Norb Vonnegut: What Would Grove Do?
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Today, Acrimoney is pleased to introduce Grove O'Rourke from Sachs, Kidder, and Carnegie.
Grove manages about $2 billion in total assets for wealthy families. He's seen it all inside his investment bank. He'll be joining Acrimoney for a new guest series: What Would Grove Do? As a regular on our blog, Grove will discuss market events, trading lingo, and how to work with financial advisers.
On June 10, 2009, The New York Times reported that authorities are indicting seven executives for selling tax shelters. Acrimoney believes, however, the article contains broader implications for understanding investments. Even if you've never seen a tax shelter.
Acrimoney: Thanks for visiting, Grove.
Grove: Glad to join your team.
Acrimoney: Nobody's ever heard of Sachs, Kidder and Carnegie. Before we review the NYT article, can you tell us more about your firm?
Grove: You'll hear plenty this September.
Acrimoney: Oh?
Grove: That's when the novel, Top Producer, goes on sale.
Acrimoney: Hey, wait a minute. You're a work of fiction?
Grove: I prefer to think of myself as an amalgamation of the good guys in finance--advisers who put their clients' interests first.
Acrimoney: Then, you can give us an insider's view?
Grove: With no fear of Wall Street retribution. What's somebody going to do, delete me?
Acrimoney: Okay then. We know tax shelters were all the rage from 1994 to 2004. What did you tell your clients?
Grove: Shelters are more toxic than Chernobyl. You remember the 1986 nuclear disaster in the Ukraine?
Acrimoney: Do we ever...
Grove: According to the NYT, the tax shelters charged fees equal to a "percentage of the tax savings."
Acrimoney: What's the problem?
Grove: It violates Rule Number One--never bet against the IRS. The returns from tax shelters all come at the expense of Uncle Sam. It's like picking a fight with the umpire.
Acrimoney: You said these investments were more toxic than Chernobyl. What tipped you off?
Grove: Fees.
Acrimoney: Too high?
Grove: So high, in fact, they triggered Rule Number Two--investment fees over 2 percent are a red flag.
Acrimoney: Two percent fees are too high for any investment?
Grove: Every rule has an exception. But I'm a careful guy when it comes to my clients. And the truth is, I start scrutinizing fees well before they hit 2 percent.
Acrimoney: How much were the tax shelter fees?
Grove: 4.5 percent.
Acrimoney: You're kidding.
Grove: It gets worse. On COBRA, one of the shelters named in the NYT article, investors paid nonrefundable fees of $1.06 million and signed nondisclosure agreements before they could view documents.
Acrimoney: Hang on. They paid $1.06 million up front? Before they could "examine the merchandise?"
Grove: Danger Will Robinson. Or, "Buyer beware," for those who didn't watch much television in the 1970s.
Acrimoney: Wait a minute. Are you making up these details?
Grove: You can't make this stuff up--
Acrimoney: Hey, that's our line.
Grove: If you don't believe me, click here to see my source: Bitten by a COBRA?
Acrimoney: You have two rules. Are there any others?
Grove: Rule Number Three--watch out for Wall Street's kitschy acronyms. They sound smart. But they're usually shorthand for manufactured products with big fees and questionable value. The tax shelters in the NYT article, for example, included COBRA and SOS.
Acrimoney: COBRA is an acronym for a tax shelter?
Grove: Most people think of health insurance when they hear COBRA. According to the US Government, COBRA stands for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985. That's a mouthful.
Acrimoney: But there's a different COBRA?
Grove: One tax shelter used COBRA as the acronym for Currency Options Bring Reward Alternatives.
Acrimoney: That's ridiculous.
Grove: SOS stands for "Short Options Strategy." But I prefer "Sack of..." Just kidding.
Acrimoney: Hey, can you Save Our Shekels?
Grove: You bet. Next week, let's talk about how to communicate with financial advisers.
Acrimoney: That's it for today. Grove, thanks for joining us on Acrimoney.
Grove: Wouldn't miss it for the world. I look forward to guest blogging.
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posted by tgazw @ 10:24 PM,
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Coburn Will Run for Re-Election
Print
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PDF Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) announced he will seek another term in the Senate, Tulsa World reports.
