's "Mind Over Money" examines 2008 stock crash
The New York Stock Exchange, focal point of the 2008 stock market crash.
Credit and Larger Version
The popular PBS science television program NOVA asks two simple questions: Why did mainstream economists fail to predict the stock market crash of 2008, and why do people so often make irrational financial decisions? NOVA's producers seek answers from a slew of past and present National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported researchers in a new documentary program called "Mind Over Money," premiering Tuesday, April 27, 2010, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on PBS stations.Jennifer Lerner, Harvard University professor and director of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, was interviewed for the NOVA program."One of the main reasons people make irrational decisions is the influence of immediate emotion," she says. "Being in a fearful state propels us toward risk-averse choices, whereas being in an angry state propels us toward risk-seeking choices. And we are typically completely unaware of these influences; they are opaque to introspection."Lerner has studied decision science for more than 15 years, and she argues that emotion played a significant role in the economic downturn. Her research and training have been supported by NSF for many years, starting with a graduate research fellowship when she was a doctoral student. Currently, she receives support from NSF's Decision, Risk, and Management Science program, as well as from NSF's Social Psychology program.Others whose research had NSF sponsorship and who participate in the program are University of Chicago Nobel Prize recipients in economics Gary Becker and John Cochrane. Richard Thaler, University of Chicago professor of behavioral economics, another former NSF award recipient, who regularly consulted with Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, is also among the participants. In addition, Mind Over Money interviews Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University, and Brian Knutson, professor of psychology at Stanford University, who also received some sponsorship from NSF.In the aftermath of 2008's stock market crash, NOVA's producers wanted to understand what happened. Why did classical economic theories about the stability of markets fail? How can too many spending choices overwhelm rational decisions? And can a new science--behavioral economics, which aims to incorporate human psychology into finance--do better at averting an economic crisis?To get answers, NOVA observed a number of experiments and talked to the experts. In one NSF-supported experiment at Harvard, scientists fitted executives with sensory skull caps to see how their decision-making processes compared to those of people with less high-profile and less stressful careers.The goal was to determine ways in which a person's skill at emotion regulation influences decision making. Lerner hinted that the research team found a number of interesting connections, which may be explored in detail in the NOVA program."The experiments, combined with insights from leading experts, offer a compelling look at the world of finance and investment as well as the saving and spending habits of individuals," said executive producer Howard Swartz. "The economy is a timely topic, so I think audiences will be fascinated by the scientific experiments in "Mind Over Money," which illustrate how mood, decision making, and economic activity are all tightly interwoven."NOVA calls "Mind Over Money" a "show that reveals surprising, hidden money drives in us all and explores controversial new arguments about the world of finance."
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/3748 | New J.P. Morgan Jam
Bank Faces U.S. Action on Antimoney-Laundering Practices
Dan Fitzpatrick And Robin Sidel
Regulators are expected to serve J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. with a formal action alleging weaknesses in the bank's antimoney-laundering systems, said people close to the situation. The cease-and-desist order from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is part of a broader crackdown on the nation's largest banks, the people said. The OCC is expected to require J.P. Morgan to beef up its procedures and examine past...
