A compliance professional can turn the fun and chaos of Halloween into a boring night on the study of procedure. Here, I’ll prove it. Let’s start with costumes. Have you imposed a “no costume = no candy” rule. Perhaps you merely skimp on the older kids who have skimped on dressing up. If you, like … Read more »
Category: Off Topic
Happy New Year
There is little similarity between Rosh Hashanah, one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar, and the American midnight drinking bash and daytime football game. Read more »
Weekend Humor: Dodd-Frank Update
Jon Stewart helps celebrate the one year anniversary of Dodd-Frank (for those of you who grew up on Schoolhouse Rocks.) The Daily Show – Dodd-Frank UpdateGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook Read more »
Fourth of July and Compliance
What better way to celebrate the independence of the United States than by taking the day off from work, grilling meat, and watching stuff blow up. In colonial Boston, official proclamations were read from the Old State House balcony, looking down State Street towards Long Wharf. Each July 4th, the Captain Commanding of the Ancient … Read more »
Bruins and Compliance
I never thought the Bruins would win a championship under the current ownership. For the Celtics, Red Sox, and Patriots, it took a change of ownership for them to become championship caliber. The “Tone at the Top” was to win the championship. Nothing else was acceptable. The owners of the Bruins had been accused of … Read more »
The Case for Executive Assistants
Why would you pay managers big salaries and then ask them to make their own hotel reservations? Since it’s Administrative Professionals Day, a story in this month’s Harvard Business Review caught my eye: The Case for Executive Assistants. (Now looking at the Administrative Professionals’ website, I see it has grown from being mere a day … Read more »
Free Will and Compliance
“Human Irony” from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Heisenberg Uncertainty: Published by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the principle implies that it is impossible to determine simultaneously both the position and the momentum of an electron or any other particle with any great degree of accuracy or certainty. Read more »
Read a Free Book
I have an extra copy of All the Devils are Here by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera. They put together an insightful look at the many factors that created the housing bubble and amplified the destruction when it popped. Pundits and purists have tried to pin the blame on a single element. It seems clear … Read more »
Looking at the Residential Mortgage Crash
Matt Phillips at WSJ.com’s Market Beat put together some great charts showing the problems with the residential mortgage market: Fannie and Freddie: The Saga in Charts. The first one that caught my eye shows how Wall-Street took such a quick, big chunk of the market share of residential mortgage-backed securities during the housing boom. Fannie … Read more »
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a Regulatory Twist
As someone who stares at a lot of regulations, this Valentine’s Day message caught my eye. If you are a fan of NPR, they have several other ways to share Valentine’s Day with an NPR flavor. And don’t forget about the compliance issues you can run into. Dan Schwartz compiled a bunch of bungled romance … Read more »