Told you - once they announce the global bail, all these deals are off and must be at best, renegotiated. Silly. Everything we've done up to this point has been a gigantic expensive waste of time. Solution : throw more money at it. This one better work, because Im sick of seeing people take a match to my future earnings.
So when the Treasury injects money into the failing US banks, and the taxpayer gets preferred non-voting stock, there is the possibility that the taxpayers will lose their entire investment if the banks do declare bankruptcy?
Next weeks markets about to open and I found another Benatar song that, oddly enough, seems to be relevant. To the tune of "Love is a Battlefield":
We are dumb, head-fake to heartache we planned
All promises, all demands
Stocks are a battlefield
We were long, no one could tell us; we're wrong
Searching our charts for so long, all the time knowing
Market's a battlefield
You're threatening to blow, you're makin' me pay
Why do you hurt me so bad?
It would help me to know
Is demand in your way, or is this the best thing you've had?
Believe me, believe me, I can't tell you why
But I'm trapped by my greed, and I'm chained to this ride
We are dumb, head-fake to heartache we planned
All promises, all demands
Stocks are a battlefield
We were long, no one could tell us; we're wrong
Searchin our charts for so long, all the time knowing
Market's a battlefield
We're losing control
Will you make my hair grey, or torch me till I'm fried?
And before this gets sold, will it still deal the blame?
Theres no way this will fly...
But if I get much poorer, I could lose control
And when I pay the lenders, I'll wish I had... Gold
We are dumb, headache to heartache we planned
All promises, all demands
Market's a battlefield
We were long, no one could tell us; we're wrong
Searching our charts for so long, all of us knowing
Market's a battlefield
We are dumb, headache to heartache we're canned
All promises, all demands
Stocks are a battlefield
We were long, no one could tell us; we're wrong
Searching our charts for so long, all of us knowing
Market's a battlefield
If you want to restore confidence, you have to restore faith. To that end, GS & MS equity holders should be wiped out rather than saved by the government.
Once we bailout the wealthy, there will be NO END to the line of groups looking for handouts.
The Japnaese are notoriously bad investors. MS is insolvent. They have all the bargaining power. They should say that Buffett was too early and they want preferreds at 15% AND a government guarantee.
I presume that it won't be getting there in the next couple weeks, and so does everyone else, which means that the same speculatory greed that got us here will continue to move things.
Now here's a holiday sports fans can get into: National Holiday
Japanese financial markets will be closed Monday, Oct. 13, a national holiday (National Sports Day).
Everybody, but everybody, is expecting a huge rally starting tomorrow (either THE bottom, or interim bottom is in). How can EVERYBODY be right? I am hearing about the bottom from friends, family, in the supermarket, all over the net. Just doesn't seem right.
deb writes:
Everybody, but everybody, is expecting a huge rally starting tomorrow (either THE bottom, or interim bottom is in). How can EVERYBODY be right? I am hearing about the bottom from friends, family, in the supermarket, all over the net. Just doesn't seem right.
LMAO People are scared sh*tless, p!ssing their pants over this market - they all sold during bottom! Morons!
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf states are prepared to invest in U.S. financial institutions provided that their operations are transparent and simple enough so the risks involving such investments are easy to grasp, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa of Bahrain said.
There we go everyone, that's a wrap. We'll just guarantee everything. Crisis solved.
Scene: An anonymous central banker has his hands in two puppets. He is stimulating interbank lending. One puppet passes a billion dollars to the other. Then the second puppet passes it back to the first.
Won't you come play the lending game with him, I mean, them? He'd really, really like your foreign exchange reserves.
I have heard from very few who've sold. (We're out and have been for a while). But everyone else tells me "it's not a loss unless you sell" or "it's long term money so it doesn't matter, it will go back up", etc, etc. Now, obviously, someone is selling, but what I am hearing out there is shocking complacency.
I'm not a good market timer, so I've just been out, but luckily that means I didn't suffer from the recent decline. We probably won't jump back in now either, so it doesn't matter to me either way.
I just have never heard so many different voices so sure about a BIG rally. Seems odd.
AllenM - read your post and defense of position - and am in violent agreement with you here.
I think even if all the plans fail (which they might), the fact that there is a coordinated effort to correct the problem begins to remove uncertainty. And that is all I need to see in order to position long.
If you want to really enjoy a buffet, you need to come while they're still setting up. Not a strategy for those who aren't hungry enough.
MOAB rallies will begin well before the invitations are sent out.
It makes sense to have equities in your portfolio when the economy is growing. Now, however, the economic outlook is still rather bleak. So any investment in equities in this environment is, indeed, a gamble on timing of intermediate ups and downs.
I don't play individual stocks, however those looking for deals might want to sniff AT&T (symbol: T). According to marketwatch.com, its P/E is 10.05 and its dividend yield is 7.14% Those two #s are almost kissing, and that's usually a good sign of value (it has good cash flow, manageable debt, etc.)
My daughter (14) walked into the room about 10 minutes ago with a fistful of Series EE savings bonds, asking if she should hang on to them or redeem them. When I looked at them, I noticed that the person who bought them for her had used their own social security number instead of my daughter's and that's what was printed on them. It's in her name, but with another social. Do you think this matters?
Anybody thinking this is anything more than a short term bounce is dense. There are many more shoes to drop. Have your fun anonymouse. Meanwhile, I'll be reloading my puts.
I suspect this rally loses steam very quickly. Nobody believes in its staying power.
we are at early 1930. At least 3 more years of severe pain for bullies (it would be extended compared with 1929-32). SPX at 250 would be lucky for the bulls. More likely bottom at 100-150. That is the price of communizing the financial system.
Jas, my GGG grandfathers were optimist Americans with many children. They also lived in a country where you could just land somewhere at a good spot on a navigable river and build a city in 10 years.
people, people - there are going to be some sharp rallies up and lots of volatility, but don't kid yourself. We are still in a cycle of DELEVERAGING and that is far from over.
My brother wants to know why his long term treasury bond fund is declining in value. I can't imagine that Vanguard is taking too much in fees, I have no answer for him.
--
Jas, my GGG grandfathers were optimist Americans with many children."
Jeffrey,
Many children does not mean being optimistic in the current American sense. They were likely to be worrier types and hard workers. Of course, I didn't know them and merely speculating based on what I know of Calvinist beliefs very common among Americans.
Whenever I interviewed with dot com companies I always asked what the business model was. Honestly I'm surprised that anyone would give them money, let alone run a company.
I feel the same way about the market right now. It's become crystal clear that no one has been making real profits, they have all been shuffling around paper profits as real wealth.
Nothing about the fundamentals have really changed at this point and people are thinking of giving them more money.... insane.
Finland is just awesome in July and August... no history, but 100'000 islands and roughly the same number of lakes. You can rent your own for a week... total solitude is a great tonic for most people, though freaks some out.
Reindeer tongue, black rye bread, best damn strawberries in the world because the sun shines 20 hours a day in July - sugar content is sky high.
MS is NOT insolvent. The stock is being driven down by shorts that had/have an agenda to derail the Mitsubishi deal, which it looks like they have succeeded in making MS renegotiate.
MS has sufficient liquidity to keep it going for quite sometime. The situation is nothing like Bear Stearns (which had liquidity issues) or LEH (which was insolvent).
What is striking MS and GS is panic/targeted short selling and is NOT driven by fundamental solvency issues.
Higher opens are the kiss of death in a Bear Market. Morgan Stanley is probably insolvent, the markets know that, so regardless of whats "announced" the stock is probably headed to zero.
"Optimists haven't left too many descendents behind! "
We're all the descendants of optimists.
My wife told me today about how, during the GD, her father trucked potatoes into a small Pennsylvania coal town from the family farm, and couldn't sell them.
