Monday - January 23, 2012

the entrepreneurial spirit, with a boost from the brit taxpayer

Don’t ya just love the entrepreneurial spirit?  Start with $2,335.75 and watch your profits grow.
Especially satisfying of course when that 2300 comes not from you, but the taxpayer. Free money. Hey,hey.  What could be easier.
That’s kapitalism. Right?

I’m wondering if I can leave this place and then sneak back in as an illegal. Wonder what they’d pay me to leave?  On second thought, even one hour in any jail does not sound like an inviting introduction to the world of the entrepreneur. 

Illegal immigrant who arranged sham marriages leaves jail with £1,500 rehab money - and sets up business in Pakistan offering UK passports

Ashar Rathore served 7 months of two-year sentence
Given taxpayers’ money to get out of jail and leave UK
He used cash to set up shop offering passports, visas… and ‘any enquiry related to the laws of cricket’
By NICK ENOCH

An illegal immigrant and sham marriage ringleader who left prison early with a huge pay-off has used the money to set up a new business in his homeland - offering UK passports.

Ashar Ali Rathore, 33, came to the UK with his wife Nadia Qadri, 34, on student visas then faked marriages to two Polish people to gain residency.

The fraudster was jailed for conspiring to breach immigration law, but was then handed £1,500 of taxpayers’ money - on condition of leaving Britain and returning to his native country - as part of a Government scheme for rehabilitating foreign nationals.

He had only served seven months of his two-year sentence.

Today, it emerged Rathore has used the money to set up Xpress Solutions - a company providing UK passports, visas and driving licences in Kotli, Pakistan, his home country.

Among its other services, it also bizarrely offers ‘any enquiry related to the laws of cricket’.

He is not currently under investigation by the Pakistani authorities.

Jonathan Isaby, political director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, branded the payout a ‘sick golden goodbye’.

He said: ‘When all of us are having to tighten our belts and watch every penny, pay-offs for fraudsters like Rathore at British taxpayers’ expense are an utter disgrace.

‘Ministers must urgently review the operation of the Facilitated Returns Scheme to ensure that we are not being taken for a ride.

see more

Oh, you’re being taken for a ride alright. And this is only one case of very many.

Posted by peiper     on 01/23/2012 at 01:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Finance and Investing • Justice - LACK OF •  
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   Monday - December 19, 2011

more law and disorder and the joke named justice

Tiz always thus. One rule and law for one group, and another set of standards for another.
These stories have made the news and passed pretty quickly cos more important stories take their place. Like how the evil American empire, so described on the radio here by the lawyer of that queer traitor Bradley Manning, is treating his baby faced innocent client. The other person interviewed (for the prosecution) holds the view and correctly I believe, that Manning could not have had the time to read all 125,000 docs he stole and gave to Wikileaks. So the claim of his altruistic intention is rubbish.  I sidetracked myself again.  That isn’t the subject of this post.
This is.

Ok, fair is fair and if someone fiddles at the expense of the taxpayer, they damn well should face the humiliation of fines and exposure and jail time.  These are the leaches that sit on fat asses passing regs and new laws and more rules that the rest of the population is made to live by and with.  The average person doing the same thing sometimes does go to jail.  Ah but, some things depend on who and what you are.
The crooks here are white, so far. And not members of any favored minority.  They are, or were, members of the Labour Party. Think left wing. Or as Lyndon refers to it, the Lie-bour Party. I believe he has a few more colorful names as well.  They’ve wrecked this country.
(this does not let off crooks of a conservative bent btw)

MPs’ expenses: jailed trio ordered to pay back legal costs
Three former Labour MPs who were jailed for fiddling their expenses have been ordered to pay back a total of £125,000 – less than half of the money spent on their court cases.

But a fourth disgraced politician was spared any repayment on the grounds he is already bankrupt.
Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Eric Illsley, exposed for claiming too much on their Parliamentary allowances after the landmark investigation by The Daily Telegraph, were told by a judge they must give back their legal aid funds and contribute to prosecution costs.
They have already been denied the “parachute” payments given to most MPs when they leave Westminster, and forced to pay back their fraudulently claimed expenses.

much more to read here

So that’s one little part of the expenses fiddle by crooks in control of the public purse.
Here’s another that made the news in the last week. Just a small item which set me to thinking.

