Category: Operational Risk

Errors in covid data reveal unreliable tracking system for nursing homes

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/errors-in-covid-data-reveal-unreliable-tracking-system-for-nursing-homes/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Case and death counts on the Department of Health’s website often mismatch what facilities report independently, or what is reported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Sometimes, the number of cases or deaths reported in a facility exceeds the number of residents altogether. Occasionally, the cumulative totals will fluctuate up and down from week to week, as if deceased residents are coming back to life. Often, the fields show “no data” at all.

“It’s not getting any better,” said Zach Shamberg, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Healthcare Association. “We’ve lost faith, unfortunately, as an industry, in much of the data that’s been collected, reproduced and distributed on a state or federal website. We just don’t trust it at this point.”

While facilities are inundated with information, the state Department of Health also is struggling with an overload of covid-19 data, a health department spokesman said. The workload is compounded by an understaffed team of workers who all have other responsibilities. But at the end of the day, he said, the data is provided for the public’s benefit.

Author(s): Teghan Simonton

Publication Date: 3 January 2021

Publication Site: Trib Live

The Reddit Inspired Attack on Shorts Exposed Wall Street Sleaze and Corruption

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/the-reddit-inspired-attack-on-shorts-exposed-wall-street-sleaze-and-corruption

Excerpt:

The big players are overleveraged because the Fed encouraged them. The whole thing is propped up by stimulus and bailouts of consumers and companies alike.

This coordinated short squeeze pushed two hedge funds and Robinhood to the brink. It revealed for all to see how broken the stock market has been..

You know it’s serious when the New York Times puts a stock chart at the top of the page in a Saturday morning edition.

Traders who follow prudent strategies are ridiculed and have zero returns. The Fed is the biggest manipulator out there.

Those traders on Reddit have succeeded in showing how completely broken the stock market is.

The Fed is a big proponent of this through its monetary policy for the wealth effect. It is responsible for reckless leverage, crazy trading strategies, and the huge incentive to manipulate.

Author(s): Mish

Publication Date: 1 February 2021

Publication Site: Mish Talk Global Economics Trend Analysis

Naked Shorting is Illegal: So How the Hell was GameStop 140% Short?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/naked-shorting-is-illegal-so-how-was-gamestop-140-short

Graphic:

Excerpt:

It is illegal to be naked short in excess of float except for market makers who have to take the other side of a trade.

It was not the market makers who were naked short. It could be in theory, but not in this case, at least not yet.

Hedge funds wanted to short and they have to borrow stocks to do so.

The hedge funds get those shares from somewhere. Where? The brokerages and the market makers such as Goldman Sachs.

It should be the responsibility of the brokerages and market makes to not let hedge funds get 140% short. But they did, and I believe on purpose.

Since the public cannot be 140% long, except via options, who was effectively long the other 40% of the shares?

The brokerages and the market makers. To get even more shares for themselves, they restricted trading.

So while these Redditt traders did well, the market makers also gained immensely on the meteoric rise. The more the merrier. They screwed the hedge funds big time and purposely so.

A side artifact of points #1 and #2 is when the shorts are all squeezed out the market makers are the only ones who are short.

When that happens, the bids plunge and the market makers cover lower. 

Author(s): Mish

Publication Date: 30 January 2021

Publication Site: Mish Talk Global Economics Trend Analysis

Missourians May Get to Keep Erroneous Unemployment Payments

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/finance/Missourians-May-Get-to-Keep-Erroneous-Unemployment-Payments.html

Excerpt:

Legislators are taking action after Gov. Mike Parson’s administration resisted calls to let Missourians keep unemployment benefits they were paid in error.

The House Special Committee on Government Oversight on Wednesday heard seven separate proposals to forgive the return of unemployment payments mistakenly given to people who did not intend to commit fraud.

Committee Chair Rep. Jered Taylor, R- Nixa, said the committee will likely combine several of the bills, some of which are nearly identical, into a single proposal. The committee would then hold a vote on the proposal early next week.