By Dan Fitzpatrick And Robin Sidel | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/4333 | Insights from a Top Five Star Fund Manager on Drug Pipelines (Part III)
Recently, Larry and I met with an interesting person, Ken Kam. Ken manages the Masters 100 Fund (MOFQX) and is a Morningstar Five Star fund manager. He has been regularly beating the S&P 500 Composite Stock Price index. Ken believes that his approach to investments using virtual portfolios to derive real investment decisions will be the wave of the future. Ken’s approach can be checked out at www.marketocracy.com. Earlier in his career, he had managed a technology and healthcare fund and had also run a medical devices company. During our meeting, we learned about his current holdings and what he thinks about the future of the pharmaceutical industry. This is the third and final of three blogs based on that interview. This is my third and final blog based on a meeting that Larry and I had with Ken Kam, the fund manager of the Marketocracy’s Masters 100 Fund (MOFQX). In my two earlier blogs, I reviewed Ken’s thinking on the current and future prospects for Elan Corporation PLC. When Ken began talking about the future of Elan, he was touching on some of the current issues in the drug industry. That’s when Larry and I started to ask him questions about the industry in general and its future prospects. Ken said that the industry will respond as in the past but that it can’t shortcut research. The old hit or miss approach to drug research is dead. More specifics will be required. Ken says that Genomics will drive much change and that new drugs will have a Genomics element. Large drug companies will have to find early stage drug research and then purchase it. When looking to make future investment decisions, Ken says that he considers two stages. First, the beginning when the drug is unknown and it’s not known yet whether it will work. It’s tough to invest until the clinical trials are done. Next, once the trials are successful, it’s the basic blocking and tackling to run the business that counts. He cites Amgen as an example of a company that had been here with its drug Epogen but had to bring in a partner that had a sales force with preexisting relationships with doctors. Ken says that it’s hard to get into doctors’ offices with only one product. But, it can be done as Amgen and Genentech have demonstrated. Ken thinks that Elan may get there. Also, Ken notes that manufacturing drugs is tough, there aren’t that many people who know how to do it, and even the big players get it wrong once in a while. Start-up’s only have scientists and this second stage is equally as important as the first. Hot IPO markets sometimes let start up’s fund these activities. Other times, it’s the big companies that provide the funding. Ken thinks that we’re in these later times right now. Also, what the business model looks like becomes a factor in making an investment decision. Outsourcing services and support to gain a cost advantage become important considerations. Both Larry and I enjoyed our meeting with Ken Kam and we would like to take this opportunity to thank him and his team for arranging this opportunity for us. As always, we welcome your feedback. Please contact us at larryrothmansblog@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you. Contributed by Guy de Lastin Posted by
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/4594 | the "voice" of the promotional products industry.
Skip Navigation LinksCase Studies > Management - Develop a Business Succession Plan Management - Develop a Business Succession Plan
A Guide To Transitioning Your Family Company
Aug 1, 2013 – by Shane Dale Tweet
If you're content to wait until retirement to create a family business succession plan, Sally Stolen Grossman feels you're making a big mistake. "I think it's never too early to start. Succession planning is just so important," says Grossman, co-editor of the Business Succession Planning Answer Book. "I see far too many owners who wait until the last minute, and it's much, much harder to do the planning then." But succession planning doesn't have to be a headache. Here are some suggestions for making the process easier on you and the rest of your loved ones. Decide on a Successor Grossman believes choosing an in-family successor among competing children is probably the most difficult decision that entrepreneurs will face. "Assuming that you have family that might be interested in the business, you have to do some soul-searching about what the job involves, and whether your kids have the skills and the desire," she says. That's why Grossman strongly recommends bringing in an outside organization to conduct a professional assessment of family members. The assessment should include skill and interest testing to find out whether the family members you have in mind are well-suited to grab the company reins when that time comes. "There are professional family business consultants who specialize in that, and they're very good at it," Grossman says. Set Ground Rules During the succession planning process, Grossman advises business owners to determine specific expectations so everyone knows what they're getting into. "It's very difficult to completely remove the emotion from the process, and I think that's because, by definition, it's a family business," Grossman says. "When you talk about business, you may talk about it at the Thanksgiving dinner table. But there are some things you can do to minimize the emotion. One is to set some ground rules." Among the questions Grossman suggests answering are: Is the process going to be confidential? Is it going to be shared with somebody? Are spouses going to be involved in these discussions? Once you establish the process, the next step is to try to prevent triangulating. "You don't want to have a situation where Johnny's going to come to Dad and say, ‘Suzy said this,' or, ‘I'm upset with Suzy about this.' Make people deal with each other directly," Grossman says. "That healthy relationship stuff is a good place to start." Keep Communication Lines Open