Coburn Will Run for Re-Election
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Coburn Will Run for Re-Election
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Coburn Will Run for Re-Election
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Coburn Will Run for Re-Election
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posted by tgazw @ 5:07 PM,
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Arson attack in Iran leaves 5 more dead
PrintEmailPDF Second pre-election incident in border town
President seeks to pin blame on 'foreign enemies'
Iran suffered a further bout of violence in the run-up to next week's presidential elections when five people were killed and dozens more injured today in an arson attack in the border town where 25 people died last week in a mosque bombing.
State media said the incident targeted the Mehr Financial and Credit institute in Zahedan, a largely Sunni Muslim town near the eastern border with Pakistan. Iran partially closed the border.
News of the latest violence coincided with reports of arrests over last Thursday's suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Zahedan. Both it and a small bomb found on an internal flight to Tehran at the weekend have been blamed on Iran's foreign enemies by state media. Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran's "supreme leader", warned yesterday of an "enemies' conspiracy ? trying to harm national unity," the Irna news agency reported.
Analysts suspect that whoever is behind these incidents is being exploited by supporters of the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is being challenged in the 12 June vote by three other candidates, two of them reformers seeking improved relations with the west and blaming the incumbent for the country's current isolation.
Ahmadinejad told a rally that if he was re-elected he would continue his tough talk. "We are sorry that certain people inside the country have joined the Zionists in opposing those of us calling the Zionists liars, killers of children and murderers," he said. Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Radan, deputy commander of Iran's security forces, said that "a number of individuals who intended to create insecurity" in Zahedan had been detained.
Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province, home to Iran's mostly Sunni ethnic Baluchis. Near Pakistan, the region sees frequent clashes between security forces and smugglers and bandits.
Three men convicted of involvement in the mosque bombing, the deadliest such incident in Iran since the eight-year war with Iraq, were publicly hanged on Saturday. A Sunni opposition group named Jundullah (God's soldiers), which Iran says is part of al-Qaida and backed by the US, claimed responsibility for the mosque bombing.
Manuchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, said Jundullah was linked to "foreign forces" in Afghanistan. Jundullah says it fights for the rights of Iran's Sunnis and has claimed responsibility for a dozen terrorist attacks in Iran.
The recent incidents are reminiscent of a similar outbreak of violence days before Iran's last presidential election, in 2005, which brought Ahmadinejad to power. Bombs then hit Tehran and the south-western city of Ahvaz, which has a sizable Arab minority, killing eight people and wounding scores more.
Israel warned meanwhile that Iran could have enough fissile material for its first nuclear bomb by the end of this year. Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, head of the research division of Israel's military intelligence, made the remarks to a foreign affairs committee of Israel's parliament.
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Arson attack in Iran leaves 5 more dead
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Arson attack in Iran leaves 5 more dead
[Source: Daily News]
Arson attack in Iran leaves 5 more dead
[Source: State News]
Arson attack in Iran leaves 5 more dead
[Source: Wb News]
Arson attack in Iran leaves 5 more dead
[Source: Chocolate News]
Arson attack in Iran leaves 5 more dead
posted by tgazw @ 4:52 PM,
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Primetime Emmys Moved Up a Week
PrintEmailPDF 
The TV gold rush will start earlier this year. The 61st Primetime Emmy Awards has been rescheduled to Sunday, Sept. 13, a week earlier than the original date, CBS announced.
The move was made to accommodate ...
Primetime Emmys Moved Up a Week
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Primetime Emmys Moved Up a Week
[Source: News Headlines]
Primetime Emmys Moved Up a Week
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Primetime Emmys Moved Up a Week
[Source: Abc 7 News]
Primetime Emmys Moved Up a Week
[Source: Kenosha News]
Primetime Emmys Moved Up a Week
posted by tgazw @ 4:23 PM,
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More movie magic Pinewood aims to be a one-stop studio
PrintEmailPDF Pinewood Studios will today submit its final planning application to double in size, in a desperate attempt to rival Hollywood and cheaper rivals elsewhere.
The Buckinghamshire studio, which is home to James Bond and Harry Potter films, is planning a 40-hectare, ?200m expansion that would allow it to compete with the US and eastern Europe. The redevelopment could create up to 1,600 jobs. The company also wants to build up to 1,400 flats to accommodate casts and crews.
If Pinewood gets the go-ahead, the complex will include a Venetian canal, a Parisian square, a Roman amphitheatre and the streets of London. Some sets could be visible from the M25.
