Podcasts about worldcom

Earmark Media Presents a bonus episode of Earmark Podcast:  What happens when Congress votes to eliminate the watchdog that's overseen public company audits for two decades? In this episode, Blake Oliver sits down with three leading accounting academics—Maureen McNichols from Stanford, Nemit Shroff from MIT, and Daniel Aobdia from Penn State—to examine the research behind the PCAOB's effectiveness and what elimination could mean for audit quality. You'll discover why companies with clean audit inspections can raise capital more easily, how the infamous "40% deficiency rate" actually works, and why these researchers believe dismantling the PCAOB could undermine trust in U.S. capital markets. The conversation reveals the hidden economics of audit oversight and explains why there hasn't been a major public company fraud since Enron and WorldCom.Chapters(00:00) - Welcome to the Show (01:10) - Meet the Experts (02:59) - Discussion on PCAOB's Elimination (08:17) - Research Insights on PCAOB's Effectiveness (20:11) - Deficiency Rates and Audit Quality (24:50) - Economic Impact of Fraud and PCAOB's Role (25:20) - Regulatory Model of the PCAOB (25:59) - Incentive Structure and Audit Quality (26:59) - Inspection Deficiency Rates (28:54) - Restatement Rates vs. Deficiency Rates (30:23) - Auditor-Client Relationship Tensions (31:42) - Documentation Issues in Audits (35:15) - Effectiveness of PCAOB Inspections (37:49) - Impact of PCAOB on Financial Reporting Quality (40:33) - Potential Elimination of the PCAOB (44:00) - Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sign up to get free CPE for listening to this podcasthttps://earmarkcpe.comhttps://earmark.app/Download the Earmark CPE App Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/earmark-cpe/id1562599728Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.earmarkcpe.appConnect with Our Guests:Maureen McNicholshttps://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/maureen-mcnicholsNemit Shroffhttps://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/nemit-shroffDaniel Aobdiahttps://directory.smeal.psu.edu/dza5396Connect with Blake Oliver, CPALinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blaketoliverTwitter: https://twitter.com/blaketoliver/

This Day in Legal History: SEC EstablishedOn this day in legal history, June 6, 1934, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was established as part of the sweeping reforms of the New Deal. The SEC was created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 in response to the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, which exposed widespread fraud, manipulation, and lack of oversight in the financial markets. Its primary mission was, and remains, to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Joseph P. Kennedy, a former stockbroker and businessman, as the SEC's first chairman. The choice was controversial—Kennedy had profited handsomely from some of the same speculative practices the SEC was meant to prevent—but Roosevelt believed that Kennedy's insider knowledge would make him an effective regulator.The SEC was empowered to regulate the securities industry, enforce federal securities laws, and oversee the nation's stock and options exchanges. Among its early duties were requiring public companies to file detailed financial disclosures, registering securities before public offering, and monitoring insider trading. The commission also played a key role in restoring investor confidence in U.S. capital markets during a time of deep financial mistrust.Over time, the SEC expanded its reach, responding to new financial products, trading technologies, and crises. From investigating corporate accounting scandals like Enron and WorldCom, to managing the regulatory fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, the SEC has remained a pivotal force in shaping American financial law. It continues to evolve, now addressing issues such as crypto asset regulation, ESG disclosures, and algorithmic trading.Speaking of the SEC, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton dismissed a lawsuit challenging the SEC 2020 rule changes that made it more difficult for shareholders to submit proposals at corporate annual meetings. The rules, enacted late in President Trump's term, raised the ownership thresholds and lengthened holding periods required to file shareholder proposals. They also introduced stricter resubmission requirements for proposals previously rejected by shareholders.The plaintiffs, including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, As You Sow, and shareholder advocate James McRitchie, argued the changes disproportionately harmed proposals on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and reduced long-term shareholder value. They claimed the SEC failed to assess the benefits of such proposals before implementing the rules.Judge Walton rejected these claims, ruling that the SEC adequately justified the changes under its mandate to promote efficiency, competition, and capital formation. The SEC, which had defended the rules during both the Trump and Biden administrations, argued that the reforms ensured shareholder proposals had broader relevance and potential for meaningful corporate action. The 2020 vote on the rule changes split along party lines, with Republican commissioners in support. While the SEC declined to comment on the ruling, the plaintiffs expressed disappointment and affirmed their commitment to corporate engagement on environmental and social issues.SEC wins dismissal of lawsuit challenging tighter rules on shareholder proposals | ReutersOpenAI filed an appeal challenging a court order that requires it to indefinitely preserve ChatGPT output data in an ongoing copyright lawsuit brought by The New York Times. OpenAI argues the order conflicts with its user privacy commitments and sets a troubling precedent. The preservation directive was issued last month after The Times requested that all relevant log data be maintained and segregated.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly criticized the order on social media, affirming the company's stance against actions it sees as compromising user privacy. The appeal, filed on June 3, asks U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein to vacate the preservation requirement.The lawsuit, filed in 2023, accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of using millions of Times articles without permission to train ChatGPT. In April, Judge Stein ruled that The Times had plausibly alleged that OpenAI and Microsoft may have encouraged users to reproduce copyrighted content. The ruling rejected parts of a motion to dismiss the case and allowed several of the Times' claims to move forward, citing multiple examples of ChatGPT generating material closely resembling Times articles.OpenAI appeals data preservation order in NYT copyright case | ReutersPresident Donald Trump's 2026 budget proposal includes a plan to eliminate the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), an independent agency that funds civil legal aid for low-income Americans. The proposal seeks $21 million for an "orderly closeout" of the organization, which had requested $2.1 billion to meet growing demand. The LSC supports 130 nonprofit legal aid programs that assist with issues such as evictions, disaster recovery, and access to public benefits.Critics warn that the move would devastate legal aid access for millions, particularly in rural areas and the South. In Louisiana, for example, there is just one legal aid lawyer for every 11,250 eligible residents. Legal aid leaders say they already turn away half of those seeking help due to budget constraints, and the proposed funding cut would further limit their reach.Organizations like Southeast Louisiana Legal Services and Legal Aid of North Carolina would lose 40–50% of their funding, jeopardizing services for communities still recovering from recent hurricanes. Legal Services NYC, the largest legal aid provider in the country, has implemented a hiring freeze in anticipation of possible cuts.The proposal revives a long-standing conservative goal. Past Republican efforts to dismantle the LSC date back to the Reagan era, and Trump made a similar attempt in 2018. The Heritage Foundation has accused the LSC of supporting controversial causes, but legal aid advocates argue the organization is vital to community stability and fairness in the justice system.Trump Plan to Ax Legal Aid a Conservative Aim That Targets PoorIn a piece I wrote for Forbes last week, I discuss how the IRS has quietly released the underlying codebase for its Direct File program on GitHub, marking a rare moment of transparency in government software. At the center of this release is something called the “Fact Graph,” a logic engine that models tax rules as interrelated facts rather than a linear checklist. Built using XML and Scala, the Fact Graph interprets ambiguous tax data, identifies contradictions or omissions, and suggests paths forward, all in a transparent, declarative format.What sets this apart is that, unlike proprietary tax software, Direct File's logic isn't hidden—it's open, reviewable, and potentially improvable by anyone. This move not only demystifies some of the inner workings of tax enforcement but also sets a precedent: if algorithms are mediating our legal obligations, we should be able to see and understand the rules they follow.The release is particularly striking in an era of eroding public trust in institutions and increasing reliance on automated decision-making. While Direct File itself remains limited in scope and its future uncertain, the open-sourcing of its logic engine may have laid the groundwork for broader change. Other agencies—from state tax departments to those experimenting with AI-driven policy enforcement—could adopt similar transparency, allowing the public to engage with and even help refine the systems that govern them.Peeking Behind The Code—IRS Just Open-Sourced Direct FileThis week's closing theme is by Robert Schumann and comes courtesy of Christopher Zbinden. This week's closing theme is Robert Schumann's Toccata in C major, Op. 7, a dazzling showcase of Romantic-era pianism and one of the most technically demanding works in the standard repertoire. Composed in 1830 and revised in 1833, the piece earned a reputation early on as a pianist's Everest—Franz Liszt himself dubbed it “the hardest piece ever written.” Clocking in at just over five minutes when played at tempo, it's a relentless whirlwind of perpetual motion, requiring both physical stamina and interpretive precision.The toccata form, traditionally a virtuosic keyboard piece emphasizing dexterity, becomes in Schumann's hands something more cerebral. Beneath its bravura surface lies a structure built on two contrasting themes, developed with intricate counterpoint and rhythmic displacement. The left hand must execute rapid repeated notes and wide leaps with precision, while the right weaves through syncopated figures and chromatic runs, creating a dense musical texture.Schumann dedicated the piece to his friend Ludwig Schuncke, who had recently died at the age of 23. That personal connection adds an emotional layer to a work that might otherwise be heard as pure technical spectacle. Unlike many showpieces of the era, Schumann's Toccata isn't just difficult for difficulty's sake—it's an expression of obsession, energy, and youthful ambition.For a composer better known for lyrical piano miniatures, the Toccata is an early signal of the depth and range Schumann would explore in later works. As this week closes, it offers a fitting sendoff: intricate, driven, and a little manic—in the best Romantic sense of the word.Without further ado, Robert Schumann's Toccata in C major, Op. 7 – enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

What happens when Congress votes to eliminate the watchdog that's overseen public company audits for two decades? In this episode, Blake Oliver sits down with three leading accounting academics—Maureen McNichols from Stanford, Nemit Shroff from MIT, and Daniel Aobdia from Penn State—to examine the research behind the PCAOB's effectiveness and what elimination could mean for audit quality. You'll discover why companies with clean audit inspections can raise capital more easily, how the infamous "40% deficiency rate" actually works, and why these researchers believe dismantling the PCAOB could undermine trust in U.S. capital markets. The conversation reveals the hidden economics of audit oversight and explains why there hasn't been a major public company fraud since Enron and WorldCom.Chapters(00:49) - Legislation Impact on Audit Oversight (01:10) - Meet the Experts (02:59) - Discussion on PCAOB's Elimination (08:17) - Research Insights on PCAOB's Effectiveness (20:11) - Deficiency Rates and Audit Quality (24:50) - Economic Impact of Fraud and PCAOB's Role (25:20) - Regulatory Model of the PCAOB (25:59) - Incentive Structure and Audit Quality (26:59) - Inspection Deficiency Rates (28:54) - Restatement Rates vs. Deficiency Rates (30:23) - Auditor-Client Relationship Tensions (31:42) - Documentation Issues in Audits (35:15) - Effectiveness of PCAOB Inspections (37:49) - Impact of PCAOB on Financial Reporting Quality (40:33) - Potential Elimination of the PCAOB (44:00) - Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sign up to get free CPE for listening to this podcasthttps://earmarkcpe.comhttps://earmark.app/Download the Earmark CPE App Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/earmark-cpe/id1562599728Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.earmarkcpe.appConnect with Our Guests:Maureen McNichols https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/maureen-mcnicholsNemit Shroffhttps://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/nemit-shroffDaniel Aobdia https://directory.smeal.psu.edu/dza5396Connect with Blake Oliver, CPALinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blaketoliverTwitter: https://twitter.com/blaketoliver/

Two words have caught the Internet by storm. DeepSeek. The Chinese reasoning model r1 is rivaling others at the frontier with an open-source MIT license, methods that some claim may be 45x more efficient, an alleged $5.6m cost, the release of reasoning traces, a follow-on image model, and the fact that all of this was released by a hedge fund China.Many are already referring to this as a Sputnik moment. If that's true, how should we – whether founder, researcher, policy maker – not just react, but act? Joining us to tease out the signal from the noise are a16z General Partner Martin Casado and a16z board partner, Steven Sinofsky. Both Martin and Steven have been on the frontlines of prior computing cycles, from the switching wars to the fiber buildout, and have witnessed the trajectories of companies like Cisco to AOL to ATT – even Worldcom.So what really drove this DeepSeek frenzy and more importantly what should we take away? Today, we answer that question through the lens of Internet history. Resources:Steven's article: DeepSeek Has Been Inevitable and Here's Why (History Tells Us)Martin & Ion Stoica's Economist op-ed: Keep the code behind AI open Alex Rampell's article: Why DeepSeek Is a Gift to the American People Stay Updated: Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16zFind a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zSubscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithioPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we dive deep into the transformative power of trusted advisors in the channel with Drew Lydecker, Co-founder and President of AVANT Communications. With a career spanning influential roles at WorldCom, AT&T, and CDW, Drew has firsthand insights into how technology adoption and partner ecosystems have evolved into indispensable drivers of enterprise success.Together, we explore:The shift from brand loyalty to best-of-breed solutions and its impact on decision-making.Why trusted advisors are becoming the cornerstone of IT strategy, navigating choice overload for CIOs and CTOs.The growing role of OpEx models in reshaping the market landscape.Predictions for the channel's evolution over the next five years, and how vendors can align with this seismic shift.Tune in for actionable strategies and Drew's unique perspective on building partnerships that truly last.Connect with Drew  :  https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-lydecker/_________________________Learn more about Channext

There is a long history of regulation and deregulation where big scandals provide the catalyst for new rules, and then the realization that the rules are possibly excessive has caused them to be rolled back. In finance the 1933 Glass-Steagall provisions came in the wake of the 1929 Crash. The 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act was a reaction to the Enron and WorldCom scandals. Dodd-Frank was enacted in 2010 after the 2008 financial crisis. Good regulation can bring all sorts of benefits, but excessive regulation, does little to serve the public interest, and creates financial costs and frustration for businesses and the public. Elon Musk has vowed to dismantle thousands of federal regulations as the co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, saying the nation's financial security depends on it. Is he right, and if so, what rules need to go first? Patrick's Books: Statistics For The Trading Floor: https://amzn.to/3eerLA0 Derivatives For The Trading Floor: https://amzn.to/3cjsyPF Corporate Finance: https://amzn.to/3fn3rvC Ways To Support The Channel: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PatrickBoyleOnFinance Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/patrickboyle Visit our website: https://www.onfinance.org Follow Patrick on Twitter Here: https://twitter.com/PatrickEBoyle Business Inquiries ➡️ sponsors@onfinance.org Additional Reading: https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/brief-history-regulation-and-deregulation An Evaluation of Consumer Protection Legislation: The 1962 Drug Amendments | Journal of Political Economy: Vol 81, No 5 https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/jones-act-burden-america-can-no-longer-bear#conclusion https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-madrid-built-its-metro-cheaply/ Milton Friedman Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZL25NSLhEA A history of regulation and deregulation: https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/brief-history-regulation-and-deregulation Weird Laws Around the World: https://www.farandwide.com/s/weird-laws-world-4961c1ede8d749bf

The world of tech is nuanced, complex, and filled with jargon. That makes it the perfect breeding ground for scams and hoaxes. How can we defend ourselves from snake oil salespeople? Through the powers of critical thinking!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In episode 106 of the [i3] Institutional Investment Podcast, I speak with Craig Dandurand, Chief Investment Officer of the Tuckwell Family Office. Craig has an impressive career in the investment industry that spans time with US pension fund CalPERS and Australia's the Future Fund. We talked about his background in credit investing, setting up a hedge fund program and the world of private wealth. Enjoy the show! Overview of Podcast with Craig Dandurand 01:00 You initially worked in the legal profession. How did you get into investing? 02:00 Starting at CalPERS 03:00 The hedge fund team was the least bureaucratic part of a very bureaucratic organisation 06:30 What has changed in hedge funds compared to 20 years ago? They got more boring 10:00 During the GFC, I remember sitting in a coffee house writing something with a headline that said: ‘Capitalist Manifesto', which is the kind of overblown thing you write in a coffee house. But it resulted in three key aspects we wanted hedge funds to focus on: alignment, control and transparency 15:00 CalPERS was at a scale that led some hedge fund managers not wanting to engage with us 16:00 The optimal size of an asset owner is probably between $5 - 30 bn. 20:00 What was most disorientating coming to Australia was my currency exposure 26:30 Learnings from the COVID-19 crisis 29:30 To do a total portfolio approach well at a large asset owner is an incredible labour intensive exercise 32:00 The Future Fund had a clear investment target, but when you join a family office you need to find out what their needs, values and desires are (pardon the thunder in the background). Before you can invest the money, you need to know why you are doing it 34:00 Graham Tuckwell invented the gold ETF and, therefore, has a good understanding of how markets work 35:30 The concept of ‘ten ETFs and a 9 iron'. Often people confuse complexity for quality 42:00 Catering to different needs and life stages within family offices 48:00 I'm a credit junkie and that probably comes from being a bankruptcy lawyer 49:00 I find the growth of private credit over the last few years fascinating and slightly unnerving 53:00 Best and worst investment: investing in Worldcom bonds

What if you could revolutionize your approach to scaling healthcare organizations by leveraging unique real estate strategies? This episode is your chance to gain insights from Dominic Mazzone, CEO of MedSpa Partners, whose entrepreneurial journey includes launching 19 ventures across various industries. MedSpa Partners owns 40 locations. Dominic shares his transformative experiences, from running a car detailing business to pioneering an internet funeral company. We unravel the fine line between management and leadership, emphasizing the importance of learning from both triumphs and setbacks in building successful healthcare ventures. Dominic's reflections from his tenure at WorldCom highlight the necessity of self-awareness in discerning leadership traits, providing listeners with valuable lessons on effective leadership.Join us as we discuss the strategic importance of prioritizing quality over quantity in clinic acquisitions and the operational challenges that accompany scaling up. Dominic delves into the power of equity distribution, demonstrating how it aligns the interests of senior leaders with the company's vision and fosters a culture of collaboration and resilience. Through the compelling saga of launching a medical aesthetics roll-up business, we explore the vital role of building a network of key opinion leaders and the art of navigating initial entrepreneurial hurdles. This episode is packed with practical wisdom and encourages an inquisitive mindset, urging entrepreneurs to harness expert knowledge for collective success.If you need help finding the perfect location or your ready to invest in commercial real estate, email us at podcast@leadersre.com. Sign up for a FREE vulnerability analysis and lease renewal services View our library on apple podcasts or REUniversity.org. Connect on Facebook. Commercial Real Estate Secrets is ranked in the top 50 podcasts on real estate

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 09:06:29 +0000 https://morningbull.podigee.io/1099-new-episode 4dbb6764f0b4a060e1bc4e20ec983cbf full Une nuit blanche entière pour résumer tout ce qui s'est passé hier - et rêver à ce qui va se passer aujourd'hui et demain. Sans compter qu'on se fout de nous au niveau des chiffres (ENCORE) et que Supermicro n'est pas loin de rejoindre Enron et Worldcom.. no Morningbull,Swissquote,Bourse,Finance,Supermicro,Nvidia,Microsoft,META,UBS et UBS,Chiffres ADP,LLY Thomas Veillet et Vincent Ganne vo

Neste episódio, Paulo Leite e Tiago Barros mergulham no universo das manobras contabilísticas que marcaram alguns dos maiores escândalos financeiros da história. Por vezes, a contabilidade torna-se mais uma ilusão do que um reflexo fiel da saúde financeira das empresas. Casos emblemáticos como Enron, Lehman Brothers e Worldcom são exemplos de como práticas desonestas podem mascarar a realidade e levar a consequências devastadoras para acionistas, trabalhadores e até para a economia global. Desde pequenas manipulações para maquilhar resultados até fraudes descaradas, reconhecer os sinais destas práticas é crucial para evitar armadilhas e proteger o capital. Bibliografia: "Financial Shenanigans", de Howard Schilit e Jeremy Peeler "Smartest Guys In The Room", de Peter Elkins e Bethany McLean "Lights Out", de Thomas Gryta e Ted Mann

