Eight NEW, New Year's Resolutions for 2008

Today's comment is by Erika Nolan, Executive Director and Founding Publisher for The Sovereign Society.


Dear A-Letter Reader,

If you were reading the A-Letter this time last year, you know I challenged you in 2007 to take control of your financial destiny.

I gave you my top New Year's wealth resolutions for 2007 that included strategic offshore moves, like opening up your offshore bank account or taking a crack at finishing your estate plan. I salute you if you carried out these wealth goals in 2007.

But this year, I have a new plea.

As you know - the global markets have been anything but kind in 2007. When the sub-prime debacle hit the U.S. markets, it infected markets as far away as Australia. These sub-prime issues also sparked a credit crunch that's still playing out all over the world.

In just the last two quarters alone we've watched as:

Sovereign Wealth Funds Continue Their
Holiday Shopping Spree Part I

First Citigroup, then Morgan Stanley, and now Merrill Lynch is apparently the target of a "distressed" investment from the world's leading Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF).

I have written about this trend before, but still what really surprises me is that it all seems so familiar...it's like déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra might say.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Singapore's state-run SWF, Temasek Holdings may take an investment stake worth as much as US$5 billion in Wall Street's venerable Merrill Lynch. The brokerage firm is of course reeling from the aftershocks of the sub-prime crisis. In fact, Merrill just reported its biggest loss in its 93-year history. So Merrill Lynch could definitely use a financial shot-in-the-arm.

Merrill joins a growing list of Wall Street icons that have been bailed out... er, that is "seen as a good investment" - by SWFs. Citigroup of course led the charge obtaining a cash infusion of US$7.5 billion from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

And China's state-run SWF, China Investment Corp., just announced a US$5 billion investment in Morgan Stanley. That's on top of a smaller stake that China's Citic Securities took in brokerage firm Bear Stearns in October.

Overall SWFs based in the Middle East and Asia have so far agreed to invest about US$25 billion in Wall Street firms since the sub-prime market shock began - but there's a lot more cash and eager buyers where that came from.

You have to wonder - will any of these huge Wall Street titans still own controlling interest in their own firms by this time next year? Stay tuned for more on what's coming next in the great Sovereign Wealth Fund gift grab of 2007.

MIKE BURNICK, Senior Editor & Global Markets Analyst

Privacy & Rights

What Crime Have You Committed Today?

If you live in the United States, it's reassuring to know that police are constantly on the job protecting you from crime. With murderers, rapists and armed robbers roaming the streets, you can rest assured that the authorities are vigilantly protecting you from bodily harm.

That's why I was delighted to hear of the recent arrest of a 10-year-old girl in Florida on a felony weapons charge. The fifth-grader apparently brought a piece of steak to school for her lunch, along with a four-inch steak knife to cut it.

Alert teachers immediately seized the "weapon" and notified authorities. When police arrived, they arrested the girl and took her to the county's juvenile assessment center. She was suspended from school for 10 days, and now faces a felony charge for possessing a weapon on school property.

According to a spokesman for the school district, the girl was arrested pursuant to a "zero-tolerance" weapons policy in public schools. "She did not use [the knife] inappropriately. She did not threaten anyone with it. She didn't pull it out and brandish it."

That may be true, but don't you feel more secure knowing that a potentially violent criminal has been taken out of public schools? And that for the next 10 days, her fellow students won't need to fear for their safety?

If that's not enough, I recently heard that an alert off-duty policeman arrested a woman for swearing at a toilet. The disorderly conduct charge could have led to up to 90 days in jail and a US$300 fine. However, a bleeding-heart judge dismissed the disorderly conduct charge.

This is an unfortunate example of judicial activism. It's important that the "toilet police" remain vigilant to threats made against these proud porcelain receptacles. After all, if Americans aren't called to account for swearing at toilets, they might start swearing at cars that won't start, furnaces that don't heat or even presidential candidates that don't deliver on their promises.

Fortunately, alert legislators in numerous states have identified many other serious threats to our American way of life:

In Georgia, you can be fined for keeping a donkey in a bathtub. In Arkansas, donkeys in bathtubs are OK, but you can't keep an alligator in one.

Also in Arkansas, it's illegal for the Arkansas River to rise higher than the Main Street bridge in Little Rock.

In Texas, it's illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing.

In any event, I hope that authorities in these states are vigilantly protecting the public from swearing at toilets, donkeys in bathtubs and standing beer tipplers. And, that police in Arkansas are prepared to incarcerate the entire Arkansas River if it rises too high.

After all, today's beer sipper could be tomorrow's serial killer. Not only that, but if the Arkansas River is allowed to overflow, who knows what heinous crimes it might commit?

MARK NESTMANN, Privacy Expert &
President of The Nestmann Group
www.nestmann.com