Author / Johan Olofsson
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What Lance Armstrong and Insider Trading Have in Common
Lying. Cheating. Gaining an unfair advantage over the competition. Let’s be honest for a second, most of us refused to believe that Lance Armstrong was a cheater when Floyd Landis and other former teammates admitted doping and accused Lance of doing the same. How could we? The man was an American hero. He won seven…
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Europe’s Carbon Scheme Goes Awry
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or so the saying goes at least. Actions by the European Commission often fail to attract attention in the American press. Such was the case when Connie Hedegaard, the EU Climate Commissioner, decided to temporarily suspend EU carbon emissions rules on inter-continental travel for airlines. The…
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Don’t Blame Apple For Paying 2% in Taxes
Last week it became public knowledge that Apple paid a corporate income tax rate of 1.9% on income that originated outside the United States. This is in comparison to a 35% corporate tax rate in the U.S., before engaging in relevant deductions and tax credits. The United States currently has one of the highest corporate…
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Citigroup Shake-Up
Most Americans probably have not heard the name Vikram Pandit. Mr. Pandit resigned yesterday after a five year tenure as the CEO of one of America’s largest banks, Citigroup. Amid all the talk of the presidential debates, this story has slipped by unnoticed, but here a few reasons why you should care. Pandit’s resignation was…
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Iran’s Rial Crisis
Last week on WUPR Radio, my co-hosts and I spent almost half our segment (KWUR.com, Thursdays 6-7 CST) on the developing situation in the Middle East, with particular focus on Iran. While we don’t normally receive favorable news out of Iran, today’s headline that the Iranian currency, the Rial, depreciated by 20% in one day…
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Let the Private Sector Solve Energy Issues
This week’s Fortune Magazine revealed that a few of the Department of Energy’s pet projects that received funding from Obama’s 2009 stimulus have now been purchased by foreign investors.*The first such company is Ener1, a company that makes lithium ion batteries for electric automobiles. In 2009 it received $118.5 million grant from the Obama stimulus…
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QE3 Makes History for the Wrong Reasons
Thursday, September 13th marked a historic day in our economic history. The Federal Reserve issued a statement indicating that they will attempt to reduce unemployment by an unlimited purchase program of mortgage backed securities (MBS), aptly dubbed “quantitative easing version three” or “QE3” by market participants. QE3 was historic in the sense that it was…
