Juggling Dynamite

Crimes have boomed under the cloak of corporations. The less accountable individuals are allowed to be for their actions, the more corrupt and perverse the incentives. Even in named corporations, no admission or finding of crime should be allowed without attaching to the directing individuals within.

Companies are artificial entities created to allow real people to do business. But, unfortunately, there are some types of companies that aren’t engaged in any business at all. Instead, these anonymous companies exist mainly to disguise people doing things they’d rather not have the public know about. Global Witness explains how anonymous companies are used to cover up crime and corruption.  Here is a direct video link.

Effective deterrence of white collar crime requires a tough line on penalty. Not cost of doing business fines that allow one to profit and continue, but more like this: Ex-Deutsche bank broker gets record sentence for insider trading.

If America is the most ‘over-stored’ country in the world, Canada is not far behind. All the US retailers opened stores through Canada the past decade as households buried themselves in debt. And then there are all the REITs and other investors who tripled down on retail space since 2008 in the hunt for yield.  The income received will be paid for by capital losses as the correcting phase unfolds.  No free lunch.

Jan Kniffen, J Rogers Kniffen WWE, provides his outlook on the retail sector and talks about likely changes in the space down the road, including consolidation of malls. Here is a direct video link.

The much followed indicator of the US economy –the retail sector, is hemorrhaging–down more than 4% today on news of a rising tide of chapter 11 filings and store closures. Long-time, independent retail analyst Howard Davidowitz, outlined the real world factors driving consolidation in the sector in this clip last Christmas eve.  Howard gets to the meat of the matter around the 2:20 minute mark.

Davidowitz & Associates Founder and Chairman Howard Davidowitz discusses U.S. retailing. Here is a direct video link.

QE helped to drive stock prices and debt levels up for a while longer, but since it didn’t increase wages, this has made the mean reversion to follow in retail and asset prices, all that much greater.