Bank Bailouts and the latest “Funny Money” scenarios
Some of you (particularly from the Oklahoma Oil Industry) may remember the book Funny Money written by Mark Singer in 1985. “The wondrous tale of Penn Square Bank, the high-rolling oil-and-gas loan broker in an Oklahoma City shopping center whose collapse staggered America’s banking community.”
Comments by a Banker [...]
Archive for the ‘Govt Issues’ Category
18 Dec
Funny Money
15 Dec
Current Account Deficit
What happens when we rely on faulty data to make decisions?
That’s the situation with the U.S. trade deficit. U.S. Department of Commerce statistics don’t reflect the real world anymore and the information system is dated.
As Marc Chandler vividly points out in his book Making Sense of the Dollar:
“There are various explanations for the persistence of [...]
14 Dec
You cut I choose
“You cut I choose” (separation of duties) is a method to check greed and corruption. Of course, it also works for dividing pies evenly.
One thing that auditors look for, when they evaluate internal financial controls, is separation of duties and more than one person controlling the process. However, this doesn’t keep powerful people at the [...]
5 Dec
Read
If we want to be informed citizens we have to read–not just watch CNN, MSNBC, and FOX.
It concerns me that a lot of people no longer read non-fiction books and newspapers that force them to think (particularly when it’s about things that impact our everyday life).
Many don’t read and understand the history of the global [...]
24 Nov
Healthcare Bureaucracy
Privatization is considered free market capitalism and a Public Option is considered a bureaucratic mess or mistake?
I normally hold libertarian views, when it comes to politics, but I have great difficulty understanding the current health care debate. Recently a nurse told me: “Poor people get good care at the hospital so what’s wrong with the [...]
29 Oct
Audit the Fed
Do you think it is strange that congress cannot even get an audit of the Federal Reserve Banks? Isn’t it their responsibility to have oversight?
The central banking system, controlled by the Federal Reserve Banks, was created by the Federal Reserve Act December 23, 1913.
It’s amazing that very few people understand where our money comes from [...]
23 Oct
Home Based Business
How can our government promote “Home Based Business?”
Why should government promote home based businesses? Look at the gas used to get people back and forth to cubicles. It’s like herding cattle twice each day. If you look at cities like Atlanta and DFW (where mass transit is not used) we wonder how much fuel [...]
13 Oct
Hard-Hearted
Why did it become popular to be hard-hearted in America?
(unsympathetic, hard, cold, cruel, indifferent, insensitive, callous, stony, unkind, heartless, inhuman, merciless, intolerant, uncaring, pitiless, unfeeling, unforgiving, hard as nails, affectless-You would have to be pretty hard-hearted not to feel something.)
TheFreeDictionary.com
Many people are hard to understand when it comes to “moral” issues. They think [...]
27 Sep
Wall Street
“For the times they are a-changin.”
Short-term quarterly profit results have driven the executive decisions of publicly traded companies forever. Some how I think that focus will change. Perhaps slowly from a government regulation perspective but not slowly from an investor perspective (and that counts even more).
Investor trust and opinion counts way more than government [...]
19 Aug
You’re “It”
People talk about the “Relationship and Trust” they have with their Doctor in this health care debate. “Don’t get between me and my Doctor.”
Many people have primary care givers they hardly known and specialists, etc. The normal “professional objectivity” takes the patient from “you” to “it.” I recall my sister being told in a hospital [...]
