Igor Delovski Board

[delovski]

FT - Lost through destructive creation

"During the past two decades, a wave of innovation has reshaped the way
markets work, in a manner that once seemed able to deliver huge benefits
for all concerned. But this innovation became so intense that it outran the
comprehension of most ordinary bankers – not to mention regulators."

[delovski]

reddit - Rolling Stone: The 12 responsible for the financial crisis

"Meet the bankers and brokers responsible for the financial crisis - and the
officials who let them get away with it."

[delovski]

NYT - The Market Mystique

"But the wizards were frauds, whether they knew it or not, and their magic
turned out to be no more than a collection of cheap stage tricks. Above all,
the key promise of securitization — that it would make the financial system
more robust by spreading risk more widely — turned out to be a lie. Banks
used securitization to increase their risk, not reduce it, and in the process
they made the economy more, not less, vulnerable to financial disruption."

[Ike]

Forbes - Did Goldman Goose Oil?

"How Goldman Sachs was at the center of the oil trading fiasco that
bankrupted pipeline giant Semgroup."

[delovski]

nymag.com - My Manhattan Project

"Ihave been called the devil by strangers and “the Facilitator” by friends. It’s
not uncommon for people, when I tell them what I used to do, to ask if I feel
guilty. I do, somewhat, and it nags at me. When I put it out of mind, it inevi-
tably resurfaces, like a shipwreck at low tide. It’s been eight years since I co-
mpiled a program, but the last one lived on, becoming the industry standard
that seeded itself into every investment bank in the world."

[delovski]

Hydle - An Easily Understandable Explanation of Derivative Markets

"Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit . She realizes that virtually all of
her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer af-
ford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with new
marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later."

[delovski]

AlterNet - The Great American Bank Robbery

"How did the big banks nearly take down the entire economy and still con-
tinue to profit? Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains."

[Ike]

reddit- "The Story of the CDO Market Meltdown: An Empirical
Analysis"

Thesis by 24 year-old Harvard student "everyone is talking about

"... and bring a new appreciation for the true purpose of an investment
bank - providing necessary financial services, not creating unnecessary
products to bolster their own profits.” Ah, the innocence of youth."

[delovski]

marketwatch.com - American investors: Predictably stupid losers

"Yes, I am mad as hell again. Wall Street's soulless, immoral, greedy
bankers really believe that the vast majority of America's 95 million
investors are not only "predictably irrational" but "stupid," as J.P. Mor-
gan Chase's chief investment officer put it in Forbes a while back."

[delovski]

nytimes.com - The Unwisdom of Elites

"But the larger answer, I’d argue, is that by making up stories about our
current predicament that absolve the people who put us here there, we
cut off any chance to learn from the crisis. We need to place the blame
where it belongs, to chasten our policy elites. Otherwise, they’ll do even
more damage in the years ahead."

[XNote]

newyorker.com - A Dirty Business - New York City’s top prosecutor
takes on Wall Street crime

"Kumar recoiled: the paper trail documenting such trades would put him at
risk of exposure, and receiving Galleon trading profits would bring him too
close to Rajaratnam’s illegal business. He didn’t want to know what Raja-
ratnam did with his secrets. As long as he was paid as a consultant, Kumar
felt sufficiently sheltered from the truth."

[Ike]

bloomberg.com - FBI Pulls Off ‘Perfect Hedge’ to Nab New Insider
Trading Class

“It was reminiscent of that scene in ‘Jaws’ where they get their first look at
the shark,” Chaves said. He told Carroll, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

That bigger boat came in the form of a landmark change in the way white-
collar crime is investigated in the U.S., agents said. The only way to uncover
insider trading was to apply the same techniques agents used to dismantle
the Mafia: court- authorized wiretaps of phones, informants and cooperating
witnesses.