Author(s): MARIA BENEVENTO, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: Governing

Unemployment System Fraud: Who’s Doing It and How?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/work/Unemployment-System-Fraud-Whos-Doing-It-and-How.html

Excerpt:

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that $63 billion – possibly more – has been paid out by state unemployment offices. California’s unemployment system alone says it paid out more than $11 billion to scammers in 2020. But who are these scammers? And how have they been able to collect upwards of $63 billion – including at least $330 million from Ohio? Here are some answers.

….

At least 70 percent of the bogus unemployment claims originated overseas in countries such as Nigeria, according to Haywood Talcove, CEO of the security firm LexisNexis Risk Solutions, citing data from a dozen states (Ohio isn’t one of them) that have hired his firm to help secure their unemployment systems.

A large portion of these scams are conducted by organized crime rings with names like “Scattered Canary” and “Yahoo Boys,” Hall said. “They literally just live in compounds and all they do, 24/7 is try to figure out how to trick people into stealing their identity and, you know, stripping their bank account of funds,” he said.

Author(s): JEREMY PELZER, CLEVELAND.COM

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: Governing

Citi may get stuck with huge chunk of distressed Revlon debt

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/citi-may-get-stuck-with-huge-chunk-of-distressed-revlon-debt-1.1564669

Excerpt:

It was hardly the role Citigroup Inc.’s bankers signed up for when they helped Ron Perelman’s Revlon Inc. borrow US$1.8 billion in 2016. But, now a back-office blunder is leaving the financial behemoth faced with the prospect of becoming one of the biggest creditors to the troubled cosmetics empire.

A surprise ruling by a New York judge on Tuesday blocked Citigroup’s efforts to recover US$500 million it had mistakenly sent Revlon’s lenders last year as the so-called administrative agent on the company’s loan. While the bank says it will appeal the decision, a failure to overturn it will leave Citigroup holding the bag on the bulk of the US$900 million remaining on the loan that Revlon hasn’t itself paid.

“Revlon’s loan was never paid off. So if appeals fail, Citi will ultimately step into the shoes of the lenders and own US$500 million of that nearly US$900 million term loan.” said Philip Brendel, a senior distressed debt analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Author(s): Katherine Doherty, Bloomberg News

Publication Date: 17 February 2021

Publication Site: Bloomberg

Robinhood, Reddit CEOs to Testify Before Congress on GameStop (GME)

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.investopedia.com/robinhood-reddit-ceos-to-testify-in-congress-on-gamestop-gme-5112714

Excerpt:

The Committee on Financial Services of the United States House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing on “recent market volatility involving GameStop [Corporation (GME)] stock and other stocks.” The hearing will be held virtually, starting at 12 noon Eastern Time on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. Among those called to testify are Vladimir Tenev, CEO of online trading firm Robinhood Markets, Inc., and Steve Huffman, CEO and co-founder of social media community and online forum site Reddit.1

….

In addition to singling out hedge funds for criticism, it is likely that Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev will face hostile questioning about his company’s actions in the GameStop affair. In particular, the committee memorandum notes that payment for order flow (PFOF) has been Robinhood’s chief source of revenue since its inception and that its decision to restrict trading in GameStop and other stocks may have been influenced by its business ties to investment firms that were caught in short squeezes on these stocks.4

The committee memorandum also notes: “In December 2020, the SEC charged Robinhood with making misstatements about the firm’s receipt of payment for order flow and for failing to comply with its duty to ensure that customer trades were executed on the best possible terms. Robinhood’s failure to satisfy its best execution obligations resulted in more than $34 million in aggregate customer losses. Robinhood was censured and agreed to pay $65 million to settle the action.”

Author(s): MARK KOLAKOWSKI

Publication Date: 17 February 2021

Publication Site: Investopedia

Citi Can’t Have Its $900 Million Back

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-02-17/citi-can-t-have-its-900-million-back

Excerpt:

I wonder how many Highly Regulated Excel Spreadsheets there are in the financial industry. Thousands, surely. There you are, doing your job, in your Highly Regulated Excel Spreadsheet. And you get some result you don’t like and you say, well, I dunno, I’ll just multiply everything by 1.02, that seems fine. And then years later regulators are like, no no no, that was a Highly Regulated Excel Spreadsheet, the column labels were sacrosanct, you can’t just type whatever you want there. But of course you could just type whatever you wanted there, because it was in Excel and that’s how Excel works.

