I am not advocating blind acceptance, just the wisdom to recognize the appropriate forum for political debate. Do you equal or exceed the President in formal education? Can you claim accomplishments of greater stature than President Obama? I sincerely doubt it… if you had, you would probably understand the concept and benefits of decorum, or at the very least tact.
Before you publicly call the leader of your nation a moron, perhaps you should reflect on where you stand on the moronic scale. Just because you have the 'right' to say something, doesn't mean that you should. You probably have no concept of what it is like outside of the United States because you have a severely limited view of what it means to be an American. You probably have no concept of how ignorant you sound. Shah is a frequent guest on CNBC, Forbes, and MarketWatch, and you can catch him every week on Fox Business's Varney & Co. Today, as editor of Hyperdrive Portfolio, Shah presents his legion of subscribers with massive profit opportunities that result from paradigm shifts in the way we work, play, and live. These contacts give him the real story - when others only get what the investment banks want them to see. Shah's vast network of contacts includes the biggest players on Wall Street and in international finance. Shah founded a second hedge fund in 1999, which he ran until 2003.
There he originated and ran a packaged fixed-income trading desk, and established that company's "listed" and OTC trading desks. After leaving Chicago to run the futures and options division of the British banking giant Lloyd's TSB, Shah moved up to Roosevelt & Cross Inc., an old-line New York boutique firm. The work he did laid the foundation for what would later become the VIX - to this day one of the most widely used indicators worldwide. When options on the Standard & Poor's 100 began trading on March 11, 1983, Shah worked in "the pit" as a market maker. He ran his first hedge fund in 1982 from his seat on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. Shah Gilani boasts a financial pedigree unlike any other. Sounds good, right? It is for now.īrowse Shah's articles | View Shah's research services Then along comes Bluebird with its no-fee prepaid cards. They just know that bank fees are higher, or at least they think they are higher, which most of the time, they are. A lot of the time folks aren't even aware of the fees they're paying. My biggest problem is that there are plenty of fees attached to these types of cards. There are lots of problems with the prepaid card game. The "bank" status of American Express and its 100-year history of issuing Travelers Checks (the first prepaid cards, really) and the marketing power and reach of Wal-Mart, into the pockets of the less than wealthy and notably underbanked, has yielded a Bluebird capable of flying in the face of safe banking. That's because back on November 10, 2008, at the height of the credit crisis, American Express had to become a bank (actually a bank holding company) so it could take money from the Federal Reserve to stay alive.Īnd Wal-Mart, well, they have been trying to become a bank in several end-around ways. The cards are being pushed through Wal-Mart stores and are ostensibly backed by American Express.Īmerican Express? As if it's a bank. Now, American Express (NYSE: AXP) is partnering with Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) to offer Bluebird cards. These are the people who more or less may live paycheck to paycheck, or don't have jobs but need a "card" because both credit and debit cards are how we pay for most things these days.Ī lot of people are rebelling, and rightfully so, against the higher and higher fees that banks are charging on checking accounts (and for all their other "services") and are turning to prepaid cards as an alternative means of paying for goods and services. Prepaid cards have lots of benefits, especially for the "unbanked." It's about those prepaid cards, and the games that are being played with them that you may not know about. Here's something else that's got the potential to undermine our financial future.