The Costs of Illiquidity
Liquidity is underrated. What’s that, you say? You are earning nothing on your slack cash balances? Well, welcome to the club. I am earning nothing there as well. To earn money on short duration assets in this environment means taking risks, like Pimco does with its ETF with the ticker MINT. Now, many will offer...
The Costs of Illiquidity
Liquidity is underrated. What’s that, you say? You are earning nothing on your slack cash balances? Well, welcome to the club. I am earning nothing there as well. To earn money on short duration assets in this environment means taking risks, like Pimco does with its ETF with the ticker MINT. Now, many will offer...
Enduring Ponzi
Why did Madoff’s Ponzi scheme last so long? He didn’t take that much from it. If the gross exposure was $60 billion, he took only 1/2% of it — $300 million. The growth rate was high enough to attract investors but slow enough to not exhaust cash rapidly. The SEC was clueless, with little expertise...
Book Review: The Wizard of Lies
This is the best book that I have read on the Madoff scandal so far. Why is it great? It is well written. There are few if any factual errors in the text. She talked with a wide number of people to try to get the full story. It’s neutral. it doesn’t takes positions on...
Plan Your Giving
During hard economic times, fundraisers for charities get desperate. Their endowment, if any, has shrunk, former less-well off patrons are less certain of their wage incomes, and are less prone to give; well-off patrons have fewer appreciated assets to offer. I’ve been getting a spate of such calls recently. I tell them that I plan...
On Redistricting
Given all the brouhaha that exists over redistricting, I thought I would give one simple idea that would free our nation and states from tyranny. Turn the job over to a computer. Yes, take the blood and politics out of it, and let computers make fair districts. How do we do that? Simple. You...
On Redistricting
Given all the brouhaha that exists over redistricting, I thought I would give one simple idea that would free our nation and states from tyranny. Turn the job over to a computer. Yes, take the blood and politics out of it, and let computers make fair districts. How do we do that? Simple. You...
Book Review: Miles Away… Worlds Apart
This book is unusual. Let me give you my quick view: this is a book written by an Orthodox Jew regarding an unscrupulous Jew who used his abilities to communicate to swindle others in a Ponzi scheme. This is a surmise, because of all the ill-will toward Jews created after the scandal broke, the author...
Book Review: How To Smell a Rat
I have written reviews on two Madoff books, No one Would Listen, and The Club No One Wanted To Join. In the latter of those book reviews, I argued that the Madoff fraud was detectable in advance, which offended one who was defrauded by Madoff. Ken Fisher lays the blame at her door; she...
Regarding David Sokol, Part 3
I would like to start this with the public counterarguments from Sokol’s attorney: I am profoundly disappointed that the Audit Committee of Berkshire Hathaway would authorize the issuance of its report to the public without the care and decency to ask even a single question of Mr. Sokol. Mr. Sokol had been associated with the...
Regarding David Sokol, Part 3
I would like to start this with the public counterarguments from Sokol’s attorney: I am profoundly disappointed that the Audit Committee of Berkshire Hathaway would authorize the issuance of its report to the public without the care and decency to ask even a single question of Mr. Sokol. Mr. Sokol had been associated with the...
Vote Your Proxies
Part of being a shareholder is corporate governance. It is incumbent on us to vote the proxies we receive. To my left, I have ten or so proxies I will vote tomorrow. If we don’t vote our proxies we have no right to complain about corporate governance. And, for those who own mutual funds, have...