Author(s): Matt Levine

Publication Date: 17 February 2021

Publication Site: Bloomberg

Underwriting in China – A Digital Transformation

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.genre.com/knowledge/publications/ri21-2-en.html

Excerpt:

The Life insurance market in China has grown tremendously with premiums increasing nearly three-fold from RMB1.06 trillion in 2010 to RMB2.96 trillion in 2019. With a population now close to 1.4 billion, the insurance penetration – which has grown to 4.6% – is still far from that of developed countries. Together this represents a business development opportunity because we expect the trend of growth in the insurance market to continue.

In anticipation, insurers in China began to move their underwriting from a paper process to an online one approximately three years ago. Today the bulk of transactions are paperless, except for a small volume of bank channel applications. However, given the huge daily volume of new business, insurers still have an urgent need to improve their processes further. While we are not suggesting a major overhaul of underwriting is needed, there is room to incorporate innovative ideas that address various pain points, provide a smoother customer experience while still balancing risk management needs.

Author(s): Orchis Li, Life/Health General Manager, Hong Kong; Dr. Celia Zhang Ying, Life/Health Regional Chief Underwriter & Senior Medical Officer, Shanghai

Publication Date: February 2021

Publication Site: Gen Re

North Korea Reportedly Tried to Hack Pfizer Servers to Steal Coronavirus Vaccine

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/north-korea-kim-jong-un-hack-steal-pfizer-coronavirus-covid-vaccine.html

Excerpt:

North Korea, along with the usual suspects of Russia and China, have all been accused of trying to swipe vaccine data from pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and others. “Although it claims to be free of the virus, North Korea has requested coronavirus vaccines and is set to receive nearly two million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, according to the Gavi Alliance, part of the United Nations-backed Covax effort which aims to deliver vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable people,” the Washington Post reports. “The statement by South Korean officials is the latest in a string of accusations against North Korean hackers for attempting to steal vaccine technology, highlighting Pyongyang’s ongoing campaign to obtain sensitive information through nefarious means and its growing cyber capabilities.”

Author(s): Elliot Hannon

Publication Date: 16 February 2021

Publication Site: Slate

How the Gates Foundation seeded America’s COVID-19 policy catastrophes

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://dossier.substack.com/p/how-the-gates-foundation-seeded-americas

Excerpt:

“There’s only one model that we look at that has the number of projected deaths which is the IHME model which is funded by the Gates Foundation,” Cuomo said on April 2, adding, “and we thank the Gates Foundation for the national service that they’ve done.”

In an April 9 briefing, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer referred to the IHME model in order to project deaths and the PPE resources needed for the supposed surge.

It was the same story with the government of Pennsylvania. The PA Health Department exclusively uses IHME models to forecast coronavirus outcomes.

Governor Phil Murphy, another nursing home death warrant participant, used IHME models to navigate the state’s policy response.

Author(s): Jordan Schachtel

Publication Date: 16 February 2021

Publication Site: The Dossier at Substack

He started a covid-19 vaccine company. Then he hosted a superspreader event.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/13/1018374/peter-diamandis-covid-superspreader-a360-conference/

Excerpt:

At least 20 people contracted covid-19 at an indoor, mostly unmasked gathering for wealthy executives hosted by Peter Diamandis, the Singularity University and XPrize Foundation cofounder.

At the time, a regional stay-at-home order made the gathering illegal. The outbreak wasn’t reported to authorities as required and rules on health data privacy may have been broken.

Diamandis is not sure how many people have tested positive, citing either 21 or 24 cases, not counting secondary infections.

Author(s): Eileen Guo

Publication Date: 13 February 2021

Publication Site: MIT Technology Review