Manages Parisian Family Office. Began Wall Street, 82. Founded investment firm, Native American Advisors. Member, White Earth Chippewa Tribe. Was NYSE/FINRA arb. Conservative. Raised on Native reservations. Pureblood, clot-shot free. In a world elevated on a tech-driven dopamine binge, he trades from Ghost Ranch on the Yellowstone River in MT, his TN farm, Pamelot or CASA TULE', his winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Always been, and will always be, an optimist.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Hey Mate, Moving to Australia?

Wednesday, 29 August 2012
 
The full conditions for a new visa designed to encourage significant migrant investment into Australia were released today by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Bowen MP.  The significant investor visa, first announced in May, is being introduced as a key component of the Government’s business innovation and investment program, and requires visa holders to invest at least AUD 5 million.
 
The visa will commence from 24 November this year, when applicants can submit an expression of interest through SkillSelect.
 
'The business innovation and investment program is positioned to target migrants with a demonstrated history of success in business and investment, to make a powerful contribution to national innovation and the Australian economy,' Mr Bowen said.
 
Australia is offering a significant investor visa to provide a boost to the local economy and to compete effectively for high net worth individuals seeking investment immigration on an international scale.
'The AUD 5 million minimum is considered to be sufficient for a meaningful investment contribution, justifying eligibility for visa concessions such as not having to meet the points test, no upper age limit and access to reduced residence requirements,' Mr Bowen said.  'Importantly, significant investors will be required to make complying investments in Australia which include state and territory government bonds, Australian Security Investment Commission-regulated managed funds that invest in Australian assets, and direct investment into private Australian companies not listed on the stock exchange.  'Where visa holders choose to invest directly into Australian companies, these companies will need to meet certain qualifying business standards.'
 
Mr Bowen said visa holders would have the flexibility to extend their initial four year visa by additional two year periods. They would also be able to satisfy the residence requirement of 160 days in Australia at any time throughout their four year visa.  'This flexibility recognises the needs of the global investor community while also encouraging investment into Australia,' he said.
 
State and territory governments are partnering with the Commonwealth when selecting prospective high net worth migrants, to ensure the available visas are offered to the most experienced business people and high profile investors.


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

MCT, Nelson Act (Timber Settlement)

H.R.  1272 passed the United States Senate  (100 goons)  on 9.22.2012.  The Chief Teleprompter than signed the bill into law on 10.5.2012.

I would love to see the total breakdown on how the interest was credited to the fund since the actual award was appropriated about a dozen years ago.  

My wish would be that of the $2,400,000 payment to the White Earth Tribe, (actually all the Bands of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe will get that amount)  that I would get a pro-rata share of the distribution instead of the tribe.

If you do the math that would be another $300 for 48,000 Minnesota Chippewa Tribe members.

You have to love reservation math, or BIA math, or OTFM math or even tribal council math.



          

Monday, November 26, 2012

Big Brother is the eye in the sky..........

(Reuters) - The FBI sees social media as a potential breeding ground for securities fraud, and has agents scouring Twitter and Facebook for tips, according to two top agents overseeing a long-running investigation into insider trading in the $2 trillion hedge fund industry.

