David Stockman has long warned that the stock market is on the verge of a massive collapse, and the recent price action has him even more convinced than ever that the bottom is about to fall out.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that the top is in,” the Reagan administration’s OMB director said Thursday on CNBC’s “Futures Now.” The S&P 500 has traded in a historically narrow range for the better part of 2015, having moved just 1 percent higher year to date. “It’s just waiting for the knee-jerk bulls, robo traders and dip buyers to finally capitulate.”
Stockman, whose past claims have yet to come to fruition, still believes that the excessive monetary policy from central banks around the world has created a “debt supernova,” and all the signs point to “the end of the central bank enabled bubble,” which could cause a worldwide recession.
Ridgewood NJ, The number of people not in the labor force reached another record high in July, according to new jobs data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The BLS reports that 93,770,000 people (16 and older) were neither employed last month nor had made specific efforts to find work in the prior four weeks.This is an increase of 144,000 over June’s record when 93,626,000 were not in the workforce.
labor force participation rate remained the the same as June at 62.6 percent. Before last month the labor force participation rate had not been that low since October 1977, when the participation rate was 62.4 percent .Despite hovering near the 38 year low. the unemployment rate remained at 5.3 percent suggesting more people were searching for jobs during the 1970’s and the incentive not to work was not as high.
Back in April we told you about Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who said he would pay every single one of his employees $70,000 annually.
Every single one, from the lowest skilled workers on up.
Now, as expected, Price has fallen on hard times financially, even having to rent out his own home.
Employees who work for Gravity are now leaving the company, “spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises.”
This was always going to be the outcome.
If everyone hits the jackpot, does anybody really win the lottery?
Non-Accredited Equity Crowdfunding Investors Need a Path to Liquidity
Jul 27, 2015 by Scott Shane In VC & Angel Capital
PeerRealty, a real estate crowdfunding platform, recently introduced CFX, the U.S.’s first secondary market for equity crowdfunding shares. For accredited investors, this exchange will improve the liquidity of equity crowdfunding investments.
Unfortunately, only accredited investors can use the platform. Equity crowdfunding investments made by non-accredited investors remain as liquid as ice.
This lack of liquidity creates a big problem. With the implementation of the rules for Title IV of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act in June, non-accredited investors — people with less than $1 million in net worth or $200,000 in annual income if single and $300,000 if married — can now buy shares in private companies through equity crowdfunding portals.
But non-accredited investors can’t sell those same shares. Unlike accredited investors who can go to PeerRealty to sell their securities, unaccredited investors have to wait for the companies in which they have invested to go public or get acquired to cash out. And if venture capital and angel group investments are any guide to the time to exit for young companies, then these unaccredited investors will be waiting five to ten years for liquidity. Of course, that’s if the companies in which they have invested are the kind that will be purchased or go public.
Securities and Exchange Commissioner (SEC) Daniel Gallagher has recognized this problem, calling for a solution to the ill-liquidity of crowdfunding securities in a September 17, 2014, speech.
Specifically, he said, “I’ve called for the creation of ‘Venture Exchanges’: national exchanges, with trading and listing rules tailored for smaller companies, including those engaging in issuances under Regulation A.”
Congressman Scott Garrett, the New Jersey Republican who chairs the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises of the House has taken the issue to Capitol Hill. He has put forth a discussion draft of the Main Street Growth Act (PDF) – a bill that would “amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to allow for the creation of venture exchanges to promote liquidity of venture securities, and for other purposes.”[/fusion_text]
My goal at the convention is to make as many connections with both professionals and like-minded students. Exposure, to sum it up with one word. As a rising senior at Rutgers business school pursuing a bachelors degree in finance with a legal studies minor I am also seeking internship opportunities in the field of finance/ compliance for the fall/spring and/or summer. Eloisa Faria
Yes it’s to raise money for the Convention. Our story and goals are presented in the gofundme account below, but If you want more details about my personal goals/ why I want to attend,
Send Eloisa & Dina to ALPFA 2015!!