Cutting hair, drawing on the GI Bill and using a generous aunt's railroad pension money, he worked his way up to a Ph.D from Penn State.
There are some tough, stubborn people in this country.
I'm being lighthearted with the "optimist" stuff. I have faith in the future, long term, in a general sense. For now, specifically in regards to our current global economic/financial situation, I am a very grumpy Bear.
--
karelian, Thanks. Scandinavia during July-Aug sounds great. Maybe in 2010. Friend and I are planning two-week Praha-Vienna-Budapest in 2009. I have been to Praha and liked it.
There is a false dichotomy with the optimist versus worrier. I'm fairly optimistic, but I do worry. Those who are truly worriers rarely attempt anything and never accomplish anything. I mean, we're talking about TEOTWAWKI and yet you still expect there to be a stock market for the definite future, right?
If there is an undisputable difference between MS and LEH/BSC it is that a MS implosion would leave a much larger crater which Treasury would hardly be able to cover.
Not sure, though, if that means MS's BK in the coming is more or less likely than a week ago
The Hedge funds are in most cases insolvent. The few exceptions would be the ones that have somehow avoided the 62 Trillion Pozi Scheme called Credit Default Swaps. Anyone involved in CDS business is insolvent, both loser and "winners". It will sort itself out eventually, but suffice it to say that the hedge never had any real cash on hand, they were counting their fraudulent positions in CDS's as cash. Its complicated, but thats the reason the smart money is stampedeing to get out of hedge funds. They simply have no money.
I met a guy who called himself the Alternate Chief Investment officer at MS, just about the time we began to learn how bad things were in 2007. I asked him how exposed (responsible) MS had been and he said he was amazed by how everyone else had been behaving and was quite sure that MS didn't engage in that kind of risky activity. He said it with a very straight face.
Central Europe certainly has all the history you could want - so it's a nice balance with the Nordic region where the biggest appeal is the absence of people.
--
When talking about optimism, etc., of our forefathers we are not factoring in the fact that they had a very different belief system and philosophy of life. I guess we are comparing apples and oranges.
Optimism these days means carefree and carelessness. Things will somehow work out. No, they don't. Plan for the worst and hope for the best is not a theology of optimists. Worst wouldn't be allowed to happen. Yeah, right.
With unemployment rising, the consumer tapped out, no more zero money down or interest only mortgages to be had, corporate profits declining, government budgets bursting....etc...etc...etc. What exactly is gonna keep a rally going?
More credit? More bailouts?
Too much debt already.
Many more shoes to drop.
Jas, many of the founding generation of Americans were pretty brazen risk-takers. I mean, putting EVERYTHING into enterprises that could very easily fail, and taking trips to places where yellow fever, etc., could easily more than decimate a town. They lost wives and children all the time, were killed in duels or by disease, and were sustained by a thirst for wealth and prestige that was greater than their thirst to stay alive.
EHP covered the CDS angle more completely than I. However, in answer to your question re: "why did some sell at the auction", it could be that they were afraid of not getting anything on their CDS hedges or that they never bought any CDS to insure themselves so they elected to dump their bonds at the auction, or there is some provision in the contracts that forces a bid on some nominal amount to establish the Reference Price. EHP may have better insight into that.
Of course, the cynic in me thinks a CDS buyer may have taken an option on the bonds and forced sale to arbitrage the Reference Price, but, we may never know.
Hope that helps.
The 21st will come and terms of contracts will be enforced, come what may. Plantagenet has a good bead on the timeline.
The hardest part to "see" is the clauses in the contracts and the laws governing the entities that are subject to them and how they'll be affected.
Certainly, there'll be lots of failures. If I were a banker, it would be this unknowable that would prevent me from making any more loans for awhile. You just don't know who may get caught in the "net" or to what degree.
London Banker expressed the same on Setser's blog about the expansion of Fed holdings being explained by foreign CBs moving out of the I-Banks.
Someone has expressed this notion more eloquently than I, but basically, "If you can't see the bottom, there effectively isn't one."
Just thinking about the Eurozone announcement. If there are no concrete steps taken in the next few days the markets will probably give back the gains they seem intent on making tonight. It could just be another effective act of jawboning.
I have a question about this Eu "guarantee". What use is a promise from even bigger and broker entities?
I hear others say that this may just be what is needed to loosen the credit jam and ease lending.
It seems to me it only works if enough people decide to buy into the lie, right?
Most of the world is insolvent at this time but if we all just close our eyes, and shut our mouths and buy buy buy like it aint, then it aint?
WOW.
Ok, im slow, I just really got it this very post. Go ahead and mock at my blindness and slowness that only NOW does it hit me.
My next question is this: Does my acceptance/renunciation of the big lie matter? Does the herd decide to believe, and presto? or do the littles like me laugh and hold onto the truth while the masters of the moneyverse dive in and pretend and make it alllll better?(or if not all better than as good as possible?)
I usually agree with much of what Jas has to say but...I'm a worrier, I fret constantly about possible outcomes of my actions. I worry about just about everything and as a result, I never bred. Which is probably a good thing, much easier to participate in disaster porn child free...
Good evening esteemed friends and aquaintances...
Hi. I see the world quite differently than you dudes do, so I am hoping you'll help me get my learn on.
There is now a belief that, since there is a coordinated effort by world governments to prop this beast up, it will not fall. This seems to imply that our 'crisis' was merely a lack of willingness to take action and not a fundamental breakdown of the system itself. Is this your view?
I see that the suits at the top will use all their tools, even break a few rules if need be, to get this system running again. I see that they're now willing to pump money in like never before. I see the willingness to use innovative methods to solve the problem. We are together here.
What I do not yet see is a workable plan to achieve this. So even though the heads are determined to repair the mess, I'm not at all convinced that they can.
The fact that those tasked with fixing this are the same folks that broke it does not help matters for me.
What am I missing? What says they can fix it even if they now state that they are determined to?
...Lehmans default clearly triggered the run. But the ultimate cause of the crisis is more troubling: a large number of large commercial and investment banks seem to have been borrowing not on the strength of their own balance sheets but rather on the expectation that they were too big and too systematically important to fail...
I think they let Lehman fail precisely because of the moral hazard issue-I don't think that it was a "mistake". If they wouldn't have let them fail, the banks would have kept standing in line for a bailout one at a time and then the system would crater anyways. They had to let one go to see where all the mines were buried.
Folks really are gullible. Dumb really. All it takes to scam the American public is the promise of free wealth. As if.
Bernanke said lowering interest rates would help the eCONomy - what a sham.
Bernanke said the alphabet soup facilities would save the eCONomy - what a sham.
Bernanke said the tax payer would make money on the Bear Stearns assets - what a sham.
Bernanke said the tax payer would make money on the $85 billion AIG deal - another sham.
Bernanke said the tax payer would make money on the $700 billion Paulson plan and that the deal had to be rushed through to prevent markets from falling - another sham.
Wake up America! The rich and only the rich are being bailed out. After the wealthy secure their ill gotten gains, then your real pain will begin.
You are definitely making me rethink my position on descendents of optimists/worriers. Sometimes our speculations about the past are hard to corroborate. Thanks.
I think they let Lehman fail precisely because of the moral hazard issue-I don't think that it was a "mistake". If they wouldn't have let them fail, the banks would have kept standing in line for a bailout one at a time and then the system would crater anyways. They had to let one go to see where all the mines were buried.
i wish i could believe that, i really do. it might help me sleep a bit better at night.
unfortunately, it flies in the face of the evidence that we have that the fallout from LEH completely stunned Paulson (but, most likely, not his wiser evil twin)
hank thought he could let LEH fail without serious repercussions ... i'd say he'd prefer a mulligan on that decision right about now.
