Ziad K Abdelnour Quotes

Great Motivational, Popular, famous, Life quotes can be the fuel to your fire when things are getting tough. We believe that everybody needs a motivational, Popular, famous, living life reminder during challenging times, even if you are well accomplished.

The following collection of motivational quotes will inspire you and remind you that we all have the power inside of us to achieve amazing and wonderful things.

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Success and Ego - Two sides of the same coin?

When you start identifying yourself with your academic achievements/failures, a successful/failed career or even with the image that you are a benevolent/kind person or bad or perverted, that is ego. People generally think that success leads to ego. But on the contrary, ego leads to both superiority and inferiority complex.

It is not the ego which is bad, but the impact which it has on our personality that makes it disastrous. When you start seeing the world through these spectacles, you are full of yourself and this makes you a very proud person or you feel worthless when you are in the company of successful" people.

Many of them are successful in the eyes of society but they are not happy. If that’s the scenario, what’s the use of such success? No doubt, money is important but earning money and running after it are completely two different things. And I am glad that I now understand the difference.

For More: http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/blogdetails.aspx?id=1107/Success-and-Ego---Two-sides-of-the-same-coin

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Ziad K Abdelnour - Rebel with a Cause

Ziad K. Abdelnour is a Wall Street Financier, Author, Philanthropist, Activist, Lobbyist, Oil & Gas Trader & President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc., Blackhawk Partners, Inc., is a private “family office” that has two major lines of business. Blackhawk Partners, Inc., is also a firm that serves as both an advisor to and an investor in its clients.

Importance of Money, Power, Respect?

We all know that man comes in the world alone and goes from the world alone. He is only remembered by his acts. Some do good for others while some spend their lives running after money.

One cannot deny the fact that Money is power. Money is though erratic, when in low positions, respect acts an important support. By the same token, money can’t buy respect but respect can help earn money. Besides, you can have all the money you want, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into power or respect. Money can buy power at times, but respect is hard to demand.

For More: http://ziadabdelnour.net/money-power-respect-which-trumps-all

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The Activist Investor: A True Ally of Corporate Governance

Activist investors: Publicly listed companies fear them. Corporate governance pundits generally do not trust them. Retail investors quietly applaud them, and most laymen do not understand them. However, it is clear that in today’s complex corporate world, we need them. Activist investors may be the only players in the game that can effectively “Occupy Wall Street”.

We have entered the twilight zone when it comes to corporate governance. The zone where many Boards bury their head in the sand when it comes to breaches in compliance, as in the case of HSBC and the tax evasion scandal of February 2015. Certain Boards passively bow to the dictates of executive management, throwing all accountability on the corporation-as-entity, with no individual responsibility. All other stakeholders, from shareholders, to suppliers, to workers, to humble taxpayers are left to peck at what is left of net worth after the share price dives, and are left to fork out money for regulation and reconstruction.

For More: http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/fpcnew/articledetails.aspx?id=52/The-Activist-Investor:-A-True-Ally-of-Corporate-Governance

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When Will We Stop Blindly Pissing Away Money Down the R&D Rat Hole?

Let me start by saying that I am a physicist and have been involved with many of the leading U.S. research facilities over the years -- Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia Laboratories, just to name two.  I also directed the Socrates Project under the Reagan administration.  So the quick knee-jerk reaction to the title that "I don't understand research and development or the value of technology" holds no water at all.  Please don't even try to argue this point.

Research and development (R&D) does not equate to a competitive advantage in the marketplace or on the military battlefield.  Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is a worthwhile pursuit.  Totally agree.  But it is conceptually flawed and detrimental to the objective -- being competitive -- when companies and governments use the need to increase economic and military might as justification for higher expenditures on R&D.  But yet this is the rapidly rising battle cry among the leading thinkers in Congress, the Pentagon, academia, think tanks, and the press -- "Raise R&D funding levels, and America's future will be secured."  How so far from the truth.


