Jaguar E-Type, Classic Car, Resurrected (video)

Jaguar Resurrects Its Most Classic Car -

Jaguar E-Types are one of the most beloved classic cars in the world. In the 1960s, Jaguar made 12 Lightweight E-Types out of aluminum, but was supposed to make 18. Fifty years later, they finally got around to making the last six. The modern batch are "new," but made to the original specifications. Video by Alyssa Zahler, Ryo Ikegami (Source: Bloomberg--Sept 18)

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Think Tanks on the Take, Influence-Buying in Washington DC

Their are experts, and then there are "paid experts"--

Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks - NYTimes.com: "... policy makers who rely on think tanks are often unaware of the role of foreign governments in funding the research. Joseph Sandler, a lawyer and expert on the statute that governs Americans lobbying for foreign governments, said the arrangements between the countries and think tanks “opened a whole new window into an aspect of the influence-buying in Washington that has not previously been exposed.” “It is particularly egregious because with a law firm or lobbying firm, you expect them to be an advocate,” Mr. Sandler added. “Think tanks have this patina of academic neutrality and objectivity, and that is being compromised.” The arrangements involve Washington’s most influential think tanks, including the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Atlantic Council. Each is a major recipient of overseas funds, producing policy papers, hosting forums and organizing private briefings for senior United States government officials that typically align with the foreign governments’ agendas..."

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Goldman Sachs, NY Federal Reserve, Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra, Audio

#536: The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra by This American Life: "The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra--An unprecedented look inside one of the most powerful, secretive institutions in the country. The NY Federal Reserve is supposed to monitor big banks and prevent another financial crisis. But when Carmen Segarra was hired, what she witnessed inside the Fed was so alarming that she bought a tiny recorder, and started secretly taping."

Regulatory Capture:
Regulatory capture - Wikipedia: "Regulatory capture is a form of political corruption that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special concerns of interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure; it creates an opening for firms to behave in ways injurious to the public (e.g., producing negative externalities). The agencies are called "captured agencies"."

Regulatory Capture Definition | Investopedia: "Regulatory capture is a theory associated with George Stigler, a Nobel laureate economist. It is the process by which regulatory agencies eventually come to be dominated by the very industries they were charged with regulating. Regulatory capture happens when a regulatory agency, formed to act in the public's interest, eventually acts in ways that benefit the industry it is supposed to be regulating, rather than the public."

See also:

The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes - Bloomberg View by Michael Lewis

The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra | This American Life


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Peter Thiel says HP, Yahoo, aren't Technology Companies Anymore (video)

Peter Thiel: Yahoo Isn't a Technology Company Anymore -

Palantir Co-Founder Peter Thiel discusses Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. He speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on “Studio 1.0.” (Source: Bloomberg--Sept 17)

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Obama, the NSA, the No-Fly List, State-Secret Obsession

It's on Obama and the Democrats now--

The billionaire, the NSA and the no-fly list: America's 'state secret' obsession has gone too far | Trevor Timm | theguardian.com: "... When the Obama administration took over the final case accusing the Bush administration of torture and invoked state secrets again, the judges were visibly taken aback. Didn’t matter: on appeal, it was thrown out of court yet again. “The only place in the world where these claims can’t be discussed,” ACLU’s Ben Wizner said at the time, “is in this courtroom.” What’s truly revolting about this abuse of the state secrets privilege is that it used to be an issue Democrats ran against. President Obama said hewould reform it in his 2008 campaign, and vice president Joe Biden co-sponsored a bill to do just that. All the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted for state secrets reform as well, explicitly citing NSA wiretapping and torture as things that should never be kept classified from the American people – that should always be able to face a challenge in court. What have we heard since? Not a peep." (read more at the link above)

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Eike Batista, Ex-Billionaire, Boom to Bust (video)

Eike Batista: How a Billionaire Went From Boom to Bust: Video - Bloomberg:
(Allow video to load after clicking play or go to link below)

Eike Batista: How a Billionaire Went From Boom to Bust: Video - Bloomberg: Bloomberg’s Matthew G. Miller reports on the fading fortunes of former billionaire Eike Batista. Miller speaks on “In The Loop. (Source: Bloomberg Sept 15)

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California Now a Third World Country in Wealth Distribution?

You think the term Limousine Liberals was just made up?

