All posts by blogger

The Fractional Reserve Banking Fraud

By blogger on

Fractional reserve banking and the fraud that came with it is at the core of the present-day financial system. In order to grasp an understanding of the ongoing dilemma, and why Federal Reserve Banks are at fault, it is essential to understand the concept of Fractional Reserve Banking and why it is more than just counterfeiting.

Contrary to what is believed, the American dollars in your bank account are not the same dollars in the form of cash (Federal Reserve Notes) in your wallet. The dollars in the banks are make believe paper dollars, or numbers on a computer created by the bank an obligation or promissory note to pay you a certain dollars in Federal Reserve Notes. Simply stated, the bank backs the dollars in your bank account while the Federal Reserve backs the Federal Reserve Notes.

Throughout time, gold was the only existing currency. Purchasing your daily loaf of bread with pure gold did not seem practical and for that reason, goldsmiths served as early bankers. Goldsmiths would issue certificates that were backed by gold and this allowed people to purchase things with paper money. This paper money was represented by pure physical gold bullion and was stored in the goldsmiths vaults.

Producing certificates to look after gold meant that a significant amount of cash (gold) was just sitting around in storage. So the goldsmiths decided to start a fraud. When this happened, they became the bankers we know today.

Creating this fraud was really simple. Given that people did not know how much gold was actually stored, it was easy for goldsmiths to issue out more certificates than the gold being stored. By doing this, they attempted to earn more interest than would have been possible if they would have limited themselves to loan based on the gold stored. These goldsmiths relied on the assumption that not all of the certificates would be cashed in at the same time and therefore nobody would find out.

This is a critical explanation of the fraud that is fractional reserve banking. In the time of goldsmiths, it was easy to distinguish between right and wrong. The promissory notes were backed by the gold in the vaults. The moment the goldsmiths decided to issue notes that were backed by nothing (aside from the supposition that they would have enough gold inventory to pay, assuming not everyone demanded their physical gold at the same time)thus the process of fraud began.

How is it possible that bankers were allowed to get away with something like this? How could no one say anything about the false creation of gold?

Enter the government. Corruption can stem from power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So indeed, the government knew the trick of the goldsmiths scam. However, the worlds ruling classes knew it was not convenient to stop it. Instead, they saw it advantageous to perpetuate the scam. Why? Because by taxing and regulating the issue of money, they could keep a system in place where both could profit. This inevitably led to what we know as Fractional Reserve Banking.

If you move forward in time 500 yearsthe US Dollar is the worlds reserve currency and serving like the worlds goldsmith. Privately owned by several mysterious group banks, the Federal Reserve System illustrates the jaded relationship banks and governments have developed in the last 500 years. For some reason, world economies fall in the same trap of the same scam.

The interest rate banks operate under and lend are controlled by the Federal Reserve. In addition, the Federal Reserve controls the fractional reserve ratios banks are required to maintain (as a percentage of their reserves held in Federal Reserve Notes). What does this mean? The money supply and the new money being created are controlled by privately owned company comprised of banks allowed to counterfeit money. There is also the interest charge on those dollars created out of thin air!

For those reasons, I have a nickname for Fractional Reserve Banking: I refer to them as Fictional Reserve Banking. How long will you allow yourself to be fooled by this fraud? Will you take the steps necessary to protect yourself and stay ahead of the crowd?

Here are some suggestions for further reading: It is essential to understand the Fractional Reserve Banking in order to find or create positive banking solutions for your family and future. Solutions like these are the ones author Peter Macfarlane writes about in his blog on offshore banking. Peter also writes several articles on the topic of Wealth Creation for The Q Wealth Report which is a leading quarterly journal dedicated to financial privacy and individual liberty, as well as offshore asset protection. He is also a well-known authority and speaker at offshore living events.

