Financial Review

Bull Run

Sinclair Noe — October 5, 2017

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DOW + 113 = 22,775 (Record)
SPX + 14 = 2552 (Record)
NAS + 50 = 6585 (Record)
RUT + 4 = 1512
10 Y + .02 = 2.35%
OIL + .78 = 50.76
GOLD – 6.80 = 1268.80

Cryptocurrency

• Number of Currencies: 869
• Total Market Cap: $148,138,835,945
• 24H Volume: $2,583,600,772

Top Cryptocurrencies

	Name	Symbol	Price USD	Market Cap	Vol.	Total Vol. %	Price BTC	Chg. % 1D	Chg. % 7D
	Bitcoin	BTC	4,404.2	$72.93B	$1.15B	44.37%	1	+2.06%	+6.81%
	Ethereum	ETH	299.59	$28.41B	$229.67M	8.89%	0.0679355	+1.45%	+3.73%
	Ripple	XRP	0.23424	$8.98B	$234.88M	9.09%	0.00005319	-1.59%	+22.33%
	Bitcoin Cash	BCH	368.00	$6.12B	$261.05M	10.10%	0.083414	+3.69%	-15.73%
	Litecoin	LTC	52.340	$2.79B	$67.96M	2.63%	0.0118994	+1.32%	+0.39%
	Dash	DASH	307.75	$2.34B	$24.44M	0.95%	0.069831	-0.20%	-5.95%
	NEM	XEM	0.21582	$1.97B	$3.96M	0.15%	0.0000498	+0.53%	-3.96%
	NEO	NEO	34.020	$1.69B	$64.82M	2.51%	0.00769487	+4.71%	+20.88%
	IOTA	MIOTA	0.55701	$1.55B	$7.43M	0.29%	0.00012624	+2.85%	-2.55%
	Monero	XMR	91.97	$1.39B	$26.99M	1.04%	0.0208051	+0.35%	-2.22%

This is the second-longest bull market ever, trailing only the 1990-2000 run during the dot-com era. Today was the eighth straight gain in the S&P 500, its longest winning streak since 2013. The S&P 500 also had its sixth straight record close, the longest such streak since 1997.

The S&P 500 is on track for its ninth consecutive winning year, tying the record from 1991 through 1999. It’s been more than a year since the S&P 500 fell as much as 5 percent from a previous high, the fifth-longest period without such a correction. The Nasdaq is also on an 8-day winning streak. The Russell 2000 was just a fraction off the record high from Tuesday.

The VIX, has closed below 10 for the seventh straight day, already making this the least volatile October in the history of the so-called fear gauge.

Now you might say that this just means the market is overextended and overdue for a pullback. You might say that.

The House narrowly passed a $4.1 trillion budget today. The final tally was 219-206. More than a dozen Republicans voted with Democrats against the budget, objecting to elements of the spending package or to parts of the tax reform proposal. The budget contains $1.1 trillion in non-entitlement spending, including nearly $622 billion on defense. The Senate is voting on a similar measure.

When both chambers pass their respective budget resolutions, it would trigger a legislative process known as reconciliation, during which they could pass a sweeping tax reform bill with a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate, instead of the usual 60-vote requirement.

That does not mean tax reform will be easy. There are already disagreements over how much to cut certain tax rates, which deductions could be eliminated, and whether the tax reform package would be revenue-neutral. Look for a fight over the elimination of state and local tax deductions.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 260,000 for the week ended Sept. 30. The Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday will likely show that nonfarm payrolls increased by 90,000 jobs last month after rising by 156,000 in August. The estimates are all over the place because no one is sure exactly what impact the hurricanes had on jobs.

The Commerce Department said the trade gap declined 2.7 percent to $42.4 billion, the smallest since September 2016. When adjusted for inflation, the trade deficit was little changed at $61.8 billion.

The so-called real trade deficit average for July and August was below the second-quarter average of $62.4 billion. That suggests trade could contribute to gross domestic product in the third quarter and help to soften the economic blow of the hurricanes, which are expected to cut at least six-tenths of a percentage point from economic growth in the third quarter.