America's new class system: Column: "... California now has the wealth distribution — and, in some disturbing ways, the political underpinnings — of a Third World country. In Silicon Valley, a group of super-wealthy tech oligarchs live lives of almost unimaginable wealth, while only a few miles away, illegal immigrants live in squalor. The oligarchs feel free, and even entitled, to choose the direction of society in the name of a greater good, but somehow their policies seem mostly to make the oligarchs richer and more powerful. Meanwhile, once-prosperous middle-class communities, revolving around manufacturing industries that have now moved overseas, either sink into poverty or become gentrified homes for the lower-upper class. The middle class itself, meanwhile, is increasingly, in Kotkin's words, "proletarianized," with security vanishing and jobs moving downscale. The oligarchs are assisted in their control by what Kotkin calls the "clerisy" class — an amalgam of academics, media and government employees who play the role that medieval clergy once played in legitimizing the powerful, and in implementing their policies while quelling resistance from the masses. The clerisy isn't as rich as the oligarchs, but it does pretty well for itself and is compensated in part by status, its positions allowing even its lower-paid members to feel superior to the hoi polloi...."

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Jeffrey Gundlach, Bond Rates, Bond Prices

Bonds? Listen to Jeffrey Gundlach--

Gundlach on Today's Surprising Driver of Bond Prices: "...Deflation and recession in major economies in Europe is driving European bond rates lower, Gundlach said.“Buying from foreign buyers has been more than sufficient to offset any amount of so-called tapering that has happened from the Federal Reserve,” Gundlach said.International buying of Treasury bonds, he said, is up by $600 billion year-to-date versus last year.Fed policy will keep rates low, he said. “I’m virtually certain that Janet Yellen does not want to raise interest rates,” Gundlach said. Recent easing by the European Central Bank (ECB) will add further support European bond prices. Gundlach spoke Sept. 9 on a conference call with investors. He is the founder and chief investment officer of Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital." A copy of Gundlach’s presentation is available here.

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Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve, Interest Rates Decision, 2 minute video

Janet Yellen's Fed Decision in Two Minutes -

Fed officials have stuck to their commitment to keep interest rates near zero for a "considerable time" after their bond buying program ends in October. Fed Chair Janet Yellen held a press conference after the announcement. Here's everything you need to know in two minutes. (Source: Bloomberg --Sept 17)

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How Are American Families Doing? Horrible

First the Facts, and only the facts:

How Are American Families Doing? A Guided Tour of Our Financial Well-Being - NYTimes.com:

• Incomes Fell From 2010 to 2013 for Most
• Many groups, including both the youngest and oldest families and those without a college education, saw steep income declines even after an economic recovery had begun.
• Both young adult households (those headed by someone under 35) and those households headed by someone over 75 have seen steep income declines in that same period.
• This is the simplest yet most important fact to understand about the current economic recovery: It has not resulted in higher incomes for anyone other than those who were already doing well. And very large groups of Americans have experienced falling incomes.
• Wages have fallen as a proportion of income
• The gains in the stock market did not translate into greater wealth for most American families. The median American household was worth $81,200 in 2013, down from $82,800 in 2010 and way down from the $135,400 of 2007. (Those numbers are all inflation-adjusted, using 2013 dollars). While the wealthiest 25 percent receive a meaningful chunk of their income from capital gains, the bottom 75 percent receive a trivial amount.
• The survey’s breakdown of where household income is coming from helps explain why this is happening. Most Americans, particularly those in the middle- and lower-income brackets, derive most of their income from wages and salaries, not from investment income. In the wealthiest 25 percent of households, only 47 percent of their income comes from wages, compared with 70 to 80 percent for the lower three brackets.

America: Poorer, Less Affluent, In Decline.

What Happened?

Washington Sold Out America for Wall Street. Just look at Hillary Clinton and Eric Cantor (and they are just 2 of many, many examples). The pathology is systemic in both parties: Democrat and Republican.

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Advertising, Coupons, Digitization, Disintermediation

Dinosaurs: Newspapers, Print Advertising, Post Office

Last Call — Medium: "... From the advertiser’s point of view, the nation’s newspapers have become little more than a blue-bag delivery service, with a horoscope and enough local sports inside to get people to open the bag. Inserts are one of the last sources of advertising to resist digitization. They are also the next to go. Businesses like Cellfire and Find & Save are working on digital coupons; stores like Kroger’s and Safeway already offer online coupons direct to customers. This digitization is progressing as print circulation decays. Back in Roanoke, the Times was on the market for 5 years before it was bought; in that time the paper lost a quarter of its Sunday readers — 106,000 to 85,000 — and a third of its weekday readers — 96,000 to 65,000. This story too is being repeated all over the country. The print audience continues to defect to mobile, abandon the local paper, or die...."