Recently a fellow named James Lunn, was working for the Ministry of Justice.  Which as we all know doesn’t really exist anywhere in the world anymore. In addition to the crime of being white and middle class, Mr lunn apparently has sticky fingers and has been caught with his paws in the ministry cookie jar. The headline said that he used his MOJ credit card like a piggy bank. His piggy bank. So not an altogether honest man we may all agree.

His lawyer said that his client was working in an enviorenment where everyone abused their expenses.
Oh well, if everyone does it .... Anyway, Mr. Lunn is now facing a year in jail and well deserved as this is not the first time he’s tried to glom money from the public cookie jar. You might interested to learn that the sum he stole was £3,400. Or in our dollars at the current rate. $5,270.15. Not a small sum but then not the Great Train Robbery either.

But for real chutzpah (Yiddish for nerve, in spades. ) take a look at this one. And just so you know, she’ll be entitled to draw money just for signing in when the dust settles. But whatcha gonna do?  She came to this country at the age of 13 and has learned well how to fleece the infidel. She was made a Peer, the first muzzie female peer I believe. She’s a baroness FYI. Might be a token jest-ture to prove there isn’t any anti female anti islam feelings and it’s quite pc too.
Take a look at this.  Has she drawn a year in the pokey for a hundred thousand plus fiddle?  Uh huh. I see you know the answer already.

She was raised to the peerage as Baroness Uddin, of Bethnal Green in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, for life by Letters patent in the afternoon of 18 July 1998, at the House of Lords.

She was the youngest woman on the benches and the only Muslim and Bangladeshi woman to be appointed to the House of Lords. She was invited to the House of Lords for her contribution to the advancement of women and disability rights, swearing in by saying “Almighty Allah” as she took her seat in the parliament. Since entering the House of Lords, besides claiming the maximum possible amount she could fleece the taxpayer for, she has supported a handful of initiatives.

In 2010, The National Executive Committee of The Labour Party suspended Uddin indefinitely from the Party in light of the expenses claim allegations.
In October 2010, Under the recommendation of The Privileges and Conduct Committee of The House of Lords a suspension is to be handed down to Pola Uddin until Easter 2012 at the earliest for claiming expenses “to which she was not entitled”. The Committee also acknowledged a repayment agreement for expenses wrongly claimed.

Uddin claims on her House of Lords Expenses that a flat inMaidstone, Kent is her main residence on which she has claimed £30,000 per annum in tax-free expenses since 2005. This is said to have allowed her to also claim the second home allowance on her London property, a scheme that ostensibly exists to compensate politicians living outside London for the cost of accommodation close to Parliament. Residents living near the flat in Maidstone reportedly said they had not seen any occupiers in the flat since Uddin purchased it and that it has remained completely unfurnished, but Uddin claims: “The Maidstone property is furnished and I strongly deny that I have never lived there” Uddin’s husband even denied having a property in Kent when questioned on the issue

She also has one of the highest claims for overnight subsistence of any member of the Lords.
Uddin’s home in Wapping, where she lives and is registered to vote, is a housing association property. Spitalfields Housing Association received a public subsidy of £37.8 million in 2008. The average rent for its properties is £104 a week, a sixth of the market rate. The allegations of fraud led the Tory opposition leader in Tower Hamlets, Peter Golds, to state, “Lady Uddin is depriving a low-income family of a home which was built for the needy at public expense.” On 5 May 2009, one of the senior Lord’s official, Clerk of the Parliaments, has announced the House of Lords authorities are investigating the report by the Sunday Times. Uddin welcomed the review: “I welcome this review and will co-operate fully with him in the hope of a speedy resolution and clarity that I did not break the rules of the House.”
On 23 November 2009, Uddin’s cases was passed to the police for possible prosecution for fraud. The Daily Telegraph later reported that she was refusing to cooperate with the police investigation, refusing to answer any questions.

The Crown Prosecution Service announced on 10 March 2010 that Baroness Uddin would not face any charges on the grounds that a senior parliamentary official ruled that a Peers “main house” might be a place they visit only once a month. There were no indications that the expenses would be paid back.
On 18 October 2010, the House of Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee ruled that Baroness Uddin had ‘acted in bad faith’ and recommended that she should be asked to repay £125,349 as well as being suspended from Parliament until Easter 2012.