Imaginez que vous êtes un dirigeant d'une entreprise cotée en bourse, avec accès à des informations confidentielles. Comment cacher vos transactions d'initiés aux yeux des régulateurs ? Dans cette vidéo, nous explorons les stratégies subtiles utilisées par certains dirigeants pour dissimuler leurs ventes d'actions, notamment l'utilisation du mystérieux "code J". Découvrez comment des transactions de plusieurs millions de dollars passent sous les radars, à travers des exemples concrets comme Peloton, Nikola, Enron et WorldCom. Une enquête fascinante sur les coulisses des marchés financiers que vous ne voulez pas manquer ! Lien vers l'étude

Is the crisis over? Too soon to tell, but the Nikkei did rebound, the Yen is coming down, and the BOJ is hold steady on rates. Earnings season continues; and it's too soon to suume the market has found the bottom. Admonition to be wary of the narratives. Market rally into the 100-DMA, buyt unlikely to test resistance the 50-DMA just yet. Understanding the Yen Carry Trade; risk management vs greed. Diversification worked on Monday. The Fed soesn't even know what they're going to do; they're behind the curve. How we created inflation, and expecting recession. Remembering Texas' gasoline lines in the '70's. Harry Dent's perpetual doom & gloom: If market decline 94% we'll have more to worry about than stocks. Will your financial plan survive the next crash? The Ernon and WorldCom debacles; what risk management really means. Investor sentiment & the Sahm Rule: This time IS different. General market sentiment remains extremely bullish. FOMO of market bottom; Monday's bottom is likely not The Bottom of the market. SEG-1: Markets Rally & Retest 100-DMA SEG-2: Why Diversification Worked During Monday's Crash SEG-3: What Risk Management Really Entails SEG-4: Why Monday's Bottom is Likely NOT The Bottom Hosted by RIA Advisors Chief Investment Strategist Lance Roberts, CIO, w Senior Financial Advisor Danny Ratliff, CFP Produced by Brent Clanton, Executive Producer ------- Watch today's show video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZWdk9bCH5Q&list=PLVT8LcWPeAugpcGzM8hHyEP11lE87RYPe&index=1&t=1s ------- Articles mentioned in this report: "Yen Carry Trade Blows Up Sparking Global Sell-Off" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/yen-carry-trade-blows-up-sparking-global-sell-off/ "Inversion Of Yield Curve Finally Reversing" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/newsletter/ ------- The latest installment of our new feature, Before the Bell, "Markets Bounce Back after Monday's Crash" is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I2RvwFcN5w&list=PLwNgo56zE4RAbkqxgdj-8GOvjZTp9_Zlz&index=1 ------- Our previous show is here: "Is the Selling Over?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De_ft6IWTq8&list=PLVT8LcWPeAugpcGzM8hHyEP11lE87RYPe&index=1&t=3s ------- Get more info & commentary: https://realinvestmentadvice.com/newsletter/ -------- SUBSCRIBE to The Real Investment Show here: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheRealInvestmentShow -------- Visit our Site: https://www.realinvestmentadvice.com Contact Us: 1-855-RIA-PLAN -------- Subscribe to SimpleVisor: https://www.simplevisor.com/register-new -------- Connect with us on social: https://twitter.com/RealInvAdvice https://twitter.com/LanceRoberts https://www.facebook.com/RealInvestmentAdvice/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/realinvestmentadvice/ #MarketCorrection #CarryTrade #YieldCurveInversion #RecessionMisconception #YieldCurveUninversion #EconomicIndicators #FinancialHeadlines #InvertedYieldCurve #RecessionPrediction #EconomicAnalysis #MarketSignals #InterestRates #BondYields #EconomicCycles #FinancialMedia #MarketCommentary #EconomicForecasting #MarketTrends #FinancialEducation #Bonds #Gold #Recession #ISMServicesIndex #Markets #Money #Investing

Is the crisis over? Too soon to tell, but the Nikkei did rebound, the Yen is coming down, and the BOJ is hold steady on rates. Earnings season continues; and it's too soon to suume the market has found the bottom. Admonition to be wary of the narratives. Market rally into the 100-DMA, buyt unlikely to test resistance the 50-DMA just yet. Understanding the Yen Carry Trade; risk management vs greed. Diversification worked on Monday. The Fed soesn't even know what they're going to do; they're behind the curve. How we created inflation, and expecting recession. Remembering Texas' gasoline lines in the '70's. Harry Dent's perpetual doom & gloom: If market decline 94% we'll have more to worry about than stocks. Will your financial plan survive the next crash? The Ernon and WorldCom debacles; what risk management really means. Investor sentiment & the Sahm Rule: This time IS different. General market sentiment remains extremely bullish. FOMO of market bottom; Monday's bottom is likely not The Bottom of the market. SEG-1: Markets Rally & Retest 100-DMA SEG-2: Why Diversification Worked During Monday's Crash SEG-3: What Risk Management Really Entails SEG-4: Why Monday's Bottom is Likely NOT The Bottom Hosted by RIA Advisors Chief Investment Strategist Lance Roberts, CIO, w Senior Financial Advisor Danny Ratliff, CFP  Produced by Brent Clanton, Executive Producer ------- Watch today's show video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZWdk9bCH5Q&list=PLVT8LcWPeAugpcGzM8hHyEP11lE87RYPe&index=1&t=1s ------- Articles mentioned in this report: "Yen Carry Trade Blows Up Sparking Global Sell-Off" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/yen-carry-trade-blows-up-sparking-global-sell-off/ "Inversion Of Yield Curve Finally Reversing" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/newsletter/ ------- The latest installment of our new feature, Before the Bell, "Markets Bounce Back after Monday's Crash" is here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I2RvwFcN5w&list=PLwNgo56zE4RAbkqxgdj-8GOvjZTp9_Zlz&index=1 ------- Our previous show is here: "Is the Selling Over?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De_ft6IWTq8&list=PLVT8LcWPeAugpcGzM8hHyEP11lE87RYPe&index=1&t=3s ------- Get more info & commentary:  https://realinvestmentadvice.com/newsletter/ -------- SUBSCRIBE to The Real Investment Show here: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheRealInvestmentShow -------- Visit our Site: https://www.realinvestmentadvice.com Contact Us: 1-855-RIA-PLAN -------- Subscribe to SimpleVisor: https://www.simplevisor.com/register-new -------- Connect with us on social: https://twitter.com/RealInvAdvice https://twitter.com/LanceRoberts https://www.facebook.com/RealInvestmentAdvice/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/realinvestmentadvice/ #MarketCorrection #CarryTrade #YieldCurveInversion #RecessionMisconception #YieldCurveUninversion #EconomicIndicators #FinancialHeadlines #InvertedYieldCurve #RecessionPrediction #EconomicAnalysis #MarketSignals #InterestRates #BondYields #EconomicCycles #FinancialMedia #MarketCommentary #EconomicForecasting #MarketTrends #FinancialEducation #Bonds #Gold #Recession #ISMServicesIndex  #Markets #Money #Investing

In honor of National Whistleblower Day, we talk with WorldCom whistleblower Cynthia Cooper about finding the courage to speak up. We ask her why her story is still so relevant today, roughly two decades after WorldCom's CFO and CEO were sentenced over a multibillion-dollar fraud. Read more in Cynthia's book, Extraordinary Circumstances. See Cynthia in person in Denver at Amplify 2024, the conference that brings together audit, risk, accounting, finance, and sustainability professionals. 

In the 1990's, they were a rapidly expanding company. In fact, they had grown to the second largest telecommunications company in the world next to A T & T. But changing technology, new competition, and an accounting scandal would bring the corporate giant to its knees.

Welcome to Count Me In, with your host, Adam Larson. In this episode, Adam is joined by Tim Hedley, the Executive in Residence at Fordham University and Shari Littan, Director, Corporate Reporting Research & Thought Leadership at IMA.  Join this thought-provoking discussion as they delve into the importance of internal controls, the evolving landscape of sustainability reporting, and the challenges and benefits organizations face in adopting sustainable business practices.Discover how the COSO framework, the gold standard for reliable reporting, has been adapted to include non-financial reporting objectives, aligning with the rise of sustainability and ESG reporting. Explore critical trends in the world of ESG reporting, from increasing regulations to stakeholder engagement and supply chain transparency.Learn from Tim and Shari as they share their insights on the challenges organizations face in implementing sustainable practices and balancing short-term profits with long-term sustainability goals. Understand the significance of internal controls in providing a basis for external assurance and building stakeholder trust in reported information.Join Tim and Shari for a live event Nov 30 - Dec 1 in NYC. Register todayFull Episode Transcript:< Intro > Adam:            Welcome to another episode of Count Me In. In today's episode, joining us are two guest experts. Tim Hedley, who is Executive-in-Residence at Fordham University, and Shari Littan, Director, Corporate Reporting, Research and Thought Leadership at IMA. Our discussion revolves around the importance of internal controls and sustainability reporting. And how they enhance trust, accountability, and reliability of the reported information.  Tim and Shari share insights from the COSO framework. Which was developed to help improve confidence in all types of data and information. The landscape of sustainability reporting is constantly evolving, with shifting regulatory requirements and increased stakeholder expectations. We explore crucial trends; such as the focus on materiality and risk assessments, stakeholder engagement, supply chain transparency, and evolving reporting metrics. Let's get started, with this enlightening conversation.  < Music > Adam:            Shari, Tim, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We're really excited to be talking about COSO, internal control, and everything in that whole ESG world. But just for our listeners, who may be unfamiliar, you could've, probably, have heard the term COSO, or ICSR, and those things before, but maybe you're not familiar with those terms. Maybe, Shari, you could take a little bit of time and define, maybe, a high-level overview of what COSO is, the significant, internal control framework, and the purpose of the new documents. Shari:             I'd be happy to, thanks, Adam, it's great to be here. So COSO stands for Committee of Sponsoring Organizations and it came about in the late 1980s. It is a collaboration of five accountancy and auditing organizations. There's the American Accounting Association, which is an academic organization, primarily. AICPA, everyone is familiar. IMA, where we sit, and we primarily focus on the accountants and finance professionals in business, the in-house folks are ours. Institute of Internal Auditors, and FEI, Financial Executives International. So those five organizations make up COSO. COSO came about in the late 1980s, amid what was then the savings and loans crisis, and there was concern that the profession needed to do better. That we were starting to see major accounting failures, disclosure, litigation, regulation, questions. Are we doing the right things in the profession?" So the five accountancy organizations got together, and they said, "How are we going to resolve this? How are we going to promote trust and accountability in what we do, as a profession?" The focus became on this concept of internal controls, which we'll get to.  So in '92, after that, the COSO, as an organization, produced its first internal control framework. And then we can move forward to 1990s, late 1990s, 2000, the Enron, WorldCom's era, which led to Sarbanes-Oxley. And Sarbanes-Oxley, rather than looking at the substance of what a company needs to disclose, again, looked at the idea of governance process, auditing, and said, "In order to produce financial reports to the markets, you need to focus on your systems and your controls. You need management to speak to it, in your reporting system. You need auditors to address controls." We had the PCAOP. So we have this Sarbanes-Oxley, which created this idea of internal controls over financial reporting. And, although, Sarbanes Oxley didn't specifically say, "You must use the COSO framework." It was considered the best thing around, and it's become the gold standard in how to produce reliable financial or corporate reporting in more general. Now, in 2013, the framework was refreshed, we got a new internal control framework. And what it did, in the 2013 refresh, is it added the idea of non-financial reporting objectives. That was around the same time, about 10 years ago, when we started to see all kinds of sustainability integrated, ESG, reporting frameworks. And, so, though not express, what the framework did, in its refresh, was say "Yes, this is completely applicable to these types of activities and reporting." And, so, that leads us to where we are, today. Where, earlier, in 2023 we issued the internal control over sustainability reporting publication. And what the authors did, in that publication, was we looked at the existing internal control framework and said, "Okay, now we're seeing an acceleration of ESG or sustainability reporting and activities, performance and activities.  And that means we need good information, and that means we need quality information and transparency. Let's look at the COSO Internal Control Framework, and see how we can interpret it and apply it to these new forms of reporting. Adam:            Shari, I think that's a great overview. And, as you mentioned, there's the ever evolving nature of this new type of non-financial reporting, ESG reporting. There are shifts in regulatory compliance. We were just speaking before we started recording how this could change, or that could change, or this regulatory body can make a statement, at this moment, at this time, how this is constantly changing.  And, Tim, maybe, I'll ask you, how do you see this landscape changing? And what should organizations be, particularly, aware of, especially, with the ever evolving nature and things constantly moving? Tim:               Well, Adam, thank you, and thank you for having me here. The sustainability reporting landscape has rapidly changed, particularly, recently, to meet stakeholder expectation, and government regulations. And, Adam, your question could be an entire podcast, or a big section of this podcast if we had that kind of time, but I do see some critical trends, just some of the ones, from my perspective.  I mean, many people are out there, I'm sure Shari's got all kinds of ideas of what those trends might be. But there are some that just come to mind, for me. I think the biggest one that I think about a lot, and certainly what I experience in the classroom, and then talking to people who are in the field of sustainability reporting, some of the people I work with in different contexts, I think the first one is increasing regulation.Regulatory bodies, worldwide, are increasing their focus on sustainability reporting. And, personally, I think we should expect ever more stringent reporting requirements. And an interesting case in point, I think, is under the new California Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act. U.S. companies with annual revenues of $1 billion or more, in the State of California, for report both their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, in the next few years. I think that's a huge change and really indicative of the kinds of things that we can expect going forward.  I think next is, probably, increased investor pressure, I have no doubt about that. Institutional investors are placing more emphasis on sustainability factors, while making investment decisions. And, actually, I just saw an actual run of this, recently, last month, actually, they are employing very structured analysis using very detailed sustainability factors. So I think there's going to be more and more demand for increased disclosures, and that's not going to go away anytime soon. I think we're going to see more focus on meaningful materiality and risk assessments. People are paying a lot of attention to ensuring there are robust materiality and risk assessments, that identify and prioritize issues that are most relevant to businesses and to stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement will increasingly be more important.  Engaging with stakeholders now is critical, but, I think, it's only going to become ever more so, as we move through this process. There appears to be a much keener focus on greenwashing, and I, personally, think this is a huge problem for us. I think it's actually gotten to the point, where it seems that the perception of greenwashing is causing some pushback in this space and, actually, almost threatening the integrity of the effort. I think we're going to have to think a lot more about honest transparency, in this process. Do we want people to actually buy into this and trust the process, and the kinds of things, this year, I was just talking about? I think I'm leaning directly toward that notion of more honest transparency. I think there's going to be a greater focus on supply chain transparency. Particularly around human rights, DEI, environmental impact, all these kinds of things. I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg in this space. I think reporting, metrics will continue to change. The metrics that investors and stakeholders focus on are changing really fast. We are seeing a great deal of movement in the EU, in particular. For example, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which went into effect this past January, it's extending the requirement to report on sustainability management from a select number of companies in the EU to nearly all companies in the EU. Except these little micro companies, I guess. So, again, a lot of movement here, a lot of stuff is changing. My bottom line, I mean, I could keep listing these things. But my bottom line is that sustainable reporting is dynamic, it's always changing, and, as professionals, we must stay informed about changes in regulations, investor perceptions, and societal expectations.Shari:             Can I add just one thing to what Tim said, and that is we tend to focus, or we have tended to focus, when we think about corporate reporting on public companies. Because naturally there are securities regulations both in the U.S. and in various jurisdictions around the world. But one thing that we are seeing in the world of sustainability, or ESG information, is that it is going to affect small and medium-sized companies. Maybe not direct corporate disclosure, but to their commercial customers into supply chain. We're actually seeing where a large public company, for example, has made net-zero commitments or other kind of commitments. And they talk about that in their public materials, and it goes into their ratings, et cetera. Well, they turn around and turn to their suppliers and say, "If you want to sell to us, we want your carbon footprint data. We want your modern slavery DE&I data. And we're seeing, in a positive way, in certain places, where the large commercial buyer is working along with the smaller suppliers. The component, the agricultural companies, to say, "Let's find ways that we can work together."  And it has become a competitive advantage for non-public companies to be able to say, "Not only can I deliver your components, but I can deliver your components along with quality information." We're seeing supplier audits in this area starting to come up, or industry collaborations where they're setting standards. So it's not only public companies to think about. Tim:               It's not just the public companies, because I've had conversations with a lot of organizations, they're asking for my help in responding to their customers. And if they're part of the supply chain, they will, certainly, have to disclose Scope 1, 2, & 3 emissions. Shari:             Exactly. Tim:               And one of the problems they have is they have no clue, what in the world that company is talking about. They don't even know what the starting point is. We're talking about internal controls over sustainability reporting, this is wonderful stuff. But if you're a small organization, that's never even heard of this space, that has no idea how to report. A lot more education is going to be necessary for that upstream and downstream indirect emissions providers. I've had people call me up and say, "They're asking, now, my employees, how far do they drive to work? What kind of a car do they drive?" And all of these kinds of things, and it's very confusing for, in particular Scope 1, Scope 3, emissions information providers. Like "How in the world do I capture this stuff?" And, Shari, you're absolutely right, large organizations can't get where they want to get to with their reporting, unless the entire value chain comes on board. Adam:            That makes a lot of sense, and there's going to be so much pressure from the consumers and regulatory bodies. And I can imagine it's overwhelming for any organization. Maybe somebody is listening to this and saying, "I know I need to do something." And, so, maybe, we can define what some of the benefits are to organizations and some advantages, if they can apply the sustainability business, the internal control integrated framework, to their organization.Shari:             Well, I will say that, first of all, one of the great benefits of looking to the COSO framework, or ICSR as we're referring to it in shorthand, is that we already know how to do a lot of this. We have the ability to leverage what we already know about building good governance systems, and controls, and processes, and oversight into our company systems, and looking at the information flow. We can train, think about training our board, and our members, but we already have a lot of the tools, and the know-how to address the concerns. It's not as esoteric or new, it really can be rooted in what we already do. Second, another great benefit is that, although, we think about COSO Internal Control with respect to external financial reporting. When you actually get into the framework, it is enterprise wide, it is holistic.  If you want good reporting, well, then, you need good information, and that means you are tracking your activities, and what your company is doing. And if the company is taking steps to actually become more sustainable in their performance. Of how they source energy, and how they human resources, and take care of waste, and all of those things. So it runs throughout an entire organization.  And the thing that I find is that when you think about it holistically, you start with the concept of purpose. So if you look at the publication, you look at the framework, you look at principle one, a commitment to ethical behavior, of being a good corporate citizen. And what is your purpose?  Why does your company or organization exist in the world?  What are you aiming to achieve? Why should all of your investors, and stakeholders, and employees, stay with you?  What are they going to get out of this; with respect to performance, and activities, and returns? So it leverages a reexamination, it leads to a reexamination, I should say. Why does our organization exist?  What are we doing, and are we doing these things efficiently? Are we doing them effectively? When I first started writing this publication, when I was tapped to become part of the authorship team. I said, "Internal controls and sustainability, well, that feels a little apples and oranges, to me." But, in fact, it's really about focusing on goals. It's focusing on purpose, and objectives, and how the company achieves those, and the information that it uses to decide how it's going to use these resources. Tim:               And I think I'll add something because I thought that was a great explanation by Shari. The bottom line is, from my perspective, I think the framework we're dancing or advocating and what has been put together with respect to internal control and sustainable reporting, it's comprehensive. It has widespread acceptance, it focuses correctly, in my belief, on risk management. It's very adaptable. When I read the publication that Shari co-authored, it's absolutely adaptable. We had with the internal control, the Internal Control Integrated Framework, absolutely adaptable, and it works perfectly here. And, really, most importantly, it has absolute global applicability Shari:             Yes, when I hear Tim say that global applicability is that there are so many regulators, and policymakers, and standard setters, and all sorts of organizations that are saying, "Here's what you need to report." It's a lot on the what to report, but this gives a framework of method of how. Tim:               Yes, and it does a good job with that. Adam:            I think you've given a great explanation about all the advantages and how it benefits. But I can't imagine that it's an easy process, and there are got to be challenges that people can encounter along the way. Maybe we can discuss a few of those challenges, to help people feel at ease. Tim:               When I was thinking through this, you can talk about some of the challenges. But, I think, it might make sense to talk about what some of the benefits are before we got to the challenges, perhaps, because I found that significant. I think the first, at least, from my perspective, the first benefit is enhanced reputation. A commitment to a purpose-driven business can enhance an organization's reputation, there's very little doubt about that. And there's a fair amount to thought leadership research, and surveys, and what have you, that support what I just said. If you look at GM, you look at Procter & Gamble, those are great examples of companies, in their sustainability report that have detailed their corporate purpose in very explicit ways, and easy to read, and make a lot of sense. And really I tell you in this space, there's been a paradigm shift. From just being a shareholder-first mentality, to say, "Hey, well, you know what, there are a lot of stakeholders." I think through this process you can gain a competitive advantage. Gain business practices, it can help recruit, and retain talent, just for one example. They can foster innovation. They can lead to development of new products and services. Think about electric vehicles, think about solar, think about power storage. These are all kinds of industries that we were not even really thinking much about not that many years ago, at least, not in a serious way. They can provide access to new markets and opportunities. And one thing I found very important, certainly, as my work over the last 25 years in the governance space and what have you, I can go a long way to increasing stakeholder trust and engagements. It can also have significant cost savings. Case in point is 3M's, 3Ps-Pollution Prevention Pays.And if you look at a sustainability report you'll see that, "Hey, this has saved billions of dollars since its inception." And they do a good job now of highlighting it, even though this was before we were really talking about sustainability, and ESG, and these things, and they were on top of some of the stuff. Risk mitigation, sustainable practice if well executed, it can mitigate environmental, social, and governance risk, ESG risks. It can help avoid costly reputational damage, integrity breakdowns, governmental scrutiny, fines and penalties, all kinds of benefits. Help provide access to capital, companies that demonstrate strong sustainable performance. Can often find it easier to access capital from socially responsible investors and from institutions that prioritize sustainable investments. Can lead to long-term value creation by producing a more stable and sustainable business model, less risk, and what I would say are higher valuations. And I think that's the greatest selling point for, actually, doing this stuff in a very serious way. It really is all about long-term value creation. And, of course, finally, I would say it can differentiate your brand. If you embrace sustainability and corporate purpose, you can distinguish yourself from competitors and build a brand that resonates with your consumers. Remember, it's all about the consumers in the end. There are some challenges which you had mentioned earlier, when we talked about it earlier. I think one of the biggest ones, the initial investment costs for sustainable products and efforts can be very expensive. Perhaps beyond the grasp of some, but well worth the investment for many. Understanding shifting consumer preferences is not always straightforward. Encouraging consumers to choose sustainable options over conventional ones can be slow and a challenging journey. Sometimes these sustainable options are perceived, sometimes, as being more expensive. Regulatory compliance can be demanding. It may require continuous adjustments to business operations. Clients with changing environmental regulations and standards can require continuous adjustments to your business operations. Which may pose significant operational challenges. Another big one is balancing short-term and long-term objectives it's often tricky. Organizations may, counter a lot of pressure to prioritize immediate profits over long-term sustainability, creating both internal and external pressure. And some may, I'm afraid, think you have to sacrifice one for the other. And, Adam, I don't buy into that, I don't believe that. But a lot of people do believe that, it's an either/or kind of thing. There are significant resource limitations above and beyond the budget I mentioned earlier. Things like renewable energy sources, sometimes, are hard to find. Sourcing sustainable materials can be really difficult, not to mention human resources and talent acquisition can be very difficult. Complex global operations are challenging. Multinationals might face headwinds in implementing uniform sustainability standards across diverse regulatory environments, cultural norms, socio-economic situations. Further global supply chains are incredibly complex. Much more so than domestic organizations, and requires a great deal of collaboration to make this work. And, then, finally, in this area, I would say the greenwashing concerns, we kind of touched upon it earlier. But with the focus on sustainability, there is a risk of an organization engaging in greenwashing. Where they make misleading claims about the environmental benefits of their products or operations. Such practices can lead to reputational damage and loss of trust among stakeholders.  I know I've talked twice about greenwashing, but it is a huge problem. And it really is undermining a lot of the good efforts taking place in this area. So to help ensure long-term viability and success, I think it's important to develop a comprehensive strategy that aligns sustainability goals with the overall corporate purpose. Shari:             Listening to Tim, I'm reminded of a story that was shared with me a few years ago, now. It was my colleague in an agricultural company. And, of course, the questions came to them about carbon footprint, "Are you measuring greenhouse gases, et cetera?"  And, so, they started to do that measurement, the inventory, instituting their processes. And in doing that what they discovered is a huge waste of water because they were looking at how they produce and operate in a more holistic, as you say, totality.  And, so, in trying to quantify and measure their carbon footprint they ended up changing their entire system of water and reduced it by a lot. So they ended up having gains, by extension, to new streams of information, that they hadn't been looking at before. Tim:               It really is an exercise in navel-gazing, looking deep inside yourself, to actually do this stuff. And it's not an easy process, but that's a great example of where there are all kinds of benefits, well, and it's unintended benefits, from actually going through this process, and a lot of discovery takes place. You learn a lot about yourself. Adam:            It really sounds like you can learn a lot. And I think you've kind of illustrated, my last question was going to be around, how does this framework play a crucial role in ensuring effective governance, and rules, and internal control systems. Especially, concerning sustainable business practices, and what you just displayed there, Shari, for us, was a great example of that. And if there are any other examples you guys can share, I think that would be really helpful, and encouraging as people are thinking about this and looking at it. Because it's inevitable that it will be affecting every organization. Shari:             Yes, here's another example that I thought of, when you're getting more into the risk and the overall reasons, to think about sustainable business. But I do remember if you drive along highways now, how often do you see charging stations. In fact, I saw, not far from where I live, a former gas station had completely changed into an electric vehicle station. And I thought somebody else in that supply chain, if you create fuel pumps, you might want to think about changing that business model, and that's what the information can bring forward. Tim:               Yes, earlier I had mentioned that notion of a robust, risk, and materiality assessment. And just adding on to what Shari was saying, I had a conversation not long ago with a tire manufacturer. So they were doing deep dives and taking it very seriously. But they started understanding things that were hugely important and material, they'd never thought about before. For example, when you drive down the road, your tread wears out of your tire. You don't think about, "Where does that rubber go?" Maybe it goes in the atmosphere, it goes on the street, it goes on the side of the road. And suddenly, wow, they're materiality mapping and that process is hugely dynamic. The risk assessment is dynamic, and I think people are looking for that dynamic approach to these kinds of things. You can be an energy company just delivering electricity for a municipality, and suddenly you start getting into solar panels. And, suddenly, "Wow, we got new risk, where are they sourced? Where is this stuff coming from? What does that supply chain look like?" So a lot of interesting things that actually pop out of going through this process. And a lot of it leads to much better decisions and also uncovering important things and cost savings, it's all there. Adam:            Tim, Shari, do you have any final thoughts for our audience? Shari:             Well, as we wrap up, I want to just bring it back to why the internal control, and the COSO framework, and that publication, in thinking about all these new types of activities and new types of information, that has risk associated with it. And there are business risks, but there are also risks in the information. For example, we talk about supply chain, so in order to account for Scope 1, not Scope 1 because that's your data. But Scope 2 and Scope 3, you, by definition, need to get information that doesn't come from your system that you're responsible for, it has to come from a third party. So there's risk in that information. So we need to think about other controls. We need to think about affiliates, or other investees, or companies that we outsource to, that we used to consider immaterial for financial reporting purposes, but now we need their information. Green Bonds, is another, where we're affirming to our lender that we are in compliance with certain ESG metrics and then they lower our interest rate, that's informational risk.  We also have the risk of estimation and expectations, and how we measure prospective assumptions and leads to that kind of reporting. I think that's really huge because so much of sustainability reporting, including some of the mandatory disclosure requirements coming out of Europe, double materiality, impact accounting, it means estimating the future. That's what sustainability is all about. Do we have the resources made available to us in the future? Can we count on that?  Are stakeholders willing to make those available? So, anyway, it goes to the question of estimating the future, which makes many, in traditional accounting, uncomfortable. They don't like to disclose and report on the future and our assumptions. But that's a necessary part of creating the measurement techniques in order to effectuate all these new demands, for reporting all these new KPIs. What I'm saying is that by following what we already know how to do, By leveraging the frameworks that we already have, it can highlight and help direct us address the innovative areas, the information, the use of digital technology, perhaps, to bring this about in a reliable way, and avoid the greenwashing that Tim has highlighted for us. Tim:               Yes, I think the things that you talked about resonate with a lot of things we talked about earlier. Those things are all about long-term value creation. Shari:             Agreed, absolutely. Tim:               You got to be thinking about the future. And, also, one of the things that I see from the work you've done here and the internal controls of sustainability reporting. I think it's going to go a long way to helping with the notion of external assurance of this information. Because now we'll have internal controls in place that make some sense, that can be tested in and of themselves, it gives a lot more confidence in what's being reported. Because stakeholders are going to take some of this stuff with a grain of salt. Unless someone actually opines it, "Hey, wow, you know what they're telling you it seems accurate enough. It's doing what it's supposed to do."  I think that's going to be a huge underpinning for the document we've been discussing here. Because I think it's going to go a long way to enabling that. And unless you have that third-party attestation, the trust may not be there until we get to that point. I don't know, that's just my prediction. Adam:            Well, I appreciate you guys sharing your final thoughts and sharing all your insights with our audience, today. And thanks so much, again, for coming on the podcast. Shari:             Thanks so much, Adam. Tim, it's been a pleasure.  < Outro > Announcer:    This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast, providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders, from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting in finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imainet.org.

