CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Thursday, October 20, 2011

CNBC Bonus Bucks Answers for Thursday, October 20, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

1. Which of Rupert Murdoch's four children once ran a television production company called Shine that was acquired by Murdoch's News Corp. in April?

ANSWER: Elisabeth

2. According to CNBC.com’s table of earnings surprises, how did Abbott Laboratories’ most recently reported earnings per share number compare to the consensus estimate?

ANSWER: EPS was one cent above the estimate

3. Which publicly listed company has the world's largest workforce?

Answer: Wal-Mart

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CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Tuesday, October 18, 2011

1. How did real estate agent Bret Parsons characterize the decor of actor Nicolas Cage's foreclosed mansion in Bel Air, California?

ANSWER: "Frat house bordello"

2. What word did analyst Anthony DiClemente use on CNBC to describe Google's cash hoard?

ANSWER: "Astonishing"

3. The Ernst & Young ITEM Club, which bases its quarterly growth report on finance ministry models, cut its forecast for the UK gross domestic product increase. What is the ITEM Club's new prediction for UK growth for this year?

Answer: 0.9% growth

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CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Monday, October 17, 2011

1. The seventh most emptiest US City is

ANSWER: Dayton, OH

2. The domestic gross of the remake of Conan The Barbarian was

ANSWER: 21.3 million

3. Property prices in Beijing fell by how much in August, according to Daiwa Capital Markets.

Answer: 2.3%

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CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Friday, October 14, 2011

1. In the third quarter of this year there were 284 Initial Public Offerings. The Asia Pacific region accounted for what percentage of these IPOs according to Ernst & Young?

ANSWER: 57%

2. The UK trade deficit for August, which analysts expected to swell to 8.8 billion pounds, ended up contracting instead. What did it fall to?

ANSWER: 7.768 billion pounds

3. For what company is Anna Anisimova the “daughter heir-apparent?

Answer: Coalco International

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CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Friday, October 14, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Thursday, October 13, 2011

1. In CNBC.com’s Scenes from the ‘Occupy’ Protests slideshow, what is written immediately below the “We Occupy Boston” sign?

ANSWER: “End Corporate Greed”

2. The number of unemployed in Britain jumped on Wednesday. When did the jobless rate, now at 8.1 percent, last high such highs?

ANSWER: . October 1996

3. Which country in Asia Pacific is expected to cut interest rates when its central bank meets next, according to AMP Capital Investors.

Answer: Australia

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CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Thursday, October 13, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Wednesday, October 12, 2011

1. According to NFLShop.com, what was the third best-selling NFL jersey between April 1 and September 30, 2011?

ANSWER: Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles

2. How much did Huijin - a unit of China's sovereign wealth fund - spend on buying shares of the 'Big Four' Chinese banks, according to an analyst at Mizuho Securities Asia.

ANSWER: $31 Million

3. The Bank of England has said it will buy UK government bonds or gilts again. But which assets will the Bank of England not buy?

Answer: Corporate Bonds

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CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Wednesday, October 12, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Monday, October 10, 2011

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Monday, October 10, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

1. Which economist believes the United States is now in a "modern-day depression?"

ANSWER: David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff

2. Household spending accounts for what portion of the UK economy?

ANSWER: Two-thirds

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Monday, October 3, 2011

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Wednesday, September 21, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

1. Australians are expected to splurge A$7.88 billion on pet care services and products in the 2011-2012 financial year. How much are they spending on food per year, according to market research firm IBIS?

ANSWER: A$ 2.8 billion

CNBC Bonus Bucks Answers for Tuesday, September 27, 2011

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Tuesday, September 27, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

1. How much did Singapore spend to host the just concluded F1 grand prix?

ANSWER: None of the above


2. Switzerland recently set a limit for the Swiss franc's appreciation against the euro. What was that limit, of francs to euros?

ANSWER: 1.20


3. According to the CNBC Explains video on hedge funds, most of them are set up as:

ANSWER: Limited Partnership

The F8 Facebook Developers Conference 2011, took place in:

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Thursday, September 22, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

1. The F8 Facebook Developers Conference 2011, took place in:

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Wednesday, September 21, 2011

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Wednesday, September 21, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

1. What is the 8th most popular city for business?

ANSWER: Madrid


2. What is the 31st most safest bank in the world in 2011?

ANSWER: Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Turin, Italy


3. In CNBC.com’s “Top 10 Green Cars 2011,” how is the Lexus CT 200h described?

ANSWER: “Sporty, little premium hatchback”

What is the 31st most safest bank in the world in 2011?