In November 2011, it was revealed that no formal mechanism existed to prevent Baroness Uddin’s return to the House of Lords, even if she refused to repay the expenses that were fraudulently claimed, leading many members of her own party to call for her to resign rather than bring the House of Lords into further disrepute.
The amount of money quoted in her case (£125,349) is probably the largest amount in any of the House of Commons or House of Lords expenses scandals.

Bangladesh Mansion

Further expenses claims by Uddin were later discovered when The Sunday Times revealed that she owns a mansion in Bangladesh. The mansion was described as made out of Italian marble with tiles, mosaics and with a balcony.’ An investigation of this has been acquired to whether she does have a home in Bangladesh. The mansion was believed to be built after Uddin became a peer in 1998, costing £140,000 which was organised by her husband Komar, located in Jawa Bazar in Chhatak; this is where many of her in-laws are originally from. However Uddin claims that the land was bought by her husband’s family, purchased by Kumar’s father in 1980.

FULL UNEDITED WIKIPEDIA VERSION HERE

OH BTW .... SHE IS NOT PAYING BACK ONE SINGLE DIME.

Now then, if Mr. Lunn, thief tho he may be were a member of her privileged group .... any questions? 

Posted by peiper     on 12/19/2011 at 07:10 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Finance and Investing • Government • muslims • UK •  
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   Saturday - November 19, 2011

Holy Cow

You have GOT to read this!

The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity. The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism.

...

Finally, I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed from office AND the government of the United States has been sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may reform. So long as the government remains criminal, it would serve no purpose whatsoever to attempt to rebuild the futures industry or my firm, because in a lawless environment, the same thievery and fraud would simply happen again, and the criminals would go unpunished, sheltered by the criminal oligarchy.

...

Alas, my retirement came a few years earlier than I had anticipated, but there was no possible way to continue given the inevitability of the collapse of the global financial markets, the overthrow of our government, and the resulting collapse in the rule of law.

Barnhardt Capital Management has closed its doors on purpose and has quite the game because it is rigged and it is run by thieves. Jon Corzine who STOLE millions from MF Global’s customers is not going to be punished at all. It’s a suckers market and leveraged to the edge of death on the EU, which is about to die. So she jumped out of the game.

Is she a looney, or is this the only smart move when the fiscal apocalypse is looming up over the event horizon and could slam down on us at any day?

PLEASE READ “BCM Has Ceased Operations” part 1 and 2, and make up your own mind and act accordingly.

More:
http://www.bizzyblog.com/2011/11/17/thank-you-ann-barnhardt-we-need-a-lot-more-people-with-her-courage-like-this/
http://jerseynut.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-calls-for-corzine-to-be-jailed-as.html

Also, this was on Rush the other day too I think.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/19/2011 at 01:09 PM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing •  
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   Wednesday - June 22, 2011

Kill The Economy, Win A Prize!

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex mortgage investments just as the housing market was collapsing.

J.P. Morgan Securities, a division of the powerful Wall Street bank, failed to tell investors that a hedge fund helped select the investment portfolio and then bet that the portfolio would fail, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

The settlement announced Tuesday is one of the most significant legal actions targeting Wall Street’s role in the 2008 financial crisis. It comes a year after Goldman Sachs & Co. paid $550 million to settle similar charges.

Still, the settlement amounts to less than 1 percent of the bank’s 2010 net income of $17.4 billion—or less than what JPMorgan earns in one week.

JPMorgan neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing under the settlement. The bank released a statement saying it lost nearly $900 million on the investment. It also noted that it reviewed similar mortgage investments and voluntarily paid $56 million to compensate some investors in those deals.

The bank agreed to settle the charges two weeks after Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., complained to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that new financial regulations designed to prevent another financial crisis were too burdensome on banks.

Magnetar wasn’t charged in the SEC action. SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami said the hedge fund “was not responsible for those disclosures to investors.” But he said such deals “remain a high priority for the SEC.”

Magnetar essentially made a $600 million bet that the investments would fail once the deal closed in May 2007, the SEC said. Just one month earlier, JPMorgan had launched a “frantic global sales effort” going beyond its traditional customers to sell mortgage securities, according to the agency’s suit.

Khuzami said the JPMorgan case, at its core, is about getting investors truthful information about their investment options.

“The appropriate disclosures would have been to inform investors that an entity with economic interests adverse to their own was involved in selecting the portfolio,” he said.

