Certain nations in this world prosper by becoming "tax havens"— by pulling in money from people and entities seeking to avoid taxes in their home countries. They profit as the treasuries of other nations suffer. Now, even some non-utopians are predicting their end.
If you're looking for a job, we highly recommend becoming a corporate board member. The work is easy. The hours are slack. And the pay is absolutely amazing.
Often, when we hear of some finance wizard accumulating a vast fortune at a young age just by moving money around, we grumble, "That rich asshole should just retire and give all his money away to charity." To our amazement, one richie is doing exactly that! Meet James Arnold, the billionaire who acts how you wish billionaires would act.
The precocious and progressive young students of Swarthmore College are currently urging their school to completely rid itself of any investments in fossil fuels. The school pointed out that this move could potentially raise each student's tuition costs by $13,000 per year. Is there any way to make divestment work?
You're a good person, right? You have morals. You would never betray your ethical code. Unless there was a bidding war for your morals— in that case, you could scarcely resist selling out. It's human nature.
In 2012, the hedge fund Clive Capital lost 8.8% for its investors. In return for this negative performance, the fund paid its top partner $33.5 million.
A small handful of huge Wall Street banks are quite literally Too Big to Fail: the failure of any one of these institutions would rip such a large hole in the global economy that we'd all fall in and break our necks. In times of trouble, therefore, these banks will always, always, always be bailed out by the public— by you, and me, and your poor little grandma. We learned this the hard way during the last financial crisis. So what has changed since then? Nothing.
The Dow is at record highs. Are you happy? No, because you are probably broke. And almost half of you people don't even own any stocks at all. Why?
After they took a primary role in making the 2008 global economic meltdown happen, Wall Street's biggest banks listened to their PR advisors and practiced "humility" for a little while. (This means that they continued operating the same way, but sent out a memo instructing employees not to be brash about it.) But now, the stock market is booming again, we're living 2006 all over again, and the big banks have had enough of being pushed around by government regulators who might like to avoid the next huge financial meltdown.
New data from the US Census shows that old folks are becoming ever more likely to need to move into your spare bedroom: "The median level of debt among households led by someone 65 and older..rose nearly 120% between 2000 and 2011 from roughly $12,000 to $26,000, due largely to rising mortgage debt."