In another report, the Commerce Department said orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft – seen as a measure of business spending plans – jumped 1.1 percent in August instead of the 0.9 percent increase reported last month.

Shipments of these so-called core capital goods, which are used to calculate business equipment spending in the gross domestic product report, shot up 1.1 percent instead of the previously reported 0.7 percent rise. Strong business spending on equipment is helping to underpin manufacturing. Business investment in equipment grew at its fastest pace in nearly two years in the second quarter.

The National Rifle Association announced it will support “additional regulations” on devices that boost semi-automatic weapons’ firing rates, like the tools used by the shooter in the Las Vegas massacre. In a statement, the NRA urged the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to review the legality of so-called bump stocks.

They stopped short of pushing Congress to pass a bill banning or regulating the devices. It is always surprising to see the NRA support restrictions but it was the least they could do. Really, this was the least they could do. Anything less would have been nothing.

Russian government hackers stole NSA information on how the US infiltrates foreign computers and defends itself against cyberattack. They hacked an NSA contractor who was using antivirus software made by Russia-based Kaspersky Lab, the sources said, which was how the hackers were able to target the contractor. The incident occurred in 2015 but wasn’t uncovered until last year.

Spain’s Constitutional Court ordered the suspension of Monday’s session of the regional Catalan parliament, throwing into doubt its plans to declare unilateral independence from Spain. The speaker of the Catalan parliament accused the Madrid government of using the courts to deal with political problems and said the regional assembly would not be censored. But she said parliamentary leaders had not yet decided whether to defy the central court and go ahead with the session.

Secessionist Catalan politicians have pledged to unilaterally declare independence at Monday’s session after Sunday’s referendum, banned by Madrid and marked by violent scenes where Spanish police sought to hinder voting.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed sanctuary state legislation extending protections for immigrants living in the United States illegally — a move that gives the nation’s most populous state another tool to fight President Donald Trump. Brown’s signature means that police will be barred from asking people about their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement activities starting Jan. 1.

Jail officials only will be allowed to transfer inmates to federal immigration authorities if they have been convicted of certain crimes. The measure came in response to widespread fear in immigrant communities following Trump’s election. Among other things, the other bills signed today by Brown will limit federal immigration authorities from entering schools and workplaces without warrants; prohibit landlords from reporting tenants to ICE; and stop local governments from contracting with for-profit companies and ICE to hold immigrants.

Some law enforcement officials say the impact of the sanctuary measure likely will be minimal because it bans immigration enforcement activities that few agencies participate in. The bill does not prohibit ICE from operating in California.

Stranger Things will cost more. Netflix will now charge $11 per month instead of $10 for a plan that includes HD and allows people to simultaneously watch programs on two different internet-connected devices. The price for another plan that includes ultra-high definition, or 4K, video, is going up by 17 percent, to $14 from $12 a month. A plan that limits subscribers to one screen at a time without high-definition will remain at $8 a month.

The increase will be the first in two years for Netflix, although it won’t seem that way for millions of subscribers. That’s because Netflix temporarily froze its rates for long-time subscribers the last two times it raised its prices, delaying the most recent increases until the second half of last year for them. Netflix isn’t giving anyone a break this time around.

A new program called Seller Flex would allow more items on Amazon — even those sold by third parties — to be listed with the Prime badge of two-day shipping. Amazon itself will handle the pickup of packages from sellers. In some cases, it will also handle delivery to customers, eliminating the major delivery partners of UPS and FedEx.

Shares of UPS and FedEx were initially hit after the report about competition from Amazon. FedEx ultimately closed a fraction of a point higher, while UPS recovered to close 0.7 percent down. UPS says that no customer constitutes 10 percent of its revenue, and FedEx says no one constitutes three percent of its revenue. So, while there is exposure to Amazon, it is not make or break.

Amazon is prudently cherry-picking areas with dense delivery and will probably still leave rural delivery up to other companies. Meanwhile, Amazon could also take years to establish its new service, but it is coming. Amazon has not taken over the world, not yet.

