The FP Power Map. Is it possible to identify the 500 most powerful individuals on the planet -- one in 14 million? That's what we tried to do with the inaugural FP Power Map, our inventory of the people who control the commanding heights of the industries that run the world, from politics to high finance, media to energy, warfare to religion. Think of it as a list of all the most important other lists. Here's how they stack up -- and why (sorry, declinists!) Americans are still No. 1 in pretty much everything that matters.
Sources and Methods: Where possible, we took a "list of lists" approach, consulting the authoritative rankings for a given industry and substituting judgment where quantitative assessments do not exist. Median CEO pay rises to $9.7 million in 2012. CEO pay has been going in one direction for the past three years: up. The head of a typical large public company made $9.7 million in 2012, a 6.5 percent increase from a year earlier that was aided by a rising stock market, according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data from Equilar, an executive pay research firm. CEO pay, which fell two years straight during the Great Recession but rose 24 percent in 2010 and 6 percent in 2011, has never been higher. Companies say they need to pay CEOs well so they can attract the best talent, and that this is ultimately in the interest of shareholders.
But shareholder activists and some corporate governance experts say many CEOs are being paid far above what is reasonable or what their performance merits. Pay for all U.S. workers rose 1.1 percent in 2010, 1.2 percent in 2011 and 1.6 percent last year — not enough to keep up with inflation. The highest paid CEO was Leslie Moonves of CBS, who made $60.3 million. . — THE SHAREHOLDER REVOLUTION? Professor Anat Admati Named to FDIC Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee. Finance faculty member Anat Admati has been appointed to the FDIC Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee to provide advice and recommendations on a broad range of issues related to Congress' Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS - Anat Admati , who is George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business , has been appointed to a two-year term on the newly-formed Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) , beginning in June 2011. An independent agency created by Congress to maintain stability and public confidence in the nation's financial system, the FDIC insures deposits in banks and thrift institutions; identifies, monitors and addresses risks to the deposit insurance funds; and limits the effect on the economy and the financial system when a bank or thrift institution fails. Why Bank Equity Is Not Expensive. Since the 2008 market crash, banking interests and economists have clashed over how much of their operations banks should fund with equity as opposed to debt. Bankers and others often say that, "equity is expensive.
" By contrast, a recent paper, coauthored by three faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, argues that this conventional wisdom is incorrect, and that, "Quite simply, bank equity is not expensive from a social perspective, and high leverage is not required in order for banks to perform all their socially valuable functions. " STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—When the financial markets crashed two years ago, Americans discovered that all too many banks and financial institutions became distressed because of their high degree of leverage. Since then, regulators, economists, and the banking industry have jousted over the question of how much equity capital banks should hold.
Key Arguments That argument is "fundamentally flawed," the researchers maintain. Costly Tax Loophole Remains Open. Every year, wealthy investors and corporations avoid paying millions of dollars in property taxes in California by exploiting a large loophole in state law that homeowners are not allowed to use. Earlier this year, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco authored legislation that would finally close this loophole. But earlier this month, his bill, AB 188, stalled in the Assembly's Committee on Revenue and Taxation. Ammiano's legislation is designed to change a key section of California's tax code that currently allows some property owners to transfer interests in real estate without triggering a legal change in ownership. Avoiding an ownership change prevents reassessment of the property.
Due to California's Proposition 13, one of the only ways that property can be reassessed to reflect its actual value is when a change in ownership is registered. Thus, the legal loophole has allowed wealthy investors and corporations to game the state's tax system for decades. Taxing Corporate Profits will Force Investment. Heiner Flassbeck: Corporations are sitting on mountains of cash and are unwilling to invest in the real economy - only high taxes on profit will make them do so - Bio Professor Dr.
Heiner Flassbeck Graduated in April 1976 in economics from Saarland University, Germany, concentrating on money and credit, business cycle theory and general philosophy of science; obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the Free University, Berlin, Germany in July 1987. 2005 he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Hamburg. Employment started at the German Council of Economic Experts, Wiesbaden between 1976 and 1980, followed by the Federal Ministry of Economics, Bonn until January 1986; chief macroeconomist in the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin between 1988 and 1998, and State Secretary (Vice Minister) from October 1998 to April 1999 at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Bonn, responsible for international affairs, the EU and IMF.
Transcript End Comments. Public Banking in America - Coalition, conferences and more public banking information. Thousands are being freed of debt - Positive News. France creates Robin Hood Tax - Positive News. Banks Win Big as Regulators Refuse to Rein in $700 Trillion Derivatives Market. Bill Black: Weakness of financial regulators shows you can not "tame the scorpion" - Bio William K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC).
He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. Comments. Regulating Shadow Banking - viewcontent.cgi. 12367-00_FM_rev.qxd - 2010b_bpea_gorton.pdf.
Darrell Duffie: Big Risks Remain In the Financial System. It’s hard to believe now, but top U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve officials were remarkably sanguine in September 2008 about a possible collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. “I never once considered it appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line,” declared Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at the time. Privately, top officials had been predicting that a Lehman bankruptcy would hardly come as a surprise. Its trading partners and creditors had known for months that Lehman was in a death spiral. Everybody had had time to prepare. Wrong. It turned out that a major money-market fund, Reserve Primary Fund, had been holding $785 million in Lehman debt that suddenly became worthless. People still disagree about whether the government could or should have saved Lehman.
Darrell Duffie , the Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business, was shaken as well. "We academics hadn't connected the dots very well," he said recently. Field Research as a Tool for Poverty Alleviation. STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — Among the most complex contributors to poverty in developing nations are lack of access to savings and credit by individuals, poor management practices in industry, operational inefficiencies among entrepreneurs, and bribery throughout supply chains.