There is something primal about the inside of the "forests" in Finland. You can walk from a town and pick small berries all day and not see anybody. Mushroom season is also pretty amazing. The people are also fairly earthy/primal which is a contrast to their 100% literacy and hard working knowledge economy. Life there though is pretty hard compared to say NZ, but we are living beyond our means whereas Finland pays its own way i think, but quite how Finland will mange to sell cruise boats and ship systems and technology in a depression is a worry. At least people have to eat NZ sheep and dairy.
Burn-ass-ke said in March 2007, during Q&A: "Home prices across the US will not decline. The price increases will decline to 3-5%." Hanky Panky said in 2007 that the sub-prime was contained.
We sure have good seers running the policy. Only incompetent people can get to the top! (a variation of Peter Principle?)
There, done it. I see there is a new law. Paulsen's Law. Supercedes all others.
Antitrust, regulatory, administrative law? Hell those are obsolete. Paulsen is the new law and he's got the money and the guns to back it up. Wanna complain?
I have 0 debt, no kids, and no payments other than monthly utilities and rent. I have a stable job, and I have cash (not a ton, but a good amount.)
I completely agree that it would be foolish to call a bottom now and absurd to claim to KNOW anything about this brave new world; however, I have indeed made small purchases that I can afford to make, based on P/E of companies that are absolutely necessary and profitable. The amount of my investment is so miniscule that you'd all LOL. Anyway, I believe in some risky investments. (My "safe" investments are down 40%, so what the hell, right?)
Now, keep in mind I'm being optimistic only with money I can afford to be optimistic with.
Paulson could only have saved Lehman by going to the Congress and asking for a huge amount of money for a capitol injection into an Ibank. Probably at least 200Billion to cover their losses and recapitalize them. What do you think the chances were that he could have gotten that before the market finished them off?
Not a shill just a former IB'er who can read a balance sheet, unlike you it would seem.
The problem in this market is that there are people like you who think they know what they are doing, but are only following "conventional wisdom" of the uninformed herd.
If you smell something funny you've most likely stepped in another pile of steaming dung from the herd you are following.
Why@Zirp, Paulsen figured that out. No more going to 'Congress'. He'll do what he damn well pleases and only a bullet will stop him now. He's the First Fuhrer of the FED. Nobody outranks him now.
Angry Saver.. preach it brother. If there were profits there within an acceptable margin of risk there is no way private industry would have left if by the side of the road.
The government needs to get back to what they should be doing, which is making sure that the investor / corp dealings are fair and equitable. They need to force audits and write-downs so that investors know what they are getting into. If needed the govt should make bridge loans to companies that are strong, but need a little something to make the transition to higher interest rates.
Continuing to throw money at the companies and crap will only perpetuate the problems. Propping up the market will only make it crash harder next time.
If I understand the situation correctly, here's the deal: all the current financial models are built on the assumption that consumers tomorrow will act like consumers yesterday.
When consumers stopped using real money to buy houses (mid-2005), this broke their models.
Unfortunately for them, they can't hold a gun to our heads and make us borrow money.
Thus, past results may not indicate future returns (however you say it).
The irony of the banksters/fraudsters getting bit in the ass with their own viper is awesome to me.
Lars, according to the Lehman CDS results, they were underwater by approximately 100B. If anything, I think it likely that MS is in worse shape as they were considerably larger than LEH. Unlike you, I'm not an IB'er (and jaded), and rest assured I'm more than familiar with a banance sheet. The problem is, in current situation you cannot trust them.
Put your money where your mouth is. If you dare.
I will not discuss this further -- I can see that it is an exercise of mental masturbation. You are just another bulltard, and my investment history underscores the accuracy of my viewpoints.
--
Excuse me while I read up on US Law. There, done it. I see there is a new law. Paulsen's Law. Supercedes all others."
unit472,
Americans do love strong leaders and fascists. One needs to know how popular Mussolini was in 1930s. Well, 2010s would be worse than 1930s. So, we will have many strong men with dictatorial powers. That is what most Americans really like despite what they proclaim in the public.
Q: Why and how did Paulson get dictatorial powers over the economy?
Not a shill just a former IB'er who can read a balance sheet, unlike you it would seem.
it seems to me that there are currently a bunch of "former IB'er"s looking for work right now (or will be in the near future), all of whom, i have no doubt, would have told you with utmost confidence they knew how to read a balance sheet
All this bottom talk reminds me of the Elliott Waves explanation by Mish posted on October 10 as well as the NYT graphic comparing recent bear markets.
The Elliott Wave theory says the next phase of this bear market is an up-trend wave that will then crash on the final leg down. The NYT graphic shows an interesting pattern between 8-10 months into each bear market where a rally occurs.
Justin by the beach writes:
are nikkei futuresdown? thats what bloomberg says.
Nope. Closed for Health-Sports Day - just another <a href="http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/FR/MKJ/marketholidays/>Wacky Holiday in the land of the Rising Su
For a confidence game to work, you've got to have confidence.
So far, the main efforts to restore confidence have been public statements saying, "We are going to restore confidence".
However, fundamentals continue to disintegrate.
Did that same trip in 2005 and loved it (in that order, no less)! Be sure to hit Budapest's "Freedom Park" (I think?), it's got all the ex-Soviet statues from around the city. I didn't take the time to see it but that's the only thing I was really bumbed about missing. The Bone Church outside of Praha is stunning, and the markets in Budapest are outstanding. Vienna closes shop at 5:30, no matter the night but the government buildings were stunning at night.
The job market will be cruel to ex-IBers. Payback is a b!@tch.
Out of curiousity, what kind of a valuation multiple should you apply to negative earnings? And what sort of discounts are you applying to the level 2 and Level 3 assets?
Also, we could get a US trading day in the absence of a Nikkei day and London day to precede, as the Brits might close their market because it's not safe to swim less than 30 minutes after eating.
The Army is responding to those concerned about 'crowd control' assignments. Their spokesman states very plainly that their mission is nothing like some fear. Integrate it into your own story as you see fit.
It's a complicate story to tell and I won't try to explain it here because it is both lengthy and unpopular but the crux of the issue it the disconnect between our social views and our economic ones.
The educated Democrat would not hesitate to 'fire' an incompetent employee but, invest that same person, with political 'coloraton' and their incompetence, their lack of education, their social incompatibility, is no longer an economic issue but at social or political one.
The 'problem' hasn't changed only the 'characterization' of it. If "Joe' was a terrible employee you'd fire him. But if is tardiness, his coarseness, his innate stupidity can be redefined into a 'political or social' issue all of the above can be ignored.
It's caught up with us now. You can't pretend that Fred Sanford is the same as Ozzie and Harriet anymore.
unit. LOL, that's so false. I'm very liberal/progressive, and I won't hire anybody who isn't bad-ass, and I will fire anybody who doesn't pull his/her weight. AND, I'm in non-profit.
Retired in the '90's and have nothing to do with the Street today.
So make all the jokes you want about current IB'ers.
I repeat MS is NOT insolvent. End of story.
The very fact that Misubishi stepped up to the table AFTER DUE DILIGENCE would tell most people (even those with brains the size of gnat)that this statement is correct.
The only reason they are renegotiating now is because the stock has dropped due to shorts have driven down the price. NOT because the value of MS's assets have changed in two weeks. GET A CLUE.
Now the smell wafting off you is getting to great for me to continue to educate a DOLT like you.
MS may not be insolvent today but what are the chances it can generate revenue sufficient to carry its debt in the future.
I gnash my teeth in disgust at the valuations some companies now exhibit but,at least, I figure they are going to be a least a percentage of their past profitability. Where does MS fit into that?
The very fact that Misubishi stepped up to the table AFTER DUE DILIGENCE would tell most people (even those with brains the size of gnat)that this statement is correct."