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Scotland Vote Was NOT Even Close! And Yes, CNN is Idiotic

At least no matter what Scotland decides, they are giving it 110%. #ScotlandDecides #CNN pic.twitter.com/fl9dzQlaYL
— Brady (@burninggoats) September 18, 2014

SCOTLAND VOTE WASN'T EVEN CLOSE: "No" (to keep Scotland as part of the U.K.): 55.3% ... "Yes": 44.7%. (source: Politico)

How could all of the media get this so wrong? And of course, the laughing stock of global media, CNN, didn't miss an opportunity to demonstrate how inept it is yet again (see above). We all accept that CNN is staffed by people who are grammatically and mathematically illiterate, but really? Here was CNN's lame excuse:

"[T]he pro-union camp won by a margin of 55.25% of the vote to 44.65% -- a much wider gap than opinion polls in the final days leading up to the vote had suggested."

By the way, when was the last time a President of the United States has been elected by 10% or more? More than 30 years ago--1984! (Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale in popular vote 58.8% to 40.6%.)

But at least President Obama rose to the occasion and showed the world that not all Americans are as illiterate as CNN:

Scottish leader quits after 'no' vote to independence : ""Through debate, discussion, and passionate yet peaceful deliberations, they reminded the world of Scotland's enormous contributions to the UK and the world," Obama said in a statement Friday morning. "We have no closer ally than the United Kingdom, and we look forward to continuing our strong and special relationship with all the people of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as we address the challenges facing the world today.""-- US President Barack Obama


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Scottish Independence, Scotland Independence Referendum Results

Scotland has rejected independence, #indyref results confirm http://t.co/5lUtzo4G5Y pic.twitter.com/fxjXNDBkAW
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) September 19, 2014

Edinburgh votes NO in Scotland's #indyref: Yes 123,927 (38.9%) No 194,638 (61.1%) Turnout 84.4% http://t.co/F4RSIxxXEo
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) September 19, 2014

The majority of people voting have answered no to the referendum question #indyref #ScotDeclaration
— Scot Ref 2014 (@ScotRef2014) September 19, 2014

Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013: The question is— 

“Should Scotland be an independent country?”. 
Choices: Yes / No

The Voting takes place Thursday, September 18th, by paper ballots.

Results will come in and be published on Friday, September 19, 2014. 

How Do I Track Results?

The Electoral Commission will carry the results on Twitter account @scotref2014 (see below). The website www.scotlandreferendum.info will carry a running total of the 32 districts as they come in. Each local authority will also tweet their results and place them on their website. The BBC also will cover results live as they come in, as will Bloomberg News. 

Tweets by @ScotRef2014:

Tweets by @ScotRef2014


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College, Athletes, NCAA, Reality, Illusion

Why college isn't for everyone, explained in a single chart: "The bottom quarter of earners with a college degree don’t make more money than the average high school graduate. And this hasn’t really changed much in 40 years."

Paying NCAA College Athletes: Inside the Legal Battle - Businessweek: ".... he persuaded the sneaker maker to pile its endorsement bets on a National Basketball Association rookie named Michael Jordan. In 1988 he brokered Nike’s first universitywide deal to supply sneakers to athletes on all teams at the University of Miami. He operated corporate-sponsored summer showcases for top high school recruits. “Sure, I wrote checks,” he says. “The schools, the coaches, the NCAA–they never said, ‘No thank you.’” During that time, “ESPN was expanding like crazy. The college game was everywhere, all the time. Big bucks. The only ones not making any money? The players. Only a few ever go pro. Started to bother me.”..." (read more at link above)


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Alibaba IPO, Winners, Losers

According to the Alibaba prospectus (Sept. 5) the "Chinese online and mobile commerce colossus is offering a maximum of 368 million shares for sale through six principal underwriters: Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank. If the shares sell at the top of the pricing range, at $66, the IPO would raise more than $24 billion, putting Alibaba’s market cap at $163 billion."(source infra)

Who are the winners (besides Alibaba, Yahoo, and Jack Ma)?-- The Wall Street fable behind Alibaba's IPO: "... The investment banks are garnering around $350 million in fees, or only around 1% of the proceeds, well below the norm on most IPOs. No the cash payout to the bankers travels in a more circuitous route. These fabled Wall Street firms are handing their favorite clients $6 billion in quick profits. That’s around 10% of the total amount left on the table in the entire tech boom from 1999 to 2001. Investors, in turn, are very likely to repay the firms with big trading commissions in the days and weeks to come. The biggest such payers tend to be hedge funds, so hedge funds usually get the meatiest share allocations. Mutual funds that pay low commissions have less favored status. The rule of thumb, says Ritter, is that Wall Street recoups 30% of the total windfall in commissions. That’s $1.8 billion. So including fees, Wall Street’s potential take mounts to well over $2.1 billion...."