April Brooks, a special agent in charge of the New York field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and David Chaves, a supervisory agent, said it is hard to predict the next wave of securities fraud, but they add that it will have a lot to do with advances in technology and social media.
"I will tell you technology will play a huge part, social media, Twitter. Any kind of technology that is new and doesn't exist today, if there is any way to exploit it, these individuals will exploit it," Brooks told Reuters TV in an interview for the Reuters Investment Outlook 2013 Summit.
Brooks and Chaves oversee what the FBI calls "Operation Perfect Hedge," which has led to more than 60 convictions of hedge fund traders, analysts and industry consultants.
Last Tuesday, a day after the Reuters TV interview, the government charged a former employee of Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital, Mathew Martoma, with a $276 million insider trading scheme that prosecutors called "the most lucrative" ever.
While Cohen, whose $14 billion hedge fund is one of the most successful and best known on Wall Street, was not charged with any wrongdoing, the complaint says he signed off on trades in Elan Corp and Wyeth in July 2008 ahead of bad news about a clinical drug trial the companies were working on.
Brooks and Chaves gave no hints about the SAC case in the interview, and declined to talk about active investigations.
"Some view insider trading as reaching this crescendo, and we have reached a top. I would suggest we have not," Chaves said.
INVESTORS EMBRACE TWITTER
Hedge funds, big institutional investors and investment research firms, such as Muddy Waters (@muddywatersre), have embraced Twitter as a platform for sharing their ideas and investment strategies.
On November 20, PIMCO's Bill Gross tweeted via @PIMCO: "Bernanke confirms PIMCO's New Normal after 3 years! 2% economic potential at least for a time. Probably lower & longer Mr. Chairman."
Gross was referring to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and PIMCO's portfolio positioning for what he calls a "New Normal" developed world economy - 2.0 percent real growth and 2 percent inflation.
"People have used Twitter as a powerful distribution mechanism, occasionally with meaningful market impact," said independent analyst Daniel Yu, who is an avid user of Twitter under the handle @LongShortTrader.
Studies and research reports have shown that Twitter can be used as an early indicator of changing investor sentiment around particular stocks and commodities. This allows Twitter data to be used to predict price fluctuations in the market.
One report, authored by academics Johan Bollen, Huina Mao and Xiao-Jun Zeng, says the degree of "calmness" of the Twitterverse can predict - with 87.6 percent accuracy - how the Dow Jones industrial average will move two to six days ahead of time.
Some hedge funds and other investors have criticized U.S. authorities for cracking down on insider trading to distract attention from the fact that law enforcement has not been able to bring any prosecutions against Wall Street bankers over the financial crisis.
Brooks and Chaves acknowledged the criticism. They said there is a desire to prosecute, but the laws are not there to criminalize actions that some think deserve to be punished.
"I wouldn't say we have missed opportunities," Brooks said, commenting on the 2008 financial crisis. "There may be others who are responsible, but who don't necessarily violate the federal statutes."
The two agents, who both work in the securities division of the New York branch of the FBI, said that when they meet with people on Wall Street, they explain there is no vendetta or campaign against the hedge fund industry. The insider trading investigation is simply part of an effort to make the markets more fair for everybody.
"The message is we are out there, and we are going to continue to be out there," Brooks said. "This type of violation, this type of crime impacts everyone."
To see the Reuters TV interview with FBI agents Brooks and Chaves, click here http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/11/23/reuters-tv-fbi-only-reached-tip-of-iceberg-on-insid?videoId=239362127&videoChannel=117851


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-uses-social-media-to-find-fraud-2012-11#ixzz2DL3Ra5A9

The phrase that killed Mitt Romney's Presidential run .......

"We are going to put America back to work."

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Had your fill?

Have you had your fill of “expert” psycho-babble, high-level cheerleading, and government assurances that sound more each day like sick punch lines to bad jokes:
• “Deficits don’t matter.”
• “The recession has ended.”
• “The weak dollar is good for trade.”
• “Debt just needs to be ‘restructured.’”
• “We just need more government stimulus spending.”
• “Federal zero interest rate policies (ZIRP) help everyone.”
• “Unemployment is down.”

Enough of the minstrel show and its official nonsense. Here is the real deal on the current corporate/government war against capitalism:

Farce #1: “Market value” and “free markets” have become a joke.

In order for “value” to have financial value in the free market it, 1) must have real worth to someone else, and 2) must be freely chosen. The whole point of a market is that people choose according to their desires and needs, not yours. No one is entitled to a profit.

That’s what “market value” and “free market” mean. Other people, known as “the public,” interactively determine what your asset, good, or service is worth. You may think something is financially worth a lot. If others do not, it’s not worth squat.

