New York state made claim for $1.2 billion in taxes, interest and penalties from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The state is seeking payment for tax bills dating to 1994, according to the claim form.
Bad luck. Would the head reached out Lehman as they did Goldman, they would have been received at least $1.2bn. Goldman Sachs paid $568m in taxes during the last 13 months. However, it obtained $13bn via AIG and $10bn from the government to keep going, making Goldman’s tax paid equal to 2.5% of the total sum. Not the best return on investment. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency…
Over 80% of the world’s corporate and government data resides on mainframes. Over $5 trillion worth of corporate application and data assets rely on its mainframes today. Almost 95% of Fortune 1000 companies use its Information Management System (IMS) for their most critical data management needs. More than 50 billion transactions—including financial ATM sessions, healthcare record access, tax accounts and other critical information—are running through IMS databases on a daily basis.
All these statements refer to IBM – worldwide data manager with an absolute market power. Most essential global information is directly or indirectly controlled by IBM. Summary of the Computer & Communications Industry Association’s report follows.
Little understood outside the securities industry, the business [high frequency trading] has suddenly become one of the most competitive and controversial on Wall Street… The profits have led to a gold rush, with hedge funds and investment banks dangling million-dollar salaries at software engineers. In one lawsuit, the Citadel Investment Group, a $12 billion hedge fund, revealed that it had paid tens of millions to two top programmers in the last seven years.
Now your investment fund value, or profit if your are Goldman Sachs, depends on how quick you are able to frontrun the market and protect the philosopher’s stone. Read the rest of this opinion »
… Current account has been balanced, inflation is falling back, foreign debt will not exceed 60% of GDP, which is a Maastricht criteria level… Our current account deficit is not in double digits… This is not because the overvalued currency, but because of huge lending… We just need to have more communication…
Latvian year to date trade deficit is LVL -145mn including both goods and services. Its income balance (the rest part of current account) was LVL -300mn in 2008, and the last time it was positive in 2002. But mysteriously, income deficit reversed to a surplus this year! How? Why? What affects? Mr. Rimsevics, can you please communicate on this topic? Read the rest of this opinion »
Aaron Russo – a film maker, political activist and conspiracy theorist. Some of his theses caught my eye, reminding “The Sims” video game. You may get familiar with them in this video.
11:23 Retroactive laws and whether to pay an income tax
16:10 In democracy 51% of the people controls 49% of the people
22:42 Rockefellers’ and banks manifesto
51:10 Money machine, debt, inflation, 1913
1:06:40 Carbon taxes monopoly
Imagine Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, with 546 733 inhabitants, and only 50 new apartments sold in July. 50 – like one bottle of wine per day in the city’s most popular restaurant. Balsas.lt author suspects seasonalities.
However, in my opinion this factor is scrubby. There’s a winter season approaching, and many people already now start thinking how to maintain debts and public utility bills, new electricity prices and so on. Many apartments waiting to be sold now will become a true load for real estate brokers in winter and as a consequence of winterizing (and many other factors) prices is likely to be falling.
Some time passed since the last post in this blog. One might say – nothing happened in Latvia, despite all the effort of the author, and things are going well. Despite huge drops in real GDP, budget deficit, all those real estate and labor problems, or IMF’s bickering regrading credit – Latvia will eventually get out from the hole. God bless those people. But the Latvian government will not. Neither will the central bank.
Now i started to believe that Latvia’s problems emerge due to lack of reliable official information. Let me explain.
Firstly, on 2 of April the Bank of Latvia (BoL) decided that it would be most convenient for all not to disclose where and how much foreign FX reserves of the country are held. It seems of low importance, BoL says, and will protect the country against the speculative attacks of investors. Yes, right, speculators most probably will invade into the financial system, but primarily due to its shitty fundamentals. Show me somebody who cares about where saving are of Latvia are held? Unless they are distributed to the local banks! This subsequently leads to the second thought.
Check one revealing graph:
This is how Latvia’s FX reserve change in how they should have changed according to the officials. The BoL says they only sold EUR 155mn in March. However, comparably FX reserves dropped more than EUR 1bn. Where do money flow? Nobody knows, I won’t be surprised if Mr. Rimsevics also doesn’t know. But I can assume from the current environment that this money is transfered to troubling local banks. The BoL intervenes into the market not directly, but through those arrogant little institutions, I assume. In exchange of being speechless, the banks could be allowed to use some of the FX reserves to sustain liquidity and minimize panic… Ah right! This money could also be stolen or missed in accounting! This leads us to the third and final (oh thanks) point – accounting in Latvian.
Today the press mentioned that foreign creditors of Latvia decided to audit its budget financial performance. Funny and sad they discovered two things. One – the Latvian government does not have any centralized database of revenue collection, its simply doesn’t know from which sources the money is fulfilling the budget. Two – it doesn’t know how many people are currently working in the government and each ministry in general, thus, the government doesn’t know how it spends its money. But they certainly know that devaluation is not possible and fat Santa Claus will visit them in December. I don’t know how they are going to tackle the crisis – cutting somebodies’ heads?
I have never seen a country where political wings are formed according to nationality. Yet, Latvia has succeeded in this field with right-wing parties being comprised almost completely by native Latvians and left-wing parties – by native non-Latvians. Using nationalistic slogans, twisting the truth and playing on the dreadful memories of Latvian folk, right parties have accounted for the major part in Saeima (state parliament) for already 15 years. The global financial crisis gives Latvian citizens a unique chance to check if the ruling parties are seeking prosperity for the state or just personal welfare.