จากกรณีของ ENRON เราเคยได้เรียนรู้แล้วว่า “การโกงบัญชีครั้งยิ่งใหญ่ จะมาพร้อมกับหายนะอันใหญ่ยิ่ง” และในครั้งนี้เราจะได้เห็นประวัติศาสตร์การโกงที่แทบจะซ้ำรอยเดิมได้จากเคสของ “WorldCom” อดีตบริษัทโทรคมนาคมยักษ์ใหญ่ ที่ล้มละลายลงด้วยมูลค่ามหาศาล จากเดิมที่ “เบอร์นาร์ด แอบเบอร์” CEO ณ ขณะนั้น พยายามมองหากลยุทธ์การทำกำไรด้วยวิธีกว้านซื้อและควบรวมกิจการด้านการสื่อสารมากมาย แม้จะมีจำนวนลูกค้าเพิ่มขึ้น และสามารถสร้างกำไรให้กิจการได้ รวมถึงราคาหุ้นก็พุ่งสูงขึ้นอย่างรวดเร็ว แต่ก็ใช่ว่าวิธีนี้จะใช้ไปได้ตลอด  เมื่อเกิดวิกฤตฟองสบู่ ดีลใหญ่ล่ม ราคาหุ้นร่วง สร้างความผิดหวังให้ตลาดหุ้นและนักลงทุน แต่ความดันทุรังของคณะผู้บริหารที่อยากพยุงราคาหุ้น ก็เลยร่วมมือกันตบแต่งงบการเงินให้ดูดีแบบหน้าตาเฉย หายนะครั้งใหญ่ที่ยากเกินการควบคุมจึงเกิดขึ้นหลังจากนั้น! #SalmonPodcast #MoneyArmageddon #วันเงินตราวินาศ #DPA #สถาบันคุ้มครองเงินฝาก #พร้อมคุ้มครองเคียงข้างคุณ #WorldComScandal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The courtroom was abuzz on Wednesday as financial and technical experts took the stand in the ongoing criminal trial against Sam Bankman-Fried. Accounting professor Peter Easton, a standout witness, presented a detailed analysis showing that Alameda had spent customer funds on VC investments, real estate, and political and charitable donations. Easton, who had previously worked on high-profile cases like Enron and Worldcom, said that by the end, the gap between what FTX owed to customers and what it had on hand was $8.8 billion. The defense, led by attorney David Lisner, attempted to challenge Easton's methods. Lisner questioned the accounting of the fiat@ftx internal account, which tracks customer deposits. Easton admitted to lumping amounts owed to customers from FTX's bank accounts with what was owed to customers from Alameda's bank accounts, giving the defense an opportunity to question his accuracy. The day also saw other witnesses, including a former FTX lobbyist and a Google employee, both of whose relevance was questioned by Judge Kaplan. The judge criticized the prosecution for wasting time with witnesses who seemed to offer little to the case. Catch up on Unchained's previous coverage:  SBF Trial, Day 1: Possible Witnesses Include FTX Insiders, Big Names in Crypto, and SBF's Family SBF Trial, Day 2: DOJ Says Sam Bankman-Fried ‘Lied' While Defense Claims His Actions Were ‘Reasonable' SBF Trial, Day 3: Why a True Believer in FTX Flipped Once He Learned One Fact SBF Trial, Day 4: SBF's Lawyers Annoy Judge Kaplan, While Wang Reveals Alameda's Special Privileges SBF Trial, Day 5: SBF's Defense Finally Found Its Legs, But Can It Counter Caroline Ellison? SBF Trial, Day 6: Caroline Ellison Recalls 'The Worst Week of My Life' SBF Trial, Day 7: In SBF Trial, Did the Defense Lose Its Opportunity With the Star Witness? SBF Trial, Day 8: Former BlockFi CEO Adds Credibility to Fraud Charges SBF Trial, Day 9: Nishad Singh Describes Former FTX CEO as a Bully and Big Spender SBF Trial, Day 10: Defense Struggles to Discredit Nishad Singh's Testimony Did Sam Bankman-Fried Have Intent to Defraud FTX Investors? Why These Lawyers Say It's Over for SBF-But His Only Hail Mary Is to Testify Here's How Sam Bankman-Fried's High-Stakes Trial Could Play Out SBF Trial: How Sam Bankman-Fried's Lawyers Might Try and Win His Case The High-Stakes Trial of Sam Bankman-Fried Begins: What to Expect Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're excited to share this week's special live episode from Smartsheet ENGAGE 2023! For the first time ever, we sat down with two guests from two different brands: Denise Southerland, VP of Operational Excellence at Bobbitt, and Lorit Queller, Content Development Manager at iS Clinical. In this episode, we dive into the slew of similarities between two seemingly different marketing positions. Denise & Lorit share how both of them have been challenged to continually grow and pivot throughout their careers. These incredible hard working women share an inside look at the moments that have empowered them to become better marketers, leaders, and mentors. Listen in as we uncover the trials and tribulations of having confidence in yourself as a woman in marketing, as well as the importance of embracing each and every phase of your unique career journey. You won't want to miss this one! Key Takeaways: Denise & Lorit discuss the importance of continuous improvement.We learn the incredibly helpful advice that our guests would give to a mentee if they had the chance.Denise & Lorit reveal their unique experiences with imposter syndrome throughout their careers.Denise & Lorit share what keeps them motivated outside of their marketing careers.Guest Bio: Denise's career began in the telecom industry, focused on project management, implementation, and training. After working at carriers like MCI and WorldCom, she joined a new CLEC, overseeing the implementation of corporate voice and data services for multiple US regions. Ready for a transition, Denise found her “home” of 20+ years in the AEC industry working at firms such as Colliers, CBRE, and most recently Stewart, an engineering, planning, and design firm in Raleigh. Joining Bobbitt in 2023, Denise brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the areas of marketing, communications, business operations, project management, and professional leadership. Her passion is finding opportunities for improvement and creating the most efficient strategies to enhance both the client and employee experience. As a native of Raleigh and Wolfpack alumni, Denise has a passion for seeing the region continue to grow, while maintaining our distinct character. She is a graduate of Leadership Raleigh and has been an active member of TCREW (Triangle Commercial Real Estate Women's Network) for the past 12 years, currently serving on the Board of Directors. Lorit Queller, Content Development Manager at Innovative Skincare, the company behind the luxury skincare brand iS Clinical, brings over 12 years of industry experience to the table, including time spent abroad working for an international advertising agency. Her journey with Innovative Skincare began as a graphic designer and has since evolved, with Lorit broadening her skill set into the realm of digital expertise. She played a key role in the launch of several websites, as well as ongoing management. She also adeptly manages the company's email marketing campaigns and continues to design for digital. Beyond the professional realm, Lorit's passion for creativity flourishes in her love for photography, a medium through which she unveils the beauty often overlooked in the world around us.

Over the next three episodes Joe and Eric speak with Mark Paoletta, a distinguished attorney in Washington, a former oversight lawyer on Capitol Hill, and the editor/author of the book Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in his Own Words. This episode explores how the new Republican House majority should conduct oversight. The discussion centered on Mark's experience investigating the malfeasance at Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing, as well as his thoughts on how Congress can inform the public and itself about fraud and abuse in the private sector and within the executive branch. This interview was recorded in early November 2022 just after the new majority was declared in the House of Representatives.