If you can merely create private fiat by assigning your own value to your “assets” and products and then force others to buy them, there is no valid market value or free market. It is simply financial dictatorship.

Farce #2: Private, self-assigned, fake value is being traded for public money at 100 cents on the dollar.

Even basic monetary standards for public exchange of value no longer apply. Now big banks have been given the executive go-ahead to self-assign value to their assets at any price they choose. This is called “market to model” (i.e. profitable lying with complicated mathematical formulas).

This violation of capitalism comes not only in refusing to allow the market to determine price of assets, but in forcing the public through government capture to pay for “impaired private assets” with “real” public money at 100 cents on the dollar!

This is nothing more than the exchange of publicly accepted money for worthless, private, counterfeit crap.

Farce #3: Printed money is backed by nothing.

However, what “value” does that public money have? What is the current U.S. dollar tied to? Nothing of worth. It refers to no credible public asset, good, or service. The Treasury and the Fed are just printing money, period.

The abstract future ability of the U.S. to pay off an exponentially increasing debt amid a long-term contracting economy is not even close to being a plausible substitute. If that money was invested in infrastructure, perhaps a case could be made, but can you name even one project that the 800 billion dollars of “stimulus spending” has funded?

In order for money to be a credible marker of exchange it must be tied to an asset, good, or service that has collectively established worth (i.e. commodities, present and future national productivity, or local networks of exchange of services and goods).

Current money needs to become rebased in things that produce value, that preserve and enhance present and future life. At bottom, neither banks nor governments are doing that, and if anything they seem to be working hard together to kill off both broader prosperity and free market capitalism.

Farce #4: We have a “free” enterprise system dominated by monopolies that force people to buy inferior goods and services at exorbitant rates.

Exhibit A: “Health” care: U.S. health “insurance” is dominated by regional monopolies that are notorious for denying treatment and charging double what the rest of the world charges. What do we get for that? We get a record number of uninsured citizens, and health results (infant mortality, etc), which are near the bottom, rather than the top, of industrialized nations.

The U.S. health care system is also possibly one of the most inefficient in the world in delivering services, wasting some 750 billion dollars per year in unnecessary spending, including hundreds of billions of dollars per year in excessive administrative costs.

“The best health care system in the world”? Hardly. Maybe if you are rich or have generous subsidized benefits.

Even then, you are not immune to hospitals that cut safety corners to save on costs, and both slash pay and increase work hours for the people treating you. Think about it. Medical error is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S, killing some 200,000 people per year.

Exhibit B: Military industrial complex boondoggles: The United States is currently spending almost as much on its military as the rest of the world combined.

What kind of value are we getting for that? We’ve gotten pointless wars built on politically expedient lies, that have lasted longer than any wars in modern history, that have cost trillions, and that have made us less secure.

Farce #5: High-level financial crimes, no matter how egregious or widespread, are not being prosecuted.

Instead, corrupt and fraud-ridden organizations like Countrywide, Goldman-Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Citigroup, get bought up and/or pay a small percentage of their ill-gotten gains to settle civil suits in which they do not admit fault.

The leaders of these anti-capitalist organizations (Anthony Mazillo, Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, et. al.) still walk away with enormous compensation, after having ruined their companies and tanked the world economy. When they have to hire legal representation, they do it at the stockholders’ expense, adding insult to injury.

There are probably millions of forged documents, involved in “fraudclosure”, the pervasive property assignment control fraud that includes all the big financial players. Companies and citizens have brought civil lawsuits, but these are taking time.

There has been negligible government investigation, much less criminal prosecution. Here you have millions of cases of the very foundation of private property, clear ownership, being decimated by rampant, obvious fraud, and you do nothing?

Oh, I forgot, you extend the big banks a reprieve in the form of yet another settlement, this time with States’ Attorney Generals (basically a 25 billion dollar slap on the wrist for trillions of dollars of interconnected fraud). What does it take for law enforcement to do its job?

