Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
in support of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize
I think Obama more than deserved the Nobel Peace Prize..the silent majority maybe no match for the vocal media minority including BT's Vikram Kanna who shared my admiration for Obama..it is easy to jump on the media conventional wisdom bandwagon instead of appreciating Nobel award panel's insight and vision, and its true that there are many hard toiling deserving winners w/o Obama's charm and clout..but hey there is only 1 Nobel Peach Prize a year and Obama's impact and contribution is more than deserving...maybe Martin Luther King (1964) or even Nelson Mandela (1993) is more transformative...but can you imagine what USA and the world would be like if George Bush or John McCain (decent genuine folk he maybe) were US president..
Obama's impact is if anything no less than Mohammed Yunus (2006) and Medecins sans Frontier ('doctors without borders')(1999) and most certainly far more than Al Gore (2007)..
Obama team have accomplished in 9+ months no recent US or world leader have done in decades..Geithner, working without senate confirmed assistant secretaries and staffers, turn around Wall Street, saved the world financial market from unseemly collapse and the livelihood of millions...got GM & Chrysler in and out of bankruptcy saving millions of jobs...more importantly Obama got a whole leaderless generation in USA and worldwide to believe again "yes, I can"...his election and inauguration moved the entire world...conservatives who attacked Obama team on every solution that have proven to work beautifully and branded TARP, stimulus, healthcare, consumer protection as socialist, big government, nationalisation etc are simply living in the past (where George Bush surrounded by crooks and cronies ruled by lies, corruption and ineptitude) and so faithless..but Obama generation can believe again, are motivated and know the difference between talk and action...no drama Obama never claims he can solve all the problems (having inherited 2 wars, a planet in peril and financial collapse) in 1 year or even one term, but looking at the intelligent, pragmatic, problem solving doer team he gathered who solve the financial crisis as volunteers while awaiting senate confirmation, we have confidence he is getting there - climate change, Afghanistan, Iraq, ME, Iran, North Korea..these are not the same incompetent above the law fat cats (Bush cronies) who still defends torture, waterboarding, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graib (Cheney), who attacked Iraq based on lies and brought untold miseries for generations to those american and Iraqi families who suffer losses of loved ones for no reasons (Rumsfeld) etc...
we can criticise the Nobel Peace prize as too early if it is awarded for lifetime devotion rather than size of impact (and so Obama and his advisors are themselves surprised), but while Obama team will need maybe 1 or 2 terms to bring the planet in peril from the brink of self destruction, he can be credited with triggering the process (like Colin Powell said Obama is transformative and game changing and a product of the times - without the disastrous and divisive Bush years there maybe no Obama phenomenon) and so in my humble opinion the Nobel Peace Prize has no more deserving recepient...and Mohamed Yunus, doctors without borders and Al Gore (despite their more than magnificient contributions) are of no comparison...
Obama's impact is if anything no less than Mohammed Yunus (2006) and Medecins sans Frontier ('doctors without borders')(1999) and most certainly far more than Al Gore (2007)..
Obama team have accomplished in 9+ months no recent US or world leader have done in decades..Geithner, working without senate confirmed assistant secretaries and staffers, turn around Wall Street, saved the world financial market from unseemly collapse and the livelihood of millions...got GM & Chrysler in and out of bankruptcy saving millions of jobs...more importantly Obama got a whole leaderless generation in USA and worldwide to believe again "yes, I can"...his election and inauguration moved the entire world...conservatives who attacked Obama team on every solution that have proven to work beautifully and branded TARP, stimulus, healthcare, consumer protection as socialist, big government, nationalisation etc are simply living in the past (where George Bush surrounded by crooks and cronies ruled by lies, corruption and ineptitude) and so faithless..but Obama generation can believe again, are motivated and know the difference between talk and action...no drama Obama never claims he can solve all the problems (having inherited 2 wars, a planet in peril and financial collapse) in 1 year or even one term, but looking at the intelligent, pragmatic, problem solving doer team he gathered who solve the financial crisis as volunteers while awaiting senate confirmation, we have confidence he is getting there - climate change, Afghanistan, Iraq, ME, Iran, North Korea..these are not the same incompetent above the law fat cats (Bush cronies) who still defends torture, waterboarding, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graib (Cheney), who attacked Iraq based on lies and brought untold miseries for generations to those american and Iraqi families who suffer losses of loved ones for no reasons (Rumsfeld) etc...
