By: Matthew Arndt, CFA, CPA, CFP | December 20, 2010 | The Politicians, Wall Street Ethics

As head of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag played a powerful and key role in shaping public policies such as the first stimulus package and the recent health-care reform legislation. Recently he has stepped down as OMB director to accept a senior position in the investment banking arm at Citigroup, an institution [...]

By: Matthew Arndt, CFA, CPA, CFP | December 14, 2010 | Investor Information, Who Can I Trust?

It seems that news sources have been inundating us with the opinions of economists that have stated if the Bush tax cuts are not maintained that we will all be in trouble. These economists all claim to be “experts” at determining where the economy is going. These are the very same experts that did not [...]

By: Matthew Arndt, CFA, CPA, CFP | February 1, 2010 | The Politicians, The Regulators

It’s conceptually simple: take away any government protection for stockholders, management and creditors of large financial institutions to help shrink their appetite for risk-taking. For instance, in the case of the Bear Stearns debacle stockholders should have been wiped out; management should have been fired; and the bondholders should have suffered significant losses. Instead, stockholders [...]

By: Matthew Arndt, CFA, CPA, CFP | January 22, 2010 | The Politicians, The Regulators

There is a developing proposal that requires congressional approval which is intended to limit among other things speculative trading activity at large banks that receive blanket guarantees from U.S. taxpayers through FDIC insurance and other Governmental assurances. Branded the Volcker Rule after its originator former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, it imposes tougher standards on [...]

By: Matthew Arndt, CFA, CPA, CFP | December 7, 2009 | The Politicians, The Regulators

Either some journalists are really naïve or they are complicit in trying to pull the wool over taxpayers’ eyes. Today’s headline, US Cuts Estimate of Bank Bailout Costs and the statement, “The Obama administration had estimated the cost to taxpayers of the $700-billion Troubled Asset relief Program, or TARP, would be $341 billion but now [...]

By: Matthew Arndt, CFA, CPA, CFP | June 24, 2009 | The Politicians, The Regulators, Wall Street Ethics

In a story that has gone for the most part unnoticed, Citigroup and Bank of America, both of whom have received massive infusions of taxpayer money in the past year, are now scheming to get around the recent limits being placed on annual bonuses.  Both are expected to raise base salaries for investment bankers and [...]