Grossman feels regular conversations and transparency during the consulting process is crucial so everyone involved can be happier, both personally and professionally. "You may not want to lay out all of your preliminary plans," she says, "but at least to some extent in the information-gathering process, I think it's good policy along the way to communicate. Even if it's to say, ‘Here's where we are in this process, we've interviewed all family members, we're taking into account what you think, and the next step will be X.' The more communication, the better, because when you don't talk, people start to spin their own story about what's happening." The Tampa Bay Business Journal's Jo-Lynn Brown, author of the article "Succession planning in a family-owned business," agrees that a lack of communication can lead to unnecessary drama, "particularly if you're dealing with multiple generations – children, grandchildren, cousins, brothers and sisters," she says. "Any drama during a time of transition can be very harmful to a company. You can lose customers and revenue." Brown says transparency needs to be sustained all the way through the succession planning process, and even after the process is complete. "Make a very clear outline of what you want the family to do in the event of someone passing unexpectedly or just retiring," she says. Think About Fairness Differently
Grossman says the best family succession plans are fair-minded, yet logical. In other words, trying to keep all family members happy simply for the sake of fairness is not a winning business formula. "A lot of owners come to me and say, ‘I have four kids and I want to treat them all fairly, so I'm going to give them all one-quarter of the voting stock.' I shake my head and say, ‘Usually, that's not a good plan,' " Grossman says. "Usually, one of those kids is active within the company, and the other three aren't." So then, what exactly should your approach be? "What we do is help the entrepreneur find a way to equalize – to treat the other kids fairly – but to get off the idea that it has to be identical," Grossman says. "And once people know they're being treated fairly, that helps cut down on the emotion." Consider Company Culture
Having a child with experience lead your company is certainly a plus, but Brown says it's just one component that owners need to consider in developing a succession plan. "Something I think might get overlooked is the leadership style of whoever you're considering to take over the reins," she says. "Every company has a culture, and that can really affect the dynamic of the company, the management style, and the leadership quality that the new ownership might possess. Will the person stepping into that maintain a sense of normalcy for the employees of the company?" Selecting a family member whose personality or overall business vision may be drastically different from yours may upset a delicate employee dynamic. "For example, if you look at a company like Google as opposed to a company like Bank of America, they have different ways of doing things and different expectations from employees of those companies," Brown says. "You don't want to have someone step in who drastically changes the feel of the company – the way it functions or some of the traditions. You might lose a lot of your employees that way." Be Open to Outsiders
It may not be easy to accept, but if consultants find out that none of your kids really want to carry on the business, you have to think about leadership alternatives. "We know this has happened before: The parent wants to leave his oldest child the company and keep it in the family, and the child doesn't want it. The next generation wants to do something else," Brown says. "The goal of every business is to continue to grow its profits and revenue. It really does no good to leave your business to someone who's ultimately going to destroy the business." Grossman says there are always other options if family members pass on running your company. "You can transfer the business to other shareholders, managers or employees," she says. Update Your Plan Often
Whatever succession plan you ultimately choose, Brown says it should be revisited on a regular basis. "It needs to be updated frequently – every year or every other year – because the dynamic of a family-owned business can change," she says. "Somebody gets married, somebody gets divorced, or somebody has a child. So, particularly for family businesses, there needs to be some follow-up to it. You can't always know when an emergency situation will take place and the company will need to start going through a transition process." Sponsored By:
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2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/4697 | Expert predictions on what lies ahead for GreeceGreek debt is running at 197% of GDP.
Tim Mullaney, special to CNBC.com
Monday, 6 Jul 2015 | 2:45 PM ETCNBC.com
Who's exposed to Greece? Monday, 6 Jul 2015 | 1:46 PM ET | 01:37 On Sunday, Greek voters decisively rejected a proposal from the nation's creditors to swap new refinancing of Greece's 342.5 billion euro in debt in exchange for tax increases and deep cuts in public spending, especially on pensions. With the unemployment rate stuck near 26 percent and the economy sinking deeper into a depression that has already cut gross domestic product by 30 percent since 2010, Greeks decided not to bet on the idea that more austerity would return their country to prosperity.
Nonetheless, Greece missed a 1.6 billion euro payment on its debt last week and remains "in arrears,'' according to the International Monetary Fund, which, along with the European Central Bank and European Commission, represents Greece's creditors. Nearly all of Greece's debt is held by official creditors, who bought up most of the holdings of hedge funds and other private investors years ago. Until the default is fixed, the IMF says, it won't lend Greece more money. Read MoreGreek future unclear after 'no' vote With the nation once again running a budget deficit after briefly achieving a so-called primary surplus—meaning, a surplus before interest payments—Greece clearly needs more money soon. Here are some of the key questions and answers about what's going on—and what might happen next. Yannis Behrakis | Reuters
A Greek flag during a rally in Athens.
