John R. Talbott

Talk about burying the lead, in an article today in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "Pushback for Romney Fund: New Effort Raises Red Flags for Wall Street Donors Due to Tighter SEC Rules," the Journal waits until the last two paragraphs of the piece to unleash the truly...

If you are skeptical by nature like me, you may have thought the 60 Minutes episode last night claiming sugar was toxic was some kind of April Fool's joke. Certainly, you thought the scientists appearing on the show were overreacting in saying that sugar might be addictive. Let...

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to read in the New York Times an op-ed piece by Greg Smith, a senior derivatives executive at my old employer, Goldman Sachs, who had decided to leave the firm on moral grounds.

I wanted to tell Greg that he is not...

It has been reported that the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) last week reached a four year high not seen since before the onset of the financial crisis. Just one look at this graph shows that this is true, and that the DJIA is within striking distance of reaching its...

Greece reports that it has secured a second major bailout of $172 billion in an attempt to save it from bankruptcy. This is in addition to an original bailout of $146 billion Greece received in May 2010. In addition, it is estimated that Greece may need...

In Part 1 of this story, I said that Mitt Romney had made aggressive use of loopholes in IRA legislation to accumulate $20 to $100 million of his assets in an IRA "retirement" account and thus avoid any taxation on this compensation and its future earnings until it...

The Wall Street Journal reports today in its story entitled 'Romney's Unorthodox IRA' that Mitt Romney has between $20.7 million and $101.6 million parked in his IRA.

IRA's were created by Congress as a means of encouraging Americans to save for their retirement. It appears given the...

I have been waiting for more than five years to offer this advice. It is now time in most cities across the country to buy a new home or refinance your existing home with thirty-year fixed rate mortgage debt. And this from the author of The Coming Crash in the...

I got introduced to speak at Occupy San Diego tonight as an ex-investment banker from Goldman Sachs. So, I started my talk by saying, "I was an investment banker, and I'm sorry." I then went on to list the top ten ways you know you are dealing with an investment...

The Occupy folks got it started. Now it is time for all Americans to turn out in the streets on Thursday, November 17 to air their grievances and take the country back from lobbyists, banksters, corporate money and self-centered special interests. Occupy movements across the globe have declared this Thursday...

Overnight, the police in both Oakland and Atlanta forcibly tried to shut down the Occupy movements in those cities.

The reaction of Oakland police was extreme, firing beanbag rounds and flash canisters into the crowd and launching tear gas at them and driving them from a park...

I was thinking about all the things we are doing to try to get out of this economic crisis. Do any of the following steps make sense and why aren't economists speaking out against them?

I know economists can't control everything in the world, but can't they at least speak...

It hurts to watch the mainstream media's coverage of the debt ceiling debate. Articles like this one in the Washington Post mistakenly lead you to believe that two of the biggest expense problems are Social Security and Medicare so to balance the budget, these programs must be...

I was curious as to what the world would look like if we didn't have lobbyists. We are one week away from announcing here the formation of a third party that has just one platform issue, the refusal of our candidates to take money or meet with lobbyists, banks or...

Fraud amongst bankers was endemic leading up to the financial crisis, but to date the SEC, the Justice Department and the FBI haven't arrested a single executive at the big banks. Someone smuggling $2,000 of marijuana across the border with Mexico can expect to have a major investigation initiated at...

I am getting tired of politicians claiming that if we don't pass TARP, or if we let Goldman Sachs fail, or we allow Greece to default, or now, if we let the US default -- the result will be total global financial Armageddon. They are starting to sound like the...

Well, the response to my article on Huffington Post yesterday, entitled Wanted: Multimillionaire With Conscience To Launch Third Party, was a bit overwhelming. Unbelievably, an honest-to-goodness millionaire contacted me and he and his friends are considering kick-starting the effort by helping create a website and getting us...

The biggest problem facing our country is that special interests have captured our government and the government no longer listens to the will of the people. Let me walk you through the logic of starting a new third political party to address this problem and end corruption in our government....

Facebook has been valued recently at $80 billion while Google has a current public market value of $195 billion and Apple has a market capitalization of $350 billion.

Will any of these companies still be around in forty years?

Analysts attempting to arrive at a fair value for these...

Facebook shares are currently trading in private transactions that value the company at close to $80 billion. A public offering is expected next year at what some guess will be a $100 billion plus valuation. While these valuations seem high for a company that was started just seven...