Two-thirds of Amazon’s revenue comes from sales in the U.S. Amazon Prime is available in a dozen or so countries, but it’s not big in many of them. The biggest global prize is India, where Amazon has pledged to spend $5 billion to break into what many technology companies see as a future gold mine.

Tonight, that full moon you’ll see ascending in the east after sunset is the Northern Hemisphere’s Harvest Moon. Over the years, we’ve seen lots of informal uses of the term Harvest Moon. Some people (in the Northern Hemisphere) call the full moons of September and October by that name. And that’s fine.

Point is the moon will be full, it is close to Earth, and that means there will be strong gravitational pull. In Miami, that means King tides. King tides are determined by the orbits and alignments of the Earth, moon and sun.

In South Florida, they occur each fall, but in recent years they’ve gotten increasingly dramatic. In Miami Beach, University of Miami researchers found flooding from high tides soared 400 percent between 2006 and 2016. Parking lots turn into lakes. Streets turn into rivers.

It is quite the problem. Earlier this year, Miami Beach initiated $100 million in spending to raise roads, redesign sewers and install pumps to keep the tidal impact in check. Across Biscayne Bay, Miami will vote in November on whether to approve what is called the “Miami Forever” bond issue, a $400-million tax increase that includes nearly $200 million for seawalls and drainage pumps, in addition to money for housing and economic development.

Financial Review

Makes You Want to Holler

Sinclair Noe — March 16, 2017

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DOW – 15 = 20,934
SPX – 3 = 2381
NAS + 0.71 = 5900
RUT + 3 = 1386
10 Y + .01 = 2.52%
OIL – .07 = 48.79
GOLD + 6.10 = 1226.80

President Trump will ask the Congress for cuts to many federal programs, and more money to bulk up defense spending. Trump’s budget outline is a blueprint covering just “discretionary” spending for the 2018 fiscal year starting on October 1.

It boosts spending for defense, homeland security and veterans’ affairs; the Defense Department budget would increase by $54 billion, which will raise defense spending to $639 billion for fiscal year 2018.

The Environmental Protection Agency faces cuts of 31% and the Department of Agriculture would see funding cuts more than 20; State Department 28%; Health and Human Services would be cut 16%; Education faces cuts of 14%.

Trump’s budget proposes eliminating discretionary funding altogether for at least 19 agencies and 61 other programs. Plans for new NASA missions, climate change research, aid for low-income families, funding for commercial flights to rural airports, public broadcasting, and Meals on Wheels would all be on the chopping block.

The spending cuts that Trump proposes come from those agencies that fund education programs, social services, environmental protection, health research, housing and food assistance, national parks, land management, and countless other endeavors. As it is, spending on non-defense discretionary programs is already historically low.

As a share of the economy it’s at its lowest level since 1998 and is well below where it was 50 years ago, per data from the Congressional Budget Office. The net effect is no change in the national deficit. The budget proposal is the first volley in what is expected to be an intense battle over spending in coming months in Congress.

President Trump’s second travel ban was blocked by a federal court in Hawaii hours before it was to go into effect. A federal judge in Maryland also ruled against the ban on the day it was supposed to take effect. The administration has promised to appeal the rulings.

The speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman and the ranking Democrat on the committee all said that they’ve seen no evidence of President Donald Trump’s accusation that he was wiretapped last year by his predecessor.

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr and ranking member Mark Warner issued a statement, saying “based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan said that “no such wiretap existed,” citing intelligence reports to House leaders. “We don’t have any evidence,” says the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “No evidence,” says his Democratic counterpart.

The statement from the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee marks the clearest and strongest refutation of Trump’s allegations since the President first made them two weeks ago. The senators statement also addresses Trump’s more recent statement that he was not merely speaking about wiretapping specifically.

The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee have said they have yet to see any evidence of wiretapping, but have yet to flatly rule out all surveillance. House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes said Wednesday that it was possible that Trump aides were surveilled via “incidental” collection.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte defeated far-rightist Geert Wilders in the first of a series of European elections this year in which populist insurgent parties are hoping to rock the establishment. The center-right prime minister had trailed in opinion polls for much of the campaign but emerged the clear victor of Wednesday’s election, albeit with fewer seats than before.