What effect does this have? It screams, “Crime pays!” It destroys the morale of hard-working, law-abiding citizens, and it keeps zombie banks not only alive and kicking, but prospering on the backs of citizens.

It sinks the global economy even more by encouraging financial criminals to double-down on the profitable crime that got them their unreal returns in the first place.

Where do you think that’s going to end? Too-big-to-fail is now bigger. Bailouts from central banks are more frequent. Overt and covert citizen subsidies for this crime keep climbing. Welcome to the financial cancer club.

Farce #6: Risk is gone. Now there is only liability borne by citizens.

Corrupted capitalism expects you, the citizen, to pay for “their,” the crony capitalists’, failure. In functioning capitalism, a company and its investors take their own risks, profit from the gains, and stomach the losses. Other people do not pay for their mistakes or their crimes.

That core element of capitalism is now gone. Irish citizens have had to pay many billions just to cover the losses of one of their private banks. Greece has learned, with its enforced austerity programs, that if this liability is not paid in dollars (or the phony dollars of debt restructuring), it gets paid in diminished quality of life.

Farce #7: Productivity has been supplanted by parasitism

There is hardly anything more important to thriving functioning capitalism than productivity, and sharing the fruits of productivity. It is notable that productivity among U.S. workers actually skyrocketed over the last decade and a half, but real wages have flattened or declined.

Where did the surpluses go? To parasitic financializers who have seen their share over all corporate profits grow from 10% to over 45% in recent decades.
After costing trillions and wiping out the world economy, what asset, good, or service do big banks produce that has genuine public worth?

• “Expert advice”, in which brokers intentionally sell junk to consumers, as shown in investment bank emails?
• “Financial services”, which turn out to be so laden with hidden fees and loosened/fabricated credit qualifications that the lendee is worse off?
• Allegiances that concentrate financial wealth the top 0.1% of the population, causing the vast majority of the world to get poorer?

If anything, citizens would stand to gain more by paying big banks to close their doors.

Big banks have largely stopped lending to businesses or individuals because that’s not profitable enough and because they need to retain capital to reduce their exposure due to their own foolish overleveraging. This depresses community and small business entrepreneurship and productivity.

Bottom line: Big banks’ “services” take far more in costs than they provide in benefits. Much would be gained, and little lost, if they were allowed to fail or were decommissioned outright for their criminal behavior.

Conclusion

In short, the non-accountability of big banks means American honest work and honest gain will be increasingly ripped off. This is a zero-sum game in which not even a single, direct, effective champion of the interest of broader American and middle and working class interest exists in the actual machinery of Washington.

Those few heroes, the former and present prosecutors and officials who have attempted to enforce transparency and accountability, Elizabeth Warren, Brooksley Born, Harry Markopolos, Neil Barofsky, and William K. Black have either been ignored, pushed out, or shut down.

Says Neil Barofsky of President Obama:

“I thought that if there was ever going to be a political figure that would take on the interests of Wall Street, and put the American people… above the monied interests, it was going to be President Obama, and that just didn’t happen. In fact it was the opposite. He had the same ideology as Timothy Geithner [and others from Wall Street]: ‘Protect the banks. What is best for the biggest banks is what’s best for the country.’”

This is pretty grim stuff, but it has a silver lining: When you don’t have champions to manage the economy fairly or effectively, you organize yourselves to transform your economy.

Both liberal and conservative officials have turned themselves from public servants into private servants. We, in response, have no excuse but to turn ourselves into necessary public champions. We must decide and act upon our choices to drive the economy in a healthy direction.

Economy cannot exist without people and their agreement. It is our job now to form the next principles and new, healthy practices as we turn away from a corrupted system.

