Financial watchdog

[Frank S.]

This is a question actually: do you in the UK have an agency or department similar to our SEC (Securitites and Exchange Commission)?

Now to be sure, our SEC is more of a defanged Chihuahua with arthritis (Peeples?! That you?), but still collects and offers data on interesting info.
Specifically, you can look up stock options transactions made by the executive commitee of a given company.

Now, for the young 'uns who might not see the significance of it, here's an example:

say you work for a company which prides itself on its high ethics and honest treatment of its employees.
And that pretty much sums up any company...
You can search for insider trades and see how much stock the execs sold, for how much and what the strike price was at the time of issuance.

This can be very entertaining.
Stock options are part of executives' compensation package and employees' incentive. I've got quite a few myself.
Here's the thing: those options are issued at the current market value at the time of issuance, meaning someone gets hired by company XYZ on March 3rd will receive say 150 stock options valued at 12 dollars per unit, 12 dollars being the value of the stock on March 3.
Of course, you can't sell them right away: you have to wait until they're 'vested', anywhere from a year to 5 years.
Then the economy dives and the stock gets devalued to 7 dollars per unit. By now, they may be vested, but you'd lose money on the sale.

Now, the executives' job is to increase the value of the company stock, and a good many do this via 'creative accounting' methods. Enron, WorldCom are no abberations...

So you look at their trades from data collected by the SEC and lo!
Every single one sold thousands of shares!
Wow.
You then look at what price the stocks were issued and... Double-wham!
You notice how they were issued stocks valued way below market value!
An exec hired by the company on March 3, sells his 10.000 shares for 7 dollars but since he/she received them at a strike price of 2 dollars only, he/she makes profit when you cannot.
Because you got yours at 12 dollars.
And nothing happens...

So, as someone put it: "the foxes are assuring you they are making sure the hens are safe, and so, go back to sleep".

[gash-hand]

Hey Frank,

We used to have a load of different bodies charged with maintaining fair play in the financial services sector, although these have all been replaced by the 'financial services authority' which baisically covers any activity that involves money related business (other than purchase of goods).

I don't know if it gives out the level of information you guys get though - its more of a regulator than an information service.

[Frank S.]

Cheers!
I checked out their website and found more info.
I think part of the problem we have in the US is way too much information, and thrice that much interpretation.
Transparency's a good thing, but with so damn many mirrors, well....

[Sisyphus]

Frank

some companies in the UK run 'share save schemes' for their employees. The share price is set on a particular date. You invest so much per month for 3 years (it used to be five). At the end of the term you can either decide to use the capital to buy the shares (if they've gone up from,say, £1 to £5 you buy at the original price. If they've gone the other way then you don't. You get your capital back, plus a bonus.)

Not brilliant but a fair return can be had. In any event, you can't lose.

Mind you, it pales into insignifance when compared with the Directors' share perks.

[nbforrest]

Think about it, the SEC is like the guy on guard duty with an empty magazine.

The stock market is using the Federal Reserve's (which is neither Federal or an actual reserve) make believe money. The same make believe money the local banks use to lend to us at a rate of interest. They get our real $, which is actually a number on a computer that represents a specific amout of more make believe money that represents our labor. Its all a sham. Try taking a federal reserve note to the Federal reserve building and demand its face value in gold or silver which our constitution says is the only thing that can be used as money. Try walking into a bank with a stock certificate and selling it or exchanging it for money. They will laugh at you and offer you a free inkpen to go away. They know that it is all a bunch of make believe invisible digital sleight of hand.

This is one of my pet peeves. The fake money, usury economy.

Before someone fires an RPG at me, I understand that there needs to be a convenient system for transacting business. I simply believe it ought to be backed with something real.. For those who do not know, the Federal Reserve is not owned or controlled by the United States government. It is a private bank that the only has to report to Congress its doings. Congress has no real oversight or authority over it. This is who the American people are in debt to when one hears about "the debt"

[jlitt]

Is it true that your (US) IRS is not strictly part of the goverment as well?

[nbforrest]

jlitt

Yes, the IRS is an agency of the department of the treasury.

An "IRS" was first created during the Lincoln administration (surprise) when an income tax was levied in 1862, that income tax was repealled ten years later. An attempt to reinstate the income tax was made in 1894 but was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. This led the powers that were to create the 16th Amendment to the Constitution creating a Constitutional Income tax in 1913, the same year the federal reserve was created. The purpose of the Fed was to stabilize the economy. Oddly enough, 15 years later we had the great depression and recurring cycles of recession and depression. So much for stabilizing the economy. Whenever you have a tax on income and property the government needs an agency to collect said tax.

What annoys me is what happens if you don't pay taxes. The men with guns will come and take your shit. If the non government men with guns come to my house and take my shite, I can call the police and if there is enough evidence and an abscence of crooked lawyers, the non government men with guns have to go to jail. I really dont see the difference in the government and non government men with guns. An asshole taking my shit is still an asshole taking my shit regardless of why.

What is even funnier to me is that for the first half of my nations existence we managed to do without an income tax. Hell, we managed just fine without much in the way of government assistance in almost all areas of life. No national retirement fund i.e. social security, no medicare, no food stamps, no welfare, no WIC, no free instant ghetto housing, no 'free' public education, nary a single acronym government agency to take care of us and we did just fine. We kept to ourselves and left the world alone.
To be sure there was suffering and some folks did without certain things. To hear the left tell it, we are still a nation of starving, homeless, sick and helpless morons in need of further "help" from the all seeing, all caring, redistributors of wealth and resources.

Hell, how did the human race make it so long without a government agency telling us what to do. How did we survive Ice Ages and shit like that? How did we manage to eat and built shelters and stay warm and procreate without the idea of a socialist utopia? Oh the humanity.

[jlitt]

What do you think of are govs cutting of benefits for illiterate people; who can't learn numeracy or basic reading and writing (I’m sorry there is a difference between lazy people who won't go on remedial courses than those who are born plain stupid).
Glad too see thee is some truth behind my ranting about the American taxation system..
Am I classed as a socialist for sticking up for the retards?

[nbforrest]

Not at all a retard or socialist. I believe there is a place and a time to give people a leg up. I am a bit leary of the government doing it. When my mother was a teacher she took a girl who was labeled as retarded and got her out of the third grade and gradutated from high school. The girl could do algebra, etc when mom was through with her. People are amazing creatures who sometimes should and sometimes should not accept thier own limitations.

[Whitey]

I figure they got people hooked and dependent on the tax raquett, not much can be done right now overnight to rid ourselves of it without alot of baby boomers getting shafted.

Our tax system is illegal and stupid actually. As Nb has explained, it is the 16th ammendment, however the 16th was never ammended lawfully.
We do that in America. If something the government wants is voted in then cool we make a big deal, sell t-shirts ect..., but if it gets voted down and Uncle Sambo still wants it, then he slides it by real sly and gets in anyway and most people don't notice.

Most of our people in America who are down and out their whole life are that way for a reason. Retards, dumb people and cripples I got no problem helping if their famalies can't help them, but most people in America that are on what you all call the dole are just lazy.
But the IRS money that goes to retards and cripples is a drop in the bucket. We give a grip of money to many thousands of other lost causes.
We give prisoners better educations than our kids, some of them on death row have law degree's, for what?
Homeland Security sucks up billions and we leave the southern border open? Stupid isn't it?