It’s rare for a Dutch election to attract international attention, but the performance of Wilders is being seen as a bellwether for the ascent of populism around Europe, particularly with the National Front’s Marine Le Pen set to reach the run-off in the French presidential election late next month. Germans will vote later in the year.

The Bank of Japan is sticking with its ultra-loose monetary policy even as the Federal Reserve tightens. Japan’s economy is recovering with the help of a weaker yen but growth and inflation remain low. The Bank of Japan to keep its target for 10-year Japanese government bond yields at around zero, a policy it calls “yield-curve control.” It left the short-term interest rate on some yen deposits held by commercial banks at minus 0.1%.

The Bank of England held interest rates at the record low level of 0.25 percent and maintained asset purchases at £435 billion. The UK economy has shown strength since last June’s Brexit referendum and the government revised its forecasts for domestic growth in 2017 sharply higher. That might be wishful thinking.

The UK has not yet felt the full impact of Brexit, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. The big question is whether London’s financial institutions will lose access to the single market of the Euro Union after the UK leaves the EU.

The main argument is as follows: since London plays a key financial role in Europe, any disruption would endanger the financing of the EU economy and would ultimately pose a threat to financial stability in the bloc.

My guess is that argument plays better in London than Brussels. That’s not just speculation. The number of new available jobs listed in the UK’s financial center fell 17% in February year-on-year to 6,945.  Or simply, Brexit is Brexit.

Yesterday, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to raise the range of the federal funds rate to 0.75% and 1.00%, citing progress in labor market growth, business fixed investment and inflation. The Fed indicated they are still looking at 2 more rate hikes in 2017, which matches the guidance they provided in December.

In a press conference yesterday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said, “The simple message is, the economy is doing well. We have confidence in the robustness of the economy and its resilience to shocks.”

The labor market has been a strong part of the economic recovery. In the last monthly jobs report, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.7%, but one weak spot was wages, which have flatlined. Once again, adjusted for inflation, there has likely been no growth whatsoever in real wages YoY.

For wages to increase, workers need job mobility, the ability to take a new job for more pay. Each month the Labor Department publishes the JOLT survey, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover; and in January, the number of Americans quitting their jobs rose to a seasonally-adjusted total of 3.22 million, the highest number since February 2001. The quits rate rose in January to 2.2%.

People quitting their jobs in droves is a sign of confidence among workers, as folks are unlikely to quit a job unless they are confident they can get another one. Openings totaled 5.63 million in January, above the prior month’s reading of 5.5 million.

The Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 241,000 for the week ended March 11. It was the 106th straight week that claims remained below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market. That is the longest stretch since 1970, when the labor market was much smaller.

US home-building jumped in February as unseasonably warm weather helped boost the construction of single-family houses to near a 9-1/2-year high. Housing starts increased 3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.29 million units last month.

Home-building was up 6.2 percent compared to February 2016. Single-family home-building, which accounts for the largest share of the residential housing market, surged 6.5%. Starts for the volatile multi-family housing segment fell 3.7%.

The Arizona Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of Arizona’s minimum wage increase to $10 an hour. Voters approved the increase in November, and the challenge was brought by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other business groups.

The state Supreme Court unanimously rejected the challenge. Proposition 206 raised the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour in January 2017. Incremental increases continue until 2020, when it will increase to $12.

Four people have been indicted in a 2014 cyber-attack on Yahoo email accounts. The indictment charges two officers of the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service, and two hackers who allegedly worked together with them to crack 500 million Yahoo user accounts.

Cyber security specialists have long said the Kremlin employs criminal hackers for its geostrategic purposes. They say the arrangement offers deniability to Moscow and freedom from legal troubles for the hackers.

3M said it would buy Johnson Controls’ safety gear business, Scott Safety, in deal valued at $2 billion. Scott Safety makes respiratory and protective equipment and other safety products for firefighters, industrial workers, police squads and the US military.

Oracle’s cloud business had a huge quarter. The business-software maker announced better-than-expected adjusted revenue and profit, helped by sales at its cloud business surging 62% to $1.19 billion

Adobe Systems stock jumped after the company delivered earnings and revenue that beat expectations.

