Juggling Dynamite

Last week Canada’s former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was unabashedly tweeting his delight at being hired as a corporate consultant with Dentons who brands itself as “the world’s largest global elite law firm” devoted to helping corporate clients increase “value” [ie., profits and share prices].  Harper is not a lawyer, but the firm boasts that it has a stable of previous politicians and regulators on the payroll to advise and assist their corporate clients with regulatory and legal hurdles. Good gig for them no doubt.  The fact that they and Harper are so proud to boast all of this, shows how out of touch and oblivious these people have become about the massive inequality and corrective upheaval currently swelling through the world.

I’m very pleased to announce that my firm, Harper & Associates, is launching a strategic affiliation with @Dentons. pic.twitter.com/tw9tOunKqV

— Stephen Harper (@stephenharper) September 12, 2016

Earth to politicians and corporations: it’s not just about how you and your friends and their profits are doing, you have to be concerned about the majority of the citizens. Failing to do this has been the downfall of every egregiously self-serving regime in human history. Agreements, laws and policies written by corporations for corporations have undermined political, social and environmental stability the world over. The necessary upheaval is now underway.

Nobel Laureate and Professor of Economics at Columbia University Joseph Stiglitz discusses inequality, unemployment in the U.S., central bank action and the outlook for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He speaks to Bloomberg’s Angie Lau on “Trending Business” from the 23rd CLSA Investors’ Forum in Hong Kong. Here is a direct video link.

This chart of relative growth for different US income groups since 1979 offers some perspective on the mean reversion process now needed to restore some reasonable equilibrium once more.  A similar disconnect has happened throughout the world.

The revolving door between finance cheaters and regulators is well oiled and completely unencumbered.  Recall that Ben Bernanke unashamedly took a plum consulting gig with HFT market-skimmer-extraordinare firm Citadel, after he retired from head of the Federal Reserve.  Well another would-be-regulator, the SEC, just saw its chief HFT trading expert exit and sign on with Citadel too. These people have no shame and they are making a mockery of fair and open markets as well as integrity and ethics.  In no universe is this defensible.  The revolving door must be jammed.  The inmates are running the asylum and buying off the cops and we are all paying the costs.

Any wonder HFT gets free reign to cheat us?

SEC’s former high-frequency trading expert joins Citadel https://t.co/h65wrlYtLg via @WSJ

— Danielle Park (@kdaniellepark) September 16, 2016

After decades of queering rules, abusing trust and lobbying against higher standards, the financial business is in full on panic mode about the prospects of an incoming fiduciary standard (having to put the best interests of clients ahead of the advisor’s profits).

A whole army of consultants are now mustering to help ‘advisors’ figure out workarounds or how to restructure their business practices. Most in the advice business have been so conflicted and self-serving for so long that they literally have no clue what changes are required. It is comical but not funny.

This slideshow has been prepared by consultants to help enlighten financial workers on their problem practices, but it offers customers and outsiders some valuable insight on the kind of antics which are presently widespread.  If you use financial advisers/brokers/planners/representatives, it is worth your time to take a look at this.

See slide show: Fiduciary no-nos: 10 potential conflicts of interest.