This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

Now that a little time has passed,  we can review the Brexit vote with more perspective and forecast its impact on the US financial system more objectively. To do so, we believe it important to consider the following: Brexit's main short term impact will be to restrict the ability of the Fed to respond to domestic economic and financial issues, already evident in their decision to keep rates low. Further, the Fed may have to create a special QE Brexit liquidity facility to support American firms in the UK who now need to move operations either back to the US or to the Continent. Finally, having announced at the House Financial Services Committee Monetary Policy Hearing this week a November conference to examine black unemployment, we predict this effort will be placed on hold as the Fed struggles to deal with the uncertainty that follows the Brexit vote. Uncertainty is, of course, the greatest legacy of Brexit. Consider this: each and every contract signed in the UK when ...

Our initial 2016 Election Fully Adjusted Return Forecast indicates that Donald J. Trump will win the election for the Presidency of the United States. This follows from one  sufficient and one necessary condition.   The sufficient condition: seventeen (17) Republican states have enacted laws restricting access to the voting booth, restrictions so onerous as to defy both common sense and the spirit of democratic governance. These laws guarantee that the people who would vote against Mr. Trump will be blocked from participating in the election. They simply will not be able to vote. For example, to vote in the State of Texas, a gun permit suffices. A college ID does not. So it is in 17 of 50 US States.  The movement to block access to voting has been a long term effort, a reaction to the election of the first African American president, and it is now too late to do anything about this.  Rather than effectively fighting voter disenfranchisement, Democrats wer...

President Barack Hussein Obama came to Howard University and delivered what many Black people will regard as the best speech of his presidency. (Click  here  for one absolutely hilarious reaction.) As with  Larry Wilmore's White House Correspondents' Dinner Speech , we expect most white people to disagree. Here's why they are wrong on both. In content, reference and tone, both the President and Wilmore were not speaking to white people. They were speaking directly to Black people.  Mr. Obama started by name checking the resident student dormitories at Howard. In doing so, he speaks to the people who either lived in, partied at, heard about or wanted to party at one (or more) of the dorms. This may number 900,000 Black people, give or take...I'm not even kidding. He also name checked the pantheon of Black activists and achievers: Thurgood Marshall, David Dinkins, Zora Neale Hurston, King, of course, but also Fanny Lou Hamer, and James Baldwin, just...

Every spring "the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group..bring together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, private sector executives, and academics to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness." We have attended this event for the past six years. Prior to the event, the IMF issues a  Global Spring Meeting Economic Forecast , this year predicting the world's economy will grow by 3.2% in 2016, down from the 3.8% forecast issued last year. This decline was due mainly to an increase in political ( as opposed to purely economic) risks. Keep in mind that these are the same factors (austerity as an inappropriate focus on reducing deficits in a time of recession, inability to rationally  address  the  causes  and  solution  to the  crisis ) that led to the shallow global recovery in the first place....

The Real Superpredators Thursday, April 14, 2016 Business Recently, the Department of Justice announced that Goldman Sachs “ agreed to Pay More than $5 Billion in Connection with Its Sale of Residential Mortgage Backed Securities. ” Close scrutiny reveals that Goldman will actually pay, for a number of reasons, $0. Goldman’s Track Record: We note that: On April 28, 2003, Goldman Sachs was found to have aided and abetted efforts to defraud investors. On September 4, 2003, Goldman Sachs admitted that it had misused material, nonpublic information that the US Treasury would suspend issuance of the 30-year bond. On April 28, 2003, Goldman Sachs was found to have "i ssued research reports that were not based on principles of fair dealing and good faith .. contained exaggerated or unwarranted claims.. and/or contained opinions for which there were no reasonable bases ". . On January 25, 2005, " the Securities and Exchange Commission announced settled ...

At the request of community groups in DC's Ward 7, William Michael Cunningham and Creative Investment Research are conducting a preliminary analysis of the Ward's social and economic condition. An informal straw pool is also underway. These efforts will provide information on the real time economic and social landscape of Ward 7. This data may also be used as a preface for a Ward 7 City Council Candidate Forum and Straw Poll. The Ward 7 Candidates Forum and Straw Poll will be h eld on Saturday, April 9, 2016 at H.D. Woodson Senior High School at 9am. The moderator for the Forum will be Harold T. Fisher of WHUR-FM Radio The Daily Drum along with two Youth Mayors from the Marion S. Barry, Jr.'s Youth Leadership Institute. Our preliminary economic and social data analysis reveals the quality of life in Ward 7 has declined. Further analysis reveals that this is due to the protracted lack of economic opportunity and an increase in certain negative social issues directly re...

We note with interest a recent study from the University at Buffalo School of Management that shows "high quality photos and video, previous crowdfunding success and positive comments from backers are the keys to a successful campaign." This syncs with what we uncovered in our two books, " The JOBS Act: Crowdfunding for Small Businesses and Startups " and in " Top 50 Crowdfunding Campaigns: Fifty Most Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns ." According to news reports, the University at Buffalo School of Management study "found that by receiving these signals, potential investors..gain valuable information that motivates them to participate and increases the likelihood of a project achieving its funding goal." One part of the analysis we found in error, however. One of the authors of the study was quoted as saying that "These sources are important because backers of crowdfunded projects have less access to information than typical private equi...