Madoff
Planned Everything, Cried Before Arrest, Jury Told - (www.bloomberg.com) Bernard
Madoff planned
every detail of his firm’s demise in the days before he was arrested five years
ago today to avoid being marched past his 200 employees in handcuffs, the con
man’s former finance chief told a jury. Madoff, in papers spread across his
desk, wrote a series of names and dates in a schedule of events leading up to
the exact day his $17 billion Ponzi scheme would finally come to light, Frank
DiPascali,
the former executive, testified yesterday in Manhattan federal court in the
trial of five ex-colleagues. DiPascali, who joined Madoff’s company as a
researcher in 1975, when he was 19 years old, said he learned of the plan
during a private meeting on Dec. 3, 2008, about a week before his arrest, after
Madoff had been “staring out the window all day.” “He turned to me and said,
crying, ‘I’m at the end of my rope,’” DiPascali told a jury. When DiPascali
expressed confusion, Madoff shouted, “I don’t have any more goddamned money --
don’t you get it? The whole goddamn thing is a fraud!”
Volcker
Rule Change Lets Banks Continue Muni Market Speculation - (www.bloomberg.com) U.S. financial regulations that curb banks’
ability to speculate with their own money included an exemption for the $3.7
trillion municipal bond market after issuers complained the rules could
increase borrowing costs. The Volcker Rule, issued today by regulators, allows
banks to invest in securities issued by states, localities and government
agencies. A draft version would have barred the practice with debt sold by
agencies and authorities. The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has
estimated that such issuers account for about 40 percent of municipal bonds. The
change is a victory for borrowers and municipal securities dealers that pressed
regulators to broaden the exemption. Without it, agencies that sell bonds for
public works projects said they might have faced higher borrowing costs by
eliminating banks as investors.
Protesters
halt Google's commuter bus in San Francisco - (abclocal.go.com) People
are angry in one San Francisco neighborhood over what they call an invasion by
dozens of private shuttle buses operated by tech companies that take their
employees to and from work. They are large buses that ferry people to and from
Silicon Valley and they drive around in the Mission District during the evening
commute. The buses are from companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and
Genentech and often stop at public bus stops in the Mission District, which
sometimes cause problems for traffic and for buses operated by Muni. During the
morning commute hour on Monday a group of activists decided that they had
enough and marched right onto Valencia and 24th streets. Protesters say they
were just doing what the city wouldn't: Penalizing Google for parking at a city
bus stop. "They're not allowed to use these bus stops. They don't have a
permit, they use over 200 of them in the city, and stop there, thousands and
thousands of times," San Francisco Displacement and Neighborhood Impact
Agency spokesperson Leslie Dreyer said. The fine would be $271 if it were
enforced.
The rich do not pay the most taxes, they pay
ALL the taxes - (www.cnbc.com) Buried
inside a Congressional Budget Office report this week was this nugget: when it
comes to individual income taxes, the top 40 percent of wage earners in America
pay 106 percent of the taxes. The bottom 40 percent...pay negative 9 percent. You read that right. One group is paying more
than 100 percent of individual income taxes, the other is paying less than
zero. It's right there in Table 3 on page 13 of the report. The numbers are
based on 2010 IRS and Census Bureau figures. How does someone pay negative
taxes? The CBO's formula offsets whatever taxes are paid with "refundable
tax credits." Some of these are due to "government transfers" of
money back to the taxpayer in the form of social security and food stamps.
Why state tax collections may be set to fall NYT - (www.cnbc.com) While
states are continuing to see modest progress in their struggle to dig out from
the 2008 recession, the era of chronic budget instability and wholesale service
cuts appears to have ended, according to a report released Tuesday by the
National Association of State Budget Officers. The rate of revenue growth in
2014, however, is expected to be significantly lower than in 2013, the report
said. Of particular concern to budget officers was a falloff in the taxes that
states are projected to collect this fiscal year, said the executive director
of the association, Scott Pattison. Growth is expected to be essentially flat —
0.8 percent — in the 2014 fiscal year, which started in October, compared with
an estimated 5.7 percent increase a year before. One reason for the smaller
growth was a one-time surge of revenue in 2013 due to changes in federal tax
laws that led some individuals, particularly the most wealthy, to sell assets
before Jan. 1, 2013, to avoid higher rates for capital gains and dividends.
China
New Loans Exceed Estimates - (www.bloomberg.com)
EU States Move Toward Clash With Lawmakers on Bank Plan - (www.bloomberg.com)
EU States Move Toward Clash With Lawmakers on Bank Plan - (www.bloomberg.com)
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