Goldman's reputation is suddenly as toxic as the credit default swaps and other inexplicably exotic financial instruments it used to buy with glee. That's bad for the one thing it values more than anything else: business. Being the prime target for popular and political outrage could put Goldman first in line for draconian new regulation. So it has, reluctantly, decided that the time has come to speak out, to fight its corner. That's how, on one of those bright autumnal New York mornings when anything seems possible -- even an invitation to break bread with the masters of the universe -- I find myself walking past the security guard who held up Michael Moore and into the building with no name.
As we all approach the inevitable chaos of the holidays with shopping, company parties, and client gift lists - all on top of Q4 and 2009 reports and wrap ups - please take care care to protect yourself and your family from possible tragedy due to simple oversight...
Amid the ongoing financial regulation overhaul, the banking industry is hoping to pull off a quiet power grab that has eluded its grasp since the Great Depression, by stripping the independence of the board that sets financial accounting standards.
The move could effectively let banks set their own accounting standards in rough economic times.
Astonishingly, at a time when the public is crying out for greater regulation to limit excessive risk-taking by financial institutions, the banks are trying to get Congress to agree that the next time there's a big downturn, they should have the ability to alter their accounting standards -- essentially, fudge the numbers -- so that the public and investors won't be able to tell how insolvent they really are. By ignoring their declining asset values, they can avoid the standard requirement of raising more capital.
The mechanism is contained in an amendment set to be introduced in mid-November by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) that would move final authority over the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) from the Securities and Exchange Commission to a new body, a so-called "oversight" board, that would include the officials charged with managing systemic risks to the financial markets.
These regulators would have the authority to override FASB's accounting guidelines by taking into account economic conditions.
The move is so radical that it has split corporate America. The bankers and members of Congress who support it have earned themselves an unlikely enemy: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
A typical business or investor, after all, prefers honest, independent accounting, because they buy and sell real things based on real value.
As unemployment hits 10.2%, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the richest Congressman worth an estimated $251 million. Perhaps this is what's really wrong with this country. We need some real people in there who know what it means to work for a living.
Next in line: Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), $244.7 million;
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), $214.5 million;
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), $209.7 million;
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), $208.8 million.
Seven members of Congress are worth over $100 million. But here's the sad part of the story. These numbers are down from their highs in 2007. Ain't that a bitch?
The biggest losers include Kerry, who lost a whopping $127.4 million; Warner lost about $28.1 million; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lost about $11.8 million; and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) lost about $10.1 million. Let's take up a collection. Oh, never mind. The health insurance industry is already on the case.
Before the financial crisis hit, John Paulson was just your run-of-the-mill hedge fund operator, worth millions of dollars. But when the market crashed, Paulson made billions. How he did it lies at the heart of a new book called The Greatest Trade Ever. The book's author, Gregory R. Zuckerman, offers his insight.
It's been tumultuous for the economy in the half-week since we launched The Real Recovery: unemployment benefits were extended and then October's unemployment numbers hit over 10 percent. It seems like just the right time to get to the real stories behind the economic stats.
Each week on The Real Recovery we're going to ask a big question - and then spend the week figuring out the answer with your help. For next week - we're looking at those entering the job market for the very first time.
If a tenth of America is unemployed - how hard is it going to be for recent college graduates to get jobs? For college seniors who expect to graduate in 2010? From the National Bureau of Economic Research: "The Career Effects Of Graduating In A Recession":
Graduating in a recession leads to large initial earnings losses. These losses, which amount to about 9 percent of annual earnings in the initial stage, eventually recede, but slowly -- halving within five years but not disappearing until about ten years after graduation.
Starting Monday - we're going to focus on college graduates. Here's how you can get involved:
Are you a college senior?: Post a story on The Real Recovery about your job search. Do you have something lined up? Are you just trying not to think about it?
Did you graduate this year?: How's it been out there in the job market? Have you been able to find work?
Did you graduate years ago?: How was your experience in the economic climate you had? How does it compare to today's?
