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risk
by leon on September 30, 2008
Last year, I did a blog entry looking at how firms with restatements had bigger turnovers of chief executive officers and chief financial officers.Now that's supported in a new study, CEO and CFO...
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markets
by leon on September 30, 2008
It's hardly surprising that Congress rejected the hastily-thrown together bailout package. All the polls were showing that people wanted them to pass something different. One suspects the Republi...
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Accounting
by leon on September 29, 2008
Earlier this month, I did a blog entry looking at how the Big Four are planning to axe staff. Times are tough.Well, maybe not that tough. Not for accountants anyway with the latest CCH Public Account...
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markets
by leon on September 29, 2008
The draft bailout bill provides "authority for the Federal Government to purchase and insure certain types of troubled assets for the purposes of providing stability to and preventing disruptio...
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markets
by leon on September 27, 2008
The scene of banks going under and policy makers risking moral hazard and bailing out the guilty is changing US market capitalism as we know it.The great economist Joseph Schumpeter talked about &quo...
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risk
by leon on September 26, 2008
German finance minister Peer Steinbrück, has warned that the United States will lose its superpower status in the wake of the financial crisis.The world, he says, will become multipolar and will neve...
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risk
by leon on September 26, 2008
Another day, another bank failure. And this time, it's the biggest in American history. Washington Mutual's $310 billion in assets, its enormous base of depositors putting in $188 billion wor...
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corporate crime
by leon on September 25, 2008
The fallout from the Siemens saga continues with trials of two figures, including a former board member, now well under way, reports Deutsche Welle. Charges are around invoices for work that was neve...
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markets
by leon on September 25, 2008
US president George Bush has moved to heavy Congress into running with the $700 billion package but the entire thing needs to be put in some sort of perspective. It's just not going to work.Colum...
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corporate governance
by leon on September 24, 2008
More than two years ago, I did a blog entry on how climate change would turn into a major corporate governance issue.Now it's heading that way with pressure on the Securities and Exchange Commiss...
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markets
by leon on September 24, 2008
It's always nice to have a few billion in spare change lying around. Just when everything looked like it was going down the chute, Warren Buffett comes in and inject up to $10 billion in Goldman ...
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markets
by leon on September 23, 2008
The $700 billion bad mortgage bailout is unlikely to fix the markets, says ratings agency Moody's.Bloomberg reports that Moody's chief credit officer Richard Cantor says it will at best bring...
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regulators
by leon on September 23, 2008
The market is in meltdown mode so the heat is on Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox.A few days, I did a blog entry on John McCain talking tough and threatening to sack him. I...
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executive pay
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by leon on September 22, 2008
Bonuses paid to Lehman executives are at risk, lawyers say.So $5.7 billion worth of bonuses were paid a year before Lehman Brothers filed for the biggest bankruptcy in history. And that raises the qu...
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markets
by leon on September 22, 2008
And then there were none! Last week's implosion of Lehman Brothers has brought about the end of Wall Street as we know it with Goldman Sachs and Morgan stanley now moving to become bank holding c...
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markets
by leon on September 21, 2008
The Bush administration's stupid short-sightedness continues with the Treasury Department plan to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from private firms.Let's get thi...
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regulators
by leon on September 20, 2008
The Securities and Exchange Commission and regulators around the world have cracked down on short selling. Ostensibly, it's all designed to put a bit more transparency into the market. On one han...
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corporate reputation
by leon on September 19, 2008
The credit crisis has taken a toll on the standing of various brands. The latest Interbrand Best Global Brands list has Coca Cola as the world's leading brand, followed by IBM and Microsoft. The ...
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regulators
by leon on September 19, 2008
As a rule, politicians are shocking populists and John McCain is no exception by telling The Wall Street Journal that he would sack Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox.If noth...
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markets
by leon on September 18, 2008
What does the rising oil price have to do with the credit crunch. The two are inextricably linked, says financier George Soros.Soros says: "We are currently experiencing the bursting of a credit...
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markets
by leon on September 18, 2008
How bad is this crisis? Bad enough for central banks around the world to pump $180 billion into global financial markets, to jump start a system that seems to have broken down completely. Of course, ...
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markets
by leon on September 18, 2008
According to the official numbers, reported here, the US is not in recession with the growth moving along at 3.3%. But it sure looks and smells like one: months of job losses; declining industrial pr...
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risk
by leon on September 18, 2008
Just days after Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac nationalisation, something I covered in my blog here, the US Government continues down this direction taking out nearly 80 per cent of AIG for $85 billion!
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risk
by leon on September 16, 2008
Wall Street's meltdown is likely to be a sign of things to come.The shock waves of what happened on Black Sunday will flow into 2009, writes Kathleen Madigan from Dow Jones."US households ar...
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, risk
by leon on September 16, 2008
AIG could be the next to go. We'll know tomorrow.If it doesn't secure fresh funding by Wednesday September 17, it could be forced to file for bankruptcy, reports The Wall Street Journal. AIG ...