What do the creditors want? Going into the election, their proposal was to cut pensions by another $2.5 billion or more and to raise taxes, especially value-added taxes on tourism to the Greek islands. Since tourism generates almost one-fifth of Greece's GDP and is the nation's only industry besides petroleum refining that generates as much as $2 billion a year in exports, a proposal to boost the VAT on island tourism to 23 percent from 9 percent was a tough sell. Read MoreA timetable for Greece's coming hurdles Creditors' proposals also included selling off publicly owned airports and electricity transmission and cutting military spending, as well as raising corporate income taxes and cutting tax subsidies for diesel fuel and heating oil. The creditors have little else to work with: IMF research director Olivier Blanchard wrote June 14 that pensions and salaries for government workers are 75 percent of the remaining Greek government budget, since everything else has already been "cut to the bone." Pensions alone eat up 16 percent of Greek GDP—almost as much as tourism brings in. By contrast, in the U.S. the old-age and survivors insurance program within Social Security costs less than 5 percent of gross domestic product. Even a 25 percent cut in Social Security benefits would reduce U.S. growth by 1.5 percentage points in the first year, according to an analysis by the American Association of Retired Persons. How has earlier austerity affected Greece? The nation has cut spending by 30 percent since 2008 in response to creditor demands, and GDP has dropped from a high of $355 billion in 2009 to $238 billion last year—about 33 percent—according to Trading Economics. The U.S.boosted spending during the recession and has cut since, with spending now slightly lower than in early 2008, Trading Economics claims. Read MoreHow to protect your portfolio from the Greek crisis
The moves were enough to put Greece briefly into a surplus in 2013. Creditors had expected the austerity measures in a 2012 deal to push Greece's surplus to 4.5 percent of GDP by next year. But the chaos in Greece's economy has driven down the amount expected to be received from privatizing government assets, including those held by banks, and tax collection has remained abysmal. show chapters
What are creditors asking from Greece? Monday, 6 Jul 2015 | 6:14 AM ET | 02:53 What now? There's little chance Greece can repay its full debt, and basically no chance that it can run its government without access to credit, so more talks to try to find a deal are forthcoming. Greece's finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who has had a contentious relationship with creditors, resigned after the election in an apparent attempt to pave the way for more negotiations. In a report last week, the IMF conceded that it's likely the international creditors will have to "take a haircut" by reducing the principal amount of the debt they hold so Greece can make its payments. How much? In 2012, hedge funds agreed to write down about 70 percent of their remaining debt, setting one potential parameter. The IMF's report floated the idea of writing down the debt by about 53 billion euro, which would make the rest of the debt sustainable if Greece's economy grew 1 percent a year and the government ran consistent surpluses of 2.5 percent of GDP. What's the best that can happen? The best-case scenario could take either of two forms, depending on whether a deal is reached. The path the parties will try first is to make a deal, but that would require Germany to back off its opposition to reducing the principal amount of Greece's debt. On Monday, Greece's creditors said the ball was in Athens' court to present a credible deal. With a deal, Greece makes some cuts that are largely offset by a reduction in the payments it has to make to its creditors, whether for interest or for principal reduction. This wouldn't be likely to deliver actual prosperity soon, but might prevent the situation from worsening. Read More Bye, Yanis, hello Euclid. Can this man save Greece? The best-case scenario for Greece without a deal is that it follows the path Argentina did in 2001 and 2002: Devalue its currency, which in Greece's case means abandoning the euro in favor of its own money, hoping that the drop in the cost of tourism and other Greek exports draws enough customers to begin delivering prosperity in a year or two. However, Varoufakis dismissed this idea in a May blog post, saying, "Greece cannot pull off an Argentina.'' What's the worst that can happen? There's little chance that Greece's fundamental economic problems will have much effect on either the U.S. or the rest of Europe, Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said last week. Moody's doesn't think that any financial contagion from a Greek default will force any run on the debt of other struggling euro zone economies, like Spain or Italy, and indeed, yields on their 10-year bonds stayed stable last week amid Greece's uncertainty. Within Greece, however, the short term looks very difficult in any scenario. Any deal is likely to raise taxes and cut spending to some degree, hampering an already shrinking economy. If Greece leaves the European currency union, whatever currency it issues is likely to be sharply devalued. If Varoufakis is right, the rest of Europe wouldn't generate enough tourism or shipping revenue to make up for the value of savings lost in the devaluation, and Greece's human suffering would intensify. Bottom line: No one will be really happy with whatever outcome emerges. "These are tough choices, and tough commitments to be made on both sides," Blanchard wrote on his blog. | 金融 |
2017-17/2440/en_head.json.gz/4729 | From the December 5, 2012 issue of Credit Union Times Magazine • Subscribe! Women to Watch: Shari Storm Shares Leadership Lessons
By Myriam DiGiovanni
December 05, 2012 • Reprints For Shari Storm, senior vice president at Verity Credit Union, periodically applying and interviewing for other jobs has helped reinforce that she is exactly where she belongs.