Monday, November 12, 2012

NYSE's UTP, Universal Turd Pile

On Monday, the NYSE had problems transitioning securities to their new matching engine, dubbed “universal trading platform” or UTP. The glitch, which hit shortly after the closing bell, caused other exchanges, from BATS and Nasdaq to Direct Edge and even NYSE’s own Arca electronic exchange, to stop routing orders via the NYSE.

It's coming boys and girls.  It will be a cluster like none other.

Just wait and see. 

When algo chaos, speed, for-profit exchanges and greed all collide at warp speed.

Veterans Day in America, 2012

Is this the 2012 version of the rugged individualism that so many fought and died for?
 
Give a man a fish he eats for a day.

Give a man a welfare check, a free cellphone, SNAP cards, EBT, Section 8 housing with flat screen, a six-pack of beer and he'll vote Democrat the rest of his life.

Forget teaching a man to fish. That's too Tea or Republican.

Friday, November 09, 2012

Trading mayhem or simply Corzined?

Is Matthew Marshall Taylor related to Joseph Jett?

This fiasco at Goldman reminds me of the Kidder fiasco. 

At least a piddly little trading loss under $200,000,000 didn't Corzine the firm.

Rochdale was Corzined.  MF Global was Corzined.

With the party of Santa Claus running the show now, maybe America will be Corzined much sooner. 

Sit tight folks.  It's coming far faster than you think.
  

The Party of Christmas at the Obama House.......

How could Romney possibly compete with Santa Claus?

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

ROGULSKI: Why are you here?

WOMAN #1: To get some money.

ROGULSKI: What kind of money?

WOMAN #1: Obama money.

ROGULSKI: Where's it coming from?

WOMAN #1: Obama.

ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get it?

WOMAN #1: I don't know, his stash. I don't know.(laughter) I don't know where he got it from, but he be givin' it to us, to help us.

WOMAN #2: And we love him.

WOMAN #1: We love him. That's why we voted for him!

WOMEN:(chanting) Obama! Obama! Obama!(laughing)

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Apple, Angel of Death.......

Apple shares are a wonderful example of what small doors and large crowds can accomplish.

Mark Faber speaks............

Faber on President Obama’s reelection:

“I am surprised with the reelection of Mr. Obama. The S&P is only down like 30 points. I would have thought that the market on his reelection should be down at least 50%...I think Mr. Obama is a disaster for business and a disaster for the United States. Not that Mr. Romney would be much better, but the Republicans understand the problem of excessive debt better than Mr. Obama who basically doesn't care about piling up debt. You also have in the background Mr. Bernanke, who with artificially low interest rates enables the debt to essentially escalate endlessly.”

On where he sees the equity markets given Obama’s reelection:

“You have offsetting factors. The problem with Mr. Obama is that you get more regulation and it’s disincentive for businessmen to hire people. You probably also get higher taxes, so in terms of the economy, he is very negative in my view. But you still have Mr. Bernanke, and you still have because of money printing very high corporate earnings. They are now coming down, but they are still at the elevated level. You have money printing supporting the market and on the other hand, you have an economic slowdown globally which will affect earnings negatively. It is difficult to tell where the market will go because we have so much manipulation. I think, minimum, it will drop 20%.”

On how investors should protect their assets:

“They should buy themselves a machine gun…I need to buy a tank. Joking aside, look, we have manipulated markets. Whenever you manipulate markets, you will get unintended consequences. i think the reelection is unintended consequence of money printing, that favors the so- called 0.25%. It was easy for the Democrats to attack the wealthy fat cats of Wall Street, the elite, and the privileged people to portray them as a profiteer of the system, which to some extent, they are. Not because they wanted to but because Mr. Bernanke enabled them to be profiteers. We have a situation where you have today Mr. Obama, I doubt he will stay at the presidency for another four years. I think there will be so many scandals, but that’s another story.”