The penalty is the biggest since Goldman Sachs & Co. settled civil fraud charges last summer. The $550 million that Goldman paid was the largest penalty against a Wall Street firm in SEC history. The Goldman settlement amounted to less than 5 percent of Goldman’s 2009 net income of $12.2 billion after payment of dividends to preferred shareholders—or a little more than two weeks of net income.

Goldman was accused of steering investors toward mortgage investments without telling the buyers that the securities had been crafted with input from a client that was betting on them to fail.

Not even a slap on the wrist. In most other parts of the world, these guys would have been shot.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/22/2011 at 11:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Finance and Investing •  
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   Saturday - January 15, 2011

the russians are coming?

I’m not terribly well versed on these things BUT ...
according to the radio, BT owns large energy holdings in the USA.

So ....

With the Russians now having a stake in BP for a sizable amount of cash ....
Does that now mean the Russians also will have a hold of any sort in the US?

BP gives 5% stake to state-owned Russian oil firm as they reveal plans to drill Arctic

By Rupert Steiner and Simon Neville

BP signed a major deal last night that will see the Russian government own a chunk of Britain’s biggest oil firm.

It sold 5 per cent of its shares – worth £5billion – to Russia’s state-owned energy firm Rosneft.  Both companies have also agreed to co-operate in drilling for oil reserves in the Arctic.

The historic share-swap deal could open up lucrative revenue streams for BP, which is the third largest energy firm in the world.

But it also raises fresh concerns about the take-over of UK firms by foreign companies – including those, like Rosneft, that are effectively a branch of an overseas government.

Questions will also be asked about the security of Britain’s energy supplies, given Russia’s history of playing politics with oil and other resources.

the rest is here

Posted by peiper     on 01/15/2011 at 04:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Finance and Investing • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices • USA •  
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   Thursday - January 06, 2011

New Ann

Now that a new Congress is in session, with promises of starting investigations into this, that, and the other, Ann Coulter opines that the housing mortgage/financial crisis is the thing that really warrants investigation. Especially since all the information is already out in the open, the pieces are already fit together, and all it would take would be some honest work and good press. Yeah, right.

The housing bubble was caused by the democraps, working over nearly 20 years in a seemingly deliberate attempt to destroy the economy. Well gosh Ann, no kidding.

Go, read about the 9,000 pound gorilla in the room that nobody can see, even years after the fact. And don’t forget that all those policies ARE STILL IN EFFECT.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/06/2011 at 12:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing • Politically-Incorrect •  
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   Sunday - June 06, 2010

Put ‘em on commission

Yes, as usual I’m late to the party. I only discovered Jackie Mason since he’s been a contributing commentator on WorldNetDaily.

I know, I’m showing my age. Mr. Mason did this routine during the Reagan Administration. But his solution is timeless, timely, and something we citizens/voters should consider.

Posted by Christopher     on 06/06/2010 at 02:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing • Humor •  
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   Tuesday - March 02, 2010

better banking?

A couple folks sent me this link, which I saw out at Insty yesterday. It seems Canada’s banks are in great shape, and they weren’t damaged by the “housing crisis” at all. Because they do things differently in Canada. Stronger rules and regulations, no tax write-off for interest, and NO POLITICS involved in the lending process. And, while I have no proof of it at all, I’ve always had the feeling that they have far fewer layabouts than we do. A much smaller permanent victim class.

It’s late, so here’s the link. Interesting short read. What’s the catch? I think there is one, but I can’t quite figure it out right now.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/02/2010 at 11:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing • International •  
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   Thursday - February 25, 2010

Greek deputy PM’s extraordinary attack on Germany over debt crisis. It’s the Nazis fault.

I guess it isn’t funny and some are saying that the euro could fall if Germany doesn’t help to prop up the Greeks and see em through this disaster.

I haven’t done a lot of reading on this and don’t know what all the ramifications would be.  It’s surely nothing to bother the US, or might it?

Anyone with knowledge on this topic, welcome please.  I’d really like to understand it better. I find things like this quite interesting, especially living so close to things. 

You might want to see the comments at the end of the article at the MAIL.  Very interesting.  Also, I happen to think while reading this earlier today, isn’t it nice for a change, going from it’s Bush fault to , It’s the Nazis fault.

‘The Nazis took our gold, they should at least thank us’: Greek deputy PM’s extraordinary attack on Germany over debt crisis
By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE

Nazi theft of Greek gold during the Second World War is to blame for the country’s faltering finances, Athens claimed yesterday.