For More: http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/fpcnew/blogdetails.aspx?id=1106/When-Will-We-Stop-Blindly-Pissing-Away-Money-Down-the-R&D-Rat-Hole

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Closing Oil Derivatives Related Transactions by Blackhawk Partners

We at Blackhawk are approached by at least 500 supposed providers and sellers of oil derivative and other crude oil products a year and yet maybe only 2% of such providers have access to real product. Surprised? You shouldn’t be at all.

As you may or may not know, the reality today is that oil buyers are a dime a dozen, real fuel is the issue. The secondary market is for the most part composed of “fake offers” around the world doing a circle jerk on the Internet as people who have the real oil already know where to sell it.

In fact, you can just imagine the number of people who have “allocation contracts” that never get a drop of oil because they don’t pay the people they have to pay to get oil. Allocation holders are not title holders no matter how loudly they protest.

For More: http://www.blackhawkpartners.com/about-closing-oil-derivatives-relatedtransactions/

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Are We Facing An Economic Disaster?

Bottom Line: I strongly believe that central bankers’ actions have put the global economy today in a very dangerous position.

Interest rates are too low. As a result, we’re seeing a replay of the mid-2000s – when interest rates were too low given economic growth, and as a result, the bubble in US subprime property was inflated. And when it blew up, it triggered the global financial crisis.

I am afraid a similar thing is happening today. Even though the US economy is growing, interest rates are lower than they’ve ever been. It’s hard to argue that current conditions justify that level of emergency intervention.

For More: http://ziadabdelnourauthor.com/are-we-facing-an-economic-disaster/

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Is the intellectual elite out of touch with reality?

It has been a central conceit of the progressive movement since the early 1900's that simply getting enough smart people together will cure all our problems.

This is the approach of technocracy -- rule by experts.  We tried it.  Wilson and his ilk "solved" the problem of world peace after WWI, Kennedy and his brain trust "solved" the Bay of Pigs crisis with Cuba, Reagan and his A-Team of savvy business people "broke down" the Soviet Union, George W. Bush and his close circle of neo-cons "prevailed" over evil in the Middle East.

All of them with their elite "Ivy leaguers" thought they were going to redraw the maps of the globe.  All what they did was create a bigger mess than ever in every single corner of the globe.... We're still cleaning up the mess in the Middle East caused by acts of hubris and years of "rookie" foreign policy. We now have practically every country in the world on our back resenting our actions after having lost all trust in us to say  the least.... and this is just the beginning.

For More: http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/fpcnew/blogdetails.aspx?id=1105/Is-the-Intellectual-Elite-Out-of-Touch-with-Reality

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Becoming Part of the Super Rich Club Running the World

Having been on Wall Street for over 30 years now, and having survived the 1987 crash, the Drexel Burnham bankruptcy, the 1990 credit crunch, the 2000 Internet crash, the real estate meltdown of 2006 and the 2008 Wall Street financial crisis, I think I have learned a thing or two about how to make money, how to survive crises and most importantly how to really thrive and become part of the exclusive Club of 1% when most went buckling.

So what specific characteristics do you need to have to be part of that Club?

Well… you really have three options:

Option 1: You need to love money. You want to say, everybody loves money. Wrong!!! “Everybody” loves spending money – house, cars, food, services, you name it. That can only get you out of the 1%. You need to be sincerely interested to the level of excitement in how money is made, how markets or real estate work, how money grows. You need to get your kick out of making money. Short of that, you won’t get there.

For More: http://ziadabdelnour.net/becoming-part-of-the-super-rich-club-running-the-world

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Financial Collapse or Recovery Ahead?

I believe the American economy’s fate near term will be mainly determined by the Saudi-Russian power play in the making. If Saudi Arabia drifts out of America’s orbit, our ability to avoid financial collapse will be difficult if not impossible.

Low oil prices have indeed kept inflation today down, allowing the Fed to continue stalling on a normalization of U.S. interest rates. A rise in oil prices likely would result in increased inflation. This would remove a crucial public excuse, enabling the Fed to justify zero interest rates.

