Chyden Finance: profit from hypocrisy

A frequent reader of this blog has forwarded a link to a fascinating article from the 2 April 2009 The Economist, titled “I Am Just a Poor Boy Though My Story’s Seldom Told” on the relationship between neuroscience and social deprivation.
According to the article, “[T]he working memories of children who have been raised in poverty [...]

According to the Associated Press, a 250-page report to Congress by the Office of the Inspector General warns that the program contrived to enable banks to shed their “toxic assets” benefits private investors and exposes taxpayers to greater risk, and the government to greater fraud, waste, and abuse.
Raise your hand if you didn’t see this [...]

According to a recent Reuters report, officials from small financial centers, such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, etc., are signing tax data exchange agreements with small jurisdictions, such as Greenland, in order to be removed from the OECD’s Grey List of tax havens. This move openly mocks the recent G20 declaration against tax evasion [...]

A recent New York Times editorial asks a question that deserves more attention than it is receiving: “If there is no proven way to reduce the systemic risk in big and interconnected firms, why should they be allowed to exist?”
hrm. What an intriguing question!
Let’s unravel this one, one thread at a time.

reduce systemic risk
proven [...]

A reader has alerted us to a Wired Science article that should warm the hearts of cynics and anti-authoritarians everywhere.
Engelmann, Jan B., C. Monica Capra, Charles Noussair & Gregory S. Berns, (2009), “Expert Financial Advice Neurobiologically “Offloads” Financial Decision-Making under Risk,” PLoS ONE 4(3). Available at: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004957.
The authors conclude that “one effect of expert [...]

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “[President] Obama’s own Department of Justice has argued that, under the PATRIOT Act, the government shall be entirely unaccountable for surveilling Americans in violation of its own laws.”
So, um, I guess that means that the White House reads this blog.
<sigh>
CWE