It came as new protests about the economy turned violent.

Greece said the real culprit for its problems were the Nazis, whose occupation lasted from 1941 to 1945.

‘They took away the Greek gold that was at the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back,’ said Deputy prime minister Theodoros Pangalos.

‘I don’t say they have to give back the money necessarily but they have at least to say “thanks”.’

Germany had failed to offer enough compensation for the economic impact of the Nazi occupation, he added.

Germany swiftly rejected the accusation, saying it paid £50million in compensation by 1960 and more to forced labourers of the Nazi regime.

The economy was crippled, as foreign trade was suspended, agricultural output ground to a halt, and the treasury had to loan Germany money.

The EU has asked Greece to explain reports that it engaged in derivatives trades with U.S. investment banks that may have allowed it to mask the size of its debt and deficit from authorities ahead of its entry into the euro zone.

But Mr Pangalos said Italy did more than Greece to mask the state of its finances to secure euro zone entry.

ARTICLE AND PHOTOS HERE

Posted by peiper     on 02/25/2010 at 01:27 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Finance and Investing • International •  
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   Tuesday - February 09, 2010

THERE ARE 8 BILLION, COUNT EM, EIGHT BILLION SHORT SELLERS ON THE EURO …..

Do you suppose some folks just happen to know something?

H/T Rich K for emailing me the article from the Telegraph.

I read papers but ... (Drew, where do I get a shamed face avitar for this?) [ Drew: um, like this? ] I hardly ever read the financials. It’s my wife who reads the business section.
She it is who informed me about the short sellers.

This is some serious stuff I guess. ??  What the hell do I know? What?  Me Worry? 
I just need to know how the Q’s are running (QQQQ) the tech index.  Buy at the lo and sell later. Or use em for covered calls.  Outside of that, I didn’t even know there was a banking crises till I read it on BMEWS one day. lol.

OTOH .....  What Rich sent sure did stir up things a bit.  Everything is so connected.  But guess what?  It was the same in the 1920s.
SUPER book called LORDS of FINANCE. Very fast read and not overly tech heavy.

And BTW ... oh boy do we know about margin calls.  Been there and don’t ever want to revisit that country.

Greek Ouzo crisis escalates into global margin call as confidence ebbs

For the third time in 18 months the global financial system risks spinning out of control unless political leaders take immediate and radical action.


By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Flow data shows an abrupt withdrawal of German and Asian capital from Club Med debt markets. The EU’s refusal to offer Greece anything beyond stern words and a one-month deadline for harsher austerity – while admirable in one sense – is to misjudge how fast confidence is ebbing. Greece’s drama has already metastasised into a wider systemic crisis. The world risks a replay of the Lehman collapse if this runs unchecked, this time involving sovereign dominoes.

Barclays Capital says the net external liabilities of Greece are 87pc of GDP, or €208bn (£182bn). Spain is worse at 91pc (€950bn), and Portugal worse yet at 108pc (€177bn); Ireland is 68pc (€123bn), Italy is 23pc, (€347bn). Add East Europe’s bubble and foreign debts top €2 trillion.

The scale matches America’s sub-prime/Alt-A adventure and assorted CDOs and SIVS of the Greenspan fling. The parallels are closer than Europe cares to admit. Just as Benelux funds and German Landesbanken bought subprime debt for high yield with AAA gloss, they bought Spanish Cedulas because these too had a safe gloss – even though Spain’s property boom broke world records. They thought EMU had eliminated risk: it merely switched exchange risk into credit risk.

THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IS HERE

AND THERE’S THIS BIT FROM ANOTHER PAGE , SAME PAPER.
Naturally, I see the name Soros and it’s akin to waving a Nazi flag at a BarMitzvah.

First the hedge fund manager, Jim Rogers, co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund, says “sell any sterling you might have. It’s finished”. Then along comes another veteran of the hedge fund scene, Bill Gross of Pimco, to insist that “the UK is a must avoid. Its gilts are resting on a bed of nitroglycerine”.

Posted by peiper     on 02/09/2010 at 10:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing • UK •  
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   Tuesday - January 12, 2010

A MOST EXPENSIVE PARTY LAUNCH. BUT THE PARTY’S OVER.