And the losers in allowing Alibaba shares to be underpriced? Yahoo, Jack Ma, and Alibaba. But hey, with the money flowing like champagne, leave a few billion for the bankers and their "friends."

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How Corrupt Is Higher Education? You Really Don't Want to Know

College Consultant ThinkTank Guarantees Admission for Hefty Price - Businessweek: "Some 10,000 students—sixth graders to junior-college grads—use ThinkTank’s services now, generating annual revenue of more than $18 million. Nearly all are Asian immigrants like Ma, 36, who moved to Northern California from Taiwan when he was 11. He reels them in at free seminars, held in Holiday Inn ballrooms on Saturday afternoons. The standing-room-only events, advertised in Bay Area Chinese media, include a raffle of free SAT prep classes and a pep talk for the college-obsessed. Ma reassures the bewildered, multigenerational audiences that top-ranked American universities aren’t nearly as capricious as they seem, once you know their formula. ThinkTank boasts that 85 percent of its applicants get into a top-40 college, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report. “Our model knows more about how to get into many colleges than their own admissions officers know,” he says."

The answer? Stop feeding the beast. Stop student loans. Stop giving money to corrupt institutions which have strayed so far from their original mission and purpose as to be almost unrecognizable. Federal funding for education should be strictly for Pre-K through Community College (2 year degrees). Public education through a 2 year degree at a community college should be free, with strict standards of accreditation, accountability, and transparency, in order to qualify for federal funding. Beyond a 2 year degree only scholarships should be available for qualified students.

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Howard Marks. Risk Assessment, Market Strategy (video)

Howard Marks on Risk Assessment, Market Strategy: Video - Bloomberg:

Howard Marks, chairman of Oaktree Capital Group LLC, talks about assessing market risk, volatility and sentiment. Marks speaks with Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers." (Source: Bloomberg-Sept 5)

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Barry Ritholtz, Masters in Business, David Rosenberg Interview

Barry Ritholtz, Masters in Business, David Rosenberg Interview
Sep 6, 2014

Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews David Rosenberg, former chief economist at Merrill Lynch, now strategist and economist at Toronto’s Gluskin Sheff. They discuss how economic data impacts markets, and what investors should — and should not — pay attention on. Masters In Business aired on Bloomberg Radio.


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James O'Shaughnessy, CEO, O'Shaughnessy Asset Management

Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews James O'Shaughnessy, the chief executive officer of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. They discuss the strategies that work on Wall Street.

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Obama's Losing Strategy in Syria and Iraq (video)

This one is on Obama--

Tim Arango, Baghdad Bureau Chief for The New York Times.: "I will tell you that after 2011 the [Obama] administration basically ignored the country. and when officials spoke about what was happening there they were often ignorant of the reality. They did not want to see what was really happening because it conflicted with their narrative that they left Iraq in reasonably good shape."

Rebel Rivals of ISIS Fear U.S. Airstrikes Could Help Assad - NYTimes.com: "There is a broad consensus among diplomats, and even among some moderate supporters of the Syrian government, that the only way to legitimize the fight against ISIS is through a new approach in which the West agrees that Mr. Assad stays but must cede some powers to a Sunni-inclusive national unity government."

Obama Islamic State Speech Highlights in Under Two Minutes: Video -
(Allow video to load after clicking play or go to link above) 
Highlights from President Barack Obama's speech about the U.S. leading a "broad coalition" against the Islamic State militant group. (Source: Bloomberg Sept. 10)

This is what happens when you have people like Susan Rice and Samantha Power and Barack Obama running foreign policy--way over their heads I'm afraid--and it is a losing strategy out-of-the gate.

They were wrong a year ago, and nothing has changed. But they can't admit it, nor learn from it. “Pride precedeth a fall.”

This is going to get real ugly folks, and real expensive.