we can criticise the Nobel Peace prize as too early if it is awarded for lifetime devotion rather than size of impact (and so Obama and his advisors are themselves surprised), but while Obama team will need maybe 1 or 2 terms to bring the planet in peril from the brink of self destruction, he can be credited with triggering the process (like Colin Powell said Obama is transformative and game changing and a product of the times - without the disastrous and divisive Bush years there maybe no Obama phenomenon) and so in my humble opinion the Nobel Peace Prize has no more deserving recepient...and Mohamed Yunus, doctors without borders and Al Gore (despite their more than magnificient contributions) are of no comparison...
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Two Sides of Dual-Class Shares
........Hollinger International presents a good example of the negative effects of dual-class shares. Former CEO Conrad Black controlled all of the company's class-B shares, which gave him 30% of the equity and 73% of the voting power. He ran the company as if he were the sole owner, exacting huge management fees, consulting payments, and personal dividends. Hollinger's board of directors was filled with Black's friends who were unlikely to forcefully oppose his authority. Holders of publicly traded shares of Hollinger had almost no power to make any decisions in terms of executive compensation, mergers and acquisitions, board construction poison pills, or anything else for that matter. Hollinger's financial and share performance suffered under Black's control.
Academic research offers strong evidence that dual-class share structures hinder corporate performance. A Wharton School and Harvard Business School study shows that while large ownership stakes in managers' hands tend to improve corporate performance, heavy voting control by insiders weakens it. Shareholders with super-voting rights are reluctant to raise cash by selling additional shares--that could dilute these shareholders' influence. The study also shows that dual-class companies tend to be burdened with more debt than single-class companies. Even worse, dual-class stocks tend to under-perform the stock market.
Conclusion
Not every dual-class company is destined to perform poorly--Berkshire Hathaway, for one, has consistently delivered great fundamentals and shareholder value. Controlling shareholders normally have an interest in maintaining a good reputation with investors. Insofar as family members wield voting power, they have an emotional incentive to vote in a manner that enhances performance. All the same, investors should keep in mind the effects of dual-class ownership on company fundamentals.
by Ben McClure
Academic research offers strong evidence that dual-class share structures hinder corporate performance. A Wharton School and Harvard Business School study shows that while large ownership stakes in managers' hands tend to improve corporate performance, heavy voting control by insiders weakens it. Shareholders with super-voting rights are reluctant to raise cash by selling additional shares--that could dilute these shareholders' influence. The study also shows that dual-class companies tend to be burdened with more debt than single-class companies. Even worse, dual-class stocks tend to under-perform the stock market.
Conclusion
Not every dual-class company is destined to perform poorly--Berkshire Hathaway, for one, has consistently delivered great fundamentals and shareholder value. Controlling shareholders normally have an interest in maintaining a good reputation with investors. Insofar as family members wield voting power, they have an emotional incentive to vote in a manner that enhances performance. All the same, investors should keep in mind the effects of dual-class ownership on company fundamentals.
by Ben McClure
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The pork barrel tussle in USA today is this:
great piece from a friend Goh Chung Meng to my earlier rantings-
The pork barrel tussle in USA today is this:
No enough money to go around, so help me but do not help him. Help only the Wall Street guys. Helping the rest of America is simply wrong. It is easier to say the word “wrong” by branding. Every night they have paid talkers on the TVs telling people why helping to get healthcare to every Americans is wrong. Helping autos and airlines and housing is wrong because it is for the common people and that is communism according to them, the Wall Street idiots. Helping the capitalists is capitalism – why have we not learnt this in schools?