They would allow film-makers to shoot more scenes at the studio, without having to go on location. But a director wanting to film a scene set on Lake Como will still have to travel to Italy: the studio was forced to scrap plans to create a replica of the lake due to locals' concerns that it could adversely affect wildlife.
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
More movie magic Pinewood aims to be a one-stop studio
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
More movie magic Pinewood aims to be a one-stop studio
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More movie magic Pinewood aims to be a one-stop studio
posted by tgazw @ 11:47 AM,
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The other Susan Boyle
PrintEmailPDF The global success of the Britain's Got Talent star has had an unlikely impact on one unassuming Texas artist. Stuart Jeffries hears how
There is, you might think, room in the world for only one Susan Boyle. But you would be wrong. The American artist, Susan K Boyle, was living her quiet, unassuming life in the pretty hill country of Kerrville, Texas, when a friend sent her an email.
"It was a link to Susan Boyle's YouTube performance a few days after her audition," recalls Susan K. "I thought she was wonderful - what a beautiful voice and what a compelling story. But I thought it was just an interesting coincidence, nothing more."
Except that back in 2002, Susan K Boyle had set up a website, susanboyle.com, to display her artworks. That site had been rusting in cyberspace for a couple of years - until the Britain's Got Talent finalist sudenly came to the global consciousness last month, and something rather strange happened. "A journalist called me and said, 'Do you know your site is getting 1,800 hits per hour?' I had no idea - I hadn't upgraded the site for a couple of years." Yesterday, she calculated the cumulative total of hits to be more than 172,000.
Susan K's website shows her figurative line drawings and head studies in oil. Like her namesake, she has got talent, though not the sort to irrigate Simon Cowell or Amanda Holden's tear ducts.
And then the madness, as it does in such cases, began in earnest. "A couple of Susan Boyle fans emailed me to say they thought I sang beautifully. Another thought I sang beautifully and liked my artwork! Among the emails were inquiries for price quotes on a couple of my art pieces. However, I have had no sales as a result of this. Yet."
So is Susan K expecting a surge of sales as a result of the sudden celebrity of an unglamorous though sweet-voiced woman who lives on the other side of the Atlantic? "That would be too weird, wouldn't it?"
Next, she started getting calls and emails from people wanting to buy her website's domain name. "One guy, within a minute, had increased his offer from $100 to $500,000. I'm not sure how serious he was, but that sort of thing is very strange to happen to someone like me." She consulted a company called Sedo that sells domain names and, following their advice, has now put her web address up for sale for a cool $25,000. She hasn't sold it. Yet. (She has moved her artwork display, though, to sboyleart.com).
Surely she'll be rooting for her namesake to win tomorrow night's final? "I haven't heard the other finalists, so I can't say." Admirably diplomatic - but Susan K now has a pecuniary interest in the other Susan's success. According to Sedo's director of business development, Nora Nanayakkara: "The value of the domain name really depends on the sustainability of Susan Boyle's popularity."
I ask if Susan K's life story is as heart-rending as her namesake's. "I don't know much about her biography," she replies. I'm thinking of the fact that the 46-year-old singer from West Lothian claimed - apparently as a joke - never to have been kissed, at least until Piers Morgan made her life story even more harrowing by kissing her backstage last week. "Oh, I've been kissed," Susan K replies finally.
The 64-year-old from Kerrville is an art major who has drawn and painted throughout her life, while working mostly in the airline industry. "I was a stewardess, as they were called in the 60s, for PanAm. I left just before Lockerbie [the PanAm crash in 1988]."
In addition to Susan K's new website, her work can be seen in a show called Turning Point at the Hill Country Arts Foundation in Ingram, Texas, from 6 June. She is understandably eager for the media circus (ie me calling her at the prearranged time of 7.30am from London) to move on, so she can walk her "lovely old dog" and then get back to her art.
After the interview, she sends me a disarming email: "Please be kind to me in your article. Another outfit in the UK wrote about me yesterday and made me sound stupid AND greedy - and they hadn't even spoken with me!! Egads!"
For the record, Susan K Boyle is neither of those things (and I'm always a sucker for a woman who exclaims "egads"). She is, like her namesake, a breath of fresh air. The last thing the "other" Susan Boyle says sounds sweet coming down the line to this celeb-crazy nation. "I am an artist and am happiest in my studio working on my art. I don't deserve, or want, fame".
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: News Argus]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Television News]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Daily News]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Wb News]
The other Susan Boyle
posted by tgazw @ 10:58 AM,
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