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Bonus Bucks Answers for Wednesday, September 21, 2011 and CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

1. What is the 8th most popular city for business?

ANSWER: Madrid


2. What is the 31st most safest bank in the world in 2011?

ANSWER: Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Turin, Italy


3. In CNBC.com’s “Top 10 Green Cars 2011,” how is the Lexus CT 200h described?

ANSWER: “Sporty, little premium hatchback”

AIG OutRage--I Quit!

The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less — in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all recipients.

Uh, whatever.

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DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I’d like to tell you about myself. I was raised by schoolteachers working multiple jobs in a world of closing steel mills. My hard work earned me acceptance to M.I.T., and the institute’s generous financial aid enabled me to attend. I had fulfilled my American dream.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head of equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.’s meltdown last September, was named the head of business development for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable — in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million. Most recently, during the dismantling of A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in the pending sale of its well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As you know, business unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.’s effort to repay the American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

I have the utmost respect for the civic duty that you are now performing at A.I.G. You are as blameless for these credit default swap losses as I am. You answered your country’s call and you are taking a tremendous beating for it.

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention contracts, you realized that the employees of the financial products unit needed some incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both ethical and useful, should be left to stand. That’s probably why A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions during that month that the company would “live up to its commitment” to honor the contract guarantees.

That may be why you decided to accelerate by three months more than a quarter of the amounts due under the contracts. That action signified to us your support, and was hardly something that one would do if he truly found the contracts “distasteful.”

That may also be why you authorized the balance of the payments on March 13.

At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts — until several hours before your appearance last week before Congress.

I think your initial decision to honor the contracts was both ethical and financially astute, but it seems to have been politically unwise. It’s now apparent that you either misunderstood the agreements that you had made — tacit or otherwise — with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, various members of Congress and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York, or were not strong enough to withstand the shifting political winds.

You’ve now asked the current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. to repay these earnings. As you can imagine, there has been a tremendous amount of serious thought and heated discussion about how we should respond to this breach of trust.

As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been misled by A.I.G.’s promises and are not inclined to return the money as a favor to you.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press.

So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

That is why I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn. This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less — in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all recipients.

This choice is right for me. I wish others at A.I.G.-F.P. luck finding peace with their difficult decision, and only hope their judgment is not clouded by fear.

Mr. Liddy, I wish you success in your commitment to return the money extended by the American government, and luck with the continued unwinding of the company’s diverse businesses — especially those remaining credit default swaps. I’ll continue over the short term to help make sure no balls are dropped, but after what’s happened this past week I can’t remain much longer — there is too much bad blood. I’m not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I’ll leave under my own power and will not need to be “shoved out the door.”

Sincerely,

Jake DeSantis

Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now

Geithner to Face Congress

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is scheduled to face Congress today and again on Thursday.

Today, Geithner is likely to be grilled on the handling of the AIG bonuses and the new Public Private Investment Program (PPIP). Congress is certain to be in a tizzy about the plan's loan structure, particularly the granting of non-recourse loans to participating hedge funds.

Given the strong positive reaction in the stock market, the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee is likely to take a less adversarial tone then it might have last week.

On Thursday, Geithner will appear in front of the same House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. The hot scheduled topics is "systemic risk". Sure to be a hot potato in today's environment.

The discussion and debate about systemic risk will include ideas and plans about how large financial institutions should be regulated in the future. This is sure to develop into a turf war. The remedy could be as simple as giving additional authority to existing agencies. Or, given congresses penchant for creating new entities, spending money, and creating jobs to help keep themselves in office a new kind of super agency could be on the table.

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Bob DeMarco is a citizen journalist and twenty year Wall Street veteran. Bob has written more than 500 articles with more than 11,000 links to his work on the Internet. Content from All American Investor has been syndicated on Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Pluck, Blog Critics, and a growing list of newspaper websites. Bob is actively seeking syndication and writing assignments.

Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now