Is The New York Government Extortionists?

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Asking the question “Is The New York Government Extortionists” actually saddens me quite a bit.

Here is the problem, the New York Attorney General is displaying bullying like behavior, and actually stands to benefit financially by going after financial firms.  Now if a company is crooked, I say go for it, but I’ve seen them go after quite a few companies that were innocent and even stalwarts in the financial industry, and any reasonable person with common sense would be able to see that their lawsuits don’t make sense.

Let’s take their most recent lawsuit against JPMorgan…  JPMorgan (which is one of the few companies that really didn’t need to take a bailout and runs a pretty tight ship overall, excluding the London whale fluke) was a savior during the “Great Recession”, taking a bailout that it didn’t need, and acquiring obviously toxic assets (from Bears and Sterns) to save the economy.  They weren’t bottom feeding, the were acting in the best interest of American and doing their part to save the country!  The government came to them (since the government realized that JPMorgan was solid) and asked JPMorgan to basically help save the economy, which JPMorgan did (actually the original JP Morgan has a history of saving the country, check out this article: Panic of 1907: J.P. Morgan Saves the Day).

So basically, JPMorgan was a critical element that help divert a financial systemic collapse of the economy!  They took the broken company Bears and Stern, and basically worked on fixing the problem with that company, and at a loss to boot!

Now the New York Government, who by all accounts should know that the Bears and Stern executives aren’t managing the toxic assets anymore, and obviously have to know that JPMorgan company is like a hero to the country, are attacking the saviors, one of the saviors of the “Great Recession”!

To me, it looks like such a government offices are crooked and acting like extortionist!  Perhaps honor really is dead, at least in the New York government system?  To me they seem cold and unappreciative!  To use an analogy, it’s like a person starving, ready to die, JPMorgan (Jaime Dimon) give that person food and shelter, then that person (much like New York) assaults and robs their house!

I have to admit, it really makes me question the intelligence and logic of the government in New York.  I wonder if they don’t understand that the executives that ran Bears and Sterns was the problem, not the JPMorgan management team?  Shoot, I even wonder if they are rational humans?  They sure don’t appear to be on the surface.

Jaime Dimon and JPMorgan didn’t have to pick up the Bears and Stern’s toxic assets!  And after such an attack said he probably wouldn’t do so in the future if the government asked him to do it again!  Read his full comments here: JPMorgan’s Dimon hits back at government over Bear Stearns suit!

Mr. Dimon, having foresight even back then, said the following to those government folks asking him to buy the poisonous Bears and Stern’s assets:

Dimon went on to recount how he warned a senior regulator at the time of the deal to “please take into consideration when you want to come after us down the road for something that Bear Stearns did, that JPMorgan was asked to do this by the federal government.”

He added that JPMorgan, which will report its third-quarter earnings on Friday, will come out fine in the end. But if he is ever put in a similar position again, he said he “wouldn’t do it.”

“I’m a big boy. I’ll survive,” he said. “But I think the government should think twice before they punish business every single time things go wrong.”

To me, this is just another way the government is taking money from the shareholders and putting it in their own coffers.  I honestly think that it’s an invisible tax or a form of extortion!  I say extortion because most companies settle out of court because it’s cheaper that way.

What do you think?  Isn’t it unjust when a government attacks companies because they know that the can extort money out of them in the form of a settlement?  Please tell me if I’m missing something about JPMorgan?

Don

Use ESPP Money To Fund My Roth IRA

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After re-reading my article called “Roth IRA Unusual Benefits“, I decided to start focusing on contributing to my Roth IRA again because the benefits are just too incredible!

It’s been a hard path for me because I’ve been participating in my employer’s ESPP (read “Getting Over 15% Return By Saving Money In An ESPP“).  So in the ESPP, I have been contributing 10% of my salary into it so that I could get the instant 15% discount on the purchase price that the program offers every quarter!  I then sell the company stock I buy with the ESPP.  It has been a great way to make a cool, extra 15% on 10% of my salary a year!

Cash in Hand

But now I think I want to take that extra money that I gain from participating in the ESPP and use my ESPP money to fund my Roth IRA.  The ESPP money would include both my contributions and earning from the plan.

Using my ESPP to fund my Roth IRA will make the ESPP a friendly, but (almost) forced saving program for funding my Roth IRA.  In fact, the ESPP is a perfect instrument for this, and I regret not thinking of it earlier!

Why is ESPP such a great instrument to fund a Roth IRA?

  1. Once I sell the shares in the ESPP, all of what I sold is taxable.  So since it’s already taxed why not use it to fund my Roth?
  2. It’s a painless way to save the money up slowly throughout the year.  The idea is to contribute at least $1,000 per quarter directly into the Roth IRA as the amounts become available.
  3. Most of the ESPP money would go into investments anyway, so why not buy investments in a Roth that won’t be taxed EVER again?
  4. Knowing that the ESPP is special money that is to be used to fund my Roth IRA, makes it easier to use for the Roth IRA.  This is a mental trick of course, but it works.