I don’t suppose many of you have followed this story much if at all.  Being somewhat closer to this, Dubai has figured in the news here quite often since this SPECTACULAR opening of the resort for billionaires.  We’ve been buried in beautiful photos of the place and at the beginning there were all these very positive comments and promises for the bright future ahead.
Well, Aladdin’s lamp has gone darkish as the place has all but gone bust.  Empty and decaying (already) apt. complexes, restaurants that either never opened as scheduled or if they did have now closed.  Nowadays the photos we see of this grandiose dream are sadly not so forward looking and the future does indeed look grim.  The developers had hoped that one of the rich Arab countries might shovel in some needed cash, and they did indeed get some from one of the Arab states.  I forgot which one.

Dubai is a place where a person goes to jail for an offense like a bounced check. They are very serious about that.
Photos we see now show expensive cars simply left in the street to collect dust as the owners have walked away, broke. They have left homes and apts the same way.  Simply abandoned and very many have had to sneak out of the country. Not that they were involved in any criminal activity mind you.  But they found the bubble had burst and their funds were either non existent or near to being so.  They could no longer pay the staggering bills and faced jail, and so left.  Many others have stayed trying as best they can to salvage something.  The people one really has to feel sorry for, are the many who were recruited to work there as waiters and maids and low level jobs, who came from foreign countries and are now at the mercy of ppl who don’t have a large supply of that.  While the money wasn’t huge by our standards, it was by the standards of the countries they were recruited from. 

Until today, I hadn’t seen this 2008 video.  In ‘08 I was busy 27/7 helping the wife with a bed ridden elderly mother and I guess I missed a lot.
Better late then never though because this really is a sight to see.  Notice the cost of the party.  They didn’t.

Dubai resort The Atlantis stages most expensive launch party ever
The global recession may be biting, but try telling that to the Hollywood celebrities and billionaire business moguls who attended the opening of Dubai’s latest luxury resort, The Atlantis.

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Published: 4:07PM GMT 20 Nov 2008

More than 2,000 guests attended the event on the man-made Palm Jumeirah island in the Persian Gulf. Robert De Niro, Janet Jackson, Denzel Washington and Lindsay Lohan were among them, while the British contingent included the Duchess of York, Sir Richard Branson, Dame Shirley Bassey, retail boss Sir Philip Green, television presenter Trinny Woodall and the singer Lily Allen.

They feasted on lobster and Middle Eastern mezze and the Veuve Clicquot champagne flowed freely, although the presence of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, and a sizeable number of other Muslim guests ensured that the drinks bill was relatively modest.

Security at the party was so tight that a two-mile exclusion zone was thrown around the island.

Kylie Minogue performed on stage for a reported £1.5 million fee but the real entertainment of the night was provided by the pyrotechnics. One million fireworks – almost 10 times the scale of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony – lit up the Palm, with the organisers claiming the display was visible from space.

Even in Dubai, a part of the world renowned for excess, there had never been a party like it.

“We built something that’s quite extraordinary. We’ve got to tell the world about it,” said Sol Kerzner, the South African billionaire hotelier and casino tycoon.

The 1,539-room Atlantis took two years to build and cost £1 billion. Mr Kerzner admitted that the global economic downturn would have an effect on business.

“We are in a challenging time. The economy is basically in a recession and we have to adjust to the changing circumstances. We have to be careful with our cost levels” he said, although he did not believe he had splashed out too much on his guests: “I didn’t lay on private jets. They either came in their own private jets or by regular airline.”

Colin Cowie, the party planner, likened the logistics of organising the beachside party to the Normandy landings. He added: “People say, ‘How do you have a party like this in these economic times?’ But the funds were allocated a year ago, and you have to dream big to get a big result.”

THE PARTY’S OVER

From The Times
November 28, 2009

The spectre of “Financial Crisis 2” continued to loom over global markets yesterday after Dubai’s revelation that it may not be able to meet its debt obligations.

Stock markets in Asia and the United States fell sharply while the dollar and Japanese yen rose as investors shifted their money to their perceived safety.

UK banks were also revealed to be the biggest lenders to the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, with more than $50 billion owed by the Gulf state’s residents.

In another blow to the beleaguered UK banking sector, the Royal Bank of Scotland emerged as the largest single loan-arranger to Dubai World, the state-owned conglomerate that sparked this latest financial crisis when it sought a standstill on its debt repayments on Wednesday.
Related Links

RBS, which is owned by British taxpayers, has arranged loans worth up to $2.3 billion to Dubai World.