Cold weather luxury apparel retailer Canada Goose’s stock rocketed 25 percent in its first day of trading. The stock trades under the ticker GOOS.

Amazon is ready to do to the local liquor store what it did to the local book store. It is rolling out free beer and wine 2-hour delivery and $7.99 1-hour delivery for Prime Now members, starting in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio.

Financial Review

Accept Responsibility

Sinclair Noe — September 22, 2016

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DOW + 98 = 18,392
SPX + 14 = 2177
NAS + 44 = 5339
10 Y – .05 = 1.62%
OIL + .74 = 46.08
GOLD + 1.80 = 1337.70

The Federal Reserve kept policy on hold, yesterday. The Fed held its key interest rate unchanged at a range of 0.25% to 0.50%, saying, “The Committee judges that the case for an increase in the federal funds rate has strengthened but decided, for the time being, to wait for further evidence of continued progress toward its objectives.” The Federal Reserve’s long-term outlook added to optimism over stimulus policies from global central banks.

For traders it was a cue to don their rally caps.  Risk on! Stocks climbed with bonds as the dollar fell. The S&P 500 tallied its best two-day performance in more than two months, while the Nasdaq closed at a record high. Oil rallied, leading commodities higher. Global equities extended a four-day advance, and Treasuries rose to a two-week high.

Filings for U.S. unemployment benefits dropped last week to match the lowest level since April. Jobless claims declined by 8,000 to 252,000 in the week ended Sept. 17. Applications for unemployment insurance are close to a four-decade low as companies focus more on filling available positions than on trimming staff. Filings have been below 300,000 for 81 straight weeks — the longest streak since 1970.

The National Association of Realtors reports existing-home sales declined 0.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.33 million. That was only 0.8% higher than a year ago, although year to date figures are 3% higher. First-time homebuyers comprised 31% of the market in August. As inventory tightened, it pressured prices higher. The median sales price was $240,000, which is 5.1% higher than in August 2015.

Weakness in the manufacturing sector dragged the Conference Board’s leading economic index down 0.2%. The index, which weights 10 different economic indicators, was hurt by a decline in the average workweek of production workers as well as the new-orders component of the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index. While the U.S. LEI declined in August, its trend still points to moderate economic growth in the months ahead, with the economy growing at about a 1.8% rate.

Wall Street wants the UK to delay Brexit for as long as possible. At a meeting in New York, Wall Street heads asked Prime Minister Theresa May for a “long lead time” of up to two years to prepare for a Brexit.

Yahoo has confirmed a really big hack.  Information associated with at least 500 million user accounts was stolen. Yahoo confirmed that a data breach in late 2014 revealed information that may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and some passwords and security questions and answers. Verizon, which agreed to buy Yahoo earlier this year, confirmed it was notified of the Yahoo breach within the last two days, but has “limited information” on the attack and will evaluate as the investigation continues. It is time to change your passwords.

Hanjin Shipping got some good news. The board of Korean Air Lines, Hanjin’s biggest shareholder, approved a 60 billion won $54 million loan to the shipper. After that, Korea Development Bank, the main lender to Hanjin, offered a conditional credit line of $45 million to help ease supply-chain disruptions caused by the collapse of the nation’s biggest container mover.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, last year said they would give 99 percent of their Facebook shares to charitable causes. Now they are putting a large chunk of that money to work.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, into which Mr. Zuckerberg and Dr. Chan put their Facebook shares, said it would invest at least $3 billion over the next decade toward preventing, curing or managing all diseases by the end of the century. While the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has already made investments in charter schools and education start-ups, the money toward curing diseases represents the group’s first major initiative in science.

Zuckerberg said that if his organization’s plan to cure or manage all disease worked, it should increase human life expectancy to 100 years. “That doesn’t mean no one will ever get sick,” he said. “But they should be able to treat it and manage it.”

America is not the greatest country in the world, at least we are not the healthiest. We are number 28, when it comes to health goals set by the United Nations, according to a report published in the Lancet. Using the UN’s sustainable development goals as guideposts, which measure the obvious (poverty, clean water, education) and less obvious (societal inequality, industry innovation), more than 1,870 researchers in 124 countries compiled data on 33 different indicators of progress toward the UN goals related to health.