ALPFA is a national, not-for-profit professional association that creates opportunities, adds value, and builds relationships for its members, the community and its business partners while expanding Latino & Diverse Leadership in the global workforce. ALPFA Rutgers –Newark is a student chapter of this professional business association which strives to participate in the professional chapter’s events, build professional relationships and network with other business students and corporate professionals.
Eloisa Faria guaduated from Passaic County Community College with an Associates Degree in Business Administration and is a Standing Senior at Rutgers Business School where she is pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance with a minor in Legal Studies. She has maintained a 3.5 cummulative GPA and works as a Resident Assistant at Rutgers, Newark in order to give back to the community she fell in love with.
Dina Siyam is a graduate of Middlesex County College with an Associates degree in Business Administration and is a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. She is currently entering her Senior year at Rutgers Business School where she is pursuing a Bachelors degree in Accounting & Finance with a concentration in Real Estate Finance.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a blistering floor speech Friday accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) of lying to him over a deal to vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank.
“Today is a sad day for this institution,” said Cruz, who is running for president. “What we just witnessed this morning is profoundly disappointing.”
The Texas Republican’s remarks come after McConnell set up a procedural vote on Sunday to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which saw its charter expire last month. Democrats have said McConnell agreed to allow a vote on attaching Ex-Im to “must-pass” legislation to win support from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) for a trade package earlier this year.
On the floor, Cruz said McConnell in a private conversation denied to him that there was such a deal.
“The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask him such a question,” Cruz said. “The majority looked at me and said ‘there is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.'”
The Texas Republican said his staff at the time told him that McConnell is “lying to you,” but Cruz suggested that he took the Republican leader at his word.
“What I told my staff that afternoon, I said, well I don’t know if that’s the case or not. But I don’t see how when the majority leader looks me in the eyes and makes an explicit promise,” he added. “I don’t see how I cannot take him at his word.”
This college student deserves an “F” in accounting after she blew through a $90,000 college fund on expensive clothes and a trip to Europe and now has no way to pay for her senior year, a predicament she blames on her parents.
The 22-year-old woman detailed her financial woes on an Atlanta FM-radio show whose wisecracking hosts derided her spendthrift ways and whose listeners belittled on Twitter as the millennial who was giving millennials a bad name. Kim, who did not mention her last name or her school, told “The Bert Show” that it was all her parents fault for not showing her how to manage her money.
“Maybe they should have taught me how to budget a little better, a little more carefully,” she told the show the other day. “They never sat me down and had a real serious talk about it. They said, ‘Here’s your college fund, it’s for classes only.’”
Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team, told “Fox & Friends” Sunday that Kim’s parents do share part of the blame.
“Not necessarily for failing to teach their daughter financial regimens and accounting, but because they didn’t teach her character,” he said.
Kim said her grandparents set up the college fund for her years ago. She contacted “The Bert Show” after the school had just mailed her the tuition bill for her senior year, according to Yahoo’s financial news website. She explained that she was short about $20,000 for her final two semesters.
A&P has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a move that could spell the end of the 156-year-old grocery chain.
The nearly 300-store chain, confirming The Post’s exclusive report last week that such news was imminent, made the filing late Sunday in Bankruptcy Court in New York.
A&P, which also owns the Waldbaums, Food Emporium and Pathmark stores, listed assets and liabilities of more than $1 billion.
It was the second trip to bankruptcy court in less than five years for the Montvale, NJ-based company, which has been outflanked by lower cost chains like Wal-Mart stealing business at one end and higher-priced chains like Whole Foods taking away customers at the other.
The company, which employs 34,000 people, according to its website, has secured $100 million in debtor-in-possession financing from Fortress Credit Corp, according to court documents.
The parent, with its stores stretched across the Northeast, has already struck preliminary agreements to sell or shutter about half of its nearly 300 locations, insiders said. Prospective acquirers aren’t likely to operate many locations under their previous banners, they said.