Like the DUE DILIGENCE that was done on Wamu, Wachovia, DSL before they cratered?
So every other hedge fund, institutional investor/SWF that has invested in financials over the last year and lost everything got it wrong and Mitsibushi got it right?
Sorry Lars, you're full of shit just like most people in or who have been in the IB business.
Because someone did DUE DILIGENCE they're always correct? They always read the books correctly? They always make the correct assumptions? Their investments turned out correctly?
If that's the sort of circular logic you use to prove that an investment is a good one, thank the lord you are out of investment banking.
--
"A naive question: I can see how the coordinated bailout preventing a systematic meltdown is good for the economy."
MrM,
Yes, a very naive conclusion. Coordinated bailouts = Financial Central Planning.
Bad system and bad companies must be allowed to meltdown! Then we have a chance at good companies coming into existence. Keeping bad companies with bad managers alive is a very bad thing, both short-term and long-term.
Not a fan, or supporter, of Americas immoral leaders,
What is "Due diligence" as applied to Level 3 assets?
I am sure that anybody running "Due Diligence" on MS or GS will come up with a number of scenarios, in some of which the i-bank in question is grossly undervalued and in others it is insolvent.
It becomes a judgment call, which had better be accompanied by government guarantees
@ Pissed, The very fact that Misubishi stepped up to the table AFTER DUE DILIGENCE would tell most people (even those with brains the size of gnat)that this statement is correct."
Like the DUE DILIGENCE that was done on Wamu, Wachovia, DSL before they cratered?
So every other hedge fund, institutional investor/SWF that has invested in financials over the last year and lost everything got it wrong and Mitsibushi got it right?
Sorry Lars, you're full of shit just like most people in or who have been in the IB business.
Because someone did DUE DILIGENCE they're always correct? They always read the books correctly? They always make the correct assumptions? Their investments turned out correctly?
If that's the sort of circular logic you use to prove that an investment is a good one, thank the lord you are out of investment banking.
I was there just before the fall of the SU, in Talinn. The hatred of many Estonians for Russia was palpable.
An Estonian woman was showing me a photograph of the skyline of Talinn, in which the dome of an Orthodox cathedral was prominent. "The Russians built it," she said. Then, with a frown: "Ugly, isn't it?"
it's clear where I stand on other people (aside: ON THEIR NECKS), but either way, be they cattle or sheep, as Alton Brown would say, "they're GOOD EATS!"
Mind if I butt in. What do you mean "see?" Aren't they? (Not to me but to their economic rulers).
The relationship between the American People and their economic masters is one between farm owners and the farm animals. Anyway, that is what I observe.
Economic slavery, of various kinds, has been common thru all of history.
This whole mess reminds me more and more of "Jack and The Beanstalk".
I mean, after Jack came back home and told his family that he had sold the family cow to a swindler for some magic beans, he had to come up with a rousing good tale. A tremendous beanstalk, a Giant, a immense treasure just beyond his grasp.
The scary thing is we aren't hearing this from the family dolt. Wa are hearing this from the Secretary of the Treasury! He is being sent out with $700 billion plus GSE credits plus everything, including Senator Craigs 'wide stance' toilet stall and he is about to report back to the 'taxpayer' that he bought 'magic beans'!
Yes I'm sure "Organic George". I sell real product. I mean 'energy', not discretionary income excrement. I'd give you a look at my delinquent accounts except you'd have to vomit and renounce your stated positions because I deal with reality!!!
Not at all. Looking at, conceiving of other people as objects, commodities, property, cattle - is not, unfortunately, so rare as it should be.
Peter Bormann, the son of Martin Bormann, became a Catholic priest and then was laicized. When he and his sister were children they were invited to lunch by Martin Bormann's mistress. After the meal, she told the children to follow her upstairs, where she would show them something fabulous and rare. It was an entire roomful of furniture made from human body parts.
Peter Bormann said that he and his sister then went home, and were terribly shaken by what they had seen.
I think the important point of the story is that they were shaken, terribly.
The Swiss economy is dwarfed by the size of its leading banks, and there
are growing worries about their health. The government says everything
is fine, but some disagree.
Pavel,sorry but your anecdote seems to be just that.
The 'son' of Martin Bormann is likely a fraud. The whereabouts of Herr Martin is somewhat of a mystery and while there was the 'bitch of Buchenwald' who did have some tattoed prisoners skin made into lampshades the idea that there was a 'German monster' who had an entire room furnished with 'human furniture' seems beyond belief.
If WW2 produced human cruely and depravity on a monumental scale it did not produce it on a civilizational one. Thus the Nazis had to conceal their crimes because even in Hitler's Germany one could not sell 'lampshades' made of human skin! No decent person would decorate their house with such 'trophies' not even Americans with Japanese kamikaze
body parts in 1945! Get real.
The last time I was in Estonia was in 1988 as a kid.... Soviet army officers kept hogging the Formula video game at the hotel lobby. The only one in Estonia, probably. Would love to return and see the contrast. The Old Town is the best preserved Medieval town center in the world... something you don't appreciate as a child.
Pretty soon you can pick up an apartment dating back to 1470 for 200 K, I bet.
--
The human history is a story of how those in power have treated those without power across time and societies, or states. Unites States is no different.
Ones without power are allowed to go bankrupt and are evicted (from rentals), can lose their cars, furniture, homes, etc.
Those with power are greatly protected.
Who make the decisions?
People? My ass. Crooks and their agents? YES.
Ugliness of the American system is showing up for all to see. Unfortunately, is everywhere now because of the spread of the American influence.
Bormann's son tells the story himself in a biographical essay. If you doubt it, you can try to get in touch with him and ask him to verify or not. I think he's still alive and living in Germany.
My uncle's half-sister was a thoroughly indoctrinated member of the Hitler youth organization for girls. Not the sort of person one usually meets these days. I hope.
Sorry Pavel. Wickipaedia on Martin Bormann is as bereft of bona fides as is the fate of Martin himself.
Yet, before we bestow this bizarre historical figure anything beyond his actual prominence, we should remember he was but a flunkie, a 'diary secretary' for the German dictator.
This puts him so down the totem pole of human history his main claim to fame is his absence from it.
Lars: With a name like "Lars", you belong somewhere in Socialist Eurostan.
MS has $900 billion in CDOs. AIG had over $1 trillion in CDOs. AIG is now 80% owned by the Feds, and they just loaned them anther $37 billion last week on top of the first $85 billion. Get a clue man. The housing market has not bottomed. It won't for at least another year- 5 years out from the peak. This is just the 3rd or 4th inning.
Countries are guaranteeing deposits because they understand that the banks are essentially insolvent without them (simple). Banks lend depositors' money...don't forget that. It's our money to do with what we want. I say that we should teach banks a lesson, cancel direct deposit and pay cash for everything.
"Many of the founding generation of Americans were pretty brazen risk-takers. I mean, putting EVERYTHING into enterprises that could very easily fail, and taking trips to places where yellow fever, etc., could easily more than decimate a town. They lost wives and children all the time, were killed in duels or by disease, and were sustained by a thirst for wealth and prestige that was greater than their thirst to stay alive."
And many of our forefathers came here involuntarily, either imprisoned, orwith a slave brand on their arm, or because they had no where else to go, or nothing to eat if they did have a place to call home.
This is not a country by choice for a great many people even today (especially today). These people are not standing at the table with Mouse shooting craps, they don't have money to burn, they barely have money to eat and pay for fuel oil or gas to get to work today. Then comes rent day.
Rich Americans not only loved Mussolini, they nominated and chose Hitler as Time's Man of the Year. They supported the eugenics programs of the third reich before they were the third reich's eugenics programs. They supported the sterilization and institutionalization of the nation's poor, and created a system that gives us over two million prison slave laborers today.
