Musk has made it clear he can't be trusted, that at best he's unstable, at worst he's just plain nuts. At Tesla, he had software created that would cause Tesla's on 'autopilot' drive through stop signs, and even stop lights. He's turned Twitter into a gathering place for hate mongers and conspiracy theorists. His Space company destroys the communities it builds in. So no, if I were FDIC I'd never trust him.
30 Oct 2023 21:09 Read comment
He can find people to do it. That's not the issue. I don't trust him.
30 Oct 2023 08:51 Read comment
I can't imagine ever trusting Muskatel with even $1 of my money.
27 Oct 2023 20:42 Read comment
At an unnamed US operation of a foriegn IB, I was going through all billing (I'd been there maybe a year) from Bloomberg, and suddenly realized that I wasn't seeing anything from B Vault. I checked with another vendor, and learned that the latter made messaging available for downloading and review, but we didn't seem to be doing anything with it. From BB, we had something setup, but it was all a mystery. Got into it, and discovered that a few years earlier, it was being setup. But what I found made it clear that it hadn't been touched since then. Many current users were not set up, most had no managers set up to review their messaging (the managers actually cared, for the most part, though some didn't, and some didn't want anyone in their 'business').. Turns out that my then new boss had been in charge of the setup, then apparently walked away from it. I told him it was a problem, but it was like he was Sgt Schultz in Hogans Heroes - I see nothing, I hear Nothing, I know nothing. IOTW, don't bother me. Until his former coworkers in internal audit informed me that they wanted to see where things stood. Then my boss suddenly got religion. He was a tiny bit helpful in getting a few bosses to cooperate, not in actually doing things. A coworker and I basically set it up like new, learned how to administer it, And by the time I had to leave because my job was moving out of my commuting range (I WAS HYBRID, there was no good reason for it) we were mostly up again on BV. But of course, no one wanted to know about other such exposures.
One sort of related thought; in my first full time Managing Market Data job, the trading floors had lockers for all phones. But no one used them. Surprise, surprise. Compliance in a major bank? Frequenty a huge, bad joke.
24 Aug 2023 02:07 Read comment
Agreed. But firms, when they welcome new employees, have an obligation to teach new employees the rules,and to periodically repeat that training. They can and must limit what work devices or systems are used and monitor those. These systems record, and may use rule sets to know what to report to management. Now it's one thing to have personal discussions over employee owned phones or chat, but anything beyond that should be immediate grounds for firing - if communicating with coworkers or clients, etc., it must be via an approved channel. It is complicated, more so with WFH, where the employee should have a company phone of some sort or be using systems like Teams, Zoom, even the old Business Skype if still available.
I noted that if an employee just wants to spend a minute seeing how a coworker is, rules shouldn't apply, but if the call will include work, it must be recorded. Same with text messaging.
27 Jan 2023 19:02 Read comment
Once upon a time, when traders (for instance) were entering their trading floor, they had lockers and all comms devices had to be locked therein. By the late 1990's, they'd become a joke. All sorts of tools were used to illicitly chat, which, for instance, is a huge part about how the LIBOR scandal was able to happen. Bloomberg terminal chat rooms and messaging was another method, though at some point, firms that cared about compliance started using B Vault to capture and analyze such comms. But there has long been an attitude in the 'business' that cheating is possible and lucrative, you just have to find a communication method no one in compliance is paying attention to. There is a drive to make as much money as possible and breaking rules, regs and laws is, in too many firms,the shortcut to doing so.
Having said that, SOME firms don't consistently review official system based comms the way they need to. Too many senior managers don't want to put the effort in.
I hope MS manages to get this under control. I'm not holding my breath, though.
26 Jan 2023 19:10 Read comment
Why shouldn't crypto that has nothing behind it, like most crypto, not be banned?
07 Dec 2022 14:15 Read comment
How do you regulate somethng based on hot air and crime?
21 Nov 2022 14:29 Read comment
For nearly 25 years, I've never known the banks I've worked at to take messaging seriously. Major Japanese, French and American banks, among others. At one, I learned that Bloomberg messaging was not being monitored, though we had the capacity to. Just no one took responsibility to make it happen. Went to my boss, and he essentially told me to STFU. At least, until days later, when we got notified by Audit that they were reviewing the status since a project to get it going a few weeks earlier. Then my boss got 'religion'. Turns out he knew about the problem, just didn't care - until he did.
About 25 years ago, at a French bank, I first got heavily involved in trading floors, and learned about these issues. And I saw the lockers where traders were supposed to lock up their phones when on the floor. They were abandoned. No one gave a hoot.
Maybe now they will!
29 Sep 2022 05:15 Read comment
I won't say what foreign owned bank I worked for where piles of messaging was not being monitored - essentially because post implementation of a tool, no one followed up to keep up monitoring. And that was just one type of messaging. I'd gone to my 'mangler' and warned him - he told me to leave him alone. Then internal auditors asked him the status - and suddenly it became a top priority. But that was just one of many platforms. Others were ignored.
I cared about this for a number of reasons - one of them is that another firm I'd worked for was part of the LIBOR scandal. At that firm, there were rules, including about cell phones on the trading floors, that at a certain point were no longer enforced. Compliance on all sorts of things is a joke in numerous firms until, if and when these firms get hit with audits.
20 Jul 2022 05:33 Read comment
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