“A mentor I always admired told me a long time ago to interview for other jobs every six months,” said Storm, who is also the author of Motherhood is the New MBA. “Not only as a way to practice interviewing because when you go for that big job you really want, it shouldn’t be the first interview you’ve done in 10 years, but you’re also always able to articulate your market value. The most important reason though is if you do get an offer, by deciding to turn it down you recommit yourself to your current job. Sometimes people stay in a job just because they are either too lazy, scared or nervous to try to do something else. I think it’s really pertinent in the credit union industry where sometimes people stay for decades. If it’s passion keeping them there great but if they are staying because they don’t want to step outside their comfort zone it’s not fair to them, the credit union or the industry as a whole.”
As someone who has always embraced change or try things, she may not necessarily be good at, the latest individual to be recognized by Credit Union Times as a Woman to Watch tends to take life and challenges as they come.
“Being a working mom of three young daughters, at this stage of my life, my basic tenet is that I start my day with a cup of coffee; I end my day with a glass of wine and hope that everything works out in between,” said Storm.
She almost wasn’t a part of the industry. When a friend suggested she go for a job at the Seattle-based Verity CU, Storm thought a career in the financial industry sounded boring.
“She convinced me to go, and I fell in love with everyone on the executive team. They were interesting, nice and smart so you could say I joined credit unions not for the industry but for the people,” said Storm. “I also thought the way our CEO Bill Hayes conducted the interview where he sat me down to work on a problem the credit union was challenged with was a brilliant way to do an interview and get to really know one another.”
By the time Storm left, she was completely sold on Verity and paid to put together a video of her 72 television appearances during a stint in public relations. She went in the next day, handed the video to Hayes and said, “Here is some work I’ve done in PR.” Now every time Storm celebrates an anniversary or milestone at the over $397 million credit union, Hayes mentions how she is the only person who’d ever given him a video.
“I’m hardwired in sales,” said Storm. “I don’t think ever dreamt about a certain career. I know I always been drawn to jobs where I can make an impact and have creative license to do unusual things. The fact that we here jumped into social media way before everyone is just one of the many ways I can flex my creative muscles here and do things out of the ordinary.”
She added that sales has often gotten a bum rap and helps make a difference in getting ideas off the shelf and into the market.
“You need someone on your team who can paint that picture, overcome objections and bring people along because you have to have that buy-in from not just the CEO and executive team but the board, tellers, IT department, members–everyone–or that idea will just die,” said Storm. “Always remember to unfold the story slowly. I’ve learned if you drop a new idea saying, ‘Here you go, what do you think?’ it never works. You’ve got to set the stage, bring it along slowly, then listen, get feedback and be prepared to adjust course. Everyone likes their own idea best, so the more you can incorporate those ideas into the one big idea there will be more buy-in.”
That sense of transparency and encouraging the flow of information and ideas has been a cornerstone of Storm’s approach to leadership.
“I try to be fair and forthright. I like to change things up to avoid complacency,” said Storm. “The two talents I am most proud of is my ability to hire and keep really good people and my ability to spot trends. Innovation has a dose of creativity but equal measures of profitability. You can’t embrace a new idea just because it’s cool and fun, there has to be a good business reason for doing it. I think the best innovators have creativity, good business acumen and are very persuasive.”
Some of the top three initiatives she’s been most proud of at Verity exemplify how small changes can make a big impact. The first was some 10 years ago when Storm convinced everyone to use Outlook to schedule meetings rather than having to coordinate and book meeting rooms through the receptionist. It was a simple change that saved time and helped foster greater collaboration. The second initiative of creating a team of loan modification specialists who looked over members’ financials, sources of income to provide a deep, detailed cash flow analysis, helped Verity stay ahead of the curve when the economy started to crash.
“With the old model people would call up, say they can’t make their payment, we’d ask what can you afford and the consumer, who didn’t really know their actual cash flow situation, would just give us a number and we’d try to make it work but everyone would be frustrated,” said Storm. “Now the counselor figures out the real situation and we know this person has $700 a month to pay their mortgage and go from there for the loan modification. So rather than saying here are our rules, play by them, since 2010 this approach has resulted in millions of dollars in loans under management and kept hundreds of members in their homes.”