"What kind of company, a publicly traded company, doesn't share its most basic financial information with investors? In this episode of Disinformation, host Paul Brandus delves into the infamous case of Enron, a Houston-based energy company that was once a Wall Street darling. Enron manipulated its financial information, misrepresenting its earnings and altering its balance sheet to deceive investors. The host also discusses other cases of financial disinformation, such as WorldCom, Tyco, and Health South, highlighting the destructive power of such deception. He raises questions about the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in detecting and preventing future instances of financial disinformation, particularly in analyzing large amounts of text data, like the 10K filings that companies submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, concerns exist about the potential risks and unintended consequences of relying solely on AI in financial decision-making, emphasizing the need for human oversight. The episode concludes by reflecting on the challenges of controlling AI-powered disinformation and the importance of remaining vigilant in the face of evolving threats. [00:01:38] Lack of transparency at Enron. [00:07:00] Financial disinformation. [00:12:22] AI and financial disinformation. [00:16:20] AI trading algorithms and risks. Thanks to Professor Craig Lewis of Vanderbilt University for his insights. Sound from CNBC, ABC and C-SPAN. Got questions, comments or ideas or an example of disinformation you'd like us to check out? Send them to paulb@emergentriskinternational.com. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Our sound designer and editor Noah Foutz, audio engineer Nathan Corson, and executive producers Michael DeAloia and Gerardo Orlando. Thanks so much for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dive into the high-stakes world of mortgage note investing with Chris Seveney, who's been building wealth off Wall Street and on Main Street since the late '90s. Discover the three P's that Chris swears by when restructuring loans and hear tales of his best triumphs and most challenging lessons, from turning a massive equity gain from his primary residence to the devastating blow from WorldCom. Whether you're curious about the distressed commercial real estate debt market or eager to learn from a pro, this episode promises riveting insights.    [00:00 - 06:01] Opening Segment Introducing Chris to the show Mortgage note investing involves buying distressed mortgage notes on the secondary market How decreasing and then rapidly increasing interest rates have affected the mortgage note market and real estate more generally   [06:02 - 12:42] Debt Distress: How is it Different Today Than 15 Years Ago? Most people who have a mortgage think if they miss one payment, the bank's going to come banging on their door and throw them out and foreclose upon you Today, most people have 50,000 in equity that they can't buy anything to get the same value or price or same payment People are forced to file bankruptcy to try and restructure that debt so they can keep their house   [12:43 - 21:55] The Three P's of Mortgage Note Investing: Person, Predicament, and Property Banks have had difficulty selling low-interest-rate loans due to the bid/ask spread not catching up yet Track data for trends on what stuff is selling for and whether prices are increasing or decreasing Reputation matters as people want to know who they're working with Distressed commercial real estate debt is different from 30-year mortgages due to shorter terms   [21:56 - 26:57] Closing Segment Best investment: Chris' primary residence Worst investment: Investing into a stock called WorldCom The most important lesson learned: Focus on what you're good at Quote:   "Most people with a mortgage think if you miss one payment, the bank will come banging on your door, throw you out, and foreclose upon you. Our average delinquency is probably three to five years." - Chris Seveney Connect with Chris! Website: www.7EInvestments.com  Invest passively in multiple commercial real estate assets such as apartments, self-storage, medical facilities, hotels, and more through https://www.passivewealthstrategy.com/crowdstreet/   Track your rental property's finances with Stessa. Go to www.escapingwallstreet.com.   Join our Passive Investor Club to access passive commercial real estate investment opportunities.   LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who wants to explode their business growth by sharing this episode or clicking here to listen to our previous episodes.   

In the world of mergers and acquisitions, due diligence plays a critical role in ensuring the success and sustainability of a deal. It involves scrutinizing financial data, examining operational aspects, and identifying potential risks and opportunities before finalizing an agreement. Bill Wiersema, an experienced audit principal with Miller Cooper, is a highly regarded M&A advisor specializing in closely held middle-market businesses and private equity groups. With a wealth of experience and expertise, Bill is sought after for his innovative approaches in accounting, tax, and M&A matters. He prides himself on staying up to date with the latest industry trends and regulations, providing clients with valuable insights and solutions that align with their best interests. THE ART OF PROBING AND EXPERIENCE The world of due diligence is a fascinating blend of detective work and forensic accounting. Due diligence is an art form that demands experience and expertise. Bill draws an analogy between due diligence and probing a wall to find weak spots. Similarly, due diligence professionals must carefully probe and question data to identify potential issues and risks. It's an art that can't be mastered overnight; rather, it comes with years of experience in dealing with complex financial scenarios. One of the key challenges in the due diligence process is striking a balance between the need for detailed information and the practicality of maintaining deal momentum. It is important to keep the process efficient, while ensuring that all crucial aspects are thoroughly examined. Decisions on how deep to go in due diligence require careful consideration, as spending too much time may delay the deal, and too little may lead to undiscovered risks. The key lies in smart resource allocation and identifying critical areas that demand further examination. THE EVOLUTION OF DUE DILIGENCE In the past, sellers were sometimes hesitant to provide detailed information to buyers, especially when dealing with larger entities. Due to high-profile corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom, however, buyers now demand more transparency and thoroughness in due diligence. The shift in perception has resulted in a positive change, as buyers now understand the importance of comprehensive due diligence in making informed decisions. Apart from financial aspects, due diligence also involves evaluating cultural compatibility and employee welfare post-closing. Sellers are increasingly concerned about their employees' well-being and whether the buyer's company culture aligns with theirs. Buyers with a track record of treating employees well and maintaining a positive work environment often gain an edge over financial buyers solely driven by the bottom line. Transparency and comprehensive documentation have become vital in building trust with buyers, especially in deals involving larger entities. As the world of M&A continues to evolve, due diligence will remain a critical aspect in determining the success of deals and ensuring the interests of all stakeholders are safeguarded. • • • FOR MORE ON BILL WIERSEMA:millercooper.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/billwiersema/ Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author, and professional speaker. He is deeply passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast. If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal-Ready Assessment today!

