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It’s not just LIBOR. Banks and brokers are under scrutiny from all quarters
ON JULY 9th Russ Wasendorf senior, the owner and chief executive of Peregrine Financial Group, was found parked in front of his corporate headquarters in Cedar Falls, Iowa, more dead than alive. Reports of an attempted suicide were soon merged with reports that $215m, more than half of all customers’ funds at Peregrine’s commodity-brokerage unit, PFGBest, were missing from the company’s bank accounts. Within 36 hours, the firm announced it would go into liquidation and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) accused it of misappropriating customers’ funds for a period of more than two years, alleging that Mr Wasendorf submitted false statements of accounts to cover up the shortfall.
The loss of customers’ funds comes less than a year after money went missing at MF Global, a larger commodity broker. Although the circumstances surrounding the two brokers appear very different—MF Global collapsed abruptly after a series of margin calls prompted a scramble for cash, the PFGBest case is alleged to have involved abuse over a protracted period—both episodes raise disturbing questions about how these firms, and their regulators, protect customers’ money.
Despite the MF Global precedent, the collapse of Peregrine came as a surprise to many. The firm appeared to be thriving: only three years ago, when other financial firms considered a new coffee machine to be a big investment, it moved from Chicago into new headquarters in Mr Wasendorf’s home town. And Mr Wasendorf, whose passion for birds of prey explained his firm’s name, was a visible figure in the aftermath of MF’s collapse, publicly defending his own and the industry’s ability to protect consumer accounts. An investigation into what went wrong at PFGBest and how the futures industry should be regulated will doubtless follow.
It will have to work hard to win the attention of policymakers, so numerous are the investigations into the financial industry. On July 5th a congressional committee on investigations headed by Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, released details of a sleazy mortgage-assistance programme provided to politicians and others perceived to be influential by Countrywide, a failed mortgage lender acquired during the crisis by Bank of America...
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http://www.economist.com/node/21558583It’s not just LIBOR. Banks and brokers are under scrutiny from all quarters... more
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Dagum
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10 months ago
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Project Icarus is a 21st century theoretical study of a mission to another star. Icarus aims to build on the work of the celebrated Daedalus project. Between the period 1973-1978 members of the BIS undertook a theoretical study of a flyby mission to Barnard's star 5.9 light years away. This was Project Daedalus and remains one of the most complete studies of an interstellar probe to date. The 54,000 ton two-stage vehicle was powered by inertial confinement fusion using electron beams to compress the D/He3 fusion capsules to ignition. It would obtain an eventual cruise velocity of 36,000km/s or 12% of light speed from over 700kN of thrust, burning at a specific impulse of 1 million seconds, reaching its destination in approximately 50 years. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/submit-an-article/42972-project-icarusProject Icarus is a 21st century theoretical study of a mission to another star.... more
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worrg
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1 year ago
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Mysterious "dark matter" could lurk near Earth, according to a new theory to explain a puzzle that has baffled space flight engineers. The suggestion that clumps of the enigmatic matter lie in our cosmic back yard, between the Earth and the Moon, has been put forward to explain a strange phenomenon called the "fly-by anomaly." Almost every spacecraft that has swung around the Earth to speed it on its journey has recorded a velocity change that, according to the well-understood laws of gravity, should not have happened. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/submit-an-article/26444-mysterious-dark-matter-may-be-near-earthMysterious "dark matter" could lurk near Earth, according to a new theory to... more
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worrg
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2 years ago
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Oh my God! We don't know where its coming from !!!
It's tomatoes .... no its.... peppers.... wait.....
Don't eat vegetables !!! Hysteria !!! Panic !!! Kill the plants before they kill us !!!
More than 1,000 people now have become ill from salmonella initially linked to raw tomatoes, a sobering milestone Wednesday that makes this the worst foodborne outbreak in at least a decade. Adding to the confusion, the government is warning certain people to avoid types of hot peppers, too.
But people at highest risk of severe illness from salmonella also should not eat raw jalapeno and serrano peppers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Wednesday. The most vulnerable are the elderly, people with weak immune systems and infants.
Perhaps there was some truth in that move "The Happening".
CDC food safety chief Dr. Robert Tauxe told The Associated Press:
“We are quite sure that neither tomatoes nor jalapenos explain the entire outbreak at this point. ... We’re presuming that both of them have caused illness.”Tauxe said. “But we really are working as hard and as fast as we can to sort out this complicated situation and protect the health of the American people.”
Added FDA food safety chief Dr. David Acheson: “It’s just been a spectacularly complicated and prolonged outbreak.”
The outbreak isn’t over, or even showing any sign of slowing, said Tauxe — with about 25 to 40 cases being a reported a day for weeks now, to a total of 1,017 known since the outbreak began on April 10.
Illnesses now have been reported in 41 states — and even four cases in Canada, although three of those people are believed to have been infected while traveling in the U.S. and the fourth is still being probed.
Oh my God! We don't know where its coming from !!!
It's tomatoes .... no... more
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Most provincial government investigations into child deaths in B.C. are still not thorough enough and are taking too long to complete, says the representative for children and youth. And Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond says that means recommendations to avoid similar deaths in the future are also being delayed as reports languish -- sometimes for longer than a year -- on officials' desks.
Most provincial government investigations into child deaths in B.C. are still not... more
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