"There is NO problem, and we are dealing with it"

That quote is classic. Apparently TXN is "still dancing".

Also, I still clearly recall watching Cramer state that homebuilder stocks were not cyclical anymore as they were now "land banks". Cramers quote came at the height of the boom.

How does that dingbat still have an audience?

"If I stop falling before I hit the ground, I'll be OK."

I predict the word of the year will be "challenge". Such a dull word; no sparkle or shine to it. Everything is a challenge. Instead of a miserable failure, or a total catastrophe or...or...

If we go up, we won't be going down anymore.

Sheesh.

CR!!! but ...but but you can't live in a Texas Instrument!!!

OT: The perfect gift for the holiday season
Gas Masks, Filters & Pouches Part #GASMASK-FIN

Inventory build up...in tech, thats bad

"Inventory build up in techs" is a euphemism for "we can't sell it to Americans, Japanese and Europeans as fast as we are asking the Chinese and Koreans to make it."

bruiser writes:
If I could get as much money out of the slot machine as quickly as I put into it as well, I'd be better off as well.
bruiser | 07.21.08 - 6:29 pm | #

Play the change machine. It's almost as fun and you'll always get as much money out.

You know, I think I had a TI watch... that played Scotland The Brave for the alarm. Sad day when it broke.
Or maybe it was a Honda.

"IF" is such a powerful word.

I got a trumpet from Texas Instruments once, but it only would do calculations, so I threw it away... Now that I think about it, it was a calculator. I threw a perfectly good calculator away! Damn it. No wonder I'm not good at math.

He probably was trying to say "If demand slows as quickly as it strengthens, we are well positioned to meet it".

"If demand strengthens as quickly as it slowed, we are well-positioned to meet it."

And if I become as stiff as I used to be flaccid, then I won't need Viagra.

If you were a Ford employee, and the company offered you $140k to retire, why in the - would you not take the money and run? Anyone?
Kung Fu Panda

Maybe they ar offering it in quarters and it is too heavy to run with?

You like building cars that no one wants?

Retirement is for bitches?

Or
If wishes were gas, then SUV owners would be driving.

Very funny all.

I'm going home, where I have no computer.

Will tomorrow be black Tuesday?

Currently Smoking Cannabis I've been meaning to ask you do you listen to Light Up Or Leave Me Alone

YouTube -

Currently Smoking Cannabis | 07.21.08 - 8:06 pm

sweet.....

Bernanke Reports as Much as $2.5 Million in Financial Assets
Bernanke Reports as Much as $2.5 Million in Financial Assets - Bloomberg.com

The Fed chairman's investments ranged from Canadian Treasury bonds to a retirement annuity, according to annual financial-disclosure filings released by the Fed today

you have someone posting under your name? that is not cool

I ate pot cookies every day so nobody could smell it on me.

It's also much nicer on the lungs.
Not that I do this stuff anymore, but I really recommend staying away from the smoke, unless of course you're excited by thoracic surgery recovery rooms with piles of tubes sticking out of you.

Having been there for someone else, it drove home the point that the body get quite unpleased about partially burned hydrocarbons.

Stick to cookies, I say.

Is there anyone in charge anywhere who isn't a complete idiot? Really.

let me refresh everyone's memory about how the >a href="http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfm">President thinks (I should note these came in his remarks on "homeownership")

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.

I was working in corporate america for a few years and slowly wearing off my naivete. I also was playing in a band. In one meeting I noticed a manager had a guitar pick he was playing with. After the meeting I asked him if he played. He did. He joined my band. I came to find he also smoked weed everyday. Most days he did it on the way to work. If he could pull this off at Nabisco, where we worked, I'd have to say eating brownies at Taco Bell is amateur hour.

"If demand strengthens as quickly as it slowed, we are well-positioned to meet it."

If the train wreck strengthens as quickly as it slowed, we are well positioned to meet the unfinished end of the tunnel.

Yo! Currently Smoking Whatever Burns, that was like deja vu all over again.

But... how did no one notice the eyes, the demeanor,

or the odor?

There's a Nabisco in Northeast Philly. You can smell the Nilla Wafers from a mile away. So I can't imagine anyone noticing the smell of the noble weed.

And no one notices the eyes OR the demeanor. Believe me.

Read Infinite Jest. I like reading more than smoking weed. That book is a primer on how to hide your habit. It also is 1100 pages long so if you are the type who prefers to wake and bake it probably is beyond your ability.

Trust me, he and many others hide their habits. And in the manual labor market most people are drinking or on drugs. Ever wonder why the ass end of a paint can opener conveniently opens a bottle of beer?

CSC: Good. I await your change of moniker to Currently Eating Cannabis.

And I hope my post didn't come across as preachy. I just happen to have a deep-seated hatred of doctors playing with my (or anyone else's) innards.

"How can people still not see the train coming?"

A bright light comes into view in the distance with the sound, "choo-choo chugga-chugga choo-chooo"

Wall street says, "Look! The sun's rising!"

Hope runs eternal.

Because the intervention is a 40B part of the Criminal Justice Industry.

By the way, 12th, that figure is a couple of years old. It could well (probably) be way more by now. Homeland yadda yadda.

DEA is only a small part of it. States and Locals all suck at the more-bux-against-drugs tit. There's the entire Criminal Justice infrastructure.

