Wall Street Truth Laid Bare

There is a statistic in the May 23rd The Street article "War on Crime Revs Up on Wall Street",  by Peter Morici which in its simplicity points out the macro problem with Wall Street:

"In February 1998, the S&P 500 first closed higher than 1000. Since then, corporate profits are up about 210% percent, but equities have risen less than 35%. Corporate profits rose 6% annually, but investing in stocks paid a disappointing 2.3% a year"

 The article goes on to point out that the best and brightest are devoted to enhancing their own compensation rather than value for investors.  Would one expect more from the people attracted to finance?  This falls under the headline of No News News, but I'd never seen it so baldly stated.

And then there was Jay MacDonald's February 14, 2011 "Punch Line to Foreclosure-Gate" article on Bankrate.com which described Florida Attorney General's office's PowerPoint presentation entitled: "Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases" (PDF).  The presentation was based on the AG's investigation of robosigning in the Sunshine State.

The presentation contains some interesting slides:

• examples of 6 different forged signatures for "Linda Green" (who had at least 14 different job titles), 
• 4 different signatures for Scott Anderson, 
• 3 different signatures each for Tywanna Thomas and Jessica Ohde who are variously identified as "Asst. Vice President" or "Asst. Secretary", 
• one document dated "9/9/9999", 
• several documents where the mortgage was assigned to "Bogus Assignee",
• stamped instead of signed signatures,
• bogus notaries (Notary stamps are good for 4 years, yet the examples showed expiration dates 5 years in the future), and
• excerpts of testimony from two people involved in robosigning.  (They say what we now know:  signatures were forged and nobody read the documents.)

It's worth a read.

Yaron Brook: Fwee Market Capitalism

Today's economic porn (The Daily Ticker with Aaron Task) included an interview Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute  I've found Ayn Rand good for a sad laugh.  Yes, if people were responsible and had the psychological orientation to meet her independent Objectivist model it might be worth supporting.

My personal belief is that, people being people doom Objectivism to the same fate as Communism: dustbin of history, fond illusion of idealistic youth, or something in between.  (Has anyone made an attempt to argue that Going Green may mean recycling/reusing the contents of the "dustbin of history"?)

That said I was very impressed (werry, werry impressed) that someone with a speech impediment could end up being the president of an organization. Yaron Brook's fire of conviction is subverted by taking like a baby.

Good News Means Bad Things

Osama Bin Ladin was killed yesterday. A symbolic victory, a boost to the aura of American prowess - not a single Navy SEAL killed- but given the distributed nature of al Qaeda, his death probably does little to reduce their threat.

As I drove to work  market reporters were reporting the favorable economic responses: the prices for gold and oil were down, but there was, of course, the contrarian warning: the US dollar, seen as the safest investment  will now find less eager buyers if the world is perceived as safer.  (Is it puckish to call the dollar a "gold standard"?)

It struck me as odd now, that I should unconsciously use the word "market" to mean financial doings rather than a green grocer. Perhaps I've unwittingly succumbed to a vast right-wing conspiracy.