Encouraged by a message from Bank of America with precise projection of Baltics devaluation I have decided to summarize why the analysts could be right in their estimations. Apart from inflation, economic recession and credit crunch, as stated by the BoA, I would like to stress other interrelated macro economic phenomena, which theoretically should be ended by a change in currency rates. Mainly, these are:
Swedbank and Latvia are major friends today. If you listen to someone speaking about Latvia just wait a few moments and you will enjoy expressions about Swedbank. Or other way, if someone is articulating about Swedbank, she will certainly stick few words about Latvia. Causality is uncertain but base is obvious: Swedbank and Latvia are major problems of each other. Latvian currency is losing value, Swedbank – confidence.
A social event recently took place in Vilnius, occupying the entrance of the parlament. As a result of 30% drop in wholesale milk prices during 1h 2008, local farmers decided to arrange a quick protest meeting. All volunteers received milk for free.
During the same time, the price of milk and milk products in grocery decreased by roughly 2%, according to Lithuanian statistics department. In fact, small farmers receive just 12 euro cents for a kg of milk sold to manufacturers. After production, transportation and labour costs as well as related margins it caps to 90 euro cents. An increase of 7.5x
I must admit I don’t have much knowledge in the field of milk processing. But is it a new way to tackle inflation?
This open letter deals with the security issue in your Internet connection system and potential threats it might cause for your customers.
As it is assumed, all competitive IT system administrators should know the fundamental rules on password security (one can read an article here, if it is a new thing). But somehow, I don’t know why – your administrators are using THE SAME PASSWORD on some type of hardware – which account for about 20% of long time using commercial Internet users (this information was collected by my self, and I have found about 168 IP addresses from 255×3 with the same password).
Just imagine if a villain is throwing an attack on this issue. First of all, he will have an opportunity to configure the hardware to be accessible only locally. This means that your engineers will have to visit every “hacked” customer and reconfigure the hardware “by hand”. I just wonder, how many companies are using this hardware about which I’m writing here…
To see an example of my words, please refer to the picture below.
Please find time and reconfigure the hardware remotely, change passwords and keep the security in high level. This will help to sustain reputation, profitability and capitalization either.
Real inflation in Lithuania reaches 6.0% in first five months of 2008 versus 5.8% officially published. Official data is adjusted by new weights structure introduced in the end of 2007, where food loses some contribution. If we use 1996 initial consumer products percentage contribution to total inflation, YTD CPI level reaches 7.1%, which is 1.3% higher than we are spoke by the department of statistics. This holds if official contributors inflation is taken.
To make matters worse, after conducting a small research on food prices I found another less pleasant number. Real current inflation in Lithuania piked by extra 0.6% during five months of 2008. In total, real inflation in Lithuania gets to 6.6%-7.7% level, depending on one of the several methodologies used by the department of statistics. Somewhat more than 5.8%.
From today you will be assigned a criminal status in Lithuania, if you demonstrate the symbols of former Soviet Union, or cite the lyrics of the Soviet anthem. This is to bite Russia. Irrationally. Probably this is a respond to Russian ban on imported Lithuanian cheese products. But instead of finding a jointly beneficial solution, they lift guns. All this is another example demonstrating that here economics is a thing which is discussed equally much as reproduction of wheels or Renaissance influence on Italian international relationships in 16th century.
There are still some people in our government who would spit in any face to raise their rating before 2008 parliament elections of Lithuania. And this post is mostly addressed back to them, reminding some facts of the history, which are too miserable to mention compared to success of few carriers.
Today is the first time since September 26, 2007, when Latvian currency returned to its unpleasantly low position against Euro. However, if in autumn momentum was rising, this time it is the sharpest one day price drop of Lat against EU currency. In one day LVL depreciated more than 0.5%. Is it only a mystery happening each Friday the 13th or financial markets started to doubt in Lat?
Technically 0.7060 level is important for Lat, as it is a second 1-year lowest LVL-EUR rate. If it is broken, we should expect further depreciation until another important limit to test – 0.7074, which is 0.2% higher than Friday’s closing price. This point was reached when Latvia was flooded with SMS’s containing rumors about Lat devaluation. On short term-graph, resistance line is broken, and probably does not already play any significant role. Technically, the question is whether another 0.7060 is a strong resistance level. Economically, not necessarily.
Monday’s, opening price shall judge this interesting case.
This is how Google perceives Lithuanians, or at least some parts of global network located in my country. Just to be on a save side, the keywords chosen by far do not represent the nature of the citizens of Lithuania, but those on a graph made me grin a little. Further analysis is left for your imagination.
Adamkus – is the president of the Republic of Lithuania
Airija – Ireland in Lithuanian language, currently one of the most appealing emigration places of our citizens
Infliacija – is inflation, a thing that a few still are thinking about here
Laime – happiness, something that we all need, but do not seek it, at least in Google.
Mr Andris Skele, once the prime-minister of Latvia and the founder of the currently ruling Tautas partija (Folk’s party), delivered a speech yesterday at the ceremony of awarding the Spidola prize in the field of economics. During this speech he has presented another set of suggestions on improving economic situation in Latvia. I will not consider all his peculiar solutions; however, two of them seemed quite interesting for me to present and to analyze. Read the rest of this opinion »
With this post I would like to announce the beginning of the modest project – sse.lt. As you have probably noticed, it will take the form of a blog with all relevant posting and commenting opportunities.
The blog will be discussing various economic and business issues, presenting independent and creative viewpoints and comments of its authors, each of whom will do his or her best to deliver clear, intellectual and challenging opinion. Apart from that, every interested reader of the blog is very welcomed to argue or support particular statements to have an enjoyable time for all the participants of the project.
It is also vital to give thanks for all those who helped us to implement this idea: every author, who have kindly supported the project with their valuable knowledge; Anatolij, who have set the account and have been maintaining the technical issues; Wordpress, who have provided an easy engine to the web.
All in all, I wish productive and pleasant time spending for everyone who is involved in sse.lt!
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