Anonymous,
Re: Steve Jobs
You just scared the hell out of me. I usually keep well hidden under my rock but weeks ago I crawled out to get the teeth scraped. As I was sitting there a guy came in who looked like a dead ringer for Jobs - same black tee, same close cropped hair and lean face. I ride the horse near his house in Woodside and I used to ride the bike by his place in Palo Alto.
I noted that he did not look well.
I don't own any Apple but if I did, I would be selling it and shorting Apple if this guy was Jobs.

his is the first I've heard this, but it's tight. I don't always light up though. When I worked at Taco Bell HQ in Irvine, I ate pot cookies every day so nobody could smell it on me. They just thought I looked tired 'cause I worked so hard. Ever wonder how many of your coworkers are munching ganjgoodies?

Think 'pesto' for lunch... and if that's not enough to carry you through the afternoon - throw in a few mushrooms.

Not making any recommendations or suggestions - we're all adults here (I hope) - just sayin'...

How does that dingbat still have an audience?

Don't get me started on Cramer. The man is bi-polar, and he needs professional help.

He's changed his positions on the builders more often than an adult film star.

ot, and behind paywall, but wtf haven't seen it here yet

HBOS was a sitting duck

Overnight, the extent of what may go down as one of the most disastrous share underwritings in history will be exposed when Morgan Stanley and Dresdner Kleinwort reveal the size of the shortfall to the $8 billion HBOS rights issue.

In the process, the investment banks will help fuel the paranoia about the impact of short selling in the current environment, and harden the resolve of the UK and US regulators to introduce measures to deter the full-scale assaults hedge funds have been making on vulnerable financial stocks.

The HBOS experience has informed the UK authorities’ decision to force hedge funds to disclose their short positions in companies conducting rights issues. The Financial Services Authority has also indicated it may limit the ability of short sellers to borrow stock in such circumstances. Last week the US Securities and Exchange Commission rushed out a policy under which it banned ‘naked’ short selling in 19 specified financial stocks.

When Morgan Stanley and Dresdner Kleinwort reveal all tomorrow it is widely expected that they will disclose a shortfall to the issue of close to 90 per cent – about £3.5 billion, or more than $A7 billion.

That’s despite the fact that the issue was originally made at a 45 per cent discount to the HBOS share price and, at 275p, represents a multiple of less than three times earnings and a discount of almost 50 per cent to book value.

When the issue was announced in late April HBOS shares were trading around £5. Until last Friday, when the shares traded just above the issue price of 275p, the bank’s shares had been trading at just over half that. While the volatile and fragile condition of credit markets and real economies might be a contributing factor to the implosion in the HBOS price, most of the ’credit’ is going to the short sellers.

From the moment HBOS unveiled the issue the hedge funds smelled blood. HBOS was an easy target in an environment when any bank seeking to raise capital is seen to be under pressure and vulnerable.

The gameplan was straightforward, cold-blooded and extremely effective. The hedge funds piled into the stock, shorting it aggressively. The more timid would have been buying the rights (the value of which was also being driven down by the selling) as cheap insurance in case the bear raid wasn’t as effective as hoped while the more aggressive would be waiting for the underwriters to be forced to disgorge the expected shortfall.

It was game with little risk. Indeed at least one of the big European investment banks was inciting the hedge funds to join the assault, arguing that if there was sufficient selling pressure the underwriters would be forced to protect themselves against the prospect of a major shortfall by selling their client’s stock short themselves.

As it happens, it would appear Morgan Stanley and Dresdner Kleinwort didn’t attack their own client – they appear to have sold other bank stocks short instead to create a hedge against loss. Royal Bank of Scotland shares were down nearly 20 per cent at one stage last week.

The investment banks have passed some of the risk/losses onto sub-underwriters, although most in London appear to believe that only about 40 per cent of the issue was underwritten. If weekend reports are correct the underwriting panel now owns about £3.5 billion of HBOS stock, with Morgan Stanley and Dresdner Kleinwort left with more than £2 billion in shares.

No investment bank wants to be a long-term holder of that kind exposure, which means that the shares will find their way into the market sooner rather than later. Apart from any losses their forced sale might create for the banks the over-hang should depress the HBOS share price for some time to come.

The HBOS experience underscores the near-helplessness of financial institutions to respond to an attack by the short sellers. In the UK the vulnerability has been exacerbated by the length of a right issue timetable, which is very protracted because of the need to obtain shareholder approval. In this case for example, the issue was announced back in April.

In this environment and with equity markets priced where they are no bank will want to raise equity – unless they have to. The instant sources of equity – sovereign wealth funds, private equity and Arab oil sheiks – have been scared off by their initial and very costly forays into the post sub-prime environment. The only source of large-scale capital for a bank under pressure at the moment is its own shareholders.

After the HBOS experience, no sensible underwriter will go anywhere near a bank issue, regardless of the size of the discount to the pre-issue market or the underwriting fees. Without an underwriter to guarantee the capital will actually be raised, a hedge fund attack on a bank equity issue could bring a bank down. Not that that would concern the funds.

In this market, Westpac tried to go it alone with a non-underwritten rights issue in 1992 and was facing a catastrophe until Credit Suisse baled it out at the 11 hour. The issue closed with a shortfall of about 75 per cent. (The shortfall almost handed effective control of the bank to Kerry Packer ).

Whether or not the UK and US regulators have made the right responses to the dangers of allowing short selling of key financial stocks, they have come to the right conclusion. Whatever the merits of short-selling in normally functioning markets (and there are some) in the current circumstances it adds instability and combustibility to core components of the financial system.

Like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the US, HBOS is too big and important for the UK regulators to allow it to fail. It makes sense for legislators and regulators to discourage behaviour that might increase the likelihood that the taxpayer will be called on for support.