Nothing changes. These wolves need to be taken out and shot.
Hey MS's market cap right now is 10 billion and falling. Mitsubishi is investing 9 billion. That should give it 90% of Morgan Stanley, not 21%. I never thought Japs were stupid; they'd sure be stupid not to tell MS they want the whole shebang for say, 9.5 billion. Lock stock and barrel.
Imagine a country announced that it was bailing out an investment bank, then just days later said it was nationalizing its mortgage industry, and then just days later that it was bailing out its biggest insurance company, and then just days later its government pledged 100's of billions to inject into its failing banks, and then just days later its stock market fell 20%. Would you feel comfortable having your money invested in such a country, in its stock market, in its bond market or in its currency?
The authorities keep saying that they will use all tools available to them. They only have one its an electronic version of the printing press. They will spin it in many different ways using jargon like increased liquidity and injection of capital and buying equity stakes and buying toxic debt but it all translates to create more money out of thin air.
Imagine that instead of living through this nightmare yourself you were watching this complete financial drama unfolding in Venezuela. Who in his right mind would predict that Venezuela would experience massive deflation as a result of creating massive amounts of money and credit out of thin air? So why is it different for America? The laws of economics are not country specific.
Well if we're into horrible stories tonight (avert tender eyes):
In the middle east about 10 years ago I heard stories from multiple sources that Japanese businessmen were offering $10,000 to Israeli tourists -- for their tattoos, which were to be framed and hung on the wall.
Supposedly Protocols of the Elders of Zion is big reading over there too.
My only personal experience was when did business with Japanese importer. He told me that his grandmother told him that Jews would produce black smoke because their souls were black.
I'm only talking about this so people can understand the kind of lunacy that still exists in our melting world.
BTW, I got the 900 billion figure from the Wall Street Journal about 3 weeks ago. The article said that MS shed about 100 billion form an initial 1 trillion. Either the Japanese are stupid, or they are really stupid. Anyone leveraged on mortgages more than 10 to 1 is either going bankrupt or will be snapped up for pennies on the dollar.
Good point Purple. I get a little xenophobic around Wahhabi Muslims, especially the women who look though a thin slit AND their men. Every American should know that they wish conversion or death upon all of us, as it's written in several places in their unreformed "Holy" book of death. Say it ain't so.
HAL: I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
"My brother wants to know why his long term treasury bond fund is declining in value. I can't imagine that Vanguard is taking too much in fees, I have no answer for him."
Only half the bonds are Treasuries. The rest are long term bonds in industrial and financial institutions, which have decreased in value over the last year. See:
first
I refuse to believe Haloscan.
Shoot those who proclaim "First!"
CHILDISH & DUMB.
couldn't resist. Usually I'm 224th. So, MS=toast?
Arx TARPeia Capitoli proxima...
Told you - once they announce the global bail, all these deals are off and must be at best, renegotiated. Silly. Everything we've done up to this point has been a gigantic expensive waste of time. Solution : throw more money at it. This one better work, because Im sick of seeing people take a match to my future earnings.
They should ask for Alan Greenspan's approval first. He knows everything.
morgan stanley doesnt
make it wiothout the US stepping in.
Do they still make TVs? Because I want a free TV will my brokerage account.
E-Mini and Small Nasdaq up only 23 points each. They produced a mice. No Bull!
Jas
7AM London = 2AM Eastern = 11PM Pacific.
Dow futures are trading 230 points higher.
We predicted this re-negotiation yesterday, in one of the threads.
MS can thank Paulsen for dragging his feet with the equity injection plan.
So when the Treasury injects money into the failing US banks, and the taxpayer gets preferred non-voting stock, there is the possibility that the taxpayers will lose their entire investment if the banks do declare bankruptcy?
Sounds like a sweet deal if the Treasury bails out MS
Two hours until the Nikkei starts trading. May have a significant impact on how optimistic the Dow futures traders still are by morning.
Oh, wait, sorry, this is a market holiday in Japan.
Something about physical fitness.
SPU's up 30
booyaaa hahahahahahah
CLF to 50!
Futures indicating Friday may have been the bottom for quite some time.
Now we are starting to see good news, and then explanation of the 10-10 market bottom.
Same old ways to take Joe Public's money. Expect other good news to come, so that they markup the stock market for some time.
It has all being forecast at blog below, who recommended long USA stocks, and short dollar as of opening of Friday!
Stock Trading | Forex | Financial Markets: Stock Market Crash October 2008 Bottom for Investors (10/10/2008)
Preferred yielding 10%. Where have we heard that before? Oh yes, that's the deal Buffett gets.
Whyinthehell shouldn't taxpayers get the same deal?
Next weeks markets about to open and I found another Benatar song that, oddly enough, seems to be relevant. To the tune of "Love is a Battlefield":
We are dumb, head-fake to heartache we planned
All promises, all demands
Stocks are a battlefield
We were long, no one could tell us; we're wrong
Searching our charts for so long, all the time knowing
Market's a battlefield
You're threatening to blow, you're makin' me pay
Why do you hurt me so bad?
It would help me to know
Is demand in your way, or is this the best thing you've had?
Believe me, believe me, I can't tell you why
But I'm trapped by my greed, and I'm chained to this ride
We are dumb, head-fake to heartache we planned
All promises, all demands
Stocks are a battlefield
We were long, no one could tell us; we're wrong
Searchin our charts for so long, all the time knowing
Market's a battlefield
We're losing control
Will you make my hair grey, or torch me till I'm fried?
And before this gets sold, will it still deal the blame?
Theres no way this will fly...
But if I get much poorer, I could lose control
And when I pay the lenders, I'll wish I had... Gold
We are dumb, headache to heartache we planned
All promises, all demands
Market's a battlefield
We were long, no one could tell us; we're wrong
Searching our charts for so long, all of us knowing
Market's a battlefield
We are dumb, headache to heartache we're canned
All promises, all demands
Stocks are a battlefield
We were long, no one could tell us; we're wrong
Searching our charts for so long, all of us knowing
Market's a battlefield
Whyinthehell shouldn't taxpayers get the same deal?
Then nobody would be left to pay/guarantee the 10%.
--
Vow, Spoos up 30 points. Open the bubblee.
Bulls are in-charge!
Jas
If you want to restore confidence, you have to restore faith. To that end, GS & MS equity holders should be wiped out rather than saved by the government.
Once we bailout the wealthy, there will be NO END to the line of groups looking for handouts.
Ah, the Buffett Loan Shark terms... Tony Soprano would be proud.
"To that end, GS & MS equity holders should be wiped out rather than saved by the government."
I just know that would give me more confidence... Ummm.
sm_landlord
Nice!
The Japnaese are notoriously bad investors. MS is insolvent. They have all the bargaining power. They should say that Buffett was too early and they want preferreds at 15% AND a government guarantee.
@pete
It's not like that blog hasn't called bottom a dozen times in the past two weeks.
I know what the bottom is. It's zero.
I presume that it won't be getting there in the next couple weeks, and so does everyone else, which means that the same speculatory greed that got us here will continue to move things.
Boolz rule Bears drool
--
Euro is up 1.25. What is up with dat?
Jas
My plan worked. I will go out a success!
Now here's a holiday sports fans can get into:
National Holiday
Japanese financial markets will be closed Monday, Oct. 13, a national holiday (National Sports Day).
Everybody, but everybody, is expecting a huge rally starting tomorrow (either THE bottom, or interim bottom is in). How can EVERYBODY be right? I am hearing about the bottom from friends, family, in the supermarket, all over the net. Just doesn't seem right.
It's important to remember, Buffett said he would not have invested in GS absent the proposed $700 billion Paulson plan.