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The Job Situation Is Bad, Even New York Times No Longer In Denial

You know it is bad when the New York Times finally seems to "get it" despite their history of just spinning the Obama PR--

Job Growth Is Sluggish, Raising Fear of Malaise - NYTimes.com: "Missing: nearly three million American workers. This isn’t the latest dystopian science fiction story or the pitch for a Hollywood thriller. It is the economic trend that has alarmed experts and policy makers alike. A growing number of people — many in their prime working years — have simply given up on landing a job. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the overall unemployment rate dropped slightly to 6.1 percent in August. But that improvement was mostly a result of Americans dropping out of the labor force, not of their finding work. The situation helps explain why so many ordinary Americans remain doubtful about the recovery, now in its fifth year..."

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ISIS And The Jayvee President

The McLaughlin Group 9/05/14:


“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant”--Barack Obama, speaking of what is now known as ISIS or ISIL, November, 2013

ISIS a Jayvee team? (I'd hate to see their varsity!)

OR

Who's wearing the jayvee uniform now, Mr. President?

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Scotland the Stupid? For Sane Scots the Choice Is Clear

Scots, What the Heck? - NYTimes.com: "Next week Scotland will hold a referendum on whether to leave the United Kingdom. And polling suggests that support for independence has surged over the past few months, largely because pro-independence campaigners have managed to reduce the “fear factor” — that is, concern about the economic risks of going it alone. At this point the outcome looks like a tossup. Well, I have a message for the Scots: Be afraid, be very afraid. The risks of going it alone are huge. You may think that Scotland can become another Canada, but it’s all too likely that it would end up becoming Spain without the sunshine... I find it mind-boggling that Scotland would consider going down this path after all that has happened in the last few years. If Scottish voters really believe that it’s safe to become a country without a currency, they have been badly misled." -- Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in Economics (read more at the link above)

Having some Scottish blood in my veins, and having lived for a short while in Edinburgh myself, I'll have a go at this. Any objective, clearheaded person looking at the facts, would vote NO on separating from the UK. So the choice is clear:

1) Vote for Separation, Sentimentality and Stupidity--with the ONLY winners being greedy politicians who would win in the short-term, but things will go quite badly quickly thereafter--want to know how greedy politicians can ruin a place? Look at Detroit.

2) Vote for Staying (in the Union), Sanity, and Scotland, and have a hopeful future rather than condemning future generations to backwater status within an European Union that really doesn't want you.

Final note: the damage that has already been done to Scotland by all this separation talk is unbelievable. Just among U.S. companies, hardly anyone wants to invest in Scotland--with separation looming. If separation occurs, expect capital to flee, including even some Scottish companies!

Oh, by the way, for those pro-separation politicians--throw the bums out! Talk is cheap, those politicians who talk of glorious independence are only out for themselves, they do not care about you or Scotland.

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America, Political Dysfunction, Decay

Why Institutions Decay:

".... Political decay was caused by the inability of institutions to adapt to changing circumstances. Decay was thus in many ways a condition of political development: the old had to break down in order to make way for the new. But the transitions could be extremely chaotic and violent, and there was no guarantee that the old political institutions would continuously and peacefully adapt to new conditions. This model is a good starting point for a broader understanding of political decay more generally. Institutions are “stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior,” as Huntington put it, the most important function of which is to facilitate collective action. Without some set of clear and relatively stable rules, human beings would have to renegotiate their interactions at every turn. Such rules are often culturally determined and vary across different societies and eras, but the capacity to create and adhere to them is genetically hard-wired into the human brain. A natural tendency to conformism helps give institutions inertia and is what has allowed human societies to achieve levels of social cooperation unmatched by any other animal species...." read more here: Francis Fukuyama | The Sources of American Political Dysfunction | Foreign Affairs

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A real Obama and Paul Krugman et al nightmare: Wayne Allyn Root

This is funny (and informative:), and a real Obama and Paul Krugman et al nightmare:

Book Discussion Murder Middle Class | Video | C-SPAN.org: "Wayne Allyn Root talked about his book, The Murder of the Middle Class: How to Save Yourself and Your Family from the Criminal Conspiracy of the Century, in which he argues that the American political class, Democrats and Republicans, including the Obama administration and its allies, are actively destroying the middle class in the U.S. and suggests ways for Americans to protect themselves before it’s too late. Mr. Root spoke at a Financial Policy Council event held in New York City." (video at link above)

People in the video:
Abdelnour, Ziad - President and CEO, Blackhawk Partners;

Author: Root, Wayne Allyn

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Warren Buffett, Burger King, Tax Avoidance

Despite his public pose as an advocate for higher tax payments, Warren Buffett is remarkably good at minimizing them for Berkshire Hathaway. He recently cashed out his investment in Graham Holdings, former owner of the Washington Post, by executing a tax-free swap of assets... follow the man's money. In May 2010 Barron's magazine reported that Mr. Buffett "groused about a tax bill of roughly $1 billion that Kraft incurred by selling its pizza business to Nestlé, the world's largest food concern, for $3.7 billion, to raise additional funds. 'Dumb' was Buffett's word of choice.(source infra)

What's good for the goose, is good for the gander?

