It's hard to do the right thing these days...

So there's a financial crisis it seems, and what has happened in Belgium is certainly not unique. The government has taken action to save 2 of the 3 big banks: Fortis and Dexia. As both stocks are very widely held by small individual investors, pension funds and social organisations, this has created quite a stir in Belgium. I'm no specialist, so it's difficult to judge whether the right actions were taken, I guess time will tell. One thing that has really made me mad however is one event that happened this week. A division of Fortis, it's investment arm of the insurance part that is still part of the noted Fortis Holding, has organised an event for a select group of big investors. Apparently the event was hosted in an expensive hotel in Monaco, at a cost of 150K EUR. As you can imagine the press are all over it, crying... [read full story]