Helping capitalist is right – it is capitalism. A country of capitalists created by capitalists for capitalists. The defence of capitalism is as natural as breathing.
Helping the common people is wrong – what the hell is that? Kindness as an ideology? Well, it is not capitalism and so it must be wrong. Only one state sponsored theory can dominate in America.
The sad truth is that there is not enough money to help all in America. If you are not pro-capitalists you have no money to run expensive campaigns. Can’t run, can’t win. But if you do not promised to help the average Joe, you are not getting the votes.
The people who are the problem are attacking the solutions because it is cannibalising on their own blood supply. You have a picture of a rich patient in an intensive care unit harping the virtue of blood donations only in front of their ICU rooms. They cannot attack blood donation itself because they need it but they can attack blood donation drives elsewhere by “branding”. They have the cheek to do it. Their survival is correct evolution. Others’ survival is an evolutionary mistake. Instead of the fittest survive, we have the most well fed survive.
===
You summed up the root of American financial trouble today which is that greed is being rewarded on the upside while the pain of risks is not inflicted directly on those who created those risks. The “moral hazards” thing. All kinds of risks are embedded in transactions and not accounted for. The art of detaching the risks from the benefits is the purpose of financial engineering. The more complicated and globalised the products, the better. No ownership of risks is ever intended. For Alan Greenspan to say that financial bubbles cannot be known or determined until it happens is precisely to deny any ownership of risks until risks appeared and by that time it is most likely a tax payers’ risks because it would be too big for anyone else to shoulder. It is the US system and policies which allowed risks to build up undetected. American still preached “risks management” as a formal subject to the rest of the world but is blind to the risks in their own system.
The pork barrel tussle in USA today is this:
No enough money to go around, so help me but do not help him. Help only the Wall Street guys. Helping the rest of America is simply wrong. It is easier to say the word “wrong” by branding. Every night they have paid talkers on the TVs telling people why helping to get healthcare to every Americans is wrong. Helping autos and airlines and housing is wrong because it is for the common people and that is communism according to them, the Wall Street idiots. Helping the capitalists is capitalism – why have we not learnt this in schools?
Helping capitalist is right – it is capitalism. A country of capitalists created by capitalists for capitalists. The defence of capitalism is as natural as breathing.
Helping the common people is wrong – what the hell is that? Kindness as an ideology? Well, it is not capitalism and so it must be wrong. Only one state sponsored theory can dominate in America.
The sad truth is that there is not enough money to help all in America. If you are not pro-capitalists you have no money to run expensive campaigns. Can’t run, can’t win. But if you do not promised to help the average Joe, you are not getting the votes.
The people who are the problem are attacking the solutions because it is cannibalising on their own blood supply. You have a picture of a rich patient in an intensive care unit harping the virtue of blood donations only in front of their ICU rooms. They cannot attack blood donation itself because they need it but they can attack blood donation drives elsewhere by “branding”. They have the cheek to do it. Their survival is correct evolution. Others’ survival is an evolutionary mistake. Instead of the fittest survive, we have the most well fed survive.
===
You summed up the root of American financial trouble today which is that greed is being rewarded on the upside while the pain of risks is not inflicted directly on those who created those risks. The “moral hazards” thing. All kinds of risks are embedded in transactions and not accounted for. The art of detaching the risks from the benefits is the purpose of financial engineering. The more complicated and globalised the products, the better. No ownership of risks is ever intended. For Alan Greenspan to say that financial bubbles cannot be known or determined until it happens is precisely to deny any ownership of risks until risks appeared and by that time it is most likely a tax payers’ risks because it would be too big for anyone else to shoulder. It is the US system and policies which allowed risks to build up undetected. American still preached “risks management” as a formal subject to the rest of the world but is blind to the risks in their own system.
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