[Ike]

economist.com - The rotten heart of finance (Libor)

"Over the past week damning evidence has emerged, in documents detailing
a settlement between Barclays and regulators in America and Britain, that
employees at the bank and at several other unnamed banks tried to rig the
number time and again over a period of at least five years. "

The LIBOR scandal explained:
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/wdiwo/infographic_the_libor_scandal_explained/c5cgac2

[Ike]

A 41-year-old native of Monaco increasingly looks to be to banking what Edward Snowden is to American surveillance

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1oun3e/a_41yearold_native_of_monaco_increasingly_looks/

[Ike]

thepressproject.net - Εconomic adviser to the European Commission
resigns, turns on the politics of austerity

"Behind Legrain’s disdain there is an admission that if Germany and the
ECB helped magnify the crisis then they have not worked hard enough to
solve the problems faced by the eurozone and Greece. Either they made
huge mistakes or knowingly manipulated the situation to suit their interests.

In this narrative there is no rescue of Greece, there is the priority of saving
European banks from collapse during the first 2 years of the crisis and the
protection of the rest of Europe from a Greek default - with Greece’s full
collaboration."

[Ike]

nyt - For the Love of Money

"In my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was
angry because it wasn’t big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children
to raise, no debts to pay, no philanthropic goal in mind. I wanted more
money for exactly the same reason an alcoholic needs another drink: I
was addicted."

...

"I noticed the vitriol that traders directed at the government for limiting
bonuses after the crash. I heard the fury in their voices at the mention of
higher taxes. These traders despised anything or anyone that threatened
their bonuses. Ever see what a drug addict is like when he’s used up his
junk? He’ll do anything — walk 20 miles in the snow, rob a grandma — to
get a fix. Wall Street was like that. In the months before bonuses were
handed out, the trading floor started to feel like a neighborhood in “The
Wire” when the heroin runs out."

[Ike]

(nymag.com) reddit - Reporter sneaks into secret Wall Street fraternity
meeting of CEO's and investment bigwigs

"Once we made it to the lobby, Ross and Lebenthal reassured me that what
I’d just seen wasn’t really a group of wealthy and powerful financiers making
homophobic jokes, making light of the financial crisis, and bragging about
their business conquests at Main Street’s expense. No, it was just a group of
friends who came together to roast each other in a benign and self-
deprecating manner. Nothing to see here."

[Ike]

The Diane Rehm Show - Dan Ariely: "The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

"And when we run our experiment in Israel, we find that the Israelis and
the Americans cheat the same way. When we run it in Turkey, we find the
Turkish and the Americans cheat the same way. The Italian, the Chinese,
the Canadians, everybody cheat the same way in our experiments.

We only found one difference. And the difference we found was when we
went to a bar here in Washington, D.C. and we tempted -- a bar that the
congressional staffers hang out in and we went to a bar in New York City
where bankers hang out and this was the only place we found the dif-
ference in dishonesty. So let me ask you, who do you think is more dis-
honest -- the politicians or the bankers?

Okay. So I'll tell you that most people predict it's the politicians and I
thought so too, but it's the bankers."

[Ike]

The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-witness-20141106

[Ike]

http://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/2vrbyk/hsbc_whistleblower_who_revealed_the_130_billion/

HSBC whistleblower who revealed the 130 BILLION pound FRAUD "I'm now unemployed, my family received death threats, I live in a house somewhere, I'm protected by French police and an intelligence agency" "I can tell you HSBC is involved in bribing important politicians

[delovski]

r - Britain is the most corrupt country in the world

"Britain is the most corrupt country in the world, claims mafia expert Roberto
Saviano: 'It's not the bureaucracy, it's not the police, it's not the politics but
what is corrupt is the financial capital'"

[delovski]

r - A former Wells Fargo employee tells their experience of the scam
that saw employees regularly open multiple accounts (incl credit
cards) for customers without their knowledge - including a banker
that later became their manager.

"It turned into a huge internal investigation that saw a bunch of people get
fired and pretty much all the managers get moved around."

[delovski]

r - ELI5:Wells Fargo Scam

"Bankers get a commission (extra money,) for certain actions. These
usually invoice opening accounts. The more accounts you open, the
more money you get. Commission is a bonus. It's not a requirement
for your base salary. Many banks create a quota of sales that they
expect their bankers to hit. When accounts are opened with certain
products(direct deposit, online banking, etc) is profitable for the bank."