In this podcast episode, Keith Weinhold and Kirk Chisholm discuss the differences between real estate and stock investing. Kirk Chisholm is the Principal of Innovative Advisory Group. He provides his perspective as a wealth manager, emphasizing the control and lower risk offered by alternative assets like real estate.  Learn the difference between risk and volatility. We discuss risk-adjusted returns, liquidity, and the importance of understanding and managing risk. The conversation also covers cash flow, dividends, big tech stocks, and private mortgages. Interest rates and inflation—we discuss their future. Kirk believes rates will stay at this higher rate for a long time. Timestamps: The Paradigm Shift in Interest Rates and Inflation [00:00:01] Discussion on the new paradigm of interest rates and inflation and how it affects real estate and stock investors. The Impact of Front Porches on Society [00:01:35] Exploration of the impact of the disappearance of front porches on neighborhoods and communities. The Definition and Management of Risk in Investments [00:05:50] Explanation of how risk is defined and managed in different types of investments, including stocks, real estate, and alternative assets. The difference between volatility and risk [00:10:21] Explanation of the temporary price movements (volatility) and permanent impairment of capital (risk) in different investment assets. The illiquidity of real estate and non-traded REITs [00:13:11] Discussion on the illiquidity of real estate compared to publicly traded markets and the example of non-traded REITs during the 2008 financial crisis. Importance of cash flow and dividends in stock investments [00:15:26] Exploration of the two camps in stock investing: cash flow-driven investors and appreciation-driven investors, and the significance of dividends and cash flow in stock investments. Dividend Stocks and Value Stocks [00:20:17] Explanation of the difference between growth stocks and value stocks, with a focus on dividend-paying stocks. Private Mortgages and Cash Flow [00:21:12] Discussion on the benefits of investing in private mortgages and how it provides a passive income stream. Default Rates on Hard Money Loans [00:25:48] Exploration of the default rates on hard money loans and the industry's approach to mitigating risks for both borrowers and lenders. The new paradigm of interest rates and inflation [00:31:32] Kirk Chisholm discusses the shift in the economic paradigm from low interest rates and inflation to higher rates and a shrinking economy. The impact of higher rates on mortgages and real estate [00:35:39] Kirk explains how higher interest rates affect mortgage payments and housing affordability, leading to a decline in house prices. The consequences of higher rates on corporate America [00:37:48] Kirk discusses how higher rates can impact corporations, particularly those with short-term debt, potentially leading to bankruptcies and market clean-up. Higher rates and recession correlation [00:39:55] Discussion on the correlation between recessions and lowering of interest rates, and why it may not happen in the future due to high inflation. Fed's focus on stable prices [00:42:48] The Federal Reserve's prioritization of stable prices over high employment, within their dual mandate. Interest rates and the economy [00:44:10] The potential impact of higher interest rates on the economy, with a discussion on when the next recession may occur. Resources mentioned: Show Notes: www.GetRichEducation.com/460 Innovative Advisory Group: www.InnovativeWealth.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Find cash-flowing Jacksonville property at: www.JWBrealestate.com/GRE Invest with Freedom Family Investments. You get paid first: Text ‘FAMILY' to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  Top Properties & Providers: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREmarketplace.com/Coach Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Keith's personal Instagram: @keithweinhold   Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold (00:00:01) - Welcome to. I'm your host, Keith White. As a real estate investor, you are highly cognizant of your cash flows to stock investors. Even think about that and how we've now entered a completely new paradigm of interest rates and inflation and how to respond today on Get Rich Education with real estate capital Jacksonville. Real estate has outperformed the stock market by 44% over the last 20 years. It's proven to be a more stable asset, especially during recessions. Their vertically integrated strategy has led to 79% more home price appreciation compared to the average Jacksonville investor since 2013. GPB is ready to help your money make money and to make it easy for everyday investors. Get started at GWB Real estate. Agree that's GWB Real estate. Agree.   Speaker 2 (00:00:59) - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get rich education.   Keith Weinhold (00:01:22) - What category? From Bogota, Colombia, to Wichita, Kansas, and across 188 nations worldwide. You are back in that abundantly minded place where financially free beats debt free.   Keith Weinhold (00:01:35) - And by now you might have already won the inflation Triple Crown. I'm your host, Keith Wild. Hey, Noah, is this a real estate problem? Philip Gulley, the author of Porch Talk. He said, I believe all that is wrong with the world can be attributed to the shortage of front porches and the talks we had on them. Somewhere around 1950, builders left off the front porch to save money, and we've had nothing but problems ever since. That's just the sort of thing that I think about now as you and I are enjoying the dog days of summer, as I trust that you are, you know, neighborhoods, property, it all used to be more wide open. The Pennsylvania house that I grew up in and that my parents still live in, it has a real front porch. And no one I mean, nobody has fences around their yard either. It is a real lemonade sipping chat with the neighbors vibe there that, well, seems to be more and more of a remnant of yesteryear.   Keith Weinhold (00:02:44) - I mean, gosh, from what I can see, there are more and more gated communities. Uh, people tend to get more concerned about security and that often means that they trade away freedom. Hey, well, our guest on the show today, he hits differently. And you're going to feel that because he's the principal of a firm that helps investors with stocks, bonds and mutual funds, as well as real estate investing. And it's not just REITs, real estate investment trusts, but more than that. And, you know, whenever he and I talk, we tend to get each other thinking in different ways, in shape, each other's opinions somewhat, as you'll probably see again today. He and I disagree on some things and we agree on others. I'm going to ask him about whether or not stock investors even care about cash flow. We'll be sure to get his insights on the direction of interest rates and inflation and more. Well, I'd like to welcome in our guest today he runs innovative wealth.com he's the principle and a wealth manager there at innovative advisory group.   Keith Weinhold (00:03:54) - They're based in Massachusetts but they advise well beyond any state borders. Hey it's been a few years. It's great to have you back. Kirk Chisholm Thanks for inviting me back. Keith. I was a little worried there didn't appear well in your show, but thanks for having me back. Yeah, well, it's been absolutely too long, and I really appreciate your perspective because they're with what you do. You're principal of a company that helps people invest in a big, wide palette of things, from stocks to private mortgages and some things with real estate and elsewhere. So you have this really broad view. So tell us what percentage of your business is is stocks, bonds and their derivative products like ETFs and mutual funds versus everything else? It's interesting because my industry is primarily focused on stocks, bonds and mutual funds. It always has been, probably always will be, in large part because they're easy to sell, They're publicly available information and everyone is can simply just click a button and get it done. So my industry tends to work towards lazy solutions or simple solutions.   Keith Weinhold (00:05:00) - Nothing wrong with that. You just have to know with what you're getting. It's funny, when we started our firm in 2008, we were doing a lot of private mortgages and we talked to the regulators at the time and they said, Oh, well, what percentage of your accounts in alternatives? Because we told them we did alternatives like what percentage of your accounts? And we said, Yeah, somewhere like 40 to 50%. You know, it probably ranges between 40 and 60. You could hear a pin drop in that room. I did pick the lady's mouth off the floor like she couldn't believe that. How quote unquote, risky that is. And she said the first question, she's like, are you serious? Isn't that really risky? And I started laughing and I said, risky? You mean like Worldcom, Enron, AIG, Tyco, You know, like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns? They just kept going on and on. She's like, all right, I get the point. And we had to define the concept of risk.   Keith Weinhold (00:05:50) - This is the part that your audience will appreciate, right? If you're investing in a company, it's been screened by the SEC. It's passed certain muster. It's SEC doesn't endorse it, but it's passed certain muster. You say, all right, I feel comfortable that this company's met the minimum criteria. That's not always the case. Right. Companies go bankrupt all the time. And we actually have a spike in bankruptcies most recently because of the economy. But if you look at piece of real estate, I can go walk up and touch it. I can go to the Registry of Deeds and see that I own it. I can talk to the maintenance guy or the property manager and see what's going on and have influence on it. I would say if you know what you're doing, there's a lot less risk. And I would say if you own a piece of gold, what's your risk? I could lose it. Somebody could steal it. The government confiscates it. That's pretty much it, right? It's not going to zero.   Keith Weinhold (00:06:37) - It's not going to the moon. It's just a rock. The way you define risk is really something that a lot of people don't spend time with is managing that risk. So a lot of what we've done is we've looked at it from a different perspective. What is the best investment given the criteria that we have, the markets we're in and the risk available? You know, what is going to do the best considering the risk as an example, Bitcoin or Ethereum or any sort of cryptocurrency, the risk is it could go to zero, right? It's not going to go below zero risk as you lose all your money or you might make 10 or 20 times your money, right? That is also possible. Both scenarios are probably on the extreme ends of probable, but either way, like you have to account for both scenarios and say is it worth it going to zero for me to make X amount of return? If the answer is yes, then it makes sense. If the answer is no, then don't invest in it or invest in a lot less of it.   Keith Weinhold (00:07:31) - So that's kind of how we look at risk and that's why we look across the board for alternative assets. We're very agnostic about the assets because it really just comes down to, is it a good investment or not? That's really the criteria we look at. Risk is what goes beyond the edge of your understanding. Think that's what applies to that conversation that you had that you brought up there earlier. Right. It's largely about one's risk adjusted return. You talk about with real estate how you have more control over an investment because you can get in there and understand it and change the operations of it in order to drive a return. And then stocks have this very efficient market where it's quick and easy to get in and out and things are more liquid. This very efficient market with real estate, there really isn't any app you can go on and be like, Oh, okay, well my duplex was up 3/10 of 1% this past week. That doesn't happen. That's part of the inherent inefficiencies with direct ownership of real estate, of course.   Keith Weinhold (00:08:32) - I would argue the point of efficient markets, the stock market is is not efficient, despite what the academics will tell you. It is more liquid. I would argue that real estate is illiquid, which is good and bad, right? If you need to sell, it's bad. If you're looking to buy and you don't need to buy, it could be really good. Stock market is very different in that it's claimed to be efficiently priced with all the known information at the given time. And the price is the price. And what I would argue is that's an interesting philosophical standpoint, but it's inaccurate, right? Because if all the information was known, then we wouldn't have volatility. But we do have volatility and the stock market is a forward pricing discount mechanism, right? So you look out six months and say, what's the market going to do? That's where the stock prices are six months from now, not today, six months from now. So whatever the market thinks is happening, they think it's going to happen then.   Keith Weinhold (00:09:26) - So if you look at interest rates, which I'm sure we'll get to, they're looking out six months and for the last two years I've noticed on the expectation of the yield curve, it's that, oh, rates are going to drop in the next 3 to 6 months and in 3 to 6 months it's going to drop in 3 to 6 months. Over and over, it keeps pricing out well, another 3 or 6 months. And I think that the market doesn't really look beyond that because it's really hard to predict. First of all, you can't predict the future anyway, but if you're probabilistically, going to try beyond six months is really hard because there's so many things that got to happen that changed the dynamics significantly. Talk about efficiency with stocks. I'm talking about how stocks are efficient and easy to liquidate. It's pretty easy to sell. And then over here in real estate investing, there is no panic selling because it takes quite a while to buy into sell. Therefore, that's some of the inefficiency of real estate compared to stocks.   Keith Weinhold (00:10:21) - We look at that through a liquidity perspective, right? So liquidity can be a good thing or a bad thing because when there's panic, selling, liquidity can lead to greater volatility like we see in stock. Yeah. And I want to point out two things here. So first is there's a difference between volatility and risk. And I think it's really important for people to understand the difference. So volatility is temporary price movements. It's how much the price fluctuates in any given day. Real estate investors don't see this right, But stock investors, Microsoft is up 5% yesterday. Nvidia's up like whatever, 70% of the day or whatever it was, 30 some odd percent in a day. That's volatility, right? You look at stock prices drop 30 plus percent in a short period of time. Technically, that should have been risk because the whole global economy shut down. But it turned into volatility because it went down and it came back up, actually exceeded the price of the start of Covid by the end of the year, which is insane to think about.   Keith Weinhold (00:11:20) - The whole world shut down. People are locked in their houses and yet the stock market is up. That is what I would consider volatility. Now, risk is what I would call a permanent impairment of capital. Now what that means is you buy a Beanie Baby at $100 because you think it's going to be worth a lot more. And then all of a sudden the Beanie Baby bubble crashes and never recovers and it turns into a $100 Beanie Baby into like a dollar. That's a permanent impairment of capital. That is a risk that you're not going to ever get your money back. You buy a I hate to swear on your show, but a beep coin that make up most of the cryptocurrency coins out there. They could all go to zero. I mean, you look at drawing a blank on the one with that. Elon Musk supports the dog dogecoin. Yeah, they claim this zero. It's a socially supported currency, but it doesn't have any value and they all admit it doesn't have any value. It's virtually worthless except for what people are willing to pay for it.   Keith Weinhold (00:12:15) - That has the potential to have risk in it because it could go to zero. But if I'm investing in GE, Microsoft, Apple, Johnson, Johnson, whatever, these companies that produce cash flow, they're solid companies with a long, long track record, they could certainly go to zero, no question. But typically the movements in price are volatility. Risk is when the chairman goes off, steals all the money and moves off to some island and people are left holding the bag saying, what's going on? You know, you look at AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, all those companies that basically made bad decisions, that is risk. That is not volatility. So it's important to understand the differences between the two, because if you don't, most people think of I am managing risk, I'm diversifying. No, you're managing volatility. Managing risk is completely different and you have to use different tools for that. Most people don't manage risk, they manage volatility. The other point I want to make is you mentioned the illiquidity of real estate.   Keith Weinhold (00:13:11) - And I want to point out an example which is kind of bordering the owning your own real estate versus, let's say, a REIT. I remember back in 2008, nine and ten when people were jumping out of the windows because they couldn't get rid of their illiquid non traded REITs. And I'm not a supporter of that of non-trade REITs or people jumping out of Windows. But in general, the non traded REITs market was interesting because technically they said you'd have quarterly liquidity, you could get a quarterly and normal times. That was true. They would just cash you out if you need money. However, when everyone's running for the door at the same time, they can't cash everybody out because they can't sell the property. So what do they do? They lock the doors, locked everybody in to burn alive. Well, the price went from, let's say, hypothetically, $100 down to $10 and people wanted out at any price. It didn't matter. They needed out. They need liquidity. Whatever it was, there were actually markets around.   Keith Weinhold (00:14:03) - You could buy people's shares of these non traded reach for like $0.10 in the dollar and people were willing to pay to discount 90% of the investment where you could have just walked in and purchased it and waited another five, seven years and you could have made 100 cents in the dollar. It's crazy. But that's one of the nice parts about real estate. And I'm using a security as an example because you can do that in real estate. But when you have the publicly traded markets, that doesn't necessarily happen, but it can happen in certain periods of time when the markets are completely irrational and everybody thinks the world is ending. Sure, that's a be greedy when other people are fearful, sort of seeing their I know their IT innovative advisory group. Since you do have this wide palette of offerings, you kind of have this broader view of things. I'm wondering, Kirk, a lot of people in that stock world, many of them concerned with cash flow or it might be dividend there, or are they even as interested in cash flow there with the kind of stock and mutual fund investments as they are over here in the real estate world where we're quite interested in cash flow? And then do they even take the dividends or do they just reinvest them, which is called a drip program dividend reinvestment program? How important is that to investors on the stock side? It's a good question.   Keith Weinhold (00:15:26) - So what tends to happen is people kind of fall into two camps, much like the real estate camp. Some people fall into the. Cash flow camp. Which is your camp? Which is my opinion. I think that's the best way to invest is cash flow appreciation. You're just taking a guess. But there are good amount of people that are appreciation driven. They don't look at cash, so they're happy to make zero cash flow for the expectation They're going to make lots of money and appreciation and look at them like, What are you thinking? Like, what if the cash flow declines? You're going to support the negative cash. Why do you own it? It's silly, but some people think that way. They think, Let's go for the appreciation. Let's roll the dice. Let's go. No whammies, you know? And what ends up happening is these people make mistakes because the real estate market, this usually happens at closer to the tops and people make bad decisions and they realize, oh, crap, I can't make this work.   Keith Weinhold (00:16:16) - I was trying to Airbnb this with a two cap, this not working. So now I need to sell this thing or I'm going to lose my shirt. I had these conversations all the time. So using that as an example, because that's where your audience will understand dividend investors the same. So a lot of people, when they're investing in stocks, they're looking at stocks as a way to make money. Most people want total growth, which really means in their mind, appreciation. What are the stock market do this week? What did it do this quarter? That's all people want to know. Well, what about the dividends? Well, actually, there was a time 40, 50 years ago when dividends mattered, you could get six, seven, eight, 9% dividends. Now, that's absurd to think about that. The only stocks that pay dividends of that nature are stocks that are highly speculative or the dividend is highly speculative. Market typically looks at dividends and if they don't trust the dividend will continue to get paid.   Keith Weinhold (00:17:08) - They'll actually discount the stock, which will make the dividend look real attractive. It'll suck people in to buy it and then they'll slash the dividend back to a rate that's normal. So people looking at dividend stocks, be careful because we're not in that environment where dividend stocks are all that attractive. If I can get a 5% close to zero risk US Treasury bond and I can compare that to a 2% dividend stock, I'll take the Treasury all day because it's close to guaranteed dividend stock. Maybe it goes up, maybe it goes down, who knows? But, you know, ultimately you're trying to solve a problem. The big challenge we have now, is any of this sustainable? Are the cash flows sustainable? Good value? Investors should be looking at cash flows. They should be looking at metrics and trying to find stocks that are at a good price that will pay them a handsome return over time. And the problem is, is we don't live in that environment much like the real estate market. It gets overheated because too many people are chasing too few properties and virtually everyone was putting all their money into 5 to 7 stocks on the Fantastic Seven or the Faang stocks or whatever you want to call it These days.   Keith Weinhold (00:18:18) - That name changes all the time. But the point is, you've got big tech that's driving most of the return this year. Think big tech made up 2,530% of the S&P 500 500 stocks. You have five stocks making up 25 to 30% of the index by size. And by return, it made up think the S&P was up 15%. And these 5 or 7 stocks made up 13% of that 15. Really crazy, crazy to think about. Right. But that's what people look at is the index. And the index is not necessarily accurate, but that's what people look at. So you have to gauge it by that. Most of the marketplace is chasing these appreciation returns. And like you have with real estate, you get the good with the bad, you chase appreciation. You can win or lose. I don't know where the future is going to be, but I know that if I'm chasing cash flow, I'm pretty certain I know where that's going. But if I'm investing in a tech stock that has negative cash flow, I have no idea where that's going.   Keith Weinhold (00:19:19) - Right. Could go up, could go down, who knows? But I look for stocks with good cash flow. I think if you're going to invest well, you want to find a legacy stock that you feel comfortable owning forever. Now, when it comes back to the Fang acronym, I tend to think Nvidia should be replacing Netflix in the Fang acronym about this time. But dropping back earlier when we were talking about dividends, I don't track this very closely, but last I checked, probably last year it seemed like the average dividend paying stock in the S&P 500 was something like 2%. Is that still about right? I think it's actually a little bit lower. I haven't looked at it in the last few weeks because it's gotten so low, it's almost not even worth looking at. I think last year was 1.77. As of right now, it's 1.47 on the S&P 500, 1.5%, which is insanely low for real estate investors. I think of the dividend yield in stocks as being synonymous with the cash on cash return in real estate.   Keith Weinhold (00:20:17) - But you said something earlier about dividends, Kirk, that I actually thought was the opposite way. I thought that dividend paying stocks tended to be kind of those older, stodgy or staid, like a utility company rather than a younger tech. Company. Yes, that is accurate. Yes, Most of the dividend stocks are what we would consider value stocks. So the terms growth, stock and value stock are actually don't mean anything. They're what everyone wants it to mean. What they tend to mean is growth Stocks tend to be stocks that are focused on appreciation. Value stocks are typically focused on cash flows or their stocks that are discounted, and you can buy them for good cash flow. But if you look at a stock like Microsoft, I mean, you got the dividend yield is about 75 basis points, 76 basis points as of today. So you're getting less than 1%. But Microsoft's one of the the Fang stocks, right, or Fang, whatever they're calling it now, they come up with a new acronym.   Keith Weinhold (00:21:12) - But some of these big tech Apple's fang of dividend so some of the big tech actually are paying dividends. Now what we're talking about, the production of cash flow or income from both stocks and real estate here. And one thing that I know you do in there and that you help investors with is private mortgages in producing an income stream that way. Can you tell us more about that? Is that where you have clients where you connect them with ways to make hard money, loans to real estate investors, for example? As we talk about here, I'm a big fan of cash flows and I have a few favorite asset classes and they're not the stock market, right? I love real estate. I love tax liens. Tax lien is by far my favorite. If you can get them the right way and the right price, which you can't, but if you could, that's one of my favorites for many reasons, but one of the ones that we do a lot of are hard money loans or private mortgages.   Keith Weinhold (00:22:05) - The reason I love it is because they're simple. If you're investing in real estate, it's not passive income. It's a business. You have to manage the business. You have a property manager, you've got tenants, you've got expenses, you've got taxes. All this stuff you have to deal with, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But when people invest passively, it's not passive, right? It's active. It just happens to be a different business than one that you're selling widgets out of the corner store. If you're investing in private mortgages, you have to do your due diligence up front. But once you invest in it, you're done until you get paid back. It's like any sort of fixed income. It's a bond. It's fixed income is how I look at it now. For the past ten plus years, you couldn't get any rates on bonds, your fixed income, part of your portfolio, your treasuries, your corporate bonds, whatever you're buying, you're getting close to zero.   Keith Weinhold (00:22:54) - And there was a lot of risk. So we substituted these for our fixed income and you're getting 10 to 15% over the last ten years where the common rates and I like them because you're getting access to real estate. So real estate is backing the note. So it's a mortgage, right? So you're lending somebody else money at, let's say, 12% and they're going to pay you that 12% and give your money back at the end. And if they don't, you get their property. Now, personally, I don't want their property is too much headache because when I got to do foreclosure and go through all that, that's not the point. Some people do. Some people invest in hard money with the assumption they're going to own that property. And it's a great acquisition strategy. If you're so inclined. It's not you know, I have clients. I can't have that kind of business model. It's just too much of a headache for everybody. So we want people that are going to pay and pay on time and people are going to continually come back and I can work with versus having the lender investor that actually helps the borrower default so that they can get the property correct, which like I said, is a great investment strategy.   Keith Weinhold (00:23:55) - It's just not our investment strategy. And I think just like real estate, you can buy foreclosures, you can buy off MLS, you can build. There's so many different things you can do. Same thing with notes with paper. Paper is a great asset class if you know what you're doing. The challenge with private mortgages, hard money now is because everything is so expensive that these investors, these fixed and flippers investors would have. You can't make money. And I know there are people out there that are doing it. So it's not that it's not happening, but anybody I know that's really good at fixing flip or rehabs or things like that in my area, not speaking for every part of the country in Miami, in the Boston area, they're not doing deals because they can't make money. There's no margin of error. If they were to compete and win the deal and they make a mistake, they're going to lose money. They don't want to lose money. So they need to have a big enough margin cushion so that they make a mistake.   Keith Weinhold (00:24:49) - They're still making money. So these people we work with, they're not doing deals because there are no deals to find. So that means there are fewer mortgages times like 2008, nine and ten, we didn't have enough client cash to put to work. Like we had so many notes coming at us we didn't have enough cash to find. Now it's the reverse. There's plenty of cash chasing them and there's not enough notes out there. And a lot of the notes are poor quality because the risk is too high. We want easy. We want somebody paying on time, we want our money back and then go on and do it again. So I love them for cash flow. It's simple and easy and it solves a lot of problems. So this is interesting. If you as a real estate investor have ever taken a hard money loan, you might wonder who the lender is on the other side of that. And that might be someone like Kirk's clients in there where he is. Kirk. Can you tell us more about the default rates on the hard money loans lately? How often do they not get paid back and do they go into default? Yeah, that's a good question.   Keith Weinhold (00:25:48) - So I don't know the industry rates. So we work with a handful of people and that's all we work with, so we know the rates for them. I'll tell you about ours and I'll tell you about the industry a little bit more. So for us, we've done hundreds and hundreds of these things and I would say less than 1% of them have had issue. So we are truly not looking for rates of default. A tornado tore through the neighborhood and tore off the roof. That's an issue. That's not something I can deal with. Right. Guy you're working with dies. It's an issue you got to deal with, right? Like this isn't somebody making a bad deal or run away with the money. This is stuff that you can't predict and is inevitably going to happen in one way, shape or form. So we mitigate the risk as much as possible, but our rates of default or I would say not even default, but just having issue with the loan because most of the stuff it's, you know, maybe discount if you have a something like that, maybe it's your discounting the interest instead of getting the full interest, maybe get partial interest or even no interest, get your money back.   Keith Weinhold (00:26:44) - Like for us, it's like, how do you handle a default is really important because the borrower, there's some risk there, but then there's the lender, there's some risk there. So you have to find a balance that makes everybody happy so that, you know, the borrower is not taking it on the chin because then they're not going to come back. But it's not all in the lender either. So you have to find a balance and work with people. Much like with real estate, you know, you get a bad tenant, so you try to work with them so you still get paid. It's the same kind of thing. But if you look at the industry, the industry is interesting. So I interview a lot of hard money lenders on my show over the years and fascinated to hear what they say and some of the people who do the most or they're in charge of marketplaces of these notes. What they've been telling me for the last few years is think about this way. A lot of these things come from developers or fixing flippers.   Keith Weinhold (00:27:31) - They get their properties out of foreclosure, they get it out of sheriff's sale, they get out of fire or estate sales like these things where they're highly discounted. So during Covid, the courts were shut down for a year and a half. You couldn't get these properties if you were foreclosed on, you couldn't get foreclosed on for two years because the courts weren't open. And when they did open, there was such a backlog of other stuff that was more important than that. They were dealing with like murderers and whatever, rapists, people that actually need to go to jail. And they're not dealing with foreclosures to the same extent. So the courts are backed up for a long period of time. And so when they finally opened up, you start to see a trickle through. You're starting to see more now. But that was a big challenge to the market. So what I've been hearing for the people who are really deep in this market and they see everybody across the board, across the country is they've all said that there's a tidal wave coming.   Keith Weinhold (00:28:24) - And a lot of the problem is, is there are a lot of bad notes out there. So there are people who basically created these notes, right? So they underwrote the notes. They they lent money to somebody with bad terms or is a bad loan like the person should have borrowed or whatever it is, they're still paying. But you see, the quality of the paper is really bad. And what's going to happen is if you see a hiccup in the real estate market, then you're going to see this paper flush through the system because all of a sudden this deal that was marginal is now a bad deal and it flushes through either people default or they sell or whatever. And that stuff has to flush through the system until it does, the market's not going to be efficient. Everyone is waiting around saying, I know there's bad paper out there. I'm trying to find good stuff and it's harder to find, but it's not from a lack of paper, it's from a lack of quality paper. And this happens every real estate cycle.   Keith Weinhold (00:29:19) - Having 2008, nine, ten flushes out the bad people, buy the paper at a discount. You're listening to Get Rejection. We're talking with innovative welcomes Principal Kirk Chisholm when we come back, including his take on where we're going with interest rates and inflation. I'm your host, Keith Lindholm. You know, I'll just tell you, for the most passive part of my real estate investing personally, I put my own dollars with Freedom family Investments because their funds pay me a stream of regular cash flow in. Returns are better than a bank savings account up to 12%. Their minimums are as low as 25 K. You don't even need to be accredited. For some of them. It's all backed by real estate. And I kind of love how the tax benefit of doing this can offset capital gains in your W-2, jobs, income. And they've always given me exactly their stated return paid on time. So it's steady income, no surprises while I'm sleeping or just doing the things I love. For a little insider tip, I've invested in their power fund to get going on that text family to 668660.   Keith Weinhold (00:30:30) - And this isn't a solicitation If you want to invest where I do, just go ahead and text family to six six, 866. Jerry listeners can't stop talking about their service from Ridge Lending Group and MLS 42056. They've provided our tribe with more loans than anyone. They're truly a top lender for beginners and veterans. It's where I go to get my own loans for single family rental property up to four Plex's So start your prequalification and you can chat with President Charlie Ridge personally, though, even deliver your custom plan for growing your real estate portfolio. Start at Ridge Lending Group.   Speaker 3 (00:31:16) - This is author Jim Rickards. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Reinhold and Don't Quit Your Day Dream.   Keith Weinhold (00:31:32) - Welcome back to Get Rich. We're talking with Kirk Chisholm. He is the principal and a wealth manager at Innovative Advisory Group. And I like to chat with Kirk and some of these people that have this bigger picture view where they offer clients stock options, real estate options and more. In Kirk, I know you like to say that we're sort of living in a new paradigm and that people are only just now starting to realize this new paradigm, which has to do with interest rates and inflation.   Keith Weinhold (00:32:01) - So tell us about this new paradigm. Let's take us back a few years. So if you think about what's happened in history, I'm a student of history, much like you are, Keith, You look back in history, it's instructive as to how the future may act, right? It's never going to mirror that because it doesn't happen that way, as I think it was. Mark Twain has said that history never repeats, but it rhymes. I'm not sure if that's actually attributed to him, even though people say it is. But point being is if you look back in history for the pretty much starting in like the 70s, we had a period of time and I'm going to come back to the 70s, but we had a period of time where things were volatile, we had high interest rates and we peaked at 20% rates depending on which rate we're talking about. The 30 year treasuries, I think it hit 15%. Fed funds rate hit 20%. So we had some pretty high numbers. And so the subsequent 40 years, interest rates declined for 40 years.   Keith Weinhold (00:32:56) - If you had bought a 15%, 30 year Treasury in 1980, 1981 and held on for the whole 30 years, you would have made 15% for that whole time. And it bottomed out a few years ago. So think about the 70s. Like, here's the economy, right? I got my hands together. Here's the economy. This is what it looks like, right? It's this size Now. If you start injecting leverage, you get a mortgage on your real estate. That's leverage. The company borrows money. That's leverage. Right? So you're borrowing money. So your borrowing future cash flows to use today. So let's say I own a home outright and I decide, hey, I want to borrow money to go buy a motorcycle, whatever. Okay. Well, I just increased the economy size because I borrowed money, right? So I've increased the amount of money in circulation from 1983 81 until pretty much a few years ago, the interest rates went from a high amount of 20% down to close to zero.   Keith Weinhold (00:33:51) - Now, the lower the interest rates, the more you can borrow. So if you think about the economy, it kept increasing as rates drop because you can borrow more and more money. Now, how much money can you borrow? A 0%. Keith An infinite amount, in theory, yes. As much as they'll give you. And how much? If it's negative, I don't know. I'm going to borrow a bunch of people and borrow their money like and we get into this crazy period we had a few years ago where there actually negative rates in Japan still does. But the point is, is the lower the rate, the bigger the economy can be because you're allowed to leverage more and it means you can borrow more money and use that money for other things. And now that's a problem because you're borrowing future cash flows to use today. So at some point you got to pay that back one way, shape or form or another. The thing is, is that is increased the size of the economy over this time.   Keith Weinhold (00:34:37) - So the paradigm from the early 80s until a few years ago was one of leverage and growth. And there's a lot of things went into that globalization, outsourcing to China and Asia, technology, all these things influence this growth of the economy. But then in 2021, we hit the lowest rates. We hit mortgage rates at 2.5%. Fed funds rates were low, Treasuries were low, and they started raising rates in 2022. So the economy now started to shrink because you can borrow less. Now, it didn't actually shrink, but I'm using this for illustrative purposes. So if I'm looking at this big, huge balloon and think of it as a balloon, right? You start as there's no air in it, you blow it up with air, you get this huge balloon. Well, as rates go up, you start to let air out of the balloon because you can't sustain high interest rates because it comes down to cash flow. So what ends up happening is as rates go up, the economy effectively starts to shrink over time because if low rates help it expand, higher rates will contract it.   Keith Weinhold (00:35:39) - But it doesn't happen today or tomorrow. It happens over years, as the economy did in the last 40 years. So the paradigm we had changed two years ago and now we have high interest rates and the economy is shrinking to acclimate to this new higher rate environment. So you could have bought mortgage for 2.5% for 30 years on the house. You bought a $500,000 house, 2.5%. You probably would have paid, I think, $3,700 a month rate. You're paying $3,700 a month. That's where you can afford. And most people were doing that, so they bought as much as they could afford. However, now mortgage rates are seven and a quarter at seven and a half. That $3,700 a month mortgage is now doubled. So now you're looking at about a $7,400 a month mortgage. I can't afford $7,400 a month, so I can't buy that same price house. Now, the house price to accommodate that has to decline. And I'm using real Estate Illustrated because it also I'll tell you in a minute so the house price has declined to accommodate that higher payments because people can only buy what they can afford.   Keith Weinhold (00:36:43) - Now take that illustration and overlay that into corporate America, because companies do the same thing. They borrow as much as they can get away with. As you say, with mortgages, it's fixed. It doesn't affect me because it's fixed. And same thing with corporations doesn't affect me. It's fixed. That's correct. Which is why it doesn't impact the economy immediately. But it does impact it over time because with the 30 year mortgage, you never have to move. But if you do have to move, you're in trouble. If you own commercial property, you don't have 30 years, you might have a five or a ten year mortgage, which is going to roll at some point in time and hopefully rates are lower. But if they're not now, you've got some explaining to do, right? In corporate America, there's a lot of companies that get, you know, short term debt that's going to roll over at a higher rate. How are they going to afford it? Johnson, Johnson, Apple, Microsoft, they can afford it, but can borderline junk bonds, companies that are low quality, that are just making it, barely making it buy in cash flow because they can borrow money? What about them? Well, they're going to be forced to make hard decisions or go into bankruptcy.   Keith Weinhold (00:37:48) - So what higher rates do? It basically cleans up the economy by taking out the inefficient players and forcing some into bankruptcy, foreclosures, whatever it may be, it effectively will clean up the market, but it also caused the economy to shrink. So it destroys capital. And if we have rates that are higher for longer than, let's say a few more months, if they're higher for 5 or 10 years, it's going to be a problem. And I think we're going to have higher rates a lot longer than most people think. The market is predicting another six months they're going to drop rates. They've been saying that for the last year. So I don't think they're accurate. I think it's going to be at least a year, maybe two, and then we'll see what happens. Hard to see that far out, but people need to be become acclimated to these higher rates for a while because if you look at historically, these aren't that high. Their average rates. Yeah, they're right in the mean like we're not high historically.   Keith Weinhold (00:38:43) - If you look at bond yields I mean you look at late 90s, you've got up to 6%. I think you've got to 6 or 7% and depending on what you're investing in. So we are not high and default rates are not high. Default rates for high yield bonds historically are 7%. I think we're like 1% like last 15 years. So the numbers that we saw were extreme examples of the economy. And we're going to find a happy balance somewhere. And I don't know where that is, but this new paradigm is about reassessing the assumptions you're making about your investments, about the economy and any assumption what are interest rates going to be? What's inflation going to be? These are things that people never even thought of. They just assumed, Oh, inflation is going to be 3%, I'll just use that. Or interest rates, they're going to be similar. You can't make those assumptions anymore. You have to have broader. Lateral testing of whether this is going to work or not. You've done a great job of breaking down that new paradigm where basically that 40 year period from 1981 to 2021, we had gradually declining interest rates and something in 2021, that's where things changed and we entered into a new paradigm of increasing interest rates.   Keith Weinhold (00:39:55) - So as we're winding down here, you stated you think that we will have persistently higher rates for quite a while. So many people have been saying a recession is just around the corner for so long. It's sort of annoying to really think about it. But as we know, with the recession, that generally correlates with a lowering of interest rates. But you don't see that happening by next year, say, with a lowering of interest rates that corresponds with a recession. What you said is recessions typically correlate with lower rates. You're correct. But what if they don't? I'll give you some examples here of why things are different and why it matters. So if the last 20 plus years, if we had a recession or even a sniff of a recession, the Fed would drop rates, print money, they would boost the markets back up. Everything would be fine. Right. Problems solved. Right? The world's going to end. Don't worry. Here comes the Fed to the rescue. They did that for 20 years.   Keith Weinhold (00:40:49) - But now we have high inflation. So with high inflation, they can't do that because if they do that, it causes inflation to spike, much like the 70s. Now they're not oblivious to the 70s. They know full well what happened and they don't want to repeat it. What they're saying has been pretty clear. We're going to make sure we kill inflation. We don't want it coming back. It is very probable that we have inflation dipped down into two even 0% this year. There's the probability is low, but it's probability we could hit 0% inflation by the end of the year. However, I don't think it's going to stay there because we tend to get a bullwhip effect, which we've seen in many commodity prices, lumber in particular, where the prices go up and then too many people, they make too much lumber to sell and then there's a glut and then it goes lower and then it goes higher because, you know, so you get this bullwhip effect, which is a problem which caused and it's the same thing with inflation, right? You get this bullwhip effect because the changes have been too drastic that people can't adjust, so they over adjust, are under adjust, and that causes this big change.   Keith Weinhold (00:41:50) - So I think we're going to have a dip back to inflation, probably not 8%. But when that happens, they're going to have to come back and raise rates. So what they're trying to do is they're trying to keep rates higher, longer to make sure inflation doesn't come back. We're really in this back and forth of where are we going to go, where's the Fed going to take us? And if it tends to be five years of high rates, that's going to really impact the economy and eventually we will hit a recession. But I think the probability is showing very low probability of recession anytime soon because it's not playing out in the data. Some data is showing yes, some data is showing no. But when I start to see that, it means it just doesn't matter. It's not going to show up. Well, that's some good perspective, Kirk. CPI inflation peaked at.   Speaker 3 (00:42:36) - 9.1%.   Keith Weinhold (00:42:37) - A little over a year ago. It's at 3% now. But yeah, one place where I agree with you, Kirk, is, yeah, the Fed sure does not want to see that pop back up again.   Keith Weinhold (00:42:48) - And within the Fed's dual mandate of high employment and stable prices, it seems like they're prioritizing stable prices over keeping employment high, that's for sure. Well, yeah, there's been a great wide ranging chat.   Speaker 3 (00:43:01) - With interest.   Keith Weinhold (00:43:02) - Rates.   Speaker 3 (00:43:03) - Inflation stocks, real estate and producing income from both of them. Kirk If our audience wants to reach out to you or learn more about what you do, they're at Innovative Advisory Group. How can they do that?   Keith Weinhold (00:43:15) - Thanks, Keith. So yeah, the best way people can find me, I'm really easy to find. They can go to my podcast, Money Tree. Podcast. Com. We have two shows a week. One show we interview really intelligent investors like Keith, for example. We have the second episode is really more of a timely what's going on the markets this week, what's new, what's changed? Just so we can kind of keep people up to date with what's going on and if people are really looking to find out more about me and my services, you can go to Innovative Wealth and I've written all the blog posts there, but our company provides wealth management services for people, whether it's financial planning or portfolio management.   Keith Weinhold (00:43:52) - That's a lot of what we do. So like I said, I'm easy to find and I'm pretty easygoing guys. So if you're interested, you can find me there.   Speaker 3 (00:43:58) - Kirk Chisholm, Innovative Wealth. It's been great having you here. Thanks so much for coming on to the show.   Keith Weinhold (00:44:04) - Thanks for having me, Keith.   Speaker 3 (00:44:10) - Yeah. Well, Kirk Chisholm, he thinks that higher interest rates will linger longer. And he told us why. Now, Historically, it takes 3 to 5 quarters for interest rate hikes to hit the economy. Rate increases begin in March of 2022, but Americans are sitting on lots of cash. So many think that this recession that's perpetually just around the corner won't begin until at least next year. One benefit of a recession coming is that people will stop spreading undue concern.   Keith Weinhold (00:44:45) - About.   Speaker 3 (00:44:45) - A recession Coming Coming up here on the show, lots of great real estate investing strategy sessions forthcoming, not just big picture impacts like the direction of rents, home prices and interest rates, but also how to improve your operational efficiencies, like how to tamp down on higher property insurance premiums and more including what today's market for new build for plex's like investing in America's intermountain West and more.   Speaker 3 (00:45:14) - Until next week. I'm your host, Keith White. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 4 (00:45:21) - Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.   Speaker 3 (00:45:50) - The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. Get rich education.    

