LA Times – At a Rio favela, Pope Francis’ upcoming visit brings side benefits

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So one slum in Brazil receives some basic improvements due to the Pope’s visit.  Those improvements include repaving the street the Pope will travel on and establishing electricity to the chapel he will visit.  Two questions come to mind:
1. Should more high profile people visit every street in every slum, in particular schools and hospitals to get basic services established?
2. Why does it take visitation by “VIPs” (and I use quotations intentionally) to get this work done?  Doesn’t that seem to contradict the “we don’t have the resources” argument?

Sadly, with all of Brazil’s recent economic growth it appears the masses are left behind.  The widening wealth gap is a worldwide phenomenon, unfortunately.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76786436/

LA Times – Facebook is a bummer, study says

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I don’t have a Facebook account.   Call me old school, but according to this article I am happier!  May you all be happy as well, Facebook or no Facebook.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-77032533/

By the way, anyone entering into a short position on Facebook stock?

An old news article worth sharing: “Dividend tax hike ‘could have been worse'”

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While organizing some of my files today I stumbled across a CNN Money article on the dividend tax hike “compromise” reached earlier this year: 20130102_dividend_tax_hike

Most of you probably already know where I am going with this.  🙂  It is yet another reminder of how the wealthy (in this case those earning more than $400,000 AGI) avoided a restoration of taxes to pre-great recession / pre-Bush rates.  However, as I mentioned in my Cadence of Finance presentation, taxes are not the main driver behind the widening wealth gap.  See the presentation for more details.

Another government lawsuit against Bank of America related to $850M in bad mortgages

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Sure Bank of America (BofA) has been sued a time or two by the government.  Just take a look at my Cadence of Finance presentation slides 9 and 11. But they were also bailed out by the government.  Are we being forced to watch and participate (via our tax dollars) in some sick (and expensive) good-cop bad-cop show?  Nevertheless, if you like reading about BofA’s latest lawsuit, checkout this Forbes article.

As mentioned in the Cadence of Finance presentation, BofA was already sued for misleading investors about $16.5B (that’s B as in Billion). They eventually settled for a $315M judgement.  What about the other $16.2B dollars?  Where did that go?  Nevertheless, it appears the only differences this time are the “lower” amount of bad mortgages ($850M) and their source (from “wholesale channels” rather than originated by BofA).

I hope everyone has made, or at least begun, the transition to banking with credit unions. See page 26 of “The Cadence of Finance” for a few reasons to make the switch.  Those are in addition to the fact BofA laid off 30,000 workers after being bailed out, paying bonuses, and settling for pennies on the dollar (page 11).

Revamped home page, financial crisis presentations

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First, I would like to thank all of those who follow my blog.  I hope you find the material interesting and thought provoking.  To make material more accessible to students, businesses, and curious readers alike I have revamped the homepage.

After a discussion regarding the debt ceiling this weekend I asked myself: “didn’t I write something about this before?”  It turns out I did!  You will notice a “2011 Debt Ceiling Crisis” presentation under the “Seminars” column on the home page.  That presentation was created two years ago.  It turns out the debt ceiling is in the news again.

If you like the debt ceiling presentation also take a look at “The Cadence of Finance” and the “2008 Financial Crisis” presentations.  It appears that observations and concerns in those presentations keep coming up again and again.

Enjoy the reading!

Netflix Approaching Its Apple Moment (AAPL, NFLX)

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Netflix is cool technology but how does it increase productivity in a Schumpeterian context?  In that context productivity enhancing technological progress leads to economic growth.  How is getting the [relatively few] remaining Americans who are not Netflix subscribers going to lead to productivity enhancement and subsequently economic growth?  The same argument applies to Facebook.

Perhaps streaming video saves time and money related to driving to Blockbuster and picking up a movie.  But do we do anything with the time and money savings?  Do we just spend that saved time and money consuming more Netflix content?

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/07/22/netflix-approaching-its-apple-moment.aspx

BBC News – South African chef ‘too fat’ to live in New Zealand

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Here is one approach to making socialized health care work: kick the unhealthy people out of your country.  Personally, I would think a rehabilitative plan with wellness goals is a better alternative.  But then again, I have never run the health care system of an entire country.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23475583