I have been arguing for many years now that the Fed will not normalize interest rates, other than a possible token 0.25 percent, until forced to do so by market forces. I think those market forces are already in play and will be more so with a Russian – Saudi close collaboration on oil prices.

For More: http://ziadabdelnourfinance.com/financial-collapse-or-recovery-ahead-watch-out-closely-the-saudi-russian-power-play/

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HOW LIKELY WORLD WAR III?

The US used to be able to fight multiple parallel wars, but has demonstrated it can fight at best 1.5 wars — delay/hold on one while fighting the other. It’s possible that in an all out situation, the US could focus more on winning vs. casualties (civilian or own-forces), and maybe fight 1-2 simultaneous conflicts while holding down a few others, but that would be a stretch politically and logistically.

Almost no other countries maintain force projection capabilities (strategic airlift like C-17s and tankers, global sealift and sea control), so it’s highly likely the US would be the only combatant in each sphere of operation, augmented by regional or local allies (e.g. Australia for SEA conflicts; Japan in East Asia; France in North Africa). The UK, maybe Canada would make some effort to contribute in some randomly selected conflicts, but fundamentally the US would be doing the majority.

For More: http://ziadabdelnourauthor.com/how-likely-world-war-iii/

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How effective has US foreign policy in Middle East | Ziad Abdelnour

My short answer – with the sole exception of the Camp David accords – is somewhere between “completely ineffective” and “making a bad situation worse”.

Unfortunately, it seems that all of the US’s current problems in the Middle East are of our own making… and the cynically minded would even say that this is by design.

So the U.S. Foreign policy in the Middle East has done nothing but totally destabilize the world. Thanks to our foreign policy luminaries from our supposedly “elite” ivory towers a la Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc…. hundreds of thousands of refugees are invading Europe. Soon, Europeans will be second class citizens in our own continent thanks to America.

It was the same in Somalia… Yes it was horrific seeing them all starve, but now it’s happening on the streets of Europe thanks to our incompetent “Ivy Leaguers” trying to play Gods by advising naive Presidents of how to remove pathetic dictators … It should’ve been up to the people of Somalia to remove their leader themselves.  We never learned anything.

For More: http://ziadabdelnour.org/how-effective-has-us-foreign-policy-in-the-middle-east-been-over-the-last-50-years/

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Event Driven Investing - A Review of the State of the Art

One investment strategy we at Blackhawk Partners have been particularly been involved in over the last few years is “Event Driven Investing”.

Event-driven investing is an investing strategy that seeks to exploit pricing inefficiencies that may occur before or after a corporate event, such as a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition or spinoff.

To illustrate, consider what happens in the case of a potential acquisition. When a company signals its intent to buy another company, the stock price of the company to be acquired typically rises. However, it usually remains somewhere below the acquisition price—a discount that reflects the market’s uncertainty about whether the acquisition will truly occur.

That’s when we enter the picture. We will analyze the potential acquisition—looking at the reason for the acquisition, the terms of the acquisition and any regulatory issues (such as antitrust laws)—and determine the likelihood of the acquisition actually occurring. If it seems likely that the deal will close, we will purchase the stock of the company to be acquired, and sell it after the acquisition, when its price has risen to the acquisition price (or greater).

For More: http://ziadabdelnourblackhawk.com/event-driven-investing-a-review-of-the-state-of-the-art/

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The 10 Most Valuable Lessons I Have Learned Over My Career

I thought of sharing these nuggets of wisdom with all of our fans at Blackhawk out there hoping that one day it will make a difference in the lives of many.

I can only imagine how going up the corporate latter or building one’s own company is challenging these days – and this to say the least.

Every time you hit a wall, it seems that you can do nothing right. But I just want you to understand that top performers don’t think like this. They take everything they go through (good and bad times) as a learning experience. From rejection and failures, you’ll only get better, the moment you choose to move on.


For More: http://www.blackhawkpartners.com/getting-ahead-business-10-valuable-lessons-learned-career/

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