Whatever happened to Enron, WorldCom, ArthurAnderson or ValuJet? Hint: Loss of TrustThanks to my talented colleague Emily Tolmer for the cover art. Thanks to my friends at Moon Island for the music.TranscriptHi everyone. Here's the second edition of the loose threads, missing threads mini podcast episode for the CX patterns podcast. This week, I wanted to circle back on trust. A couple of additional things to share first, a loose thread, something I want to revisit from last week's episode, that was maybe not quite right. And I want to go back to the equation for trust, because I don't think that I mentioned clearly enough that it connects to what your brand is promising and what you are promising your customers about your experience. So for example, Think about Southwest airlines, they do not offer assigned seats on their flights. But that is not a betrayal of their customer's trust because Southwest never promised, assigned seats. It's customers have chosen the airline, knowing that they won't get to choose their seat. That's part of the equation for keeping ticket prices low. Conversely, if I fly in one of the mainline carriers, let's say Delta, for example. And I choose my seat as I book my flight. But then Delta moves me to another seat without my consent, or I get on the plane and another passenger has decided to sit in my seat. And if Delta didn't do anything about it. Either of those scenarios would be a breach of trust. The upshot of this is that you want to think about what promises you are making both implicit and explicit. And that if you don't uphold those promises, it will be a betrayal of customer trust. And now a missing thread something I didn't mention in the podcast last week. Loss of trust with your customers. Is such a bad outcome that it can lead to brand death. I think Enron Arthur Anderson, WorldCom value jet. I'm sure you can think of a few others. If you remember those brand names at all. It's in part because of their notorious betrayal of customer trust. So to put a fine point on it. The absence of trust means a company cannot

Tracy is a marketing, political and public relations strategist with over 25 years of experience. She has engaged broad coalitions to support businesses at the local, state and federal levels. She is the founder and CEO of Providence Strategic Consulting, Inc. A firm that represents water, oil and gas, healthcare, defense technology, carbon capture and storage (CCS), government entities, agriculture, national business associations, mining, solar, telecommunications and other exceptional industries and projects. Tracy has represented political candidates at the city, county, state and federal levels as well as multiple successful statewide ballot initiatives. Currently, the firm lobbies government on behalf of business and is a frequent commentator on radio and TV for political analysis, business advocacy and public relations. The firm markets most of the top California political slate mailers. In December 2017, after a rigorous vetting process, Providence was accepted as a partner in Worldcom Public Relations Group®. Worldcom provides access to the international creative capability of over 2000 communications professionals in 115 cities, in 49 countries on six continents. Troy Burden sits down with Tracy Leach the President and CEO of Providence Strategic Consulting, a local business that specializes in strategic communications for existing businesses as well as effective advocacy resulting in successful project entitlements and permitting. Tracy explains the importance of effective public affairs as well as building public and political support. She also helps guide projects through government permitting all the way to construction. Tune into this week's episode to learn more about public relations and how beneficial it is to our local community. LEARN MORE ABOUT PROVIDENCE STRATEGIC CONSULTING INC.: Website: https://provconsult.com/ Email: consult@provconsult.com Phone: 661-327-1698 Instagram: @provconsult Facebook: Providence_Strategic_Consulting LinkedIn: ProvidenceStrategicConsulting Twitter: @Prov_Consulting  

Cheryl Evans is a Director in MI Finance at the Milken Institute. She leads the new Lifetime Financial Security Program. Evans is an attorney and has worked in securities, finance, and business. She worked for 10 years at CFA Institute developing content, helping to lead their Future of Finance global initiative, and working in their Enforcement area. She was at Pensions & Investments magazine briefly. Evans spent 11 years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission working in Enforcement, and also in Trading and Markets and in Examinations. She was a part of the WorldCom team. She spent a number of years at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce focused on financial markets, securities litigation, other business litigation issues. She has held both civil and criminal litigation roles at the U.S. Department of Justice and was a federal judicial law clerk. She holds a second law degree in transnational business practice. In addition, she is trained as a wellness coach and has focused on transitions and chronic illness. And she sits on non-profit boards.

Cheryl Evans is a Director in MI Finance at the Milken Institute. She leads the new Lifetime Financial Security Program. Evans is an attorney and has worked in securities, finance, and business. She worked for 10 years at CFA Institute developing content, helping to lead their Future of Finance global initiative, and working in their Enforcement area. She was at Pensions & Investments magazine briefly. Evans spent 11 years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission working in Enforcement, and also in Trading and Markets and in Examinations. She was a part of the WorldCom team. She spent a number of years at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce focused on financial markets, securities litigation, other business litigation issues. She has held both civil and criminal litigation roles at the U.S. Department of Justice and was a federal judicial law clerk. She holds a second law degree in transnational business practice. In addition, she is trained as a wellness coach and has focused on transitions and chronic illness. And she sits on non-profit boards.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Cynthia Cooper and Daren Firestone to discuss the history of one of the largest corporate frauds ever, Worldcom, and what it means to be a whistleblower. This video was recorded on October 13th, 2022. Additional resources: Cooper Group http://www.coopergroupllc.com/index.php Extraordinary Circumstances https://a.co/d/9O4C9Vz Levy Firestone Muse https://www.levyfirestone.com/ cryptowhistleblower.com https://cryptowhistleblower.com/ Cynthia Cooper's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiaco... Daren Firestone Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/daren-fir...

Tom welcomes back Senior Portfolio Manager Bob Thompson to the program. Bob discusses the risks associated with the mining industry in light of a potential downturn. He explains that the lack of capital investment in mining, energy, and manufacturing means that the work done today won't result in supply for a decade, so any tapering of the Fed's policies will result in commodity price spikes due to the lack of available supply. Bob cautions that recession talk often hides underlying structural problems and affects commodities like oil that are heavily reliant on the economy, as well as gold which tends to do the best when the Fed reduces interest rates. Generalist funds have around zero percent of their money in gold, and there is potential for tens of billions of dollars to enter the sector as gold outperforms the S&P. Small sectors like metals and uranium are likely to benefit from increased capital, as exploration and development have been neglected. Bob believes that gold, silver, and uranium all have great opportunities ahead of them and that investors should look for companies with the lowest all-in sustaining cost, as their profits will increase with any rise in price. Time Stamp References:0:00 - Introduction0:55 - Background & Focus6:23 - Risk & Regional Banks9:43 - Fed Policy Ahead16:50 - Economy & Markets19:04 - Oil Vs. Gold & Demand21:15 - Persistent Inflation?24:53 - Bonds & Real Rates30:23 - Stocks & Large Caps33:18 - The Ultimate Asset35:29 - Gold Fundamentals37:09 - Miner Input Costs43:09 - Institution Interest46:35 - The Mining Clock57:03 - Companies & Royalties1:00:42 - Other Commodities1:04:23 - Protecting Capital1:07:42 - Wrap Up Talking Points From This Episode Regional banking in the United States is at risk due to the Fed's continuous rate adjustments.Investors should look for companies with the lowest all-in sustaining cost for gold and silver investments.Recession concers can lead to hidden risks, such as the historic problems like those of WorldCom and Enron. Guest Links:Twitter: https:/twitter.com/bobthompsonrjWebsite: https://www.raymondjames.ca/Website: https://bobthompson.ca When Bob Thompson started university, he thought he was headed towards a career in medicine. He graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor of Science (BSc), but with his family facing financial adversity, achieving financial security became first an interest and then a passion. Bob is now a Certified Investment Manager and Accredited Investment Fiduciary professional with more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. Over the course of his career, Bob has established himself as a respected portfolio manager and one of Canada's leading authorities on customized investments. With an in-depth knowledge and scientific approach to financial markets, Bob and his team help institutions and select clients to meet their specialized financial goals. He has won numerous awards for portfolio management, and has established himself as a sought after media resource and industry speaker. He is the author of Stock Market Superstars: Secrets of Canada's Top Stock Pickers, a "must-read" for both investors and portfolio managers. His perspective and insights into markets have been featured in Maclean's, the Globe and Mail and the Financial Post, and he is a popular guest on Bloomberg Canada, Business News Network and CBC News, among others. Bob is also a frequent guest speaker at international investment conferences on portfolio strategy and in specialized investments. Bob is actively involved with the community as a member of Canada Company: an organization committed to developing and supporting initiatives that help our men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces. He has also been a licensed pilot since the age of 16, and notes flying as one of his passions in life.

In 1920, Charles Ponzi started the Ponzi scheme which promised a 50% return on investments after 90 days. After a few successful months, his luck ran out as new investments dried and Ponzi came under the radar of investigators.  Victor Lustig conned two buyers and sold a national monument. The two biggest corporate bankruptcies in the United States came about due to Accounting Fraud. The 1MDB moeny laundering happened at the highest levels of government, in Malaysia.

Today, James welcomes Kelly Richmond-Pope, a forensic accountant and professor at DePaul University, to discuss her new book Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry.The book explores the world of financial fraud and provides insights into how fraudsters operate, the damage they cause, and the techniques used to catch them. James and Kelly dive into some examples from the book to examine the three types of financial fraudsters: Intentional Perpetrators, Righteous Perpetrators, and Accidental Perpetrators.Intentional Perpetrators are those who knowingly commit fraud for personal gain. Kelly shares some fascinating stories about individuals who engaged in elaborate schemes to defraud others, including the city comptroller of Dixon, IL (population: 16,000) who embezzled over $53.7m from the town's coffers.Righteous Perpetrators, on the other hand, believe that they are acting in the best interest of others when they commit fraud. Kelly provides examples of individuals who embezzled funds from their companies to support their personal causes, such as a woman who stole money from her slumlord boss to benefit her community.Lastly, Accidental Perpetrators are those who unknowingly commit fraud. Kelly discusses cases where people unintentionally misrepresent their financial statements or fail to report income accurately, resulting in unintentional fraud.Throughout the episode, James and Kelly also explore some of the broader issues surrounding financial fraud, and the importance of education in preventing fraud.  Don't miss this captivating episode if you're curious about the fascinating world of finance, fraud, and forensics. Kelly Richmond Pope's WebsiteFool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud IndustryWatch her documentary All the Queen's Horses on Prime Video------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book Skip the Line is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltucher.com/podcast.------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe  to “The James Altucher Show” wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsStitcheriHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on Social Media:YouTubeTwitterFacebook

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. On this episode, Ph.D. student Nai Kalema and MPA alumni Justin Beirold talk to IIPP Visiting Professor of Practice, Damon Silvers. For over 30 years, Damon has been a leading voice in the US labour movement. He tells Justin and Nai how he got involved in labour activism during the dining hall worker strikes and anti-apartheid protests when he was an undergraduate at Harvard. He talks about how the labour movement has changed over his career, and how we are now at a crucial inflection point for aligning the objectives of unions, environmental activism, and innovation policy. As Damon is also a scholar of constitutional law, he also provides a lengthy explanation of the recent right-wing supreme court rulings in the US, and how we might be able to overcome them. This is a long interview - the longest we have done so far on this podcast. But it is also a really good conversation! So rather than cutting it into pieces, we've provided a few time stamps so you can skip around if you desire. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Damon Silvers! ******* - 3 min 40 sec: Damon's life journey, undergraduate labour activism. - 29 min 30 sec: the anti-apartheid movement - 35 minutes: How Damon started working for unions - 44 min 30 sec: The past, present, and future of the organised labour - 59 min 30 sec: Joining IIPP, and his lectures on "Climate Change, innovation, and the labour movement." - 1 hr 33 min: The US Supreme Court rulings of Summer 2022 ********Guest Bio: Damon A. Silvers a Visiting Professor in Labour Markets and Innovation at the UCL IIPP. He is on sabbatical from the AFL-CIO where is has served as the Director of Policy and Special Counsel for the AFL-CIO. He joined the AFL-CIO as Associate General Counsel in 1997. From 2008 to 2011, Mr. Silvers served as the Deputy Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP. Mr. Silvers has also served on the Treasury Department's Financial Research Advisory Committee, as the Chair of the Competition Subcommittee of the United States Treasury Department Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession and as a member of the United States Treasury Department Investor's Practice Committee of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. Mr. Silvers led the successful efforts to restore pensions to the retirees of Cannon Mills lost in the Executive Life collapse and the severance owed to laid off Enron and WorldCom workers following the collapse of those companies. He served from 2003 to 2006 as pro bono Counsel to the Chairman of ULLICO, Inc. and in that capacity led the successful effort to recover over $50 million related to improperly paid executive compensation. Mr. Silvers received his J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School. He received his M.B.A. with high honors from Harvard Business School and is a Baker Scholar. Mr. Silvers is a graduate of Harvard College, summa cum laude, and has studied history at Kings College, Cambridge University. Recorded in Summer 2022 *******-Check out Damon's IIPP lectures on Labour, Innovation, and Climate Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u34XWAmzeJ0 -Blog: "The End of the Roberts Court" https://damonsilvers.substack.com/p/the-end-of-the-roberts-court -Follow Damon on Twitter:@DamonSilvers -See Damon's full bio: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/people/damon-silvers Learn about our hosts: - Justin Beirold - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/justin-beirold - Nai Kalema - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/nai-lee-kalema -Follow IIPP on Twitter: @IIPP_UCL https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/ -Production and music by Justin Beirold