I've lost all respect for Buffett. Investing in a taxpayer funded bailout is disgraceful. WTF. The man has become a leach.
The wealthy in America like riskless paper assets. We're scewed.
Owner Earnings writes:
Futures indicating Friday may have been the bottom for quite some time.
Or they're not
I've lost all respect for Buffett. Investing in a taxpayer funded bailout is disgraceful. WTF. The man has become a leach
How else does one become a billionaire?
deb writes:
Everybody, but everybody, is expecting a huge rally starting tomorrow (either THE bottom, or interim bottom is in). How can EVERYBODY be right? I am hearing about the bottom from friends, family, in the supermarket, all over the net. Just doesn't seem right.
LMAO People are scared sh*tless, p!ssing their pants over this market - they all sold during bottom! Morons!
Also sounds like SWF's are coming out in force:
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf states are prepared to invest in U.S. financial institutions provided that their operations are transparent and simple enough so the risks involving such investments are easy to grasp, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa of Bahrain said.
Looks like the Futures smell Roses.
There we go everyone, that's a wrap. We'll just guarantee everything. Crisis solved.
Scene: An anonymous central banker has his hands in two puppets. He is stimulating interbank lending. One puppet passes a billion dollars to the other. Then the second puppet passes it back to the first.
Won't you come play the lending game with him, I mean, them? He'd really, really like your foreign exchange reserves.
Stock Trading | Forex | Financial Markets: Stock Market Crash October 2008 Bottom for Investors (10/10/2008)
Stock Trading | Forex | Financial Markets
Setser
Anonymouse
I have heard from very few who've sold. (We're out and have been for a while). But everyone else tells me "it's not a loss unless you sell" or "it's long term money so it doesn't matter, it will go back up", etc, etc. Now, obviously, someone is selling, but what I am hearing out there is shocking complacency.
deb,
Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better about missing a 20-30% Intermediate Term rally over the next several months.
--
"I'm thinking of starting a micro bank."
Volker the Viking,
Micro bank in a macro country, or economy? Little fish is to feed the big fish.
deb,
Everybody by definition excludes Jas Jain. I am part of nobody!
Jas
Pete: you're not flogging a blog are you?
I'm not a good market timer, so I've just been out, but luckily that means I didn't suffer from the recent decline. We probably won't jump back in now either, so it doesn't matter to me either way.
I just have never heard so many different voices so sure about a BIG rally. Seems odd.
AllenM - read your post and defense of position - and am in violent agreement with you here.
I think even if all the plans fail (which they might), the fact that there is a coordinated effort to correct the problem begins to remove uncertainty. And that is all I need to see in order to position long.
If you want to really enjoy a buffet, you need to come while they're still setting up. Not a strategy for those who aren't hungry enough.
MOAB rallies will begin well before the invitations are sent out.
dd
deb writes:
I'm not a good market timer, so I've just been out. . .
So you never put money in equities? Otherwise you're a market timer. Just sayi
So an injection of our $$ in Morgan Stanly would be an investment in Japan....
--
deb,
JUST SAY NO TO THE SCAM MARKET. (My advice since July 1998 -- Avoid Scams!).
Jas
I just have the long term view that we're headed for trouble, I don't try to predict where the market is headed week to week, or even month to month.
girlbear writes:
So an injection of our $$ in Morgan Stanly would be an investment in Japan....
yeah, they prefer you just buy the prius.
It makes sense to have equities in your portfolio when the economy is growing. Now, however, the economic outlook is still rather bleak. So any investment in equities in this environment is, indeed, a gamble on timing of intermediate ups and downs.
PCA, let us bask in our week of glory.
After the big reversal, we shall see where the trend goes.
I will be interested to read Conjure's thoughts.
Someday this war's gonna end...
where's short courage with p/e updates.
they've got to look attractive
for instance, CLF...with merger, and 10billion in top line revs, a conservative 8% bottom line eps would be $800mm, or $8/share for a $30 sotck .
any recovery is going to start in steel!
I'm surprised at the dismay voiced here that S&P Futures are up 30.
What else would you expect after one of the worst 2 week periods in the history of the market?
The rubber band got stretched to its' maximum point and there will be a snapback with significant force.
There will be a re-test and we'll see if it holds.
The rubber band hasn't been stretched to it's maximum until just before it breaks. Anything less isn't the maximum.
Regardless of how high the market rebounds, everyone knows that the low have to be tested before the market can sustain a long term up move.
The rally will last until the next shoe drops, and did I mention the shoes were dropping from Imelda Marcoss closet
Looking at the 1929-1932 weekly numbers, we're bound to have +10 to +15% weeks over the next year or two.
Sydney opens in 10min. Futures 3.4% up
I don't play individual stocks, however those looking for deals might want to sniff AT&T (symbol: T). According to marketwatch.com, its P/E is 10.05 and its dividend yield is 7.14% Those two #s are almost kissing, and that's usually a good sign of value (it has good cash flow, manageable debt, etc.)
--
My wish -- S&P 500 trades at 1,000 on Friday morning (price at futures settlement time). Let us root for SPX at 1,000.
Jas
We're staying in.
the optimism of humans amuses me.
we still haven't heard anything from hank.
the fundamentals in the USA haven't changed.
yes, we may rally for a day, a week, a month...but you have to be a pretty shrewd market timer to know when to exit.
deb: good for you. the bottom comes when no one wants to own stocks.
My daughter (14) walked into the room about 10 minutes ago with a fistful of Series EE savings bonds, asking if she should hang on to them or redeem them. When I looked at them, I noticed that the person who bought them for her had used their own social security number instead of my daughter's and that's what was printed on them. It's in her name, but with another social. Do you think this matters?
Anybody thinking this is anything more than a short term bounce is dense. There are many more shoes to drop. Have your fun anonymouse. Meanwhile, I'll be reloading my puts.
I suspect this rally loses steam very quickly. Nobody believes in its staying power.
--
karelian,
we are at early 1930. At least 3 more years of severe pain for bullies (it would be extended compared with 1929-32). SPX at 250 would be lucky for the bulls. More likely bottom at 100-150. That is the price of communizing the financial system.
Jas
PS: Never been to Finland. A good place to visit?
"Looking at the 1929-1932 weekly numbers"
This is not 1929-1932.
"...the optimism of humans amuses me."
You're not from this planet?
pavel-
sometimes, i think not.
From the looks of the futures all these announcements are setting up some good entry points for the short funds this week
I don't mean to say that lessons can't be learned from looking at that period.
"pavel-
sometimes, i think not."
Don't worry, we're all pretty strange.
--
"the optimism of humans amuses me."
nullpointer,
It is a much more common disease among Americans. One reason why Americans are more likely to be dopes and ignore the warning signs?
Optimists haven't left too many descendents behind! Worrying kinds have. I bet that your great great great grandfather was a worrier type.
Jas
That's it...MS is bankrupt by the end of the week or taken over by the Feds. They have $900 billion in CDOs. May they rot in hell.
Jas, my GGG grandfathers were optimist Americans with many children. They also lived in a country where you could just land somewhere at a good spot on a navigable river and build a city in 10 years.
people, people - there are going to be some sharp rallies up and lots of volatility, but don't kid yourself. We are still in a cycle of DELEVERAGING and that is far from over.
My brother wants to know why his long term treasury bond fund is declining in value. I can't imagine that Vanguard is taking too much in fees, I have no answer for him.
Do we all sell treasures now and buy Barclays?
Australia up 3%
banks up 5-10%
oil up$3
"the optimism of humans amuses me."
We're all optimists. If we didn't believe in tomorrow, there would be no point in getting through today.
Gerald -
Australia AORD now up 5.25%
The Euro is up since the all the EU countries have agreed to guarantee all interbank trades up to 5 years out.