On why he believes Obama won’t make it another four years as president:

“There is so much smoke. I suppose there is some fire. That is my observation. We don't know how the world will look in five years' time. I am pretty sure central banks will continue to print money and the standards of living for people in the western world, not just in America, will continue to decline because the cost of living increases will exceed income. The cost of living will also go up because all kinds of taxes will increase. Like Proposition 30 today in California is of course negative for the Californian economy. That is the state of the world. We have worsening economic conditions, but we have money printing.”

On Speaker Boehner’s comments to Congress today on the fiscal cliff:

“I am sure that they will solve it. They will increase cosmetically some taxes and they will cut cosmetically some spending and it will all be back loaded 10 years from now. So in reality, not much will happen. But the market tends to rally towards year-end, and i think from a low of around 1360, we could have a rally to January, but I think sometime next year will be again lower.”

On whether he sees the U.S. in recession in 2013:

“Yes, I think that if the figures were compiled properly. If nominal GDP was adjusted by a proper price deflator, we would probably already be in recession…But I would like to point out one thing about the economy. GDP is not a very relevant figure. It consists of many different sectors of the economy, so you can have some sectors that are improving like housing and others that are worsening.”

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Georgia Voting, Milton Voting, 2012

Cast my ballot this morning.  Arrived at the polling place at 6:35 and left well after an hour later.     The government employees who were working the election were fairly clueless.    The inefficiency and (taxpayer) time being wasted by the workers was galling.

I guess we reap what we sow.    Lets hope we get change sooner rather than later but no matter which candidate is left standing after the recount and the legal challenge to the SCOTUS, Wall Street will win again.     Main Street to be fleeced once more.

Thursday, November 01, 2012

Ted Nugent Dean Parisian Reality Show

NASHVILLE, TN   -
Reality television shows are among the most popular forms of entertainment on television.
Often, contestants subject themselves to all kinds of public humiliation, trials and discomfort all to win a prize. But one Nashville man said he is still waiting for his payoff more than year after he won his reality show contest hosted by rock legend Ted Nugent.
Sage Keffer is a young man with huge ambition. He is a country kid who grew up fishing and camping and always wanted to be a country music star.
So, he thought it was a perfect fit to compete on an outdoor survival show hosted by Nugent.
Keffer said his time with the CMT show Runnin' Wild…From Ted Nugent, in which contestants display survival skills, was a nightmare and in some ways totally unexpected.
"I knew it was going to be like survivor," Keffer said.
The contract Keffer signed before competing did not specify any prizes, but Keffer said the producers of the show said "don't worry about it."
"You work hard, and there is some amazing prizes that CMT is going to give you," Keffer said.
Keffer thought it was a little odd that the prizes weren't announced before the show, but then again this was Ted Nugent and previous winners each cleaned up.
"I did a little research and one of the previous seasons of a similar show with Ted Nugent was $25,000 and a new truck," Keffer said.
When Keffer arrived on location for the show, complete with a crew of 40 to 50 people, he said he had no doubt it was a big-time production.
Then, the competitions started. All of it was outdoors and all was extremely difficult on the body and the mind.
But the thought of big prizes always kept Keffer going.
"They would always say, 'there's a lot of money riding on this.' So, obviously they cared about it, because they were always telling us about these prizes," Keffer said.
When it was all over, Keffer was the big winner. All that remained was getting the prize, but even then there was only a promise.
"I said, 'what's the prize?' They said, 'well, CMT has not told us yet, but you're going to be blown away,'" Keffer said.
Then, about one year later, the show still had not aired, and Keffer's emails about the prize had gone unanswered, when one night he received a Facebook message from a fan who said they had just seen Keffer competing on CMT.
What his fans did not know was that all Keffer got for his victory was a set of bleached antlers.
"I didn't go down to Waco, TX, just to be tortured. If I want to get hypothermia, I could just go outside and run around naked," Keffer said.
According to the executive producer for CMT, no contestant prizing was ever promised on behalf of the network. Winning contestants were simply proclaimed "winners" by Ted Nugent himself.