Rhonda Vetere is a seasoned C-Suite technology executive and icon who has worked across industries in global technology. A change agent for digital transformation, she has led the way for growth with more than 23 mergers and acquisitions at companies.   A passionate leader in technology across industries, Rhonda has worked in global executive positions at Estée Lauder Companies, AIG, HP Enterprise Services, Barclays / Lehman, Bank One / JPMorgan Chase, CompuServe, UUNET, MCI, and Worldcom. She has lived and worked internationally—in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Mumbai, and across India—and has managed teams of more than 20,000 people.   As an industry expert and influencer, Vetere has been a keynote speaker and panelist at many conferences and events, including the World Economic Forum in Davos, WIT (Women in Technology) Connect, Microsoft Global CIO Summit, Dell EMC World, and the United States Vice Presidential Candidate Debate. Rhonda has been recognized for her leadership and influence, notably with a 2017 Stevie Award for Excellence in Transforming Business and as a multi-year Top 100 CIO/CTO executive leader in STEM by STEMconnector.   Grit & Grind is Vetere's second book—she is also the co-author of an HP special edition book, Enterprise Service Management for Dummies.   An avid sports fan and real-world corporate athlete, Rhonda stays focused and sharp by competing in marathons and triathlons on a regular basis—over 70 events thus far, including triathlons, half-marathons, marathons, and IRONMAN 70.3 mile triathlons. She recently ran 55 miles in the Serengeti as part of a girls and women's empowerment fundraiser: the first women-only run of its kind.   Rhonda's wisdom, integrity, loyalty, and beauty exudes in all that she does.  She radiates pure graciousness and grit.  Her ability to listen to her soul's voice without any distraction exemplifies her focus, discipline, and honor as she leads with the perfect blend of heart, mind, and assertive action.  She sees the invisible and hears the unheard.  She is loyal and nothing stops her as she fearlessly takes actionable steps where no one would even think of ever going,  From devoted friendships + family, to creating schools and building enterprises globally she lives her life true to her word.  She has helped thousands of  souls around the world to awaken their strengths + gifts while offering reputable resources and creative mindful solutions.     I am so blessed to call this amazing woman my friend.   Enjoy this show and may it inspire you to step out in this world and take a courageous leap into doing what you always dreamt to do!     CONNECT WITH RHONDA Website: https://www.rhondavetere.com/  IG @rhondamvetere   CONNECT WITH JANET: *Register for the Annual Vision Quest- January 15th access until Dec 31 2023! bit.ly/VQ2023 JOIN THE SOUL STAR MEMBERSHIP: https://www.janetnamaste.com/soulstar  (use code JNPOD for 10% off) IG - https://www.instagram.com/janet.namaste/  + https://www.instagram.com/rawrealtalks_/  YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/JanetNamaste Support the show: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheNamasteLoveShoppe

Ep. 86 Do you know the man named Ponzi? How about the men who sold the Brooklyn Bridge? And the man who sold the island that never existed or what we now called Honduras? Theranos? We cover these cons and more in this episode. Our second season ends with a light hearted take on True Crime, if you can call the Biggest Cons in the world light. || Real relatable entertainment focusing on history, culture and curiosities || Thank you to our Legacy Sponsor! Kris Porter Travel Concierge - Contact Kris today to start planning that family cruise, quick get-a-way or once in a lifetime trip. Consultations are free, memories are priceless. krisporter@travelmation.net @travelwithgraceandjoy on IG Mention 2Monicas in your call or email. Click here to start your planning https://tinyurl.com/2monicas https://www.virginvoyages.com/book/voyage-planner/find-a-voyage Cruise Virgin! Treat yourself to fabulous with an adults only experience that won't disappoint Support the Show! https://www.forceofnatureclean.com/ref/2monicaspodcast/?campaign=100Episodes Force of Nature Clean - It's strong enough to kill bacteria and viruses just like bleach, but it has no toxic chemicals whatsoever! It also has reusable bottles, it's so much better for the environment than typical cleaners. Click the link to start your journey to a toxin free clean. 2 Monicas Podcast a Nothing Serious Production https://2monicaspodcast.com Follow us on all social media @2monicaspodcast Additional Nothing Serious productions: Parenting with Heart featuring Kristin Schmoke Spotlight Interviews

James Shinn, Digital Currency Economist, Executive Director at Bitt, is a special level of polymath. He has filled his life with four successful careers in technology, finance, academia, and government. Read on for a brief highlights tour.TechnologyFollowing time at AMD, Jim co-founded Dialogic, one of the first telecommunications firms using digital signal processing. Ultimately, it was sold to Intel. He was then an advisor or co-founder for various tech startups, including cybersecurity firm Haystack Labs, and data analytics firm Predata.GovernmentJim was the Assistant Secretary of Defense where his responsibilities included some of the United States of America's most global complex issues, including North Korea and China. He was also involved in developing DOD's policies for the war in Afghanistan, for which he gained the reputation for realistic analysis as well as the Defense Department's highest civilian medal. Jim has also worked at the CIA and the Office of the National Director of Intelligence. Most recently, he focused on the question of technology issues and China from a national interest point of view for the State Department.FinanceJim's career started as a commercial banker for Chase. He continued to add a number of FinTech companies to the list of startups that he co-founded or advised, including Longitude, a derivatives trading platform and Kenshō Financial, a financial data analytics firm.AcademiaJon first met Jim 20 years ago when he and his co-author Peter Govi, were examining corporate governance issues following the collapse of Enron and WorldCom. The book they wrote brilliantly analyzes the links between governance, finance, and politics. Jim has also written books and articles with such stars as Jeffrey Garton, Richard Arbitrage, Harold Brown and Bob Zelnik. Jim was a visiting lecturer at Princeton for eight years.His latest undertaking is helping central banks develop digital currencies which he talks with Jon about on this episode of Outside In. They also discuss geopolitics and US foreign policy monetary policy and the digital economy and self sovereign identity for Web3.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: List of past fraudsters similar to SBF, published by NunoSempere on November 28, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. To inform my forecasting around FTX events, I looked at the Wikipedia list of fraudsters and selected those I subjectively found similar—you can see a spreadsheet with my selection here. For each of the similar fraudsters, I present some common basic details below together with some notes. My main takeaway is that many salient aspects of FTX have precedents: the incestuous relationship between an exchange and a trading house (Bernie Madoff, Richard Whitney), a philosophical or philanthropic component (Enric Duran, Tom Petters, etc.), embroiling friends and families in the scheme (Charles Ponzi), or multi-billion fraud not getting found out for years (Elizabeth Holmes, many others). Fraud with a philosophical, philanthropic or religious component Bernard Ebbers Prison: Yes Jurisdiction: US Amount: $18B I find the section on his faith most informative: While CEO of WorldCom, he was a member of the Easthaven Baptist Church in Brookhaven, Mississippi. As a high-profile member of the congregation, Ebbers regularly taught Sunday school and attended the morning church service with his family. His faith was overt, and he often started corporate meetings with prayer. When the allegations of conspiracy and fraud were first brought to light in 2002, Ebbers addressed the congregation and insisted on his innocence. "I just want you to know you aren't going to church with a crook," he said. "No one will find me to have knowingly committed fraud." Also note that eventually, $8B was restored to investors. Enric Durán Prison: No, life in hiding Jurisdiction: Spain Amount: ~$700k (all amounts are inflation approximate and adjusted using in2013dollars.com) During the 2008 crisis, he robbed Spanish banks by taking out spurious loans, and donated the amounts to anticapitalist causes. He wrote a guide about how to do this, and widely distributed it: an online version in Spanish and English can be found here. Personal takeaway: Stealing money for altruistic causes is not unprecedented. And if you are going to cross that line, it can be done with much more style. It will also be viewed much more sympathetically if you steal from organizations perceived to be corrupt. Tom Petters Prison: Yes Jurisdiction: US Amount: ~$5B Some of his donations were later returned (bold emphasis my own): Petters was appointed to the board of trustees for the College of St. Benedict in 2002; his mother had attended the school. In 2006 he gave $2 million for improvements to St. John's Abbey on the campus of adjacent Saint John's University. In light of the criminal prosecution, St. John's Abbey arranged to return the $2 million gift to the court-appointed receiver for the Petters bankruptcy. In October 2007, Petters made a $5.3 million gift to the College of St. Benedict to create the Thomas J. Petters Center for Global Education. In 2006, he served as a co-chairman of a capital campaign at his high school, Cathedral High School, and offered to match donations up to $750,000. Petters formed the John T. Petters Foundation to provide gifts and endowments at select universities to benefit future college students. The foundation was formed to honor his son, John Thomas Petters, who was killed on a visit in 2004 to Florence, Italy. The college student inadvertently wandered onto private property where the owner, Alfio Raugei, mistook him for an intruder and stabbed him to death." In response, in September 2004, Tom Petters pledged $10 million to his late son's college, Miami University. He later promised an additional $4 million, with the total to support two professorships and the John T. Petters Center for Leadership, Ethics and Skills Development within the Farmer School of Business. Miami Univers...

On this edition of Parallax Views, in the first segment Wall Street Window's Mike Swanson returns to the program to discuss the FTX/Sam Bankman-Fried crypto scam scandal as well as Elon Musk's buy out of Twitter. Among the topics covered in the course of our conversation: - Sam Bankman-Friedman, Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried's apology letter and his claim that what happened with FTX was a bank run, and whether what happened was a case of an inside job fraud or not - The high-risks involved in the crypto exchange; how these crypto exchanges aren't banks and are not regulated in a meaningful way; the damage that the FTX scandal has done to people - Relating past events like the Enron and WorldCom scandals and the the stock market's Dot-Com Bubble of the 1990s to the present day - The influential American venture capitalist firm Sequioa Capital and the FTX scandal; Sequioa Capital's failure in relation to the FTX scandal is symptomatic of a bigger problem; firms not wanting to miss out on the hot new "Thing" or fads - Reports that Sam Bankman-Fried ran FTX as his own personal fiefdom - The political Left, the political Right, and the economy - The divide in the Libertarian movement over crypto currency - Karl Marx, Peter Thiel, and the possibility that the capitalist system itself is producing too much capital in ways that drive down interest rates; the issue as being more than the Fed just making mistake (ie: a problem with how the 21st century capitalist system itself operates currently); new money influxes as slowing down the bear market - The lowering of interest rates and the creation of bubbles - Jacob Silverman and Ben McKenzie's upcoming book Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud; elements of the libertarian world agreeing with leftist critiques of crypto currency arguing that it's just a bubble or scam - Gold and silver, the stock market, Robin Hood, and "meme stocks" - Younger people becoming wary of stock trading - Elon Musk's buying of Twitter for $44 billion; Musk wasn't able to back out of the deal; Twitter losing money - Meta, Facebook, the Metaverse, and Mark Zuckerberg losing money; the layoffs at Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon - Casino capitalism, carny tricks, and social media misleading people on issues like crypto - Social manias, the madness of crowds, financial bubbles, and not falling for hype In the second segment of the program, Daniel Pinchbeck, author of a number of books on psychedelics including most recently (w/ Sophia Rokhlin) When Plants Dream: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Shamanism and the Global Psychedelic Renaissance, joins the show to discuss his recent WhoWhatWhy article "Why Psychedelic Capitalism Sucks". Among the topics we cover in this conversation: - The rise of psychedelic corporations/psychedelic start-ups - The demonization of psychedelics in the 1960s and the cultural thaw that's led to a psychedelic renaissance through groups like MAPS and the Beckley Foundation; the reconsideration of psychedelics by society today and contemporaries studies on psychedelics related to alleviating depression, etc. - Festivals like Burning Man and how resource-rich elites and entrepreneurs became interested in psychedelics - Predatory practices and the critique of patents in regards to psychedelics and psychedelic therapy - Compass Pathways and patent laws - Downsides of psychedelics and psychedelic use - The ecological crisis, today's profound social inequality, and psychedelics as a way to inspire social and structural change - The contemporary psychedelic movement's focus on medicalization that fits psychedelics - Psychedelics, creativity, and pattern recognition - Psychedelics, temporary bliss states, and a possible 1984/Brave New World scenario - Pioneering psychedelic researchers Sasha and Ann Shulgin's approach to psychedelic research vs. the approach of psychedelic corporations - Psychedelic use and messianic delusion - The positives of psychedelics and psychedelic usage - The question of consciousness - The climate change crisis and transforming how we live our lives; the importance of storytelling - Shifting away from industrial agriculture - And much, much more!

The ABCs of How to Commit Corporate Fraud:Step 1: Have high-up government connections.Step 2: Deal with a service so complicated that you don't need to explain it.Step 3: Transfer balances between your own entities to pump up valuations.Step 4: Payoff the accountants (or don't have a CFO at all!).Enron, WorldCom, Madoff Securities, FTX. All of these companies have had Icarus-like rises and collapses and they all followed the same playbook. Is it a coincidence that the man who returned $20 billion to Enron's creditors will now oversee FTX through Chapter 11 bankruptcy? Today, Antonio Reza (Head of Finance for Google Cloud EMEA, ex-Microsoft Azure, ex-GE) joins James to discuss the greatest fall of them all, Enron, and its similarities to the recent plummet of FTX. Antonio's recent thread about Enron is a must-read and his Twitter account is full of similar insights.------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book Skip the Line is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltucher.com/podcast.------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe  to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsStitcheriHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on Social Media:YouTubeTwitterFacebook  ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsiHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on social media:YouTubeTwitterFacebookLinkedIn

The ABCs of How to Commit Corporate Fraud:Step 1: Have high-up government connections.Step 2: Deal with a service so complicated that you don't need to explain it.Step 3: Transfer balances between your own entities to pump up valuations.Step 4: Payoff the accountants (or don't have a CFO at all!).Enron, WorldCom, Madoff Securities, FTX. All of these companies have had Icarus-like rises and collapses and they all followed the same playbook. Is it a coincidence that the man who returned $20 billion to Enron's creditors will now oversee FTX through Chapter 11 bankruptcy? Today, Antonio Reza (Head of Finance for Google Cloud EMEA, ex-Microsoft Azure, ex-GE) joins James to discuss the greatest fall of them all, Enron, and its similarities to the recent plummet of FTX. Antonio's recent thread about Enron is a must-read and his Twitter account is full of similar insights.------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book Skip the Line is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltucher.com/podcast.------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe  to “The James Altucher Show” wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsStitcheriHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on Social Media:YouTubeTwitterFacebook 

Over the next three episodes Joe and Eric speak with Mark Paoletta, a distinguished attorney in Washington, a former oversight lawyer on Capitol Hill, and the editor/author of the book Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in his Own Words. This episode explores how the new Republican House majority should conduct oversight. The discussion centered on Mark's experience investigating the malfeasance at Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing, as well as his thoughts on how Congress can inform the public and itself about fraud and abuse in the private sector and within the executive branch. This interview was recorded in early November 2022 just after the new majority was declared in the House of Representatives.

We are living through a particularly bad moment in history for free markets and capitalism. Government, not business, is promoted as the solution to all problems. Young people have never known any other environment, and one of the consequences is the skepticism about capitalism that they learn in school, college, and university. One solution to this problem lies in better business education — shaping how young minds think about business by shedding light on the social and individual benefits of capitalism that might otherwise be deliberately shadowed by misinformation and misdirection. Allen Mendenhall is leading the way with a new business curriculum at Troy University. Key Takeaways and Actionable Insights There are unmerited concerns among young people today about the ethics of capitalism and business. Business is too often cast as the “bad guy” in the movie of life. Business is portrayed as exploitative and greedy, and businesspeople as self-serving. Historical scandals like Enron and WorldCom are cited as case studies. But this presentation is a caricature; there's no evidence to support it. Business is the essential component of the capitalist system that has raised standards of living and quality of life all over the globe and especially in the West, where markets are somewhat freer. Business didn't have the same bad rap in the past. In the nineteenth century, there was a great celebration of the civilization-advancing commercial republic powered by the protestant work ethic. The image of the businessperson was a positive trope — it was a good role to be a businessperson creating value for others. Businesspeople were the good guys. They innovated, collaborated and served. We've lost that imagery. A lot of the unmerited concern emanates from educational institutions, especially universities. Who is teaching young Americans to be skeptical about capitalism and business? A large portion of the blame goes to educational institutions, and especially universities. There's an anti-business and anti-capitalism bias among the teaching profession in higher education that is communicated to students. In this academic anti-business campaign, there's a special role for economists, who have dehumanized economics by trying to make it a mathematical science. All their equations and computer models have the effect of taking humanness — the role of subjectivism, individual preference, and individualized emotion — out of economics. They try to reduce human behavior to a predictive data-driven algorithm. The heritage of economics is humanizing. The mathematical approach to economics is not the tradition of the Austrian school approach, which embraces a humanizing perspective. Commerce cultivates virtue; the pursuit of honorable profit leads businesses to act with good faith and integrity in joining with partners to produce products and services that are valued and welcomed by customers because they serve their ends in their search for betterment in their lives. The concept of honorable profit is often alien to students, and requires new learning: that profit is an emergent result of all the detailed interactions of individuals in a market, sending price signals to producers to indicate what society wants them to produce. Profit is a result of these signals indicating that society wants the producers to continue offering their goods and services. Understanding value is central to understanding the ethics of capitalism. The emergence of profit is an outcome of the generation of value for customers. Value is central to the ethics of business, and Professor Mendenhall's new course at Troy University places it squarely in the center. Value is subjectively determined by the customer, and the purpose of business is to help them realize the value they seek with the right products and services responsive to their wants, preferences and goals. But here's where the plot twists. The big corporate business community — representing less than 1% of businesses by count but the biggest proportion of GDP by dollar revenues - has been incentivized by Wall Street to pursue shareholder value (goosing stock prices) and stakeholder value (the diversion of value away from customers in favor of non-customer interest groups). Value for customers and even profit now takes a back seat to supposedly serving constituencies such as climate activists, victim groups, and, of course, government. Stakeholder value can act as cover for the CEO who fails to generate profit: they can claim to be focused on socially more important things. The generation of value for customers, guided by the confirmation signal of profit, is no longer primary — except in Professor Mendenhall's Troy University curriculum. The perspective of entrepreneurship can help students appreciate ethical business. While young people express disdain and distrust for capitalism, they often have a more positive attitude about the concept of entrepreneurship. They realize that entrepreneurs are problem solvers, and that they add value to people's lives. People benefit from the risks entrepreneurs take and the personal sacrifice they make. Entrepreneurial innovation makes lives better. Students appreciate this, and can even identify some corporate CEO's to whom they are willing to grant ethical approval — individuals such as John Mackey or Richard Branson. And many young people see entrepreneurship as aspirational — they want to start their own businesses and make a lot of money (i.e., profit!). Looking at business from an entrepreneurial perspective generates more positive attitudes, and we can show that all businesses started entrepreneurially, and are sustained by their continuing entrepreneurial performance, i.e., profitably delivering value for customers. If there are questions about corporate ethics, they relate to their non-entrepreneurial functions — such as HR (whence a lot of corporate wokeness emanates), legal (the people who write the opaque and deceptive terms and conditions that justify surveillance), finance (directing activities like stock buybacks that divert value from customers), and compliance (keeping corporations closer to government and more distant from markets). Part of Allen's approach to his students is to teach the entrepreneurial mindset — not just for business, but for life in general. He calls it “unleashing the inner entrepreneur” and includes what he calls “the economics of your dreams”, the secret of win-win, the creativity of the market, the entrepreneurial principles of career building, starting a profitable business, and character and leadership. He also covers personal finance skills — developing knowledge of stocks and bonds and mutual funds and other financial instruments, insurance, retirement planning (even at age 18!), investing, spending, and, of course, personal management of student loans. It's the entrepreneurial approach to life. We should develop a new value proposition for business schools as humanness schools. Business schools today are part of the problem. They don't focus enough on how business can be the catalyst for positive change. They should be committed to solving problems affecting not just business, but humanity as a whole. But reading business school leaders' and graduates' speeches and their books demonstrates that they're not trying to help humanity as a whole but a few selected businesses and a few particular industries. They're not dedicated to helping ordinary people, as they should be. Allen's new curriculum aims to redress that imbalance. Additional Resources AllenMendenhall.com "Corporate Wokeness Hurts The Groups It Purports To Help" (AEIR) by Allen Mendhall: Mises.org/E4B_191_Article1 "Troy professor: Students ‘very enthusiastic' over anti-woke business scholars program" (Yellowhammer News) by Dylan Smith: Mises.org/E4B_191_Article2 Allen Mendenhall on Fox Business—"Ending Wokeism in the Corporate World": Mises.org/E4B_191_TV