LIBOR and TED spread should also have significant moves.
My nephew is 2. It's hard not to feel optimistic on a primal level.
--
Jas, my GGG grandfathers were optimist Americans with many children."
Jeffrey,
Many children does not mean being optimistic in the current American sense. They were likely to be worrier types and hard workers. Of course, I didn't know them and merely speculating based on what I know of Calvinist beliefs very common among Americans.
Jas
Dont' the Optimists have a club?
Whenever I interviewed with dot com companies I always asked what the business model was. Honestly I'm surprised that anyone would give them money, let alone run a company.
I feel the same way about the market right now. It's become crystal clear that no one has been making real profits, they have all been shuffling around paper profits as real wealth.
Nothing about the fundamentals have really changed at this point and people are thinking of giving them more money.... insane.
Just more negative talk from liberals who hate America, and the troops.
Finland is just awesome in July and August... no history, but 100'000 islands and roughly the same number of lakes. You can rent your own for a week... total solitude is a great tonic for most people, though freaks some out.
Reindeer tongue, black rye bread, best damn strawberries in the world because the sun shines 20 hours a day in July - sugar content is sky high.
Where's mp? Isn't Conjure's communique overdue?
all-
my remark about optimism is that, IMO, it clouds reasoning and logic.
i dont think we are headed for a depression, and i dont have a bunker built.
but to think the "all clear" signal has been given is just silly.
trade the bounce if ya want, if you are a gambler.
but going long here?
yikes.
Sorry to be a bummer, but too many events in this 'crisis' seem to require the same kind poison remedies - centralization and consolodation.
Soon, there will be only one. Dramatic? Yes.
Check out the Project for the New American Century website Welcome to the Project for the New American Century - Bill Krystal, Paul Wolfowitz and the boys subtle outline for a strategic play for resources worldwide through militaristic corporatism. Democracy means dealing with congress and dissent - the kinds of things that make an "empire" lethargic and ineffective. Are These the Forging Fires of the NWO We Feel? « Your Mortgage or Your Life…
10:00 EST, or after dinner, whichever comes first.
MS is NOT insolvent. The stock is being driven down by shorts that had/have an agenda to derail the Mitsubishi deal, which it looks like they have succeeded in making MS renegotiate.
MS has sufficient liquidity to keep it going for quite sometime. The situation is nothing like Bear Stearns (which had liquidity issues) or LEH (which was insolvent).
What is striking MS and GS is panic/targeted short selling and is NOT driven by fundamental solvency issues.
Oh, okay. =) I stand corrected.
Higher opens are the kiss of death in a Bear Market. Morgan Stanley is probably insolvent, the markets know that, so regardless of whats "announced" the stock is probably headed to zero.
Just more negative talk from liberals who hate America, and the troops.
Lets not be retarded ok...its been a long week.
"Optimists haven't left too many descendents behind! "
We're all the descendants of optimists.
My wife told me today about how, during the GD, her father trucked potatoes into a small Pennsylvania coal town from the family farm, and couldn't sell them.
Cutting hair, drawing on the GI Bill and using a generous aunt's railroad pension money, he worked his way up to a Ph.D from Penn State.
There are some tough, stubborn people in this country.
If the rumors of heavy margin calls on hedge funds are valid, Monday could be like last week.
ullpointer,
I'm being lighthearted with the "optimist" stuff. I have faith in the future, long term, in a general sense. For now, specifically in regards to our current global economic/financial situation, I am a very grumpy Bear.
How about providing some evidence Lars, you irresponsible shill. You will not find suckers on this board.
I can direct people to some solid analysis of MS books. You like Level 2 and Level 3 assets? You like leverage? You like CDS risk? MS has got it all.
You sir are a joke, blaming it on short sellers.
--
karelian, Thanks. Scandinavia during July-Aug sounds great. Maybe in 2010. Friend and I are planning two-week Praha-Vienna-Budapest in 2009. I have been to Praha and liked it.
Jas
There is a false dichotomy with the optimist versus worrier. I'm fairly optimistic, but I do worry. Those who are truly worriers rarely attempt anything and never accomplish anything. I mean, we're talking about TEOTWAWKI and yet you still expect there to be a stock market for the definite future, right?
If there is an undisputable difference between MS and LEH/BSC it is that a MS implosion would leave a much larger crater which Treasury would hardly be able to cover.
Not sure, though, if that means MS's BK in the coming is more or less likely than a week ago
The Hedge funds are in most cases insolvent. The few exceptions would be the ones that have somehow avoided the 62 Trillion Pozi Scheme called Credit Default Swaps. Anyone involved in CDS business is insolvent, both loser and "winners". It will sort itself out eventually, but suffice it to say that the hedge never had any real cash on hand, they were counting their fraudulent positions in CDS's as cash. Its complicated, but thats the reason the smart money is stampedeing to get out of hedge funds. They simply have no money.
Suspect personal anecdote time:
I met a guy who called himself the Alternate Chief Investment officer at MS, just about the time we began to learn how bad things were in 2007. I asked him how exposed (responsible) MS had been and he said he was amazed by how everyone else had been behaving and was quite sure that MS didn't engage in that kind of risky activity. He said it with a very straight face.
Central Europe certainly has all the history you could want - so it's a nice balance with the Nordic region where the biggest appeal is the absence of people.
TEOTWAWKI constitutes the light at the end of the tunnel in my version of optimism.
Just more negative talk from liberals who hate America, and the troops.
Lets not be retarded ok...its been a long week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
judging by the embedded website link, i took the original comment as sarcastic
Can anyone explain why Bloomberg's version of the Ted spread has been bopping between 4.64 and 4.23 all weekend long?
Bug?
there's a light at the end of the tunnel in every situation ... problem is, sometimes it's the train
Uncle Billy,
Daughter's grandfather used to put her EEs in his SS#. It was never a problem.
Are there any figures on the holidays? Call me a pessimist, but I foresee many retailers that won't make it to February.
leslie stahl doing a pretty good piece about Sadr City battle right now on 60 minutes (east coast)
leslie stahl doing a pretty good piece about Sadr City battle right now on 60 minutes (east coast)
Nurse "The patient has a deep cut on his wrist and is bleeding badly."
Dr. Paulson "Amputate his arm!"
Nurse "Doctor, he's still bleeding."
Dr. Paulson "Cut off the other arm!"
Peanut galley "HOORAY! Lets rally on Monday!"
--
When talking about optimism, etc., of our forefathers we are not factoring in the fact that they had a very different belief system and philosophy of life. I guess we are comparing apples and oranges.
Optimism these days means carefree and carelessness. Things will somehow work out. No, they don't. Plan for the worst and hope for the best is not a theology of optimists. Worst wouldn't be allowed to happen. Yeah, right.
Jas
With unemployment rising, the consumer tapped out, no more zero money down or interest only mortgages to be had, corporate profits declining, government budgets bursting....etc...etc...etc. What exactly is gonna keep a rally going?
More credit? More bailouts?
Too much debt already.
Many more shoes to drop.
Jas, many of the founding generation of Americans were pretty brazen risk-takers. I mean, putting EVERYTHING into enterprises that could very easily fail, and taking trips to places where yellow fever, etc., could easily more than decimate a town. They lost wives and children all the time, were killed in duels or by disease, and were sustained by a thirst for wealth and prestige that was greater than their thirst to stay alive.
gerald-
EHP covered the CDS angle more completely than I. However, in answer to your question re: "why did some sell at the auction", it could be that they were afraid of not getting anything on their CDS hedges or that they never bought any CDS to insure themselves so they elected to dump their bonds at the auction, or there is some provision in the contracts that forces a bid on some nominal amount to establish the Reference Price. EHP may have better insight into that.
