If you don’t know, Elizabeth Warren chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). She’s been in the news a lot recently for her comments and opinions on the TARP program, many of them, not very flattering to banking executives. So why would I agree with her? If you listen …
Continue reading “I Agree with Elizabeth Warren?!?!”
Read More
I see that Business Week has opened a micro website called “The Case for Optimism”. While I am naturally optimistic, I found the site interesting, especially an article about cautious optimism. It was written by the CEO of SAP, who grew up in Europe. One of the things that he mentions is that European governments, …
Continue reading “Is Optimism Warranted?”
Read More
UPDATE: As Chairman of the Wisconsin Bankers Association (WBA) Trust Section Board, I find it unacceptable on behalf of our customers that the state of Wisconsin has not adopted the 2010 federal law amendment allowing any IRA owner to convert his or her Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA regardless of income level. I’m afraid …
Continue reading “Update to 2010 Roth IRA Conversions”
Read More
Here is a conversation that we are having with our clients. I thought it was important to share this information. I’m sure you knew that in the 2010 the federal law was amended to allow conversions of traditional IRA’s to Roth IRA’s regardless of the income levels of the IRA owner. The current modified adjusted …
Continue reading “2010 Roth IRA Conversions…Did You Know This?”
Read More
AIG headlines have overshadowed the important policy discussion about systemic risk created by the “too big to fail” (toobtof) institutions. The best way to manage systemic risk is to minimize it. The most effective way to minimize systemic risk is to tax the Toobtofs who create it. This is a market-based approach which should appeal …
Continue reading “Tax the Toobtofs”
Read More
The meltdown of financial markets has put us in a deep hole. The “stimulus package” will bury us. This crisis was caused by too much private debt. How can we imagine that public sector debt is the solution? We are literally burdening our children with financial and moral bankruptcy. The antidote for private sector corruption …
Continue reading “Shovel Ready – Subprime II”
Read More
Last weekend I watched portions of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s testimony to the banking committee followed by portions of the big bank CEOs’ testimony. There were moments in both where I wanted to scream, “why can’t you guys just tell the truth?” I do not mean that any of them perjured themselves in a legal sense. I mean …
Continue reading “Telling The Truth Slowly”
Read More
So if Nicolet is not broke, why did we take the TARP funds? We took the TARP funds for two reasons. The first is that we believe in the intent of the program as it was expressed to us. With the exception of the Toobtofs, the program is intended to infuse capital into strong banks because …
Continue reading “Nicolet Bank and TARP: Why Did We Take The Funds?”
Read More
What did Nicolet do with the capital? While our press release adequately addresses this, I would like to comment in a more complete fashion.
Read More
