You cannot send money to Cuba – not from New York, not from London and not from Madrid, Manila or Managua. We all know why: it is because the US has a beef with Cuba.
America is using its banking laws not to make its financial system safer, nor to protect its own citizens from predatory financial behaviour, but rather to advance foreign policy and national security objectives. Only in America, for instance, would citizens have to apply to the finance ministry in order to get a visa to visit Cuba.
.. So far, criminal prosecutors seem more interested in prosecuting US foreign policy than in protecting the American people from the malefactors who were responsible for vaporising trillions of dollars in household wealth and adding tens of millions to the unemployment lines. So long as those banks go unpunished, the rest of the world can be forgiven for seeing a double standard at play.
Appeals Court Overturns Decision to Reject S.E.C.-Citigroup Settlement
A federal appeals court on Wednesday overturned a judge’s decision to reject a federal settlement deal with Citigroup, undercutting the judge’s concerns that the bank got off with little more than a slap on the wrist.
.. The judge called the fine “pocket change” for the bank. He also took aim at the S.E.C.’s decision to allow Citigroup to settle the case without admitting wrongdoing, saying the parties deprived the public “of ever knowing the truth in a matter of obvious public importance.”
French Officials Twist U.S. Arms in Bank Inquiry
The French campaign has focused largely on the concern that BNP, unlike other big banks accused of doing business with Sudan and Iran, might be forced to suspend a core business operation in New York as a result of the guilty plea. French officials have complained that such a penalty, proposed by New York State’s top financial regulator, Benjamin M. Lawsky, could erode some of the bank’s bottom line.
.. French officials are hardly the first foreign leaders to lean on the Justice Department — Credit Suisse recently dispatched the Swiss finance minister to Washington on the eve of the bank’s pleading guilty to enabling tax evasion — but the effort has coincided with an unusual public outcry in France. One French official recently complained that “the United States can’t treat its allies like this.”
.. For BNP, a bank deemed too big to fail in France, the French officials warned that such a huge settlement could eat into the bank’s capital, according to the people briefed on the matter. The bank’s capital levels, the officials complained, could drop below an important threshold for financial strength.
Listen to Buffett and Schwab: Be an indexer
A few months ago, one of the few investment icons actually bigger than Schwab, Warren Buffett, revealed that if his wife survives him, his estate plan will recommend keeping 90% of her inheritance in the Vanguard Index 500 fund VFINX +0.08% , with the rest in short-term government bonds.
.. “First you must decide that you want to be an indexer,” said Wiener, “and what Buffett and Schwab are reminding you is that being an indexer means you believe in broad diversification, not trying to time the market or shifting investment strategy or technique to the newest hot thing on the market.