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Banks & the Fed – Bail 'em Out then Beat 'em Up

While shoppers were watching their pennies this holiday season, I was grinching over the relationship between the Fed and the big banks as reminiscent of the abusive relationship between Ike and Tina Turner – bail them out then beat them up with an onslaught of massive fines.  According to a global banking study by the Boston Consulting Group, legal claims against the world’s leading banks have reached $178 billion since the financial crisis, with heavy fines now seen as a cost of doing business, a cost ultimately born by shareholders with no banking employees or executives facing charges for wrong-doing.

All these fines do little to deter wrong-doing in the future while taking money out of the hands of those saving for retirement and give it to the government to spend with zero accountability.


 

NSA Surveillance Impact Overseas

On February 10th I spoke with Neil Cavuto on how NSA surveillance affects international communications.

I work internationally, dividing my time between San Diego, California and Italy. I sometimes advise on deals that have involving high-profile, publicly traded companies and the actions my clients take are significant enough to affect the market.  Now whenever you are talking about large amounts of money, someone will always find information valuable.

So… aside from the obvious obscene Constitutional violations by the NSA, their spying has a material effect on how we now communicate, specifically on how non-American entities conduct their business with Americans and with each other. The world has been put on notice that communications, which in anyway interest the US, are subject to interception by an agency that has shown it doesn’t have its house in order and its use of that information is uncomfortably vague.
Some companies in Europe have even taken steps to ensure that their communications do not get routed through any servers that they believe the NSA may observe.  Of course we really have no idea just how pervasive the NSA’s program truly is, so an overabundance of caution is required.
So now, when I am outside the US and I send an email to the US, I have to first think of which account to send it from based on what I’m saying and whom I’m sending it to.  When placing calls from outside the US to firms with whom we work in the US, I am conscious that someone may be listening and cannot trust what they may do with what they hear.  What if I place a call from somewhere like Dubai or have a conference call on with someone from there to a financial institution in the US?  Does that raise any red flags for the NSA?  Would someone then listen to that call?  I have to think about how to protect information that cannot be released before we are ready, which adds more friction to the system. That is not exactly helpful in an economy that is struggling.  Why make it harder for us to work done?