Of course, the cynic in me thinks a CDS buyer may have taken an option on the bonds and forced sale to arbitrage the Reference Price, but, we may never know.
Hope that helps.
The 21st will come and terms of contracts will be enforced, come what may. Plantagenet has a good bead on the timeline.
The hardest part to "see" is the clauses in the contracts and the laws governing the entities that are subject to them and how they'll be affected.
Certainly, there'll be lots of failures. If I were a banker, it would be this unknowable that would prevent me from making any more loans for awhile. You just don't know who may get caught in the "net" or to what degree.
London Banker expressed the same on Setser's blog about the expansion of Fed holdings being explained by foreign CBs moving out of the I-Banks.
Someone has expressed this notion more eloquently than I, but basically, "If you can't see the bottom, there effectively isn't one."
Good luck and props to EHP and Plantagenet.
Just thinking about the Eurozone announcement. If there are no concrete steps taken in the next few days the markets will probably give back the gains they seem intent on making tonight. It could just be another effective act of jawboning.
I have a question about this Eu "guarantee". What use is a promise from even bigger and broker entities?
I hear others say that this may just be what is needed to loosen the credit jam and ease lending.
It seems to me it only works if enough people decide to buy into the lie, right?
Most of the world is insolvent at this time but if we all just close our eyes, and shut our mouths and buy buy buy like it aint, then it aint?
WOW.
Ok, im slow, I just really got it this very post. Go ahead and mock at my blindness and slowness that only NOW does it hit me.
My next question is this: Does my acceptance/renunciation of the big lie matter? Does the herd decide to believe, and presto? or do the littles like me laugh and hold onto the truth while the masters of the moneyverse dive in and pretend and make it alllll better?(or if not all better than as good as possible?)
thanks
PS looking forward to the conjure report
I usually agree with much of what Jas has to say but...I'm a worrier, I fret constantly about possible outcomes of my actions. I worry about just about everything and as a result, I never bred. Which is probably a good thing, much easier to participate in disaster porn child free...
Good evening esteemed friends and aquaintances...
The government should start offering equity guarantee insurance to all investors. - lol
It should be called Capital Rights Assurance Protection.
--
Jeffrey,
They were too busy to be optimists!!
Anyway, I enjoy your rich in detaills comments.
Jas
Dear Optimists:
Hi. I see the world quite differently than you dudes do, so I am hoping you'll help me get my learn on.
There is now a belief that, since there is a coordinated effort by world governments to prop this beast up, it will not fall. This seems to imply that our 'crisis' was merely a lack of willingness to take action and not a fundamental breakdown of the system itself. Is this your view?
I see that the suits at the top will use all their tools, even break a few rules if need be, to get this system running again. I see that they're now willing to pump money in like never before. I see the willingness to use innovative methods to solve the problem. We are together here.
What I do not yet see is a workable plan to achieve this. So even though the heads are determined to repair the mess, I'm not at all convinced that they can.
The fact that those tasked with fixing this are the same folks that broke it does not help matters for me.
What am I missing? What says they can fix it even if they now state that they are determined to?
Thanks for helping a brother understand...
Thanks Deb.
Brad Setser: Follow the Money » Blog Archive » On the precipice
...Lehmans default clearly triggered the run. But the ultimate cause of the crisis is more troubling: a large number of large commercial and investment banks seem to have been borrowing not on the strength of their own balance sheets but rather on the expectation that they were too big and too systematically important to fail...
I think they let Lehman fail precisely because of the moral hazard issue-I don't think that it was a "mistake". If they wouldn't have let them fail, the banks would have kept standing in line for a bailout one at a time and then the system would crater anyways. They had to let one go to see where all the mines were buried.
Folks really are gullible. Dumb really. All it takes to scam the American public is the promise of free wealth. As if.
Wake up America! The rich and only the rich are being bailed out. After the wealthy secure their ill gotten gains, then your real pain will begin.
This is the greatest swindle in history.
"Most of the world is insolvent at this time but if we all just close our eyes, and shut our mouths and buy buy buy like it aint, then it aint?"
I think this is the strategy!
--
Comrade Kristina & Jeffery,
You are definitely making me rethink my position on descendents of optimists/worriers. Sometimes our speculations about the past are hard to corroborate. Thanks.
Jas
I think they let Lehman fail precisely because of the moral hazard issue-I don't think that it was a "mistake". If they wouldn't have let them fail, the banks would have kept standing in line for a bailout one at a time and then the system would crater anyways. They had to let one go to see where all the mines were buried.
i wish i could believe that, i really do. it might help me sleep a bit better at night.
unfortunately, it flies in the face of the evidence that we have that the fallout from LEH completely stunned Paulson (but, most likely, not his wiser evil twin)
hank thought he could let LEH fail without serious repercussions ... i'd say he'd prefer a mulligan on that decision right about now.
If credit contracts are guaranteed, why shouldn't lenders lend their brains out? What have they got to lose?
"Scandinavia during July-Aug sounds great".
There is something primal about the inside of the "forests" in Finland. You can walk from a town and pick small berries all day and not see anybody. Mushroom season is also pretty amazing. The people are also fairly earthy/primal which is a contrast to their 100% literacy and hard working knowledge economy. Life there though is pretty hard compared to say NZ, but we are living beyond our means whereas Finland pays its own way i think, but quite how Finland will mange to sell cruise boats and ship systems and technology in a depression is a worry. At least people have to eat NZ sheep and dairy.
--
Angry Saver,
Burn-ass-ke said in March 2007, during Q&A: "Home prices across the US will not decline. The price increases will decline to 3-5%." Hanky Panky said in 2007 that the sub-prime was contained.
We sure have good seers running the policy. Only incompetent people can get to the top! (a variation of Peter Principle?)
Jas
Excuse me while I read up on US Law.
There, done it. I see there is a new law. Paulsen's Law. Supercedes all others.
Antitrust, regulatory, administrative law? Hell those are obsolete. Paulsen is the new law and he's got the money and the guns to back it up. Wanna complain?
there's a light at the end of the tunnel in every situation ... problem is, sometimes it's the train
or a colonoscope...
Cannabis...speaking only for myself, of course:
I have 0 debt, no kids, and no payments other than monthly utilities and rent. I have a stable job, and I have cash (not a ton, but a good amount.)
I completely agree that it would be foolish to call a bottom now and absurd to claim to KNOW anything about this brave new world; however, I have indeed made small purchases that I can afford to make, based on P/E of companies that are absolutely necessary and profitable. The amount of my investment is so miniscule that you'd all LOL. Anyway, I believe in some risky investments. (My "safe" investments are down 40%, so what the hell, right?)
Now, keep in mind I'm being optimistic only with money I can afford to be optimistic with.
Paulson could only have saved Lehman by going to the Congress and asking for a huge amount of money for a capitol injection into an Ibank. Probably at least 200Billion to cover their losses and recapitalize them. What do you think the chances were that he could have gotten that before the market finished them off?
there's a light at the end of the tunnel in every situation ... problem is, sometimes it's the train
or a colonoscope...
or death.
up4%
Comrade Gavshire Hathaway
Not a shill just a former IB'er who can read a balance sheet, unlike you it would seem.
The problem in this market is that there are people like you who think they know what they are doing, but are only following "conventional wisdom" of the uninformed herd.
If you smell something funny you've most likely stepped in another pile of steaming dung from the herd you are following.
"it would be foolish to call a bottom now and absurd to claim to KNOW anything about this brave new world"
A very interesting choice of words. I wonder if this was intentional.
In any case, thanks for helping me get my head around this.
Why@Zirp, Paulsen figured that out. No more going to 'Congress'. He'll do what he damn well pleases and only a bullet will stop him now. He's the First Fuhrer of