In the wake of the largest swindle Wall Street has even known, everyone is questioning how this could have happened. How could anyone run a 50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme right under the SEC’s nose? The SEC, with virtually limitless resources, has the power to do essentially whatever it wants when investigating fraud. So how could they miss this? Is this just a failure of the free market, an example that those hedge funds just have too much freedom, and government regulators need more power and resources? Not at all – in fact, quite the opposite.
This is a wake up call for investors and the public. Where the SEC failed to spot a problem, the free market saw it. Eighteen months ago, a firm named Aksia run by Jim Vos and Jake Waltour, warned clients not to do business with Bernard Madoff’s investment fund. Aksia is what’s called a due-diligence firm, and they’re an example of what regulation would look like in a true free market.
Because of the lack of government regulation in hedge funds, these due-diligence firms emerged. Investors wanted to be assured that their money was going to a reputable fund, so these companies thoroughly investigate hedge funds for a fee. Read the rest of this entry »
There are some solutions that will probably never become a reality, but you just have to push them, get them out there, make sure other people at least hear them. That’s how I feel about the Buffalo Commons. Imagine the world’s largest nature reserve, where massive herds of wild buffalo could migrate across the plains the way they used to, uninterrupted. And imagine that same land had a environmentally safe, completely non-polluting energy source collecting power 24 hours a day 7 days week. That’d be pretty rad, and it seems like most people would be for it. Well it can happen, check it out: Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t said much about the whole Detroit automotive financial fiasco here, instead I posted most of my opinions about it over at Ridelust.com. Just the other day, I wrote a post called The 9 Detroit Auto Brands We’d Miss The Least that basically outlines which brands GM and Ford should sell to lighten up their load and get back on track financially.
Remember the story of Aron Ralston? He was the climber who was out in the wilderness when a boulder fell on his arm and pinned him there. He was stuck, unable to get free, so he did what needed to be done, he cut off his own arm. That kind of action takes massive testicular fortitude, but it saved his life in a case where, otherwise, he would have surely died. What does this have to do with Detroit? Well, right now, GM owns 12 different brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, and Vauxhall; Ford owns 5: Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, and Volvo; and Chrysler owns 3: Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep. All three companies are on the verge of certain death, and something needs to be done. The question is, do they have the testicular fortitude that Aron Ralston had? Here’s a quick run down of which brands I think should go the way of Aron Ralston’s arm: Read the rest of this entry »
In a surreal scene of consumer frenzy this morning, a Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York was crushed to death by a wave of shoppers who broke down the doors just minutes before the store was set to open. It was 4:55 am when the sliding glass doors finally came off their hinges due to the weight of over 2,000 holiday shoppers. As they piled into the store, 34-year-old employee Jdimypai Damour was knocked to the ground and trampled to death. No one stopped to help, not even when police arrived. The officers giving Damour CPR were being shoved and jostled around by shoppers trying to enter the store themselves.
“They were like a stampede,” said Nassau Det. Lt. Michael Fleming. “Hundreds of people walked past him, over him or around him.” Read the rest of this entry »
Written by Vito Rispo on
November 29th, 2008. Posted in
Economy, News |
1 Comment
This past November 3rd, early on that Monday morning, literally hundreds of parents were lined up outside of the Brandywine School District’s offices to sign their children up for the school choice program. More than 30 parents actually camped out overnight for a spot at the front of the line. The first people started forming the line at 2 pm on Sunday. All this for the opportunity to snatch up some of the district’s limited number of spaces.
“They closed so many schools this year, everybody’s panicking,” said Carla Woods of Claymont. She was one of the parents who camped out outside the office. “I’m freezing,” she said.
The DHL unit of Germany’s Deutsche Post (DPWGN.DE) announced today that it will stop making express deliveries within the U.S., close all of its 18 main distribution hubs there, and lay off all but a few thousand of its remaining 13,000 U.S. workers. Although it will still continue to make delivers to and from the US and other countries.
DHL purchased Airborne Express in an attempt to challenge FedEx (FDX) and United Parcel Service (UPS), but has lost nearly $10 billion in the US market in the 5 years since that purchase. The company is actualy a dominant force in the global market, but it was never able to compete with the stronger UPS and FedEx on American soil. Read the rest of this entry »
Imagine a nuclear power plant the size of a garden shed able to power your house plus 20,000 of your neighbors houses. That type of machinery is on the horizon within the next five years according to scientists at Los Alamos. The mini-reactors will be completely self contained and sealed, with zero moving parts and be buried underground.
This tiny technology was originally developed by the US government’s Los Alamos laboratory, but the development rights have been licensed to New Mexico-based company Hyperion Power Generation (HPG), which has taken it’s first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years.
“Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,” said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. “They will cost approximately $25 million each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $2,500 per home.” Read the rest of this entry »
The internet is a beautiful thing, it creates opportunities to streamline so many things in our lives. It creates a marketplace where people can reach each other so easily. It has the power to decentralize authority and break down barriers. We have information sharing at an insane rate that people just 20 years ago couldn’t imagine, but I think we have yet to see the real power of the internet.
As the financial crisis rages on, a fairly new form of decentralized lending and borrowing is emerging through online sharing of money. According to a study by Grail Research, person-to-person lending (P2P) is a fast emerging trend that could seriously reduce dependence on banks. P2P lending is a form of micro-lending where an individual or a group lends money to a person in need without any intermediary or central authority like a bank. Read the rest of this entry »