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corporate crime
by leon on September 15, 2008
The average company loss to fraud has hit $8.2 million over the past three years, up 22% on the previous year, according to the latest Kroll Global Fraud Report. The biggest increase was in the natur...
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markets
by leon on September 15, 2008
An extraordinary day that signals a seismic shift for the US banking system.First, we have Lehman Brothers, Wall Street's fourth biggest bank, making its announcement here that it intends filing ...
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markets
by leon on September 14, 2008
Last week, we saw some extraordinary volatility in the market, thanks to the troubles and uncertainty surrounding Lehman Brothers. The CBOE Market Volatility Index jumped 11.67 percent to 23.06 with ...
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risk
by leon on September 12, 2008
People around the world are changing their clothing, eating and drinking habits to cope with the credit crunch, reports The Times. Clearly this economic crisis is different. Just how different become...
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markets
by leon on September 12, 2008
Remember the Internet? Renewable energy and green technology will be a lot bigger than that, say Silicon Valley's venture capitalists.For a fascinating rundown about how the venture capitalists a...
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Accounting
by leon on September 11, 2008
The big accounting firms are planning to chop staff because of the slowdown in the economy, and more companies adjusting to the rigors and processes of Sarbanes-Oxley, reports Compliance Week.Actuall...
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SOX
by leon on September 11, 2008
Time and time again, the deadline for smaller companies to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley has been pushed back. Now there's a new study that might leave you asking one question: what's the point?...
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Ethics
by leon on September 10, 2008
Fascinating developments with reports that Norway's $436 billion sovereign wealth fund has sold its stake in Rio Tinto because of concerns about the company damaging the environment in Indonesia....
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markets
by leon on September 10, 2008
How quick was that? The rally in stocks following the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn't last that long after after the Korean Development Bank confirmed it had ended talks to rescue U....
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litigation
by leon on September 9, 2008
Earlier this year, I did a blog entry looking at Nicholas Cage's battle with the Internal Revenue Service. All over his treatment of meals , gifts and that Gulfstream 1159A turbojet. Quite unders...
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markets
by leon on September 9, 2008
So The Dow Jones gained nearly 300 points on the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Don't expect the party to last.Home loans are being foreclosed more than ever, growing at their fastest pac...
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markets
by leon on September 8, 2008
You really have to worry when big corporations go to the Government and ask to be put on welfare!Last week, I did a blog entry looking at how General Motors was asking for a moratorium on crash testi...
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markets
by leon on September 8, 2008
Now that the Kremlin, sorry, Bush administration has nationalised Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we've seen equities soaring and a rally in bond spreads. But how will this affect US housing and the ...
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Accounting
by leon on September 6, 2008
Life for chief financial officers is getting tougher with a new study, to be released next month, showing that roughly half of the CFOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies stay in their posts fo...
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corporate crime
by leon on September 6, 2008
The former chief executive of Halliburton spin-off US construction firm KBR, Albert Stanley, is facing seven years in the slammer after pleading guilty to charges of corruption relating to Nigerian d...
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strategy
by leon on September 6, 2008
All over the world, the story is the same. Hit by declining circulation and advertising that is at best sluggish, newspapers are cutting jobs. It causes me a lot of pain to see it happening at my old...
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Ethics
by leon on September 4, 2008
Under Section 406 of the sarbanes-Oxley Act, all public companies are required to disclose whether they have adopted a code of ethics for principal executive, financial, and accounting officers. If t...
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, strategy
by leon on September 4, 2008
Everyone knows the problems General Motors has been having building the sort of autos that people don't want to drive any more. So much so that GM and Ford have dragged the US car industry into ...
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Accounting
by leon on September 3, 2008
I keep raising the question whether accountants are recession-proof.Now we have further evidence of that with the latest Hewitt study showing that the bean counters are going to get the biggest above...
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corporate crime
by leon on September 3, 2008
Weird days in the US justice system with former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and his chief numbers man Mark Swartz demanding that the New York State Court of Appeals throw out their convictions. This is...
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risk
by leon on September 2, 2008
You have to wonder what planet George Bush is on.In his Labor Day address, the President said the economy was on the upswing, largely thanks to the $93 billion worth of tax rebates. "The growth ...
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strategy
by leon on September 2, 2008
One of the most bizarre cases yet with the FBI arresting a blogger for blogger for breaking copyright laws by posting copies of songs from the soon-to-be-released Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Dem...
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risk
by leon on September 1, 2008
The petroleum industry might be bracing itself for the impact of Hurricane gustav but its economic impact is going to be wider than that. The Washington Post reports that Louisiana's trademark to...
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risk
by leon on September 1, 2008
When business starts putting its hand out asking for Government welfare to help it fight climate change, you have to start worrying.That seems to be the take in a piece of special pleading from the B...