On June 17th, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew shocked many, including former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, when he proclaimed that Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) – the first and foremost Treasury Secretary – would be demoted and share the ten-dollar bill with a yet unnamed woman. Undaunted by wide-spread criticism, Secretary Lew continued to press his case at an event at the Brookings Institution on July 8th. Asked about the ten-dollar bill’s selection, Secretary Lew insipidly claimed that the ten-dollar bill was the “next up” for redesign to help combat forgery. The diminution of Hamilton, for whatever reason, is simply indefensible.
Just how great was Hamilton? A recent scholarly book by Robert E. Wright and David J. Cowen, Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich, begins its pantheon of greats with a chapter on Alexander Hamilton. It is aptly titled “The Creator.”
After the Constitution was ratified and George Washington was elected President, the new federal government lacked credibility. Public finances hung like a threatening cloud over the government. Recall that paper money and debt were innovations of the colonial era, and that, once the Revolutionary War began, Americans used these innovations to the maximum. As a result, the United States was born in a sea of debt. A majority of the public favored a debt default. Alexander Hamilton, acting as Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, was firmly against default. As a matter of principle, he argued that the sanctity of contracts was the foundation of all morality. And as a practical matter, Hamilton argued that good government depended on its ability to fulfill its promises.
Hamilton won the argument and set about digging the country out of its financial debacle. Among other things, Hamilton was – what would today be called – a first-class financial engineer. He established a federal sinking fund to finance the Revolutionary War debt. He also engineered a large debt swap in which the debts of individual states were assumed by the newly created federal government. By August 1791, federal bonds sold above par in Europe, and by 1795, all foreign debts had been paid off. Hamilton’s solution for America’s debt problem provided the country with a credibility and confidence shock.
Doesn’t the 76th Secretary of Treasury have better things to do than to diminish the presence of our 1st and most distinguished Secretary of Treasury
Greece Disaster Shows Unavoidable Consequences of Socialism
Stephen Moore / @StephenMoore / July 11, 2015
The Greek citizens have rolled the dice and voted overwhelmingly to reject the “austerity” referendum. This was a way for voters to stick a finger in the eye of their creditors. The left around the world has responded to the vote with thunderous applause—and is selling the results as a vote for “the little guy.”
The Greeks believed that voting against the debt restructuring plan would give them more leverage with the banks, the IMF and the EU. But what happens now in Greece? The banks are shutting down this week. Withdrawals from bank accounts are being tightly restricted.
Greece is formally in default on its loans and in the weeks ahead as more IMF and EU loans come due, Greece is about to slide into fiscal oblivion. This is the natural and unavoidable consequence of socialism everywhere it has been tried.
Financial collapse.
Get our emails for free.
Sign Up
There are no “good” options for now to end this Greek tragedy. A lot of people are going to get an involuntary financial haircut—pensioners, bond holders, welfare recipients, government workers, the IMF. By voting “no” on the latest referendum, the Greek voters rejected outside help, and the conditions that come with it. That means the responsibility for resolving the crisis now rests clearly with the Greeks themselves, as it should have all along.
Greece is now sitting on $350 billion of debt. It’s unpayable and the international monetary experts are deluding themselves if they believe that by some magic stroke this nation of 11 million citizens will sometime in the future come up with the funds to repay it.
Greece is already overtaxed, and adding more taxes on the few businesses that are still functioning is only going to ensure their eventual demise too. Meanwhile the Greek citizens have come to the conclusion that fat pensions and cradle to grave welfare benefits are a human right that can never be taken away. That is what they declared in the referendum. But those benefits are going to be lost. Socialism has radically reduced the standard of living of the citizens.
All of the conventional EU and IMF solutions have been designed to give Greeks time to adjust stop their profligate ways. That hasn’t happened. The Greek citizens are simply living way, way beyond their means. This is a nation with an average retirement age of 60. This is a nation that has one in four adults unemployed and half of its young people out of work. With such countrywide levels of idleness, who is there that is working to pay for these super-extravagant benefits? Are the hard-working German citizens going to pay more taxes to pay for lavish benefits to Greek retirees? Almost certainly not. And they would be fools to do so.