You can post your story to Current by clicking the "Post a Story" button on The Real Recovery group page and then just start typing!
And also, if you want to get involved as an investigator - send me a message on Current.
During this week’s Federal Executive Forum taping, Navy CIO Robert Carey discussed his views on cloud computing. Stating that the NGEN and CANES (Navy Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services) programs will both leverage cloud computing, he also describes a future of “grey clouds” on each ship.
The Senate passed a bill yesterday to extend unemployment benefits for the jobless to 14 weeks, and up to 20 weeks for those who live in states with over 8.5 percent unemployment.
From the Washington Post:
"More than 1 million people would have had their benefits ended without the extension, according to the National Employment Law Project, a nonpartisan group that tracks the issue. More than 15 million Americans are now unemployed, more than a third of whom have been out of work for more than six months."
The House has passed the bill today - and it's expected to be signed into law by President Obama very quickly.
Also yesterday we launched The Real Recovery (here's the intro blog post) - our group investigation into how the recession's effects are still lingering despite its end. Are you unemployed - directly affected by this news? Let us know. Go join The Real Recovery group and post your personal story.
The same Wall Street players that upended the economy are clamoring to open up a massive market to swap, chop, and bundle carbon derivatives. Sound familiar?
We’re launching a big project today on Current News. And we’re going to need your help.
Here’s the idea:
Everybody says we’re headed for an economic recovery, right? The economy grew in the third quarter of this year, the Dow is hovering around 10,000, even Ford managed to make a profit. But the other thing that everybody says is that it’ll be a “jobless” recovery. The economy might grow, but unemployment will stay the same. To say nothing of underemployment – people who have taken lesser positions, started freelancing or stopped looking for new work. While the financial folks celebrate the return of the bull market – what about the rest of us?
We want to paint a picture of what’s really going on out there. As the recession comes to an end – what does the recovery really look like? What is the real recovery?
Over the next few months – until the end of the first quarter of next year – we’re going to conduct a special new experimental project to look at the state of our nation. This is where you come in.
My office is in San Francisco. I can give local perspectives from here. But in order to tell this story from every corner of the country – we need your help. What do things look like where you live? Do you have a personal story about how you’ve been affected by the recession?
How you can get involved:
- The big thing is that you can write your own posts in the group “The Real Recovery”. What are we looking for? Local perspectives and personal perspectives. Just a few paragraphs: How are you or your community affected? Every week we’ll have different questions we’re asking – and we want you to post your answers.
- Now, do you want to get really involved? You can become a part of our Current Investigation Network. That means we’ll put you on an email list where sometimes we’ll reach out digging for info or to ask you to help out with collaborative assignments. If you want to be a part of the project by doing a little real journalism – this is the way to do it.
- And as always, you can clip stories and you can weigh in on the comments of posts. We’ll be highlighting stories people post over on the Blog – and that could be yours.
This is a big new step for Current News, and I’m personally very excited about it. I worked on Collective Journalism for two years, our citizen journalism program, and I think this is an even bigger opportunity to get even more people involved in the journalism we make.
So, what’s the next step?
- Join the group: “The Real Recovery”
- Tell us your story – just a few paragraphs. Either post in the comments here – or post your own story to the group. This Friday we’ll feature some of your contributions.
- If you want to be a part of the investigation team – send me a direct message.
With the threat of aftershocks in the US Stock market, continued bank closings and takeovers by the FDIC, serious consideration needs to be given to changing the current reporting, auditing and oversight regulations, and the public needs to pressure elected officials into action before our entire country is taken off financial life support.
In terms of speed, Retina performed much faster. In terms of scan depth, Nessus has a small advantage, since it includes a web mirroring tool that is very helpful in HTTP. In a direct comparison, Nessus wins simply because Retina manifested erroneous results on repeat scans.
Regardless of what you feel should or should not be private, we all have a right to set expectations that we trust will be met. And as technologists, we have the capability to improve the state of privacy in the face of technological advances that might otherwise undermine it. Privacy is not an Illusion, it is a challenge.