So now you know my future plans for the money I save and gain in an ESPP.  Do you use any special money trick or tips to fund your Roth IRA?

My ESPP planning keeps getting better and better the more I think about it!

Don

Sometimes Local Talent Is Better Talent

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What if the local Talent is really the better talent?

Strategy and the ability to create quality systems and software is not location specific!

Ten years ago, one of my projects that I was working on was to developer a knowledge-base at work.  Now I live in the midwest area of the country, and so the area isn’t exactly know as a technological powerhouse for talent, or so that’s the common believe.

While juggling projects, I came up with the idea at work of developing an online website that would serve as a knowledge-base and command console for the computer applications and the various systems at where I worked.  My passion was to create a documenting and tool site especially for not commonly updated applications that can be hard to remember how to work with, and a reminder piece to keep the documents up to date!  So I started the project, and to my surprise took it to a level that I’ve never seen before.  It was a system that made even the canned software version that were fat client based (installed on your workstation instead of an online website) look lame in comparison.  I’m not going to get to technical here, but it had features that later would be seen in products like Microsoft Sharepoint (but my application was 5 years earlier) and it even had other features that I still haven’t seen on the market.  Needless to say, it was very powerful and all the local users of the knowledge-base loved it.

Huh?

 

Sometimes Corporate Politics Kill a Great Product

The application/website had some internal mechanism like a checking mechanism that would email document owner if the document hasn’t been updated within the past 6 months.  This ensured that the documents in the system were both relevant and up to date.  It had an intuitive and quick interface that was easy to add/edit and delete entries, and it was integrated with the Microsoft Active Directory so no logon page was associated with it.  It would just allow the users to see stuff based on their AD logon and groups that they were in.  It was so easy.  And another nice “advanced” feature of the site was that it was automated or self maintained by the users of the system.  Changes were archived so they could be reviews via a reporting element for managers too. So there wasn’t any operations cost of the product, so it cost less to own since it was automated and end-user maintained.

Then a VP (that didn’t use my knowledge-base website or know of the functional or cost benefits) heard that there was a version in corporate headquarters that existed and axed the knowledge-base that I designed and created, without even reviewing my site or asking others opinions about the move.  This made the users of my site and me disappointed, but we figured as long as a knowledge-base existed it would be good.

That didn’t turn out to be the case!  The “official” knowledge base sucked, it had a separate login, and the functionality and interface was horrible!  Those that used my version found the “official” knowledge base a pain and stopped using the “official corporate” knowledge base site all together.

I recently reviewed the “official” site again, and although it a bit prettier (thanks to CSS), it’s still missing the logic to make it a great product.  Sharepoint has stolen some of its thunder though too, although I find Sharepoint a pain to work with to because of the way it’s structured (at least where I use to work), its much better than the corporate knowledge-base.  I would have brought the site to the market place to sell, but my employer made us all sign a form that states anything that we develop on company time, is the companies.   So even though the product wasn’t use by the company, I couldn’t sell it.  Needless to say, it was a somewhat frustrating experience!

So in conclusion, sometimes your local talent may be as good or perhaps a lot better than the talent located in the big cities or state know for technology.  I think it shows poor leadership skill when a VP doesn’t even review a product or asked the users of the product if it has value.  Hopefully your employer’s VPs are more clever than the VPs of the company that I use to work at.

Thanks for reading my rant,

Don

 

Are You Always Ready To Fight Financially?

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In many ways, we are at war on the personal finance front.  We are continually getting bombarded with spending opportunities (really traps and tricks), both from TV and peers.  We need to be ready to fight financially to get the best deals and protect our financial health.

Technology is continually being improved which means that what you buy today is already obsolete and you’ll have to buy something new iPhone X or some other new cool gizmo next year (if not next month).  And both fortunately and unfortunately, those devices really do add value versus the devices of just a few years ago (I consider those devices toys).  I’ve even heard that many are buying smart devices (iPhones, etc) over cars.  So the young people of today would rather have a smart phone than a car!  Wow, that’s a dramatic change from when I was a kid.

Photo by jannoon028

Okay, I went off topic!  The point is that there are so many things and way to buy those things that we, the financially prudent, are in a constant state of battle trying to become wealthy by saving and increasing our money.  It’s not an easy fight to avoid, especially with ourselves!

Tricks & ways that I fight spending consist of not spending on expensive things on the same day that I’ve seen them.  I purposely take my time and think about my purchases rather than just do it.  Ha, the slogan “Just Do It” doesn’t apply to financial intelligence and wealth accumulation, and in fact, it might seriously harm your financial base!

Often with just a little effort and thought, you can find ways to do something cheaper or buy something for a better price.  It’s just a matter of looking for them!  This is why lottery winners lose their wealth so quickly, they don’t have fight a good fight on the financial front!

So don’t “Just Do It”, instead keep your guard up and look for bargains!

Fight hard to win!

Don