Canadian Securities Administrators Ignore Rule #1 about Rules + MORE Apr 30th

What’s rule #1? A rule is not a rule unless it’s enforced. Any two year old knows that if the parents say to do or not do something, unless there is a sanction that is actually applied, you can behave as you want. The rule doesn’t actually exist in any practical sense. And they do.The CSA is exactly in that situation as the “parent”, supposedly regulating financial firms and their employees dealing with the public, getting them to behave honestly and responsibly towards the public. The Small Investor Protection Association recently released a shocking and dispiriting report Unpaid Fines: a National Disgrace, which details the almost non-existent collection of fines imposed on financial miscreants in recent years. As the report says, this abysmal performance undermines the whole system of regulation. Investors will lose confidence. The financial industry will not feel deterred against misdeeds.Such utter neglect of the CSA’s mandate is especially annoying in the light of its recent excellent proposal to institute a best interest standard (as opposed to the weak suitability standard now in force) for financial advice on the investment industry…

BAGHDAD — Iraqi anti-government protesters tore down walls and poured into the capital’s heavily-fortified Green Zone on Saturday, where they stormed parliament in a major escalation of a months-long political crisis.
Supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been holding demonstrations and sit-ins for months to demand an overhaul of Iraq’s corrupt and ineffective political system, but Saturday was the first time they broke into the Green Zone, home to most government ministries and foreign embassies.
Iraqi security forces fired tear gas at one entrance of the zone but appeared to be largely standing down as protesters marched through the area, chanting and waving Iraqi flags. Hundreds were still pouring into the Green Zone as night fell.
Iraq has been mired in a political crisis for months, hindering the government’s ability to combat the Islamic State group — which still controls much of the country’s north and west — or address a financial crisis largely caused by the plunge in global oil prices…

WASHINGTON – Congress accomplished relatively little in a short work period, missing deadlines on the budget and on helping Puerto Rico with its financial crisis as lawmakers began a weeklong break.
They left behind few clues about how they would address must-do items such as finding money to counter the Zika virus and a second, even scarier July 1 deadline for averting a fiscal disaster in cash-strapped Puerto Rico.
Democrats called upon House leaders to modify this spring’s three-weeks on, one-week off legislative schedule to keep working, as Puerto Rico hurtles toward a half-billion-dollar default on Sunday.
“It’s very, very hard to get anything done if you are a drive-by Congress,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday. “We’re barely here. And these deadlines are coming.” Hours later, however, Democrats joined Republicans in sprinting for the Capitol’s exits.
Over the past month, the Senate finally passed a major energy bill — the first in nearly a decade — and made progress on providing help for Flint, Michigan, which is grappling with a water contamination crisis from lead pipes…

THE LONG WEEKEND
By Adrian Tinniswood
“What is a weekend?” Violet Crawley’s ignorance of the concept in Downton Abbey exemplifies the grand, timeless Edwardian ethos that once enveloped English country house life, real and fictional. The First World War changed everything. One in 10 titled families lost an heir, forcing the sale of inherited estates, both large and small. Those that survived faced an increasingly uncertain future of rising taxes, increasing labour costs and falling farm rents. Many families coped by breaking up estates and selling off assets at a rate never before seen.
As Tinniswood shows in this history of the English country house and its evolution during the years between world wars, the upheaval wrought in this once-rarefied world often mirrored the changes taking place in society as a whole, including the rise of the professional classes, now able to afford rural retreats of their own thanks to a flood of available properties. What could be an ordinary social history is transformed into a delicious read by the ease with which the author melds anecdotes from diaries and memoirs into his narrative…

OMAHA, Neb. – The Latest on Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting. Tens of thousands of people will fill an arena to listen to CEO Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger talk business for more than five hours (all times local):
9:35 a.m.
Berkshire Hathaway’s first-quarter profit grew 8 per cent largely because of the way it had to account for its Duracell acquisition on paper, but revenue fell at its BNSF railroad and at its insurance units.
CEO Warren Buffett offered a preview of the first-quarter results at the company’s annual meeting Saturday although Berkshire won’t release its full report until next Friday.
Berkshire earned $5.589 billion, or about $3,400.89 per Class A share. That’s up from $5.16 billion, or $3,143 per Class A share, last year.
During the first quarter, Berkshire traded roughly $3.8 billion worth of Procter & Gamble stock for Duracell and about $1.7 billion cash. That boosted the paper value of Berkshire’s investments and derivatives to $1…