The Financial Services Authority, the regulator, is understood to have sought assurances from banks that their exposure to Dubai will not threaten their financial strength. The FSA said it would continue to keep a close eye on the situation.

Dubai World, which owns a range of assets including the Turnberry golf club in southwest Scotland, sparked panic when it asked for the debt standstill. The company has liabilities of $60 billion and its Nakheel property division, which built the Palm Jumeirah development where the footballers David Beckham and Michael Owen own houses, was due to repay a $3.5 billion bond next month.

The standstill has raised the prospect that Dubai World and, by extension, the government of Dubai might default on their debt.

TIMES

Here’s a link for a lot of other links on the subject.  Makes for some fascinating reading.

BYE-BYE-DUBAI

notice the dates on these two stories. didn’t take long.

Posted by peiper     on 01/12/2010 at 11:03 AM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Economics • Finance and Investing • International • Middle-East •  
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   Thursday - December 31, 2009

Nasty Deal for GMAC

This doesn’t seem to be much of a news item, but the federal government just injected another pile of cash into GMAC, and then took it over. So the feds own yet another bank/lending institution now.

GMAC to Get Another $3.5B in Aid From Treasury

A GMAC spokeswoman declined to comment on any potential government action but said, “GMAC has been conducting a strategic review of its business and evaluating options to address the challenges in its mortgage operation.” The spokeswoman said GMAC wants to prepare itself to repay the U.S. government.

The willingness by the U.S. Treasury to deepen taxpayer exposure to GMAC reflects the troubled company’s importance to the revival of the auto industry. The company was told to raise additional capital as part of government-led stress tests of large banks conducted earlier this year. The tests were to determine whether firms would need more capital to continue lending if the economy deteriorated in 2009 and 2010.

GMAC has only filled a portion of its capital hole and, unlike other banks that participated in the stress tests, has been unable to attract much capital from private investors. The Treasury said earlier this year that it would make as much money available to GMAC as needed to fill its capital hole and projected the firm would need another government infusion of as much as $5.6 billion.

GMAC’s capital needs have turned out to be somewhat less than originally envisioned, in part because impact from the bankruptcies of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp. was not as severe as federal regulators originally projected.

Ok, here’s the part that I don’t get, the part that rather looks like arm twisting thuggery to me. But what do I know, right? Before this latest cash infusion, Uncle Sugar had fattened up GMAC’s coffers to the tune of 12.5 billion. For this gift of our money, the feds took 35% ownership. Basic math: $12.5B / 35% = $357,142,857.14 for every percent ownership. Now the feds are going to drop in another lump sum, a relatively “piddling” little $5.6 billion, and then they’ll own 56%? Less than half as much infusion but way more than half as much new ownership?  Only $266,666,666.67 per percent? Huh? That doesn’t seem right. It’s not like the feds bought up most of the outstanding stock shares that had fallen in value, is it? This doesn’t seem right to me. But then, the federal government owning both the means of production and the banking industry doesn’t seem right either. I’m just one of those simple minded Conservatives.

Auto finance company GMAC got a new majority owner late Wednesday when the federal government announced it was assuming a 56 percent stake in the company with $3.8 billion in aid.

It was the third bailout for GMAC, which had previously received $12.5 billion in direct federal aid and other support. The government already had a 35 percent stake in the company. GMAC had requested an additional $5.6 billion in federal aid in November.

The Treasury Department announced that it also would hold about $14 billion in loans the bank may eventually have to replay. The government will appoint four of GMAC’s nine directors.

GMAC is the primary lender for dealers of General Motors and Chrysler vehicles. It converted to a bank holding company last year to qualify for federal bailout funds.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/31/2009 at 03:14 PM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing • Government •  
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   Saturday - December 05, 2009

The French, in the person of Mr. Sarkozy, have managed to anger the Brits this past week.

Just so you know, Sarko is referring to London when he says “city.”
Woo-Hoo and another Hoo.  That caused a bit of a flap this week I must say.  Whatcha gonna do? Brits and French have this love/hate thing. But really, Brits do not I don’t think, actually dislike the French. I may be wrong on that score.  I think they laugh at em a lot though and the French know it.

War has not been declared.

We are in charge now, Sarkozy tells the City

Francis Elliott, Suzy Jagger, Martin Waller and David Charter
The Times

Alistair Darling has delivered a blunt warning to the EU’s new French finance chief against meddling with the City of London.