The third was Verity Mom, the initiative that focused on moms to bring in the whole family, has helped lower the age of its membership. In three years since the launch, the average age of new members has dropped from 39 to 36 years old.
She added that relevance remains key to the industry thriving. According to Storm, some of the questions that need to be asked include are we sure we know what consumers want-both today and tomorrow? How do we step outside the great echo chamber that our industry often is and how do we add diversity to our board of directors?
“I do think the credit union industry can benefit by infusing our volunteer board of directors with new perspectives. I respect and value the wisdom that board members with long tenure bring to our credit unions. I also believe we need to compliment that wisdom with a fresh understanding of today’s environment,” said Storm.
She added that the solution is more nuanced than simply getting some young people on the board. A few suggestions for board recruitment include searching for individuals with the following abilities:
Can discuss the benefits of the new Windows Phone over the Android and the iPhone for at least 10 minutes. Extra points if they use the term Jelly Bean in the conversation.
Uses PayPal, Serve or Venmo to pay a roommate.
Has used or has donated to KickStarter, Indigogo or Slated to fund a project.
Knows the difference between Reddit, Tumblr, 4chan and 9gag.
Uses the words YOLO or cray cray in a sentence without sounding embarrassed.
“It’s challenging to compete in today’s market place. It’s tough to see some of your members struggling to meet their obligations,” said Storm. “Our number one top challenge today is how to grow our loan portfolio. Second is determining what our business model will look like three to five years from now. Changes are coming at us rapidly and we need to sort out what the winning strategy is. Lastly, I think a major challenge is preserving the essence of credit unions, that thing that sets us apart from other financial options. I worry that we might lose sight of that while we fight for market share.” « Prev
Caren Gabriel Knows When to Lead the Team and When to Ride the Bench: Women to Watch As avid a University of Alabama sports fan Caren Gabriel, president/CEO of Tullahoma, Tenn.-based Ascend Federal Credit Union may be,... | 金融 |
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in Dataset Viewer.
Industry models play a crucial role in driving enterprise intelligence transformation and innovative development. High-quality industry data is key to improving the performance of large models and realizing industry applications. However, datasets currently used for industry model training generally suffer from issues such as insufficient data volume, low quality, and lack of domain expertise.
To address these problems, we constructed and applied 22 industry data processing operators to clean and filter 3.4TB of high-quality multi-industry classified Chinese and English language pre-training datasets from over 100TB of open-source datasets including WuDaoCorpora, BAAI-CCI, redpajama, and SkyPile-150B. The filtered data consists of 1TB of Chinese data and 2.4TB of English data. To facilitate user utilization, we annotated the Chinese data with 12 types of labels including alphanumeric ratio, average line length, language confidence score, maximum line length, and perplexity.
Furthermore, to validate the dataset's performance, we conducted continued pre-training, SFT, and DPO training on a medical industry demonstration model. The results showed a 20% improvement in objective performance and a subjective win rate of 82%.
Industry categories: 18 categories including medical, education, literature, finance, travel, law, sports, automotive, news, etc. Rule-based filtering: Traditional Chinese conversion, email removal, IP address removal, link removal, Unicode repair, etc. Chinese data labels: Alphanumeric ratio, average line length, language confidence score, maximum line length, perplexity, toxicity character ratio, etc. Model-based filtering: Industry classification language model with 80% accuracy Data deduplication: MinHash document-level deduplication Data size: 1TB Chinese, 2.4TB English
Industry classification data size:
| Industry Category | Data Size (GB) | Industry Category | Data Size (GB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Programming | 4.1 | Politics | 326.4 |
| Law | 274.6 | Mathematics | 5.9 |
| Education | 458.1 | Sports | 442 |
| Finance | 197.8 | Literature | 179.3 |
| Computer Science | 46.9 | News | 564.1 |
| Technology | 333.6 | Film & TV | 162.1 |
| Travel | 82.5 | Medicine | 189.4 |
| Agriculture | 41.6 | Automotive | 40.8 |
| Emotion | 31.7 | Artificial Intelligence | 5.6 |
| Total (GB) | 3386.5 |
For the convenience of users to download and use, we have split the large dataset into sub-datasets for 18 industries. The current one is the sub-dataset for the finance industry.
Data processing workflow:
- Downloads last month
- 4,164
Size of the auto-converted Parquet files (First 5GB):
2.93 GB
Number of rows (First 5GB):
775,195
Estimated number of rows:
32,574,619