Dave Harvilicz

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• Banks Declare War on Russia

  By Dave Harvilicz - March 27, 2013 | Tickers: GS

  Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and its cohort of too big to fail banks have won the first battle in an unofficial war on Russia in the battleground nation of Cyprus. Russians will be forced to surrender billions after a master play by the banks to threaten Cyprus with a return to the dark days of European exclusion and solitary cold war with Turkey.

  Confronted by his supporters in the ruling more »

• Capitalism 2.0 - Coming to a Country Near You OR How to Invest in Freedom.

  By Dave Harvilicz - December 24, 2012 | Tickers: AAPL, CG, ERJ, NOC, PBR, RY, BX

   

  Gallup released a poll earlier this month about how positive people are about life in 148 countries. Most commentators focus on the domination in the top 10 by relatively poor Latin American countries like El Salvador and Equador. They make excuses for why the "winning" Western powers don't top the list, most making vague references to "a happy culture" in a thinly-veiled racist reduction to the old ignorance-is-bliss argument more »

• The Largest Crowdfunding Project in History

  By Dave Harvilicz - August 29, 2012 | Tickers: GD, LMT, NOC

  Crowdfunding has exploded since the JOBS Act. It was even coroneted last year in the Oxford English Dictionary, narrowly losing to "Squeezed Middle" as word of the year.

  As one of the very first crowdfunding platforms along with Kickstarter and Indiegogo, we remember the early days when you had to summarize how it works. "Many people contribute a little and you end up with a lot."

  There is another phenomenon more »

• Risk Capital is a Lock; the American People Have the Key

  By Dave Harvilicz - August 15, 2012 | Tickers: GS, TROW

  The risk-reward calculus in Capital allocation decision making is something fool.com readers know a lot about. We see it as part of our challenge as individual investors: the all-important Alpha. "Normies" assume we're talking about Dog Whisperer training techniques, but we know it as the Holy Grail metric to size up any investment project.

  Capitalism itself presupposes the deployment of capital in relatively risky enterprises to produce what more »

• It Was a Mistake

  By Dave Harvilicz - August 10, 2012 | Tickers: GS, JPM, WFC

  What happened yesterday will (quietly) go down as one of the most ridiculous distortions of justice ever.

  A distortion that I predict will prove to be a clarion call for Occupiers and their brethren Hactivists to accelerate their protests against banks and globalization.

  Just minutes after the Department of Justice announced it would not prosecute Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), the Manhattan DA charged former Goldman programmer Sergey Aleynikov with two more »

• Sign Here, Mr. President, Old Pal

  By Dave Harvilicz - July 31, 2012 | Tickers: C, DB, GS, JPM

  If you're like me, you've been getting pleasant little emails from our mutual friend, Barack.

  But, yesterday's friendly missive had a disturbing twist: If I don't send my old pal $3 (or whatever I can before midnight), this might be his last birthday in the White House! "It's up to me!"

  Imagine, the thought of this being our pal's last birthday party in the more »

• Time to Trust Each Other

  By Dave Harvilicz - July 11, 2012 | Tickers: BAC, GE, GS, JPM, NES.DL, UBS

  As we celebrate the 30th anniversary since its enactment, with little fanfare, Reg D offerings  (a.k.a "private placements") have surpassed public debt as the number one capital raising offering method.

  Moreover, as shown in the chart, Public equity (IPO-type registrations) is actually dwarfed by Reg D offerings.

  Just think how far we have come since the enactment of the Reg D exemption in 1982...

  I recently found this more »

• LIBOR Scandal Should be Last Straw

  By Dave Harvilicz - July 11, 2012 | Tickers: BARC, RBS

  This latest largest financial scandal...... Wait! Wait!  Aren't we completely SICK of this yet! "Latest financial scandal"?  Come on!

  This nifty infographic from AccountingDegree.net gives non-finance folk an idea of the scope of the scandal:

  Manipulating Libor is a big deal because it affects the cost of money for almost everyone. Libor is used to set rates on mortgages, credit cards and all manner of loans, personal and more »

• Crowdfunding Improves Markets and Prevents Facebook Fiascos

  By Dave Harvilicz - June 25, 2012 | Tickers: FB, WFM |

  By Dave Harvilicz, Co-Founder of whenyouwish.com

  

  Image by Crestock

  While discussing our new crowdfunding platform and the Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) IPO fiasco over dinner recently, John Mackey, the Founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market  (NASDAQ: WFM) said unequivocally: “I wish crowdfunding had been around when I started Whole Foods.” While he did eventually list several positive relationships with VCs and institutional investors including T. Rowe Price, John’s more »