As Nicolas Sarkozy gloated over impending curbs on the City, the Chancellor said that such moves would drive financial services out of Europe.

The French President’s glee at the appointment of Michel Barnier as Commissioner for the Single Market took on an edge of menace when he said that unfettered City practices must end.

“Do you know what it means for me to see for the first time in 50 years a French European commissioner in charge of the internal market, including financial services, including the City [of London]?” he said yesterday.

One of the very bothersome things about the new French EU finance chief is .... he is very left wing and much given to govt. control.
He hasn’t been very big on capitalism either, and has made no bones about that in the past.
The Brits I think were hoping to get that post btw.  At some point in time, either the EU will solidify and RULE supreme, or else collapse in upon itself. 

“I want the world to see the victory of the European model, which has nothing to do with the excesses of financial capitalism,” he said.

His implicit threat was just what Downing Street had feared when Mr Barnier, formerly an agriculture minister, was given the portfolio last week.

Mr Darling, writing in The Times , said that it would be a “recipe for confusion” if firms were supervised by the EU as well as national watchdogs and that Britain would not accept new laws that could lead to taxpayers picking up the bill for bailouts ordered by Brussels.

He rejects claims that the economic crisis was the fault of the “Anglo-Saxon” model, pointing out that French and German banks were among the biggest creditors of the failed US insurance giant AIG.

Terry Smith, a prominent banker, said that the threat of increased regulation was already threatening the City’s future.

“I’ve never seen so much work going on by companies, individuals and teams of people to evaluate relocation out of the UK,” he said.

SOURCE

SOMETHIN TELLS ME THAT THIS IS THE ONLY SARKOZY THE BRITS WANT TO SEE FOR AWHILE!  LOL

Posted by peiper     on 12/05/2009 at 08:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • EUro-peons • Eye-Candy • Finance and Investing • FRANCE • International • UK •  
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   Wednesday - June 24, 2009

Hedge fund managers betting Twitter will give them an edge in rapid trading.

I don’t think I have ever posted anything from the financial pages before.
I know I should keep up with things but to tell you the truth, I just don’t read the financial pages too often. In fact, hardly ever.
Wasn’t always thus. I used to faithfully read the IBD, my first port of call in finance and stocks etc. It was always a pretty good source too.
And of course the WSJ.  As time went on and after we moved here though, I seemed to lose interest and there has been so many other things to occupy my time, I just ignore it now. 
However, my wife reads the financial pages here every day, and she brought this story to my attention.

I deemed it interesting enough to share and hope you find it so too.  I don’t wanna bore anyone.  Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly where the line is when I choose a story to share.  Kinda like pot luck and hope for the best.

Anyway ... whodda thought that the CIA would be in Venture Capital?

Hedge fund managers are turning to Twitter in an attempt to steal a march on their rivals.

By Richard Tyler, Enterprise Editor
Finance page, The telegraph

Traders are using software developed by US-based technology StreamBase to monitor “tweets” for price sensitive information.

The software plugs into Algorithm-based automated trading platforms that have been used by traders for years. But rather than searching Reuters or Bloomberg the software now scans Twitter.com.

Streambase – whose client base includes Royal Bank of Canada and London-based hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management – was commissioned to develop the software by several “unnamed” clients.

The software allows traders to take into account “event-based” information published on Twitter in their automated equity, bond and foreign exchange trading.

The company, whose investors include Inqtel, Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm, claims it could give traders an edge when deciding whether to trade on breaking news, like terrorist attacks and natural disasters, rather than waiting for the information to be filtered through providers like Reuters Thomson or Bloomberg.

Nasir Zubairi, a former product manager for algorithmic trading and foreign exchange e-commerce at Royal Bank of Scotland, said the City would be looking at websites like Twitter.com as a useful market information “broadcast tool”.

“Markets tend to buy on rumour and sell on facts,” he said.

SOURCE

Not just markets either.  Anyone speculating and or investing should be buying on rumor and selling on facts.
Learned that at Wade Cooke’s knee. In a manner of speaking.

Oh hey, speaking of books, (well I am now) if you have any interest in the markets, even just a little bit, grab hold of a book if still in print called,
The Wall Street Money Machine.  True, its outta date by now but even so the information in that book is still very good.

Posted by peiper     on 06/24/2009 at 11:08 AM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing •  
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