The U.S. scores its highest marks in water, sanitation, and child development. That’s the upside. Unsurprisingly, interpersonal violence (think gun crime) takes a heavy toll on America’s overall ranking. Response to natural disasters, HIV, suicide, obesity, and alcohol abuse all require attention. The US is No. 64 in the rate of mothers dying for every 100,000 births, and No. 40 when it comes to the rate children under age five die.

The federal fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 and Congress must pass a spending measure by then to keep the government open. In recent years, lawmakers have seldom been able to agree on a full federal budget and instead have relied on stop-gap measures. Today a stop gap measure was introduced and immediately rejected. They have a full week to work it out. What could go wrong?

A couple of weeks ago, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million in penalties for perpetrating a massive fraud on customers; for years they had been opening bogus accounts in customers names’ without customers’ permission and charging fees to do it. Millions of phony accounts. Fake bank card PIN numbers. Fictitious email accounts. Wells Fargo admitted to firing 5,300 employees for engaging in these shocking tactics.

CEO John Stumpf was called before Congress to testify. Stumpf claimed the bank had an ethics hotline, a phone employees could call anonymously to report any type of unethical behavior; exactly the kind of safeguards put in place to prevent illegal activity from taking place and provide refuge to employees from dangerous work environments. Stumpf told lawmakers, “Each team member, no matter where you are in the organization, is encouraged to raise their hands.” He mentioned the anonymous ethics line, adding, “We want to hear from them.”

Well, CNNMoney has been hearing from some former Wells Fargo employees, and they are saying that attempts to report bad behavior got them fired. One former Wells Fargo banker not only refused orders to open phony bank and credit accounts. He called an ethics hotline and sent an email to human resources in September 2013, flagging unethical sales activities he was being instructed to do.

Eight days after that email, a copy of which CNNMoney obtained, he was fired. The stated reason? Tardiness. One former Wells Fargo human resources official even said the bank had a method in place to retaliate against tipsters. He said that Wells Fargo would find ways to fire employees “in retaliation for shining light” on sales issues.

Stumpf told the Congressional committee that the bank fired 5,300 employees involved in the fake accounts starting in 2011, not in response to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which revealed the scandal earlier this month. However, there was no indication Stumpf or anyone at Wells Fargo notified regulators about the problems.

The bank did hire consultants at PricewaterhouseCoopers to help determine the scope of the problem — but that happened in August 2015. Nor has the bank ever disclosed in its public filings to the SEC that its activities were under investigation. He said the bank has been refunding fees charged for fake accounts, but that’s nowhere near sufficient. Some customers could face decades of higher mortgage or loan payments because lenders downgraded their creditworthiness based on the fake accounts. This is the untold disaster.

Meanwhile, Stumpf’s personal stock-holdings increased in value by more than $200 million while the scam was ongoing — thanks in part to Wells Fargo’s boasts about its cross-selling skills. Stumpf said several times that he accepted “personal responsibility” and “he’s accountable”. I think we can all learn a valuable lesson here. We all need to stand up and accept personal responsibility for our actions – just like John Stumpf.

If you get caught speeding, don’t argue with the cop; just say “I accept full responsibility” and then zoom off. If the IRS says you owe a boatload of back taxes, don’t even bother to take your tax returns to the audit; just tell them you take full responsibility for those errors, assure them that you are accountable, and then hang up the phone, and wait for your refund check.

Other banks have done pretty much the same thing. Just last year, the Justice Department charged five other big banks, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS, with felony fraud for illegally manipulating the international currency markets. Their top executives all took “responsibility.” Nobody went to jail and most of them collected multi-million dollar bonuses. I tell you, this scam of accepting responsibility and being accountable, it is a money-maker!

And if you murder someone in cold blood, just tell the judge, “Your honor, I take full responsibility for that murder. I’m accountable.” Why that judge will surely grant you freedom to continue with your life of crime. Now, just be certain you say “I accept responsibility.” Do not, repeat, do not admit your guilt. You have to do it just like John Stumpf.