Bank of America's $4 billion mistake is neither complicated nor trivial

Bank of America’s $4 billion mistake:  The error is not trivial compared to BAC’s $145.2 billion in regulatory capital or $11.8 billion increase yoy.  Accounting rules cause banks to mark to market assets and liabilities.  So when a liability falls in value, the bank books a gain, but when they rise, it books a loss.  These gains and losses, if unrealized, can only be applied to earnings but not to regulatory capital. An unrealized gain was properly applied to earnings but improperly also applied to capital.

Bank of America paid PWC $94 million to do last year’s auditing.  BAC’s board’s audit committee is chaired by Sharon Allen, former chairman of DeLoitte.  The risk committee is headed by Frank Bramble, former vice chairman of MBNA, and includes former Fed governor Susan Bies, and Clayton Rose, a Harvard Business School professor.

My wife teaches algebra to 14-year-olds.  She says they often make mistakes like this.

Obamacare costs will bust the budget unless healthcare is reformed

Eight year after Romneycare began, Massachusetts may show what Obamacare will mean.  Massachusetts has the lowest rate of uninsured in the county (3.1%) and the highest per capita health costs.  ($9,276 vs US average of $6,815)  Emergency room use for non-urgent care has not declined. 

Like Romneycare, Obamacare will extend coverage to virtually everyone, but the cost will be high.  If the Massachusetts model is predictive, then health costs will rise from 18% of GDP to 24% of GDP. (OECD average is 9.3%)  Like Romneycare, Obamacare extends the system without reforming it. 

Where did we put the $20 billion? Nigeria loses its oil money.

Gov. of Nigeria’s Central Bank Lamido Sanusi’s personal passport was seized today by authorities when he tried to leave the country for Paris.  Sanusi had presented a detailed report to the senate about $20 billion in oil revenues that recently disappeared. Pres. Goodluck Jonathan then dismissed him without bothering to obtain the necessary senate sanction.  The president also ignored a high court order to restore Sanusi’s previous diplomatic passport.

President Goodluck Jonathan’s actions are unfortunately bound to raise suspicions that he is somehow involved in the disappearance of the $20 billion. 

Zambian interest rates hold at 12%

Zambia decides to leave interest rates at 12% despite the decline in the kwacha. The currency weakness can be attributed to declining copper prices, which has produced a growing current account deficit.  Inflation is now 7.8% but is expected to abate over the course of the year.

Both Zambia and neighboring Malawi issue kwacha.  Malawi has much higher inflation, 24.6%. Some forex traders may liken a Kwachazone to the Eurozone except that the Malawi and Zambia each issues its own kwacha. Otherwise, Zambia might be compared to Germany and Malawi to Greece.

The lost girls of northern Nigeria are unfound. The problem is unrealizable aspirations.

The 276 teenage girls kidnapped in Moslem northern Nigeria are still missing.

The problem is the 4 wife standard. Nature has provided that half of births are men and half are women.  So if men try to change the1:1 rule to a 4:1 rule, then it is inevitable there be, (1.) periodic mass abductions of wife material, and/or (2.) large reductions in the potential husband stock.  Both things appear to be happening in northern Nigeria.

MERS shows up in the US: An epidemic is unlikely, however.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) has afflicted some 400 people in Saudi Arabia, of whom 100 have died.  The first US case has just been confirmed in a man who recently returned from Saudi Arabia.

The good news:  MERS is not very contagious.

The bad news:  There is no cure. 

China's rapid advance to economic dominance presages social change in the West

British writer Martin Jacques (When China Rules the World, 2009) predicts that by 2030 China will be 1/3 of global output, greater than the US and Europe combined. 

Economic dominance leads to cultural dominance:  Jacques’ TED talk is worth hearing.  Chinese culture’s most esteemed virtue is social harmony and unity.  The West seeks justice at the cost of harmony.  Let us hope we become more harmonious. Will our officials let their fingernails grow?