Warren Buffett's Tax Whopper - WSJ: ".... The real tax gain for Burger King is that by choosing a legal address in Canada it can avoid Washington's obsession with taxing overseas profits at American tax rates. To the extent that either chain is able to grow internationally, this deal means that their world-wide earnings, once taxed overseas, generally won't have to be taxed again for the privilege of being invested in the U.S. The business case seems clear, but the politics can be difficult. Senate Democrats, desperate to avoid discussing Iraq or ObamaCare, are hoping to hold the Senate by running against "Benedict Arnold" corporations instead of real-life Republican opponents. But it looks like Democrats will now have a harder time having it their way—unless they want to stage a political inversion and turn on their most famous benefactor and supposed tax expert... Mr. Buffett is no doubt aware of the tax implications of this deal, as he always is when investing his fellow shareholders' money...."

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Correction Coming Say Analysts (video)

Correction is coming--Analysts:

• A jolt to international confidence in central banks will lead to a 30 to 60 percent market decline, David Tice, president of Tice Capital and founder of the Prudent Bear Fund, told CNBC's "Power Lunch." When this happens, he said, markets will face a "period of extreme turmoil." This crash will be precipitated, he said, by a disillusionment with the Federal Reserve's "confidence game," which will then see inflation rise, and the Fed scramble to raise rates. At that point, Tice added, "the Fed starts to lose control." (August 27, 2014)

• The Fed's low interest rates could bring a "scary" 50-60 percent market correction, said technical analyst Abigail Doolittle.(August 27, 2014)

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Sanctions, Russia, Trade War

Countries with the largest value of exports affected by sanctions imposed by Russia pic.twitter.com/KDdRhApubx
— WSJ News Graphics (@WSJGraphics) August 11, 2014

Sanctions, Russia, Trade War

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Housing Woes Worse in Los Angeles Than NY, San Fran (video)

(Allow video to load after clicking play or go to link below)

Housing Woes Worse in Los Angeles Than NY, San Fran: Video - Bloomberg: "Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg’s Carol Massar reports on today’s top headlines on “Taking Stock. (Source: Bloomberg)" [Housing Woes Worse in Los Angeles Than New York, San Francisco -- Report at end of video clip]

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Reining In High-frequency Trading?

A reining in of high-frequency trading? Views:

"... Regulators are circling the wagons. BATS Global Markets is said to be nearing a regulatory settlement over allegations it unfairly favored certain high-speed customers. This follows the abrupt departure last month of its CEO, the combative Bill O’Brien.

“It really appears that BATS is coming in for probably some heavy fines or sanctions,” Nagy said.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the SEC are pressing forward as some of the biggest dark-pool operators, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Barclays, are caught in the crossfire.

Rich Gates, a portfolio manager at TFS Capital in West Chester, Pa., expects to see regulators slam the brakes on some HFT players.

“I think we will see more changes,” said a jubilant Gates, featured in Michael Lewis’s “Flash Boys.” “It is exciting to watch and see all the changes and regulatory pressure.”"

source: High-frequency trading guns aiming for battle | New York Post

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64% of the World's Extremely Poor Live in Just 5 Countries

Chart: 64% of the World's Extremely Poor Live in Just 5 Countries | Statista:

64% of the World's Extremely Poor Live in Just 5 Countries - India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Congo

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Misleading Information Is Worse Than No Information

There's a world of misinformation out there--much of it spread by mainstream media--is one better trying to discern good information from misinformation, or just turning it off?

"The 13F filing does not require disclosure of short positions, including short puts. Short puts are actually a long position, so you can see the confusion. The reported options could be part of a complex spread - and probably are. The spread might not even represent short deltas. We simply do not know."(source infra)

The Misleading Story About George Soros's Filing | Seeking Alpha: ".... Whatever the reason, the mainstream media sources are rushing to publish questionable information and conclusions. I suppose there are a few investors out there who made a decision based upon what George Soros was doing. Some sources said this was evidence that "the big one" was at hand. And of course, the government is no help. The required filings are well-intentioned, but do not provide even the most basic information required to discern the actual position of these managers.... " (read more at link above)

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