Differences In Management Consulting And Investment Banking

By blogger on

The decision was relatively straight forward for me. The negatives of investment banking – long hours, repetitive work, lack of non-finance exit options – mattered more to me than the money.
I considered sales & trading (in fact, I spent a summer at CSFB in NY), and was tempted to continue in that line of work after graduation.
Instead of defining the characteristics of each industry (there are plenty of resources out there for that, including my Management Consulted blog), I will address a short list of differences between the two career paths.
Let me caveat by saying THESE ARE NOT YOUR ONLY OPTIONS. People get carried away into thinking thats all there is.
#1 SALARY
This is the primary superficial distinction. Thats not to imply that salaries aren’t important. Banking salaries average 50-100% higher than consulting salaries, with the gap increasing as your seniority increases. Consulting attempts to compensates with small perks – from better travel allowances to more generous retirement packages.
Consultants always like to say this:
I know investment bankers make more money. But from a cashflow perspective, its exactly the same!
This means that consultants and bankers make similar base salaries, but at the end of the year, bankers are awarded a significant bonus which can be more than half of their total annual compensation.
Cashflow or not, the extra money is substantial and a defining driver of why many people do investment banking over business consulting. This is also a difficult issue for consulting firms with respect to employee retention. In my years as a McKinsey management consultant, easily half the people who left the firm went into the financial world (from hedge funds to PE), and salary was undoubtedly a major factor in the decision.
My advice is – after considering the 5 factors Ive listed here, you still think the pay difference (for analysts, averaging between $30-60K per year) would mean a significant difference in your professional job satisfaction, choose investment banking over consulting.
#2 LIFESTYLE ISSUES
The big differences here are:
-Hours. Bankers work brutal hours, no surprise. They can average 14-16 hours/day but it can get FAR WORSE.
My roommates in New York (both investment bankers at Goldman Sachs) would sometimes go several weeks before wed even exchange a word. Which meant not only were they getting in after I went to sleep (around 2am), but going back to the office before I woke up (around 7am).
Your second year as an investment banker gets easier – often in the 10-12 hours/day range but with occasional tough periods.
Management consultants average 12 hours/day, with the typical variations depending on client, team goals, etc
-Travel. Bankers do a little travel for roadshows, due diligence, etc but spend 90% of their time in one office until youre partner-level (you can expect more travel in private equity and asset management). Depending on firm – management consultants travel a lot. At the Big 3 (Bain, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey), you can expect travel 50-75% of the time
-Relationship with firm employees and coworkers. This is an important but oft overlooked issue. Consulting firms have a very collegial atmosphere, where the focus is on getting work done and ensuring your professional success. This attitude permeates all interactions. Managers never yell, coworkers are supportive whenever possible, and companies are organized to provide consultants support with training, expertise, etc. Finally, networking is critical at consulting firms, and social events are focused on helping business consultants build contacts and relationships throughout the company.
Investment banks, on the other hand, have a more competitive and tense work environment. You can expect more stressful relationships with your bosses, youll probably be yelled at occasionally for mistakes, and coworkers are much less willing to help out colleagues (your success means theres more competition for the biggest bonuses).
In addition, youll have limited exposure across the company to other groups, departments, etc – less ability to network across the company.
Part 2 of this series on consulting versus banking continues tomorrow!

Compliance Risk Lesson From Emilio Botin Abbey Santander Banking Group

By blogger on

The importance of compliance with legal, regulatory, social, ethical and other standards faced by businesses is highlighted by the high-profile UK legal case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), where an Employment Tribunal made a ruling of racial discrimination and, following Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group’s refusal to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger, ordered Abbey Santander shares to pay the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award. Abbey Santander Group (the UK bank soon to be re-branded as Santander shares price, and being a part of the behemoth Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano Group – BSCH) dismissed Balbinder Chagger from employment in 2006, asserting compulsory redundancy as the reason. Mr Chagger, on the other hand, believed that the actual reason behind the termination of his employment was race discrimination. Mr Chagger was of Indian origin. He worked for Emilio Botin Abbey Santander price in the role of Trading Risk Controller. He earned approximately 100,000 per annum. He reported into Nigel Hopkins.

In the UK, the Financial Services sector is highly regulated. Financial institutions face an abundance of standards to comply with concerning their numerous stakeholders (regulators, authorities, the public, employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, shareholders, investors, and others). Compliance with all of the standards is part and parcel of conducting business in the UK Financial Services sector; financial institutions need to devote sufficient resources and energies to compliance and to compliance risk management. Compliance failures, that are either detected by regulators during inspections or reported by aggrieved parties to the appropriate jurisdictions, can result in extremely high-profile consequences, as shown by Chagger v Abbey National & Hopkins (2006); the Employment Tribunal recorded an abundance of compliance issues and failures committed by Emilio Botin Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins, some of which are outlined below.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the UK statutory redundancy dismissal procedure; it had failed to notify Mr Chagger in writing of the circumstances leading it to contemplate dismissing him and asking him to a meeting.