But can small, strategic research interventions make a difference? And can they point the way to more comprehensive efforts that governments, agencies, and corporations may make to improve the economic lives of millions, or even billions of people worldwide? Evidence from Kenya and India suggest that the answer is yes, according to researchers who presented results of field demonstration projects from these countries at a March forum on “Entrepreneurship for Poverty Alleviation in Developing Economies.” One such success story was in Kenya, where less than 20% of the population uses banks. The intervention significantly improved fabric quality, inventory levels, and productivity. Lending in the Dark by Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space HONG KONG – The proliferation of China’s opaque, loosely regulated (or unregulated) shadow-banking system has been raising fears of possible financial instability.
But just how extensive – and how risky – is shadow banking in China? According to the China Banking Regulatory Commission, shadow banking (all credit not regulated by the same standards as conventional bank loans) increased from ¥800 billion ($130 billion) in 2008 to ¥7.6 trillion in 2012 (roughly 14.6% of GDP). Total off-balance-sheet banking activity in China – composed of credits to property developers (30-40%), local-government entities (20-30%), and small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), individuals, and bridge-loan borrowers – was estimated to be as high as ¥17 trillion in 2012, roughly one-third of GDP.
Shadow banking in China is dominated by lending to higher-risk borrowers, such as local governments, property developers, and SMEs. How Shadow Banks Rule the World. By Martin Hesse and Anne Seith, SPIEGEL Nov. 18, 2012 Beyond the banking world, a parallel universe of shadow banks has grown in the form of hedge funds and money market funds. They're outside the reach of conventional financial regulation, prompting authorities to plan introducing new rules to prevent the obscure sector from triggering a new financial crisis. But in doing so they risk drying up an important source of funding to banks and firms. In the financial world, there is a narrow divide between heaven and hell. Frenchman Loïc Féry realized this when he was 33. That was in 2007. Féry launched a hedge fund in London . But the Frenchman, who has become so successful that he was able to buy a first-division football club, FC Lorient, insists that companies like his make "a positive contribution to the real economy," because they manage risks professionally.
Growing Concern About Lack of Regulation. Apple Achieves Holy Grail of Tax Avoidance. Bill Black: Senate questions CEO Tim Cook how company earned $30 billion in 'international' profits while paying zero taxes - Bio William K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. Transcript End Comments. No desks. No staff. No tax. Ireland’s shadow banks - Financial Services News | Business News | The Irish Times - Sat, May 11, 2013. So many companies are listed in the marble-tiled, plant-filled foyer that there are no brass plates or printed guides. Instead, it takes a computer to search through them all. This is 5 Harbourmaster Place, a Celtic Tiger-era chrome-and-glass building at the edge of the International Financial Services Centre, in Dublin.
It might not look big enough to house them all, but this modest-sized building is home to about 250 companies. One is Orpington Structured Finance I. It has gross assets of €1.7 billion, which would make it one of the most valuable firms in Ireland. It is one of hundreds of so-called financial-vehicle corporations, which are companies set up to house or trade in securitised investments, in other words to package and resell loans. The term spread almost as fast as the financial crisis, and regulators and governments have been mobilising ever since to try to map this largely uncharted world. But detractors question whether the benefits really stack up. Time for ‘passivity’ on mortgage arrears has passed - Honohan - Financial Services News | Business News | The Irish Times - Thu, May 23, 2013. The time for “passivity” on mortgage arrears in Ireland has long since passed, Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan said today. Speaking at a conference hosted by UCD and NUI Maynooth in Dublin, Mr Honohan said the persistent rise in cases of prolonged mortgage arrears “undoubtedly presents one of the biggest economic policy challenges of our day”.
“Wait-and-see may have been an appropriate or sufficient initial position to take as the great crisis unfolded, but the time for passivity is long past,” he said. “The longer term welfare of borrowers is at stake here, but so is the welfare of taxpayers and users of public services, given that bank losses affect the Government because of its ownership of banks.” Mr Honohan said significant numbers of soured mortgages may be able to come “back on track.” “The triage process needs to start with the question: is this a distressed case, or one in which the borrower does have the capacity to come back on track?’’ Additional reporting - Bloomberg. Banks 'guilty of serious failings' in small-business sales. 29 June 2012Last updated at 02:53 ET Just when Britain's banks would have loved some positive publicity, the City watchdog - the Financial Services Authority - has said they were guilty of serious failings in the way they sold complicated products to small businesses that were supposed to protect those businesses from sharp rises in interest rates.
In practice, some of these swaps or interest-rate hedging products increased the borrowing costs of struggling companies or prevented them from taking advantage of the sharp fall in interest rates since 2008. The FSA has found that 28,000 of these products were sold to small businesses since 2001. It said it found instances where the banks failed to explain the risks the customers were taking on, or did not disclose the big costs of cancelling in a proper way, or forced customers into naked speculation on the direction of interest rates. Community development funds - gender. CDFI Fund - U.S. Treasury - New Markets Tax Credit Program.
A Rothschild Speaks - Listen Closely. Koch Brothers Convene Super-Secret Billionaires' Meeting for 2012 Elections. With Runaway Greed Infecting Corporate America, Maybe It's Time to Start Talking About a Maximum Wage Again. Warren Buffett Matches Student Katie Murphy's $300 Donation To Decrease Budget Deficit. Recession and real estate in India. 2012 REIT Outlook. Investing in REITs: Real Estate Investment Trusts - Ralph L. Block. Investing in REITs: Real Estate Investment Trusts - Ralph L. Block. Disruptive Payments Network Dwolla Now Provides Users With Instant Access To Cash. Dwolla Raises $5 Million Series B From Union Square Ventures & Others.