This is the first cogent look at the efficacy of waging strategic cyber war and I hope will serve to slow the rhetoric coming from the US Defense community about acquiring cyber offensive capability: “Can cyberattacks disarm cyberattackers? In a world of cheap computing, ubiquitous networking, and hackers who could be anywhere, the answer is no.”
These websites can help you apply what you learn in class to real-world situations, from the stock market, to international business, to starting up your own company to social media marketing.
Nearly half of all US children, including an overwhelming majority of black children, will eat meals at some point during their childhood paid for by food stamps, an indicator of poverty, a study showed Monday.
"If you get food stamps, you are by definition in poverty and your household doesn't have many assets," said Mark Rank, a co-author of the study with Thomas Hirschl of Cornell University.
"The fact that half of American children at some time during their childhood find themselves in this position really ought to be a wake-up call to America," he told AFP.
The study found that 49.2 percent of all American children will at some point live in a home that receives food stamps.
Among black children and children living in single-parent households, the percentage is much higher: around 90 percent live in homes that receive food stamps at one stage or another.http://rawstory.com/2009/11/study-90-percent-black-children-fed-food-stamps/
Nearly... more
The human brain is an amazingly complex, flexible and able to process a vast amount of information. Even today’s supercomputers are not up to the task as far as raw processing power. The human brain has them beat…at least for the moment. But past these amazing stats and processing power, the human brain is also subject to some very real, emotional, limitations. We haven’t yet evolved that much past cavemen despite our technological advancement.
Researchers are discovering that certain mental quirks often lead us to make poor financial decisions – errors that can damage our long-term investment portfolios. This field of study is called “Behavioral Finance” and looks at how psychology influences the investment choices we make.
Why is this important? Well traditional financial theory holds that all investors are purely rational creatures, not subject to emotions. And that the market is “efficient”, one in which prices completely and accurately reflect all information such as economic reports that could possible influence the value of stocks and bonds. However, the reality, as most of us know, is far from this.
The financial crisis of 2008-2009 is a great example of what I’m talking about. Crazily, large numbers of investors ignored critical information both in bidding stocks up and them pounding them back down. Remember the dot-com bust of the 1990’s? There are examples of “irrational” behavior going all the way back to the 1720’s, England’s South Sea bubble.
Behavioral Finance tries to explain why this happens. It’s not that we’re all irrational, it’s just that our thinking is often guided, or misguided, by subtle biases and mental blind spots. These “cognitive illusions” include:
1. Overconfidence - Assuming you know more than you do or that your past decisions have been good ones. This can lead to aggressive trading behavior.
2. Mental Accounting - Rather than rationally viewing every dollar as identical, many investors designate some of their dollars as "safety" capital which they invest in low-risk investments, while at the same time treating their "risk capital" quite differently.
3. Anchoring - Fixating on past prices, such as how much you paid for a stock. That’s why some investors refuse to sell at a loss, even if they could move their money to securities that have higher expected returns.
4. Loss Aversion - People feel the losses more than they feel gains. So, even though selling something at a loss can be the best decision, it may not happen.
5. Framing - Reacting to choices depending on how they are presented. Would you rather have 100% chance at $1,000 or a 2% chance at $50,000? These are identical questions….
I hope this has helped in trying to explain some of the craziness that happens in the financial markets. But understanding how these biases can cause dangerous errors is only the first step. The next step is recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses. Ever made a financial decision you regretted? I know I have.The human brain is an amazingly complex, flexible and able to process a vast amount of... more
Forget about vampires, ghouls and zombies. You were much more likely to receive a fright this year from something lurking in your e-mail. There were the usual crop of Trojan horses and phishing expeditions, and as the surprising list points out, some of the scares go all the way up to White House and the FBI.
This report should be heeded by those banks, health care organizations, government agencies, insurance companies and others that we entrust with our social security and checking account numbers, birth dates and mothers’ maiden names, and in some cases our personal health information.