Default will force everyone to take a hit. Creditors may get 50 cents on the dollar owed depending on how bleak the finances really are in Athens. Welfare benefits will have to be slashed. Pensions for retirees will be cut based on the new reality of Greece’s finances. This may seem “unfair,” but how is it fair to require young Greek citizens to pay exorbitant taxes to pay for the sins of their fathers and grandfathers. And default, at least, may provide the opportunity for a fresh start.
When Detroit filed for bankruptcy, it allowed the Motor City to in effect start over economically. The city is financially cut off from much borrowing. Government workers have been laid off. Benefits have finally been trimmed. And guess what? Detroit is making a comeback. Real estate values are rising. Construction is beginning again. In a decade, Detroit could be a financially sound and desirable place to live and do business.
One implication of this solution is that investors may start to view sovereign debt as risky, not risk free. They will charge nations—especially those that have massive unfunded liabilities—higher interest rates on their debt. Making it harder for bloated governments to borrow would be a positive development. More money would flow to private sector borrowing, and less to governments.
The bigger chance of fiscal contagion is to accede to the Greek voters’ demands for better terms of its debt repayment. If that happens every nation that owes debts to the IMF or the European Union will demand more generous terms from its creditors. Nations like Argentina and Bolivia will stop making payments on international loans and claim the conditions are too tough to repay.
The big lie is that Greece has already lived through austerity. This is a nation that in 2013 was spending up to 59 percent of its GDP on government benefits and programs. Even today the government accounts for half of all spending. How is that austerity? The problem is as the private economy shrinks, the government’s role keeps expanding. Greece’s debt was 120 percent of GDP a decade ago, and now its 175 percent. This is the opposite of austerity. It is a spendfest.
In sum, Greece needs much less socialism, and much more privatization. Sell off government assets. Cut tax rates. Sell one of the islands to Disney. Oust the communists who ruined this nation. Get government spending down to 25 percent of GDP.
As this is being written, the Greek government, despite the referendum and its inflammatory rhetoric, has resumed negotiations with its creditors. They need to hold firm, insisting that Greece finally undertake the necessary reforms that they have promised over and over to implement. Clearly, the loans so far have not averted financial crises. They have enabled them through their lending policies that trust too much in the promises of an irresponsible government. That’s the equivalent of giving crack cocaine hits to drug addicts. That story never ends well, and, alas, Greece is a tragic example of that lesson.
JULY 8, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY KATHLEEN LYNN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Private-equity firms poured more money into New Jersey companies last year, investing $16.7 billion in 104 companies, up $4.1 billion from the previous year.
New Jersey ranked ninth among the states for the amount of private equity invested, according to the Private Equity Growth Capital Council’s annual investment report.
“The rise in private equity investment in New Jersey and nationwide reflects a positive economic climate and the growth of private equity as an industry,” said James Maloney, a spokesman for the private equity council.
Among the most notable private-equity deals in New Jersey last year was a $90 million investment by Goldman Sachs in AvePoint, a Jersey City technology company. In addition, Onex Corp. became an equity partner in York Risk Services Group, a Parsippany-based risk management company, and General Atlantic Partners took a stake in CitiusTech Inc., a Princeton-based health care technology company.
In a more recent deal, Craftmaster Hardware of Northvale, which provides security hardware and locksmith supplies, was purchased this year for an undisclosed amount by Boston-based private-equity firm Capital Resource Partners.
Private-equity firms invested more than $486 billion in U.S.-based companies last year, increasing investment by $43 billion over the previous year. Nationally, private equity investors put more than half their money into two sectors, business services (29 percent) and consumer goods (22 percent). Information technology, energy, health and financial services accounted for most of the rest of the investments.
