Security Lending, Legitmate financial activity or a scam?

The Economist reports on the existence of a "securities lending" market  worth $1.5 trillion a year.  In the spring, right around dividend payment time, European companies and pension funds  loan some $100 billion worth of shares to tax exempt institutions.  The borrowing institutions collect the dividend, and pay the share owners a "rental" fee equal to the dividend foregone.  This dodge enables the lender to avoid paying a withholding tax due on dividends.  They don't escape taxes, they just don't have to pay them early, they can wait til they do their taxes at the end of the year.   
   Borrowing stocks is popular with short sellers like hedge funds.  Short sellers figure a stock is gonna fall, so they sell (putting downward pressure on the stock's price) and buy the stock back later when it is cheaper.  Used to be, a short seller didn't actually have to own the stock he shorted, he just sold it, and he had the normal clearing time (days) to actually deliver the stock certificate.  Stock market players and all public joint stock companies (just about all companies) hate short selling.  They got Congress to tighten up on short sellers, the short seller is supposed to actually own the stock he is shorting, before he shorts it.  Well, maybe  they don't REALLY own it, they just borrow it. 
   Then there are banks who want their asset portfolio (stocks and bonds) to look "better".  They borrow very safe bonds, and they lend out their speculative dollar stocks.  Presto, chango, a high grade portfolio to show investors, bank regulators, central banks and other suckers.  Greeks do this a lot.  Far as I am concerned its a pure scam.
   Or places like AIG, who loaned out $90 billion dollars worth of stock and used the cash so raised to play the mortgage backed security market.  When SHTF, the borrowers of AIG's stock all returned the stock and demanded their money back.  AIG had already lost the money playing the market and the US taxpayer had to pay off $90 billion to the borrowers.
   None of this sounds like legitimate financial activity to me.  But the Economist  worries in print that bad things will happen if governments crack down on it.

How to prevent it from ever happening again

To prevent it from happening again.  They say this after every screwup.  There is a simple answer.  Find who caused it and fire him/her.  Publically.  That will teach 'em.  We haven't fired anyone for causing great depression 2.0.  We haven't fired anyone over Benghazi.  We haven't fired anyone at FBI for failing to inform Cambridge police that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was fingered by the Russians as a terrorist.  We haven't fired anyone at IRS for targeting the Tea Party.  We haven't fired anyone at BATFE for giving guns to Mexican drug runners.
   They never learn unless they know something bad will happen to them for being stuck on stupid.

GM is spending money to expand in China

Fox news is yelling about US taxpayer money being used to create jobs in China.  Which is a good reason never to give tax money to private companies.  Not that I like the idea of my tax money going to China, but I don't want to tell an American company not to expand overseas.  There are a lot of customers overseas and we do better when they buy American than when they buy Toyota.  Even if "American" is assembled overseas.  The Japanese  assemble most of the cars they sell here in Kentucky and Tennessee.  They make money doing so.  GM ought to be encouraged to make money assembling cars in China to sell in China, or anywhere else for that matter.
  The real answer to my tax money going to make Cadillac Escalades  in China is not to give my tax money to private companies.  Let the private companies raise money from private investors, or go thru REAL bankruptcy.  Not Obama haircuts of investors and handouts to unions.

Words of the Weasel Part 35

"Passed"  short for "passed away".  Nobody on TV every says "died" anymore.  Notice that even Mr. Hicks, the Benghazi witness, said the ambassador "passed" rather than coming right out with it and saying "died". 
Death is horrible and terrible.  Millenniums of usage have tied some of the horror and terror of death to the word "died".  To avoid using the proper word is to smooth over the death, to make it seem of little importance.  Something that weasels do. 

FBI failed to notify Boston Police says Fox

That wouldn't have done much good.  The Tsarnaev's lived in CAMBRIDGE, not Boston.  FBI could have done some good if they had notified the Cambridge Police that the Russians thought Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a terrorist.  Notifying the Boston police wouldn't have done any good, Boston police have no jurisdiction in Cambridge.  Perhaps the FBI understands the difference between Boston and Cambridge,  Fox news surely doesn't.

Birds of a Feather, flock together

NPR came on the clock radio this morning with a tear jerking piece.  Since the sequester, civil servants have been taking furloughs, not getting raises, having to conserve office supplies, having more work to do and fewer people to do it.  Awful.
  And morale is down.  No raises, and lots of criticism is just crushing the tender egos of the gov'ment workforce.
  And it's all the fault of that nasty sequester.
  And all of the civil servants interviewed for this piece were government union representatives.
  It's just terrible that the civil servants, who enjoy better salaries, benefits, and retirement than ordinary working stiffs, have to forgo a raise.  It's a good thing they have NPR to plead their case to the public.  On the public's nickel no less.

NPR was hitting on all cylinders this morning.  After that plea for the poor down trodden civil servants they launched into an attack on Facebook.  According to NPR, Facebook spend some $10 million (chickenfeed) lobbying Congress on the immigration bill.  Something to do about H1B visa's.  The reporter didn't bother to explain just what Facebook was lobbying for, but she was sure it was evil.  H1B visa's are a deal to let high  tech workers, most often computer programmers, into the US.  US union people are always against H1B 'cause they think it lowers American worker's wages.  US companies are always in favor of more H1B visa's cause good programming talent is hard to come by and bringing it in from overseas gives them a bigger pool to fish in.

Non political that NPR is, very non political.  And government funded.

Jet Tankers in Merrie Old England

The Royal Air Force has an interesting way of doing things.  The are just getting a brand new 14 aircraft fleet of Airbus A330 jet tankers into the RAF.  Or sort of.  The aircraft are owned by a "private" company called AirTanker .  This company is authorized to rent, loan, or lease these shiny new tankers out to other EU countries when they are not needed by the RAF.  For instance just last month, France found itself way short of tankers to support their Mali operation. 
   This sort of thing has been going on long enough for the various EU air forces to define a "Standard C130 Flying Hour" as a unit of account.  One flying hour from an RAF jet tanker will be worth three Standard C130 Flying Hours.  Borrow my nice new A330 tanker for one hour and you owe me three C130 flying hours.
   And the Brits have yet to accomplish some Brit paperwork needed in order to actually refuel in the air.  Each warplane type (F16, Tornado, Grippen, whatever) needs paperwork before air to air refueling can be done.  This has gotta be some kind of Euro job security system.  In USAF all warplanes refueled off the KC-135's, here now and forever.  There was no paperwork to accomplish on a type by type basis.