Generation 2.0: Do you want to make more money? A good friend is all you need

Are you tired to watch your money go up and down?... keep in touch with your schoolmates.

Harvard Business School's Lauren Cohen and Christopher J. Malloy, along with University of Chicago colleague Andrea Frazzini, investigated the ties between more than 1,800 sell-side analysts and the management of public firms, and the subsequent performance of stock recommendations. The study is titled "Sell-side school ties" and suggests that agents in financial markets can gain informational advantages through social networks. Data on the educational background of sell-side analysts and senior corporate officers shows that analysts outperform by up to 6.60% per year on their stock recommendations when they have an educational link to a company.

It seems to be what happened with Raj Rajaratnam.

In 2009 he was arrested by the FBI on allegations of insider trading and on May 11, 2011 was found guilty of conspiracy and securities fraudnews. With more than $60 million, it was the largest hedge fund insider trading case in United States history. Rajaratnam allegedly profited from information received from Robert Moffat, an IBM executive, Rajiv Goel, an Intel Capital executive, and Anil Kumar, a McKinsey & Company executive. It was reported that Rajaratnam, Goel and Kumar were all of class of 1983 from Wharton business school.

According to a famous saying, who finds a friend, finds a treasure! 

Capitalism at it's finest

A 78 percent return. $726 million profit. John Paulson, the hedge fund king, put his money on the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Paulson, in fact, bought Lehman bonds after the collapse of the bank at an average price of 13 cents per dollar.
Now with any plan to get some compensation to creditors, according to Wall Street Journal, Paulson will come out with his pockets full of money. 

If, therefore, even the rival plan sponsored by Goldman Sachs was approved, Paulson would earn $350 million. However, at least another hedge fund still could contend the prize for the most profitable bet on Lehman: the unknown Owl Creek Asset Management may make a profit of $71.6 million, a yield of 94% on the initial investment. Money makes money

John Paulson is not related to former Goldman Sachs CEO and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

Will we ever see anyone caring for our poor asses?

Many people from Wall Street think inflation is now the biggest threat to the U.S. economy. In Brooklyn many more than Wall Steet's rather think the biggest threat is falling into another recession. 

Who is right?

Meanwhile the most significant economic news from the first quarter of 2011 is the decline in real wages. 

In fact, millions of Americans, in order to keep their jobs, are accepting lower wages. 

What do you get like this?

The only thing you get is consumers who can't buy enough to keep the economy going.

Why doesn't Wall Street get it?

How Asia Copes with America’s Zombie Consumers

NEW HAVEN – Asia needs a new model consumer. A post-crisis generation of zombie consumers in the United States is likely to hobble growth in global consumption for years to come. And that means that export-led developing Asia now has no choice but to turn inward and rely on its own 3.5 billion consumers.

Of course, this is not the first time that Asia has had to cope with the walking economic dead. Japan’s corporate zombies were at the epicenter of its first lost decade in the 1990’s. Sclerotic companies were put on life-support credit lines by their zaibatsu – like banking partners – delaying their inevitable failure and perpetuating inefficiencies and disincentives that resulted in a post-bubble collapse in Japanese productivity growth.

Similarly, the crisis of 2008-2009 led to zombie-creating bailouts in the West. From Wall Street to AIG to Detroit, the US was quick to rescue corporate giants that would have failed otherwise. Britain and Europe did the same, throwing lifelines to RBS, HBOS-Lloyds, Fortis, Hypo Real Estate, and others. In the West, the excuse was too big to fail. How different is that from Japan’s mindset nearly 20 years ago?

US shutdown: regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race

Sometime ago Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Chinese President Hu Jintao a "dictator". It was surely right but it wasn't ok. Why?.
When questioned on congressional Democrats' end-of-year compromise with Republicans that gave tax cuts to America's highest earners, Reid spoke about the need for Democrats to work within the system as it exists - a system, he said, that is very different than that of China. That was all right too,  so what's the matter? I myself agreed on it, if he would mean just that but he didn't unfortunately.

Beckhams are 'too working class' for posh Haberdashers' Aske's school

"As soon as you're born they make you feel small/By giving you no time instead of it all/Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all/A working class hero is something to be/A working class hero is something to be /They hurt you at home and they hit you at school/They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool/Till you're so crazy you can't follow their rules/A working class hero is something to be/A working class hero is something to be...".

John Lennon was right that's why he had been killed. After a bank worker fired for Facebook post comparing her £7-an-hour wage to Lloyds boss's £4,000-an-hour salary, someone was proud to write "the Beckhams are too working class". The comments were made on the popular internet site Mumsnet, the website set up by mothers to give advice on parenting and family issues. Beckhams' apparent choice of £14,000-a-year Haberdashers’ Aske’s upset somebody. One former Haberdashers’ pupil, calling herself crazygracieuk, wrote: "David and Victoria are working class". Is this Cameron's Big Society?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1373853/Beckhams-working-class-posh-Haberdashers-Askes-school.html#ixzz1ImFzk8S7