Emilio Botin Abbey Grupo Santander had failed to comply with the guidance on good practices regarding Equal Opportunity training recommended by the UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment. Mr Chagger had made efforts to address the issues surrounding his dismissal directly with Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins, through the company’s grievance and appeals procedures. However, Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had not provided any Equal Opportunity training to the managers it had allocated to consider Mr Chagger’s issues; Mr Chagger’s issues were simply dismissed out of hand by each and every manager. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group had also failed to comply with the guidance on good practices concerning monitoring recommended by the UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment. The Tribunal found an abundance of monitoring failures, in addition to the failures to give serious consideration to allegations of race discrimination and to investigate them promptly.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger (ordered to remedy the unlawful wrongful act of racial discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins). In the UK, reinstatement is regarded as the primary and preferred remedy for an unfair dismissal, because it enables the aggrieved employee to continue to enjoy both the mental satisfaction and the economic benefits of his role in the future. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander refused to reinstate Mr Chagger and the Employment Tribunal was dissatisfied with the reasons it gave for refusing to comply.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the Race Relations Act (Questions and Replies) Order 1977. The Tribunal found that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander’s reply to Mr Chagger’s race discrimination questionnaire was evasive, and that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed in answering Mr Chagger’s questions.

Both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had failed to comply with UK law on employment. The Employment Rights Act 1996 requires the selection of an employee for dismissal in a compulsory redundancy situation to be fair. Compulsory redundancy selection criteria must be applied fairly; they must be both objective and measurable. The Employment Tribunal found, however, that the compulsory redundancy selection criteria Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had applied were both highly subjective and un-measurable.

Mr Hopkins had failed to comply with the expected behaviours of a reasonable manager. He was highly criticised by the Employment Tribunal for the manner in which he had applied the compulsory redundancy selection criteria to Mr Chagger. As an example, the Employment Tribunal found that he had scored Mr Chagger down for getting on with work and being self-reliant, a characteristic that the Tribunal thought that reasonable managers might well consider to be an asset for an employee in Mr Chagger’s highly paid and highly responsible position, and score him more highly for.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with reasonable good practices and safeguard controls expected in compulsory redundancy situations; that of ensuring more than one manager is involved in the assessing and scoring of each of the employees in the redundancy pool (a control to safeguard the fairness of the scoring and to reduce the risks of bias). The Tribunal found, however, that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander did not implement this simple control mechanism. Alongside other significant factors, Mr Hopkins was single-handedly able to recommend to Abbey Santander’s management to dismiss one of the two Trading Risk Controllers that he managed (Mr Chagger being one), was single-handedly able to put to Mr Chagger an offer to take up voluntary redundancy (Mr Chagger refused Mr Hopkins offer, and no such offer was ever put to the other Trading Risk Controller), was single-handedly able to conduct the compulsory redundancy scoring and assessment of the two employees in the redundancy pool, and was single-handedly able to reduce Mr Chagger’s scores to ensure that he would be the employee who would be selected for dismissal.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins both had failed to comply with the UK discrimination law; the Tribunal ruled that they had both racially discriminated against Mr Chagger.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander highlights the significance of compliance risk and its potentially very high-profile consequences on an institution’s reputation. The profile continued beyond the Employment Tribunal stage for Abbey Santander. Mr Hopkins and Emilio Botin Abbey Santander s appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against the original Employment Tribunal’s ruling of racial discrimination and against the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award. In 2008, the EAT upheld the original Tribunal’s ruling that both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger. However, the EAT accepted Abbey Santander’s appeal on the compensation award and remitted it to the original Tribunal for reconsideration. The case was appealed and escalated to the Court of Appeal (UK’s second highest court). The Court of Appeal’s List of Hearings showed the appeal was heard on 7/8 July 2009. The Court’s transcript of the hearing and judgement were not available when writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers’ chambers, who represented Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, had reported that the Court of Appeal hearing was to be about compensation only (i.e., not about racial discrimination also). That would appear to imply that the wrongful act of race discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Nigel Hopkins was finalised by the EAT when it upheld the original Tribunal’s decision that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger, and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT’s decision to remit the compensation award to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.

