Wednesday, May 16, 2012

I'm Shocked!!! (not)


Well here it is--another darling ginormous Wall Street firm often referred to as the expert and implied that they know something "we" (the regular folks) don't. Oh--JP Morgan is the bank to which I am referring of course.

We run a small business here in OKC and sometimes things don't go as planned and also some things go on that I did not fully understand at the time but am fully responsible for. It is totally believable that this could happen on a monster scale at a company like JP Morgan. It also points out a few issues worth noting:

1) Large banks have massive product manufacturing facilities that require significant profits from transactions
generated to slice up the economic carrot.
2) Government will use any error in judgement as an example as to how they (the government) can do it better and protect the public.
3) Small firms and banks are risking their clients and their own money where Large Banks are risking "OTHER
PEOPLES MONEY" (namely yours and mine as shareholders, depositors, and taxpayers)
4) If you take a carrot--slice it into as many pieces as you want it is STILL no bigger than what you started with--only much harder to put back together if need be.

It blows me away that there is even an argument in Washington about whether people who say they are financial advisors or financial planners should be held to a higher standard than a "buyer beware" one that the brokerage and banking industry is subject to. Oh well--there goes some of that money we keep sending to these giant financial services companies back in to the pockets of the regulators (generous label) and politicians.

How can we get alignment between the needs of the people, the financial system, and government?

Friday, May 4, 2012

Won't Be As Bad As It Looks

On a call this week with a friend and expert on what is referred to as "Peak Oil", he slid in a comment that made me chuckle.  "It looks bleak right now based on everything we can know but it likely won't be as bad as it looks."  I guess after seeing much of the information put out on this topic you could classify my chuckle as nervous relief. (see picture insert) 
Oh yeah--did I mention Chesapeake Energy also announced today an SEC investigation and several shareholder lawsuits?  Yuck.