California ($56 billion), Texas ($52 billion), New York ($43 billion), Florida ($34 billion) and Illinois ($29 billion) led the states in the amount of private equity investments.
JULY 8, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2015, 1:21 AM
FROM STAFF AND NEWS SERVICE REPORTS |
WIRE SERVICE
Ex-New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and other former officials of failed brokerage MF Global Holdings Ltd., which Corzine headed, have agreed to pay $64.5 million to settle an investor lawsuit.
The proposed settlement, which requires a judge’s approval, apparently marks the first time Corzine has agreed to pay victims of MF Global’s spectacular collapse in 2011, which triggered a slew of lawsuits and an FBI investigation.
In agreeing to the settlement, Corzine and the other defendants denied any wrongdoing, according to a filing Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. Corzine’s lead attorney, Andrew J Levander, declined to comment on the settlement, which will be paid by MF Global’s insurance company.
MF Global filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, 2011, after a $6.3 billion bet on bonds of some of Europe’s most indebted nations, orchestrated by Corzine. Clients alleged in lawsuits against Corzine and other former executives that more than $1.6 billion that should have been segregated was transferred to other parts of the company during a liquidity crisis.
The settlement follows an earlier accord reached with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which agreed in April to pay $65 million to rid itself of claims tied to botched audits. Underwriters, including Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Goldman Sachs & Co., separately agreed in May to pay investors $74 million. That settlement was approved by a judge on June 26.
The plaintiffs also reached a separate settlement last month with Commerz Markets LLC, a unit of Frankfurt-based Commerzbank AG, which agreed to pay $933,000.
Corzine, a former Wall Street broker who rose to become co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, had entered politics by winning a U.S. Senate seat as a Democrat, representing New Jersey for five years before winning election as governor in 2005.
Corzine took MF Global’s helm in March 2010, shortly after leaving the governor’s office following his defeat by Chris Christie in his bid for reelection.
China looks like it is heading for its version of the 1929 stock market crash
While all Western eyes remain firmly focused on Greece, a potentially much more significant financial crisis is developing on the other side of world. In some quarters, it’s already being called China’s 1929 – the year of the most infamous stock market crash in history and the start of the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression.
In any normal summer, a 30pc fall in the Chinese stock market – a loss of value roughly equivalent to the UK’s entire economic output last year – after an ascent which had seen share prices more than double within the space of a year would have been front page news across the globe.
The dramatic series of government interventions to stem the panic – hitherto unsuccessful, it should be added – would similarly have been up there at the top of the news agenda. Yet the pantomime of the Greek debt talks, together with the tragi-comedy of will they, won’t they leave the euro, has relegated the story to little more than a footnote – even though 940 companies, more than a third, have now suspended trading on China’s two main indices.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is looking to move 2,150 jobs from New York City to Jersey City, the latest expansion of the financial institution across the Hudson River.
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority on Thursday is expected to consider an application by the New York City-based bank for a $19 million subsidy over 10 years, the second round of tax credits for the firm in about a year as the state seeks to create jobs in the Hudson County city.
New Jersey’s unemployment rate was 6.5% in May, compared with New York state’s 5.7% and 5.5% for the nation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Haddon/Wall Street Journal)
It’s not just disaffected pensioners: young Greeks have worked out that they don’t need the bloated EU
Despite the scaremongering and bullying from those in Brussels, we are waking today with Greece having delivered a resounding No.
That comes despite EU bosses saying that it would mean a Greek exit from the Euro, not to mention the heavy economic pressure placed on the Greek people to go along with the wishes of Brussels. It is a crushing defeat for those Eurocrats who believe that you can simply bulldoze public opinion.
Chief bully-boy Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, and other supposed leaders of the European Union did their best to terrify the Greek people into submitting to the wishes of the European Union. But they utterly failed. The fear espoused by the Yes campaign was rejected. Opinion polls that put the Yes side ahead just days before were way out, as thousands upon thousands of Greek citizens lined the streets chanting “Oxi”.