We are living through a particularly bad moment in history for free markets and capitalism. Government, not business, is promoted as the solution to all problems. Young people have never known any other environment, and one of the consequences is the skepticism about capitalism that they learn in school, college, and university. One solution to this problem lies in better business education — shaping how young minds think about business by shedding light on the social and individual benefits of capitalism that might otherwise be deliberately shadowed by misinformation and misdirection. Allen Mendenhall is leading the way with a new business curriculum at Troy University. Key Takeaways and Actionable Insights There are unmerited concerns among young people today about the ethics of capitalism and business. Business is too often cast as the “bad guy” in the movie of life. Business is portrayed as exploitative and greedy, and businesspeople as self-serving. Historical scandals like Enron and WorldCom are cited as case studies. But this presentation is a caricature; there's no evidence to support it. Business is the essential component of the capitalist system that has raised standards of living and quality of life all over the globe and especially in the West, where markets are somewhat freer. Business didn't have the same bad rap in the past. In the nineteenth century, there was a great celebration of the civilization-advancing commercial republic powered by the protestant work ethic. The image of the businessperson was a positive trope — it was a good role to be a businessperson creating value for others. Businesspeople were the good guys. They innovated, collaborated and served. We've lost that imagery. A lot of the unmerited concern emanates from educational institutions, especially universities. Who is teaching young Americans to be skeptical about capitalism and business? A large portion of the blame goes to educational institutions, and especially universities. There's an anti-business and anti-capitalism bias among the teaching profession in higher education that is communicated to students. In this academic anti-business campaign, there's a special role for economists, who have dehumanized economics by trying to make it a mathematical science. All their equations and computer models have the effect of taking humanness — the role of subjectivism, individual preference, and individualized emotion — out of economics. They try to reduce human behavior to a predictive data-driven algorithm. The heritage of economics is humanizing. The mathematical approach to economics is not the tradition of the Austrian school approach, which embraces a humanizing perspective. Commerce cultivates virtue; the pursuit of honorable profit leads businesses to act with good faith and integrity in joining with partners to produce products and services that are valued and welcomed by customers because they serve their ends in their search for betterment in their lives. The concept of honorable profit is often alien to students, and requires new learning: that profit is an emergent result of all the detailed interactions of individuals in a market, sending price signals to producers to indicate what society wants them to produce. Profit is a result of these signals indicating that society wants the producers to continue offering their goods and services. Understanding value is central to understanding the ethics of capitalism. The emergence of profit is an outcome of the generation of value for customers. Value is central to the ethics of business, and Professor Mendenhall's new course at Troy University places it squarely in the center. Value is subjectively determined by the customer, and the purpose of business is to help them realize the value they seek with the right products and services responsive to their wants, preferences and goals. But here's where the plot twists. The big corporate business community — representing less than 1% of businesses by count but the biggest proportion of GDP by dollar revenues - has been incentivized by Wall Street to pursue shareholder value (goosing stock prices) and stakeholder value (the diversion of value away from customers in favor of non-customer interest groups). Value for customers and even profit now takes a back seat to supposedly serving constituencies such as climate activists, victim groups, and, of course, government. Stakeholder value can act as cover for the CEO who fails to generate profit: they can claim to be focused on socially more important things. The generation of value for customers, guided by the confirmation signal of profit, is no longer primary — except in Professor Mendenhall's Troy University curriculum. The perspective of entrepreneurship can help students appreciate ethical business. While young people express disdain and distrust for capitalism, they often have a more positive attitude about the concept of entrepreneurship. They realize that entrepreneurs are problem solvers, and that they add value to people's lives. People benefit from the risks entrepreneurs take and the personal sacrifice they make. Entrepreneurial innovation makes lives better. Students appreciate this, and can even identify some corporate CEO's to whom they are willing to grant ethical approval — individuals such as John Mackey or Richard Branson. And many young people see entrepreneurship as aspirational — they want to start their own businesses and make a lot of money (i.e., profit!). Looking at business from an entrepreneurial perspective generates more positive attitudes, and we can show that all businesses started entrepreneurially, and are sustained by their continuing entrepreneurial performance, i.e., profitably delivering value for customers. If there are questions about corporate ethics, they relate to their non-entrepreneurial functions — such as HR (whence a lot of corporate wokeness emanates), legal (the people who write the opaque and deceptive terms and conditions that justify surveillance), finance (directing activities like stock buybacks that divert value from customers), and compliance (keeping corporations closer to government and more distant from markets). Part of Allen's approach to his students is to teach the entrepreneurial mindset — not just for business, but for life in general. He calls it “unleashing the inner entrepreneur” and includes what he calls “the economics of your dreams”, the secret of win-win, the creativity of the market, the entrepreneurial principles of career building, starting a profitable business, and character and leadership. He also covers personal finance skills — developing knowledge of stocks and bonds and mutual funds and other financial instruments, insurance, retirement planning (even at age 18!), investing, spending, and, of course, personal management of student loans. It's the entrepreneurial approach to life. We should develop a new value proposition for business schools as humanness schools. Business schools today are part of the problem. They don't focus enough on how business can be the catalyst for positive change. They should be committed to solving problems affecting not just business, but humanity as a whole. But reading business school leaders' and graduates' speeches and their books demonstrates that they're not trying to help humanity as a whole but a few selected businesses and a few particular industries. They're not dedicated to helping ordinary people, as they should be. Allen's new curriculum aims to redress that imbalance. Additional Resources AllenMendenhall.com "Corporate Wokeness Hurts The Groups It Purports To Help" (AEIR) by Allen Mendhall: Mises.org/E4B_191_Article1 "Troy professor: Students ‘very enthusiastic' over anti-woke business scholars program" (Yellowhammer News) by Dylan Smith: Mises.org/E4B_191_Article2 Allen Mendenhall on Fox Business—"Ending Wokeism in the Corporate World": Mises.org/E4B_191_TV

We are living through a particularly bad moment in history for free markets and capitalism. Government, not business, is promoted as the solution to all problems. Young people have never known any other environment, and one of the consequences is the skepticism about capitalism that they learn in school, college, and university. One solution to this problem lies in better business education — shaping how young minds think about business by shedding light on the social and individual benefits of capitalism that might otherwise be deliberately shadowed by misinformation and misdirection. Allen Mendenhall is leading the way with a new business curriculum at Troy University. Key Takeaways and Actionable Insights There are unmerited concerns among young people today about the ethics of capitalism and business. Business is too often cast as the “bad guy” in the movie of life. Business is portrayed as exploitative and greedy, and businesspeople as self-serving. Historical scandals like Enron and WorldCom are cited as case studies. But this presentation is a caricature; there's no evidence to support it. Business is the essential component of the capitalist system that has raised standards of living and quality of life all over the globe and especially in the West, where markets are somewhat freer. Business didn't have the same bad rap in the past. In the nineteenth century, there was a great celebration of the civilization-advancing commercial republic powered by the protestant work ethic. The image of the businessperson was a positive trope — it was a good role to be a businessperson creating value for others. Businesspeople were the good guys. They innovated, collaborated and served. We've lost that imagery. A lot of the unmerited concern emanates from educational institutions, especially universities. Who is teaching young Americans to be skeptical about capitalism and business? A large portion of the blame goes to educational institutions, and especially universities. There's an anti-business and anti-capitalism bias among the teaching profession in higher education that is communicated to students. In this academic anti-business campaign, there's a special role for economists, who have dehumanized economics by trying to make it a mathematical science. All their equations and computer models have the effect of taking humanness — the role of subjectivism, individual preference, and individualized emotion — out of economics. They try to reduce human behavior to a predictive data-driven algorithm. The heritage of economics is humanizing. The mathematical approach to economics is not the tradition of the Austrian school approach, which embraces a humanizing perspective. Commerce cultivates virtue; the pursuit of honorable profit leads businesses to act with good faith and integrity in joining with partners to produce products and services that are valued and welcomed by customers because they serve their ends in their search for betterment in their lives. The concept of honorable profit is often alien to students, and requires new learning: that profit is an emergent result of all the detailed interactions of individuals in a market, sending price signals to producers to indicate what society wants them to produce. Profit is a result of these signals indicating that society wants the producers to continue offering their goods and services. Understanding value is central to understanding the ethics of capitalism. The emergence of profit is an outcome of the generation of value for customers. Value is central to the ethics of business, and Professor Mendenhall's new course at Troy University places it squarely in the center. Value is subjectively determined by the customer, and the purpose of business is to help them realize the value they seek with the right products and services responsive to their wants, preferences and goals. But here's where the plot twists. The big corporate business community — representing less than 1% of businesses by count but the biggest proportion of GDP by dollar revenues - has been incentivized by Wall Street to pursue shareholder value (goosing stock prices) and stakeholder value (the diversion of value away from customers in favor of non-customer interest groups). Value for customers and even profit now takes a back seat to supposedly serving constituencies such as climate activists, victim groups, and, of course, government. Stakeholder value can act as cover for the CEO who fails to generate profit: they can claim to be focused on socially more important things. The generation of value for customers, guided by the confirmation signal of profit, is no longer primary — except in Professor Mendenhall's Troy University curriculum. The perspective of entrepreneurship can help students appreciate ethical business. While young people express disdain and distrust for capitalism, they often have a more positive attitude about the concept of entrepreneurship. They realize that entrepreneurs are problem solvers, and that they add value to people's lives. People benefit from the risks entrepreneurs take and the personal sacrifice they make. Entrepreneurial innovation makes lives better. Students appreciate this, and can even identify some corporate CEO's to whom they are willing to grant ethical approval — individuals such as John Mackey or Richard Branson. And many young people see entrepreneurship as aspirational — they want to start their own businesses and make a lot of money (i.e., profit!). Looking at business from an entrepreneurial perspective generates more positive attitudes, and we can show that all businesses started entrepreneurially, and are sustained by their continuing entrepreneurial performance, i.e., profitably delivering value for customers. If there are questions about corporate ethics, they relate to their non-entrepreneurial functions — such as HR (whence a lot of corporate wokeness emanates), legal (the people who write the opaque and deceptive terms and conditions that justify surveillance), finance (directing activities like stock buybacks that divert value from customers), and compliance (keeping corporations closer to government and more distant from markets). Part of Allen's approach to his students is to teach the entrepreneurial mindset — not just for business, but for life in general. He calls it “unleashing the inner entrepreneur” and includes what he calls “the economics of your dreams”, the secret of win-win, the creativity of the market, the entrepreneurial principles of career building, starting a profitable business, and character and leadership. He also covers personal finance skills — developing knowledge of stocks and bonds and mutual funds and other financial instruments, insurance, retirement planning (even at age 18!), investing, spending, and, of course, personal management of student loans. It's the entrepreneurial approach to life. We should develop a new value proposition for business schools as humanness schools. Business schools today are part of the problem. They don't focus enough on how business can be the catalyst for positive change. They should be committed to solving problems affecting not just business, but humanity as a whole. But reading business school leaders' and graduates' speeches and their books demonstrates that they're not trying to help humanity as a whole but a few selected businesses and a few particular industries. They're not dedicated to helping ordinary people, as they should be. Allen's new curriculum aims to redress that imbalance. Additional Resources AllenMendenhall.com "Corporate Wokeness Hurts The Groups It Purports To Help" (AEIR) by Allen Mendhall: Mises.org/E4B_191_Article1 "Troy professor: Students ‘very enthusiastic' over anti-woke business scholars program" (Yellowhammer News) by Dylan Smith: Mises.org/E4B_191_Article2 Allen Mendenhall on Fox Business—"Ending Wokeism in the Corporate World": Mises.org/E4B_191_TV

SUPPORT THE PODCAST - https://anchor.fm/dailystockpick/support Yesterday was the lightest volume day in the nasdaq all year $Nvda reports - Cathy woods bought 300k shares last week and sold them for a loss this week … she's trading like all of us who have lost big on short term bounces we didn't take profits on $Baba pivot is $90 at this point Friend that works at $AVYA - they have some issues financially - business is good - financials not so much - friend who works there worked for Worldcom, Enron, EarthLink and Windstream along with other businesses that have the same trajectory - interesting conversation $PTON - strkes $AMZN deal - WOW - huge pop in the stock - it will change the game since Amazon is the biggest retailer - margins will shrink - but with clothes, shoes, bikes, parts, etc. - it should be crazy good. Half a million searches per month on Amazon for Peloton - this will allow more deals with other retailers too. Also will Peloton membership be included with Prime? HUGE! $JKS is a falling knife - look at $CSIQ - Canadian Solar - it seems stronger SCANS Yesterday was $OXY - today $CVX - big energy seems strong $BABA $APPH $BIDU $PBR - remember the huge dividend? This has continued to just soar back to cover the gap caused by the dividend $UPRO - bull $SPXU - bear $SPXL - bull $TQQQ - bull $SQQQ - bear $SARK - bear --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dailystockpick/support

With the passing of the 20th anniversary of WorldCom filing bankruptcy in the aftermath of the whistle being blown on its reporting of fraudulent financial statements, I wanted to revisit Cynthia Cooper's page-turner, Extraordinary Circumstances.Why was the fraud committed? How? What was internal audit's role in detecting the fraudulent entries created by the CFO and four members of his staff?In this episode, Aaron Beam helps me to answer these questions as he draws on his experience in the financial statement fraud at HealthSouth. Aaron is an author and sought-after public speaker at major universities around the country.

With a focus on people and purpose, I work to create a culture of care in both individuals and organizations. As the President of Paredigm Enterprises, I helm a consulting firm helping individuals, companies, and nonprofits realize their goals. In addition, I serve as the CEO of Gobundance, a tribe of healthy, wealthy, and generous men who seek to live life to its fullest. Currently, I also serve as managing partner at R360, a league of extraordinary, ultra-high-net-worth individuals who look to expand upon their remarkable achievements and thrive in the company of their peers. After graduating from University of Texas at Austin in 1989, I started my first business, Erapmus Network Services, when I was 23 years old. Working in the distributed computer network operating space, Erapmus helped organizations such as Exxon Mobil and WorldCom integrate and streamline their computer systems. Under my leadership, I instilled a culture of self-reliance and perseverance, successfully growing Erapmus to over 130 employees with revenues of just under $10M before its acquisition. In 2003,I founded Paredigm Enterprises. My ability to formulate a vision, create a strategy, and plan an execution, enables me to guide individuals and organizations to maximize their potential and exceed expectations. From launching robust careers for various authors and speakers, to turning around multiple underperforming companies, to building revenue models and strategic partnerships for non-profits, Paredigm Enterprises has created success for many and has helped to make the world a better place. My cumulative experience brought me to TIGER 21 in 2013, where I was recruited to lead the high-net-worth organization's peer network in Texas and Puerto Rico. I leveraged my professional expertise and the collective intelligence of 50 TIGER 21 members to improve their investment acumen, business decisions, and family dynamics. Following my time at TIGER 21, I now serve as CEO of Gobundance, a peer-to-peer mastermind organization of >800 individuals. In tandem with Gobundance, I am the Founding Parter of R360, leading groups of sophisticated investors, philanthropists, and intellectuals. Instagram Website Email

WorldCom was a $180B company at its peak that dominated the American telecommunications industry. But after a massive financial scandal, the company was destroyed. Now, its name has long been forgotten by the public.

Rhonda Vetere is a seasoned C-Suite executive and passionate global leader in technologyRecognized as one of Most Powerful Women in Technology and a two-time author, Rhonda is an active leader — whether she's spearheading corporate initiatives around the world, competing in another IRONMAN 70.3 mile triathlon, or mentoring students & athletes globally in STEM through sports.Rhonda has worked across industries as a CIO, CTO, global executive, and digital transformation change agent at Herbalife Nutrition, Santander Bank, nThrive / Pamplona Capital Management, Estée Lauder Companies, AIG, HP Enterprise Services, Barclays / Lehman, Bank One / JPMorgan Chase, CompuServe, UUNET, MCI, and Worldcom.She has lived and worked internationally – in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Mumbai, and across India – and has managed teams of up to 20,000 people. Vetere is the author of Grit & Grind and co-author of an HP special edition book, Enterprise Service Management for Dummies.With an ability to support mergers, create synergies across lines of business, and leverage her onshore/offshore experience, Rhonda is a results-oriented, client-focused executive and delivers value by driving technology improvements for cost and performance to drive the right business outcomes.From her experience as Chief Technology Officer at Estée Lauder Companies, Rhonda has deep domain expertise in technology and data. Her role included global leadership across 162 countries and running the technology & operations team. She spearheaded the transformation of the IT capabilities foundation into a digital environment at record industry pace, without business disruption, around the world – while saving $28 million a year.Recognition & InvolvementRhonda has been recognized with for her leadership and influence, notably as one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology by the National Diversity Council in 2019 and 2020, and Stevie Award for Excellence in Transforming Business (competing with over 1500 CIOs and CTOs) in 2017. In 2021, she was one of The Most Admired Women Leaders in Business, Top 20 Businesswomen Leading the Charge, 2021 Most Influential Businesswoman in Technology by Corporate Vision Magazine, 2021 Top CIO/CTO by the Tech Inclusion Conference, and Top 100 DEI Leaders in 2021by Mogul.She has been featured in renowned publications, including Forbes, Huffington Post, Thrive, Moneyish, CNBC, Women of Influence, Financial Post, Triathlete Magazine, SWAAY Magazine, and more. She contributes her perspective and knowledge through serving on boards for professional, educational, and athletic institutions, including The Boys & Girls Clubs of America, VETtoCEO, African Community & Conservation Foundation (ACCF) Ambassador, Longwood University, George Mason University School of Business, SWAAY Magazine, and Xcelocloud Inc.