How to Gauge Your Middle-Class Status

I expect that most everyone would like to know where the fit in the economic and social group known as the middle class.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgetingk/article/109155/how-to-gauge-your-middle-class-status?mo

Additionally, there is another Yahoo reference on the page of the above link for an article titled “How to Live on 70% Less.”

This year Social Security will bring in less deposits than is being paid out so where will the balance come from. Read all about it here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100314/ap_on_bi_ge/us_social_security_ious

 How to get free HDTV, free telephone service and save a a lot of money on food. 

I am using the same outside antenna that I used with my old analog television and it works great even though my home is probably 8 to 10 miles from the broadcast sites. The vacuum food sealer I bought at Costco 12 years ago is still working well. I dumped Qwest as my telephone provider several months ago and now get telephone service through my ISP for about the same price but with a dozen extra serevices free that Qwest charged extra to have. See the full article here:

http://www.shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/342/gadgets-that-will-save-you-money/

Wall Street has long used fees to make a lot of money. Here’s an example of one.

Equitable Life Insurance was once a mutual company, then it went private, then some smoke and mirrors turned it into AXA, a French Company, and the shares became ADRs. Anyway,  AXA recently issued some rights to shareholders. Rights are options to buy the stock for a fixed price at some future date. I think a right is the same as a warrant but don’t hold me to that. I first got into the stock market by buying some warrants after studying the warrant market for nine or ten months. The stockbroker agreed that I had picked a good one but suggested I take a look at another one he thought might be worthy of my first investement. I bought the one he suggested and sold it a year later at about the same price I paid. Meanwhile, the one I had originally intended to buy increased in value 4o percent. That experience taught me my first lesson in stocks – stockbrokers are often less informed that I am on a paticular stock or in this case, a warrant. But I digress, back to AXA.

The rights were not issued to ADR holders because, “the rights were not registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933.” Instead, the ADR holders received a check for the proceeds of selling their rights on the French market.  BNY Mellon of Hackensack, NJ handled the distribution and only charged two cents per ADR. Cheap, right? Hardly as there are 2.3 billion shares of AXA. Do the math and you get a total fee for BNY Mellon of $46 million.

The following article is from the Dow Jones News. With pay like that, who needs a bonus? 

Top Goldman Execs Won’t Get Cash Bonus For 2009 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) said its top 30 executives won’t receive a cash bonus for 2009 as the Wall Street bank responds to public pressure about runaway compensation packages.

The move approved by Goldman’s board is an attempt to quell public criticism about multimillion-dollar bonus packages expected to be doled out this year. The firm’s 31,000 employees are on track to earn an average of more than $700,000 apiece this year, the most in its history. (Emphasis added)

Investors will also get a say on pay: Goldman granted shareholders an advisory vote on the company’s compensation policies. The firm has been in private discussions with major investors during the past several weeks in an effort to ward off backlash over its high-flying compensation pool.

One complaint is that bankers shouldn’t reap record compensation packages just a year after a financial crisis that required a massive government rescue of Wall Street. Goldman has set aside about $17 billion so far this year for pay and bonuses.

Speech by SEC Staff:
Remarks at November 5, 2009 Press Conference
By Robert Khuzam, Director, SEC Division of Enforcement
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, New York, New York

“There is a basic principle that governs our capital markets, and that is that there is one set of rules, and everyone is expected to play by that one set of rules.”

“That principle gives investors confidence that the markets are fair.”

“Insider trading is a corruption of that basic principle.”

“It’s an unfair advantage, a tilted playing field, for the most unscrupulous among us – those whose greed and arrogance drive them to betray their duties and their loyalties as professionals and as citizens.”

“So while today is a good day for law enforcement, it’s a disturbing day as well, because we expose the apparent ease with which these Wall Street professionals, corporate insiders, analysts and lawyers disregarded the rules and their duties to clients and shareholders for kickbacks and easy profits.” 

Entire speech can be read here:

http://sec.gov/news/speech/2009/spch110509rk.htm