Read Banking Labour Law Books Ca Cs Mba Books At Online Book Store

By blogger on

How an Online Book Store can be defined?
An online book store is nothing but a website owned by a dealer of various types of books like books on banking, law, taxation, labor law, CA, CS, MBA etc. Also online book stores usually maintain in accordance to the market they serve.
Reading knowledgeable books is a good habit to everyone. Books are a great source to get information on any topic or subject. Reading books is some peoples hobby too, they can spare a long time reading some informative books.
The Internet is a great source where you can find adequate and relevant information on any topic or subject. Buying books online is much easier and full of fun than purchasing books from on-road books shops. Online Buying of books not only save your time but also the physical exertion and money you spend while traveling to purchase books from the regular bookstore. Thus, buying books online is more advantageous than buying books from regular shops. As buying books online is fast, accurate, takes less time.
Bookcorporation is one of the leading book store of law, taxation, labor law, CA, CS, MBA etc. It has a wealth of books with considerable strengths in the law, Direct Taxation, FEMA, SEBI, Banking, Service Tax, Central Excise, Customs, Import, Export, etc. It aims to be the book store of choice for students, lawyers, Engineers, businessmen, labor etc.
Labor law books available online are full of information and updated labouring rules/laws which help to business and other industries. You cannot take any type of labour work from child under 14 years age, because this comes under the law. All such laws are fully explained in these law books. Books provide guidelines to us in all fields/areas for business or commercial point of view.
Another advantage of buying books online is the impressive discount offered by the online bookstores. Due to reduced cost of maintaining a physical store and paying the salesmen, you can get discount books online as well as a large collection of books too.
You have to very careful during search for online books, such as price and the right author name of the book etc. The same text book is sold at different prices on the Internet. So, you need to search various online shops that sell the same text book. You will experience the difference in prices by some book sellers for the same book or title. You can save some money by visiting some great online book stores online. Moreover, you don’t need to waste your time searching for the textbook in your local store.

Successful Transformation Of Economic Facets Through Banking Initiatives

By blogger on

In recent economic downturn, more and more banking and financial institutions are gauging their nuances and protocols to balance economy and foster its growth rate. These financial institutions are effectively participating in innovating advanced banking solutions to transform marketing facets across the globe. While developed economies have not yet fully recovered, these institutions have started taking steps to analyze the previous trends and scenarios that have not shown concrete results (outcomes in real-world conditions). In practical senses, economists and fiscal strategists are becoming increasingly active to establish competitive image. They understand the importance of quick actions. They know that they need to shift gears quickly to stay ahead, fostering the economic pylons.

It is true that the inherent strength of any country is its ability to take business initiatives, develop innovativeness, instigate critical thinking, and bolster financial structure. Banking policy makers and economists are continuously analyzing and comparing the growth drivers and key aspects that are affecting all these aspects. They are also emphasizing on asset management, loan products, and other facilities offered by the banking and financial institutions to businesses and individuals. This will help in assisting businesses and propelling better revenues. Also with an increased inflow of technological platforms, advanced networking techniques, communication protocols, and financial services, banks are empowering their infrastructures to provide unadulterated services.

To empower their position, banks are increasingly focusing on their communication and delivery structures and capabilities that can withstand fiscal jolts and maintain high growth rates. In pursuit of the same, they are looking for the following aspects to transform economies, such as:

1. supporting the growth of communities;
2. inspiring business owners;
3. empowering business initiatives;
4. elevating banking technologies;
5. managing competitive threats;
6. transforming existing BI;
7. streamline real-time information;
8. implementing real-time analytics;
9. building innovative banking solutions;
10. developing a sound infrastructure for inclusive growth.

These are the integral part of economic configuration and help a nation to perform better in harsh economic times. Moreover, banks and financial institutions are relying on technological advancement to support fiscal growth strategies. As technology has successfully penetrated the spheres of the society, banks are looking for its consistent usage to offer unprecedented mix of financial products. This will result in happier customers, increased data connection, managed services, information exchange convenience, better transaction security, greater value chain, and better approach to improved compliance.

Today, banking institutions are emphasizing on business intelligence and analytics for concrete innovation. This will help them to better segment their market and speed up their operations across multiple channels. They are also highlighting & discussing their endeavors in banking conferences and financial conclaves.