Fisher Capital Management Local News

Fisher Capital Management News: Record gold prices fuel increase in scams

17
AUG 2011
Fisher Capital Management News
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article/168777/2/Record-gold-prices-fuel-increase-in-scams

Written by Tim Goff

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — With gold prices at an all time high, state regulators are warning investors to beware of scam artists.


“With a really bad economic downturn, with the recession, not only does it cause the average person to become fearful, but it also causes the scam artists to come out because they know that everybody is far more vulnerable than they were before,” stated Judith Shaw, administrator of the Maine Office of Securities.“Anytime somebody is telling you that they can give you a high rate of return with little or no risk to you, you really need to think twice about that,” she added.

In recent weeks her office has received several calls from residents concerned about transactions they have made buying and selling gold. She says many of the advertisements on the internet, radio and television make claims that are not backed-up by the companies actions.



“They send their money, there is a promise that the gold exists – maybe gold bullion – and that the seller who has reached out and made the contact will save that gold or silver in some safe location,” explained Shaw. “The danger is in many case...

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-07-31/news/29835710_1_bs-yeddyurappa-mining-scam-bookanakere-siddalingappa-yeddyurappa
BANGALORE: Rocked by a spate of scams and in the wake of a damning indictment by a Lokayukta report on illegal mining, the 38-month tenure of Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa as chief minister of the first ever BJP government in the South came to an abrupt end on Sunday.
Sunday’s resignation brings the curtain down on the rule of Yeddyurappa whose term in office was marked by intermittent rebellion from his own party men seeking his ouster and opposition protests demanding his resignation over allegations of corruption, nepotism and favouritism.
An ardent RSS activist, Yeddyurappa dragged his feet over putting in his papers initially, but gave in to the diktat of the party high command, after it took a serious view of his defiance.
Credited with playing a pivotal role in installing the maiden BJP government in the South, Yeddyurappa began his innings on a controversial note facing huge public outcry for the police firing on farmers in Haveri, a north Karnataka district town, within ten days of assuming office in 2008.
Yeddyurappa faced a political coup staged by Bellary mining magnate G Janardhana Reddy in September 2009, after he ferried more than 60 BJP MLAs to Hyderabad and Goa seeking his ouster at a time when most parts of North Karnataka was devastated by floods following heavy rain.
The BJP h...

Sheila Bair, who served as Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for five years through the financial crisis, has completed her term. In a weekend op-ed in theWashington Post, she urges America to rid itself of its addiction to financing consumption and “growth” with debt. This is the core requirement for America to become financially stable again and to return to “real” growth. From Bair’s Washington Post oped:
Now that I’m stepping down, I want to sound the alarm again. The common thread running through all the causes of our economic tumult is a pervasive and persistent insistence on favoring the short term over the long term, impulse over patience. We overvalue the quick return on investment and unduly discount the long-term consequences of that decision-making.
Our decades-long infatuation with financing our spending through ever-growing debt, in the private and public sector alike, is the ultimate manifestation of short-term thinking. And that thinking, particularly in business and in government, is actually getting worse, not better, as we look for solutions to put our economy on a sounder footing.
Will pension transparency shake muniland?
Joan Quigley of the Bond Buyer is reporting on how proposed guidelines to place unfunded pension liabilities alongside other liabilities has shaken up municipal governments. It’s really just a proposal to clean up balance sheets and get the real numbers out where people can underst...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-03/shortening-federal-unemployment-benefits-will-help-jobless-in-u-s-view.html

By the Editors Aug 2, 2011 5:00 PM PT

In 2009, Congress extended jobless benefits to 99 weeks, the longest period in U.S. history. Those payments were meant to help unemployed workers get through a tough recession, while shoring up a faltering economy. Was it a wise approach? And with extended benefits expiring at year’s end, should compensation be prolonged again?
Drawn-out benefits have been most effective at sustaining household income for displaced workers. State and federal programs will pay $129.5 billion this year in jobless benefits, according to Labor Department actuaries. Those payments provide roughly 50 percent of lost wages.
Nearly all that cash re-enters the economy quickly as recipients pay for food, clothing or housing. For that reason, jobless benefits have long been thought of as one of the most efficient ways to prevent consumer spending from collapsing during a slump.
Unfortunately, the 99-week experiment hasn’t been so successful in helping people get re-employed. Drawn-out benefits have caused job hunts to stretch out by almost a month — with no greater guarantee of success — according to economists Mary Daly, Bart Hobijn and Rob Valletta. All three work for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
In a discussion paper published this month, the Fed economists conclude that 99-w...

August 3, 2011 | 2:43 pm







A study that suggested Internet Explorer users were not as smart as those using other Web browsers is apparently a fake, according to the person that initially distributed it.

In a statement on its website, Aptiquant said it “was set up in late July 2011 by comparison shopping website AtCheap.com in order to launch a fake ‘study’…. The main purpose behind this hoax was to create awareness about the incompatibilities of IE6, and not to insult or hurt anyone.”

The company, Aptiquant, doesn’t exist, according to a separate statement on its website.

A man identifying himself as the owner of Atcheap.com said he was behind the hoax. “It was just a joke, and I didn’t really mean to insult anybody,” he said.

On Wednesday, BBC reported that images of the company’s staff were copied from another website: “Thumbnail images of the firm’s staff on the website also matched those on the site of French research company Central Test, although many of the names had been changed,” the BBC said.

The BBC said readers raised questions regarding the study, and the news organization had a security consultant inspect source material after questions arose. “It’s obviously very easy to create a bogus site like this — as all phishers know it’s easy to rip off someone else’s web pages and pictures,” Graham Cluley, a senior...