"This type of stuff isn't uncommon, but such a drastic breach across the
board showes that when you create a highly pressured incentive based
system, and punish those who perform poorly, you'll create a corrupt
system. There was no one looking to see if these dates were legitimate,
they only cared that numbers were met."

[delovski]

r - German economy minister slams Deutsche Bank

"Deutsche Bank CEO blames international financial speculators - German
economy minister slams Deutsche Bank : I did not know if I should laugh
or cry that the bank that made speculation a business model is now saying
it is a victim of speculators"

[Ike]

https://news.vice.com/story/its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-right-before-the-great-recession?utm_source=vicenewsfb

Lesson unlearned
America looks ready to embrace the kinds of policies that prevailed before the Great Recession

[delovski]

r - Another Blow to Holding Banks Accountable for the Financial Crisis

"Banks intentionally breaching their contract is not fraud says U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals"

[Ike]

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jun/14/tax-evaders-exposed-why-super-rich-are-even-richer-than-we-thought

Tax evaders exposed: why the super-rich are even richer than we thought

At the time of the leak, HSBC Switzerland was a major actor in the offshore wealth management industry. It managed US$118.4bn ? about 4% of all the foreign wealth managed by Swiss banks. This is a unique source of information through which to study tax evasion, because the leak can be seen as a random event, and it comes from a large (and, the available evidence suggests, representative) offshore bank

[Ike]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7gka3b/evidence_some_bitcoin_address_generation_code_is/dqjrcmr/

Evidence some bitcoin address generation code is using discoverable private keys

[delovski]

r - Goldman Sachs-Backed Startup just Bought Poloniex

"With the expansion, Circle is laying the groundwork for a day when crypto-
currencies become pervasive, prices grow less volatile, and the utility of digital
tokens goes undisputed. If most of the dozens of exchanges competing today
are just places to buy and sell coins, Circle has loftier ambitions: It wants to
eventually help consumers turn their trading profits into a Tesla, a mortgage,
or a portfolio of blue chips. Circle has ample funds, mainstream investors,
sophisticated tech, a new network of customers annexed from Poloniex -- and,
with some luck, a legitimate chance at building the bank of the next century
around crypto-finance."

[Ike]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/8ebc6n/in_australia_there_is_currently_an_investigation/

In Australia there is currently an investigation into banks and their practices, and the results are frightening

Come 2018, we have 20/20 hindsight. Serious evidence has come to light. The sector has been exposed with a litany of issues ? compliance breaches, poor financial advice, incentive misalignments, alleged market manipulation of the bank bill swap rate, misleading and deceptive conduct, fraud, cultural problems and unethical practices. It is hard nowadays not to find someone in the street who would be vehemently opposed to a royal commission into the banking industry.

[Ike]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/04/jpmorgan-says-next-crisis-will-feature-flash-crashes-and-social-unrest.html

[delovski]

r - Danske Bank CEO quits in $234 billion money laundering scandal

"The Estonian non-resident portfolio included customers from Russia, Azer-
baijan, Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states, the investigation, which began a
year ago after the Berlingske newspaper revealed alleged misconduct at the
branch, found."

[Ike]

https://sputniknews.com/business/202001161078000377-world-economy-would-collapse-if-city-of-london-stopped-laundering-money-says-hsbc-whistleblower/

World Economy Would Collapse' If City of London Stopped Laundering Money, Says HSBC Whistleblower

[Ike]

r - For anyone wondering what the whole WSB / GameStop situation is all about

"Hedge funds have been shorting Gamestop for years slowing driving the price
down. Shorting is selling stock you dont own so you can buy it back later for a
lower price. Some people on reddit noticed that the stock was undervalued,
and heavily shorted. Heavily as in people sold 140% of the all the stock that
exists. They bought, and convinced others to buy. Now we hedge funds are in
a squeeze."