In Search of the Perfect Investment

From Business Insider this morning. Go figure:

+ The pace of contraction in Eurozone industrial production accelerated in October. Industrial activity fell 3.6 percent from the year before versus expectations of a 2.4 percent decline and a contraction of 2.8 percent in September. The figure marked the steepest drop in three years.

And then…

+ After a brief period of politically-induced market turmoil, the yield on Italian sovereign debt fell today at a government bond auction. The yield on short-term bills fell to its lowest level since March, and investor demand for the notes increased from the last auction.

A little more on DDD Group, the English 3D Solutions Company. I mentioned last Friday I liked this company. I obtained a copy of the Powerpoint slides DDD presented last week in Los Angeles. Click  here DDD Group Presentation 4 Dec 12

Republican, Democrat, The Coffee Party. Does it really matter who’s in Washington? Yesterday’s New York Times editorial. We have a Democratic administration and this is what we get. Most disturbing:

Too Big to Indict
It is a dark day for the rule of law. Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system. They also have not charged any top HSBC banker in the case, though it boggles the mind that a bank could launder money as HSBC did without anyone in a position of authority making culpable decisions.

Clearly, the government has bought into the notion that too big to fail is too big to jail. When prosecutors choose not to prosecute to the full extent of the law in a case as egregious as this, the law itself is diminished. The deterrence that comes from the threat of criminal prosecution is weakened, if not lost.

In the HSBC case, prosecutors may want the public to focus on the $1.92 billion settlement, which includes forfeiture of $1.26 billion and other penalties, as well as requirements to improve its internal controls and submit to the oversight of an outside monitor for the next five years. But even large financial settlements are small compared with the size of international major banks. More important, once criminal sanctions are considered off limits, penalties and forfeitures become just another cost of doing business, a risk factor to consider on the road to profits.

There is no doubt that the wrongdoing at HSBC was serious and pervasive. Several foreign banks have been fined in recent years for flouting United States sanctions against transferring money through American subsidiaries on behalf of clients in countries like Iran, Sudan and Cuba. HSBC’s actions were even more egregious. According to several law enforcement officials with knowledge of the inquiry, prosecutors found that, for years, HSBC had also moved tainted money from Mexican drug cartels and Saudi banks with ties to terrorist groups.

Those findings echo those of a Congressional report, issued in July, which said that between 2001 and 2010, HSBC exposed the American “financial system to money laundering and terrorist financing risks.” Prosecutors and Congressional investigators were also alarmed by indications that senior HSBC officials might have been complicit in the illegal activity and that the bank did not tighten its lax controls against money laundering even after repeated urgings from federal officials.

Yet government officials will argue that it is counterproductive to levy punishment so severe that a bank could be destroyed in the process. That may be true as far as it goes. But if banks operating at the center of the global economy cannot be held fully accountable, the solution is to reduce their size by breaking them up and restricting their activities – not shield them and their leaders from prosecution for illegal activities.

I bet you never knew the hold unions had over their members. I certainly didn’t. The Michigan Legislature approved sweeping legislation  yesterday that vastly reduces the power of organized labor  in a state that has been a symbol of union dominance and served as an incubator for union activity over decades of modern American labor history.

The two bills, approved by the House of Representatives over the shouts of thousands of angry union protesters who gathered on the lawn outside the Capitol building, will, among other things, bar both public and private sector union workers from being required to pay fees as a condition of their employment. Gov. Rick Snyder has signed the legislation. It’s law.

Read the New York Times for a bargain 99 cents for four  weeks. Click here.

My latest little Honey Do. “Honey, please fix the broken dimmers.”

What moron at Lutron makes complex dimmers that retail for $250 a piece? These things come with remotes and the ability to control ten remote switches, also called companion switches. Who wants to control 10 switches in a 10 x 10 kitchen? Anyway, 30 minutes on the phone with Lutron tech support, we finally found a replacement dimmer (the old ones are now longer made) that costs only $130. Look at this wiring insanity. And you thought that only computers suffered from “feature creep.”

Moral of this story: Check what your contractor specifies for your job before you OK it. Don’t let him run amuck.Remember the more complex the job, the more likely it is to break. And he’ll be the only person who can fix it. Surprise. Surprise.

Oh yes, it will take at least a week to special order and receive our replacement dimmers. Meanwhile, they’ll stay in their charming present state. See photo.

Quote of the Day…

“The thing about quotes on the Internet is that you cannot confirm their validity.” – Abraham Lincoln

Favorite New Yorker cartoon.

Harry Newton, who stares at his two busted $250 dimmers and thinks, It really was a different time. How different? Friends have sold their houses. Friends have gone back to work. Local contractors have folded and left town. And our wonderful government has taken all the money away from retirees (those who live on their meager  interest income) and given it all to the banks. A democratic regime?

Talk is AF, a local bank called Astoria Financial, may have interest for others.