Tell It To Al

“Ponzi” always sounded like a card game to me, kind of like Rummy or Pinochle.

So it’s no surprise Charlie Ponzi and Bernie Madoff will be featured on trading cards by Topps Co.

I wish they would make a whole deck, dedicated to the scores of Ponzi schemers getting exposed across the country as the raging recession exposes all folly.

Click here to read my column on the schemers that may never stack in the deck.

I think my pal, Jerry Paul, is mad at me.

The Denver money manager sent me an email with a link to a MarketWatch story about United Airlines’ plan to start charging very obese people for an additional seat.

“I hope you are happy! I’m blaming you for this,” Paul wrote.

In 2006, I chronicled my claustrophobic experience of sitting next to a very large man on a plane. It forced me to raise the question of whether airlines should charge by the pound. Click here to read the column.

The column outraged the plus-size community and filled my blog with 121 comments, many of which were enlightening and amusing. I knew it would upset more than a few people since two-thirds of Americans are overweight and one third are considered obese.  But I also know that economics often forces one to make cold observations.  Click here to read the blog.

Paul is a decent man, and a well-respected money manager who used to work for Invesco mutual funds. He now has his own investment counseling firm, Essential Investment Partners LLC.

And, really, he’s not that fat. I’m pretty sure he can fit into a single coach seat.

Looks like people will  be shopping Wal-Mart for a long time to come.

“It’s not a ‘V’ recession, where we’re just going to bounce out and come back,” Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke said this morning on NBC’s “Today Show. “There’s still a lot of stress.”

Walmart reported a lower-than-expected RISE in sales for March at its U.S. stores. Why would it ever want this recession to end?

When it comes to dealing with auto unions at insolvent auto companies, maybe the U.S. needs a European company to draw the line.

Fiat Spa CEO Sergio Marchionne says Chrysler’s workers need to pony up significant cuts or Fiat will walk away from a deal to take a 20 percent stake in the company. Chrysler has to the end of the month to strike a deal with Fiat or it loses the government lifeline that has been keeping it afloat and sinks headlong into bankruptcy.

“Absolutely we are prepared to walk. There is no doubt in my mind,” Marchionne  said  in an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail.  “We cannot commit to this organization unless we see light at the end of the tunnel.”

“The minute you talk to me about historical entitlement in an organization that is technically bankrupt, it’s a nonsensical discussion,” he said.

“There is no wealth to be distributed.”

 It’s a hard line.  And there’s only two weeks to toe it.

Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio has finally checked into the Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution in Minersville, Pa., the Associated Press reports.

He put up quite a battle, staying out of the slammer since his  2007 of 19 counts of insider trading. He won a reversal on appeal, but then in a rare “en banc” hearing, the appeals court reversed its reversal. And now the battle rages on.

Nacchio has a pending request for reinstated bail before the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as a request to review his case. Nacchio’s questionable stock trades date back to 2001. He’s been sentenced for 6 years. So far, he’s spent more time worrying about prison, than he’ll have to spend in prison.

This case has gone back and forth so many times, I wouldn’t count Nacchio out for another surprising reversal.

That 2005 law that is supposed to make it harder for people to file bankruptcy isn’t working, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.

In the past 12 months, 1.2 million debtors have filed, representing a huge, recessionary surge. The 130,831 people who sought bankruptcy protection last month, for example, represented an increase of 46 percent over March 2008 and 81 percent over March  2007, the AP reported.

Congress voted in 2005 to tighten the bankruptcy laws, imposing higher filing fees and requiring debtors to participate in credit counseling sessions. 

Now it appears Congress just didn’t go far enough.

Many of the banks that lobbied for this bankruptcy reform have been deemed too big to fail. But their customers are not too big to fail.

Maybe it’s time some our bankers are required to take credit counseling sessions, too.

Thanks to Connell McShane and Jenna Lee for hosting me today on Fox Business LIVE. We  discussed those small, but ubiquitous, Ponzi schemes that hardly make headlines in the shadow of Bernie Madoff, and tea party protests slated for tax day.

 Click here for a replay.

Do mall cops deserve the lampooning they’re getting from Hollywood?

First there was “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and now this weekend comes and R-rated mall cop comedy, “Observe and Report.” Neither film flatters mall cops.

See what an executive at one of the nation’s largest mall security contractors has to say.  Click here to read column.

I also talked about mall cops with Adam Schrager, an anchor at Denver’s NBC affiliate, 9News. Click here for a replay. 

(PHOTO: 2009 Peter Sorel/Warner Bros)

You can live like one of the world’s greatest Ponzi schemers for just one night – and you don’t even have to commit a felony for the pleasure.

While Bernie Madoff languishes behind bars, two of his Delta Club Gold Seats for the New York Met’s Opening Day are still up for auction on eBay at an accessible price.

The pair of $525-face-value tickets were going for $1,881 as of this writing. Click here to read more about the seats.  Click here to see the latest bid. (UPDATE: The winning big was $7,500.)

Continue reading…

Why does everybody get so excited about big banking profits, like the $3 billion first quarter profit Wells Fargo is hinting at today?

Of course, big banks are making money. They can borrow money from the Federal Reserve for practically nothing – or 0.25% – and loan it out for just about anything – maybe 5% on a mortgage or 8% to 30% on consumer loans and credit cards.

This marvelous interest rate spread is just another government bailout in disguise and can’t last forever. Sure, it will help banks recover – but the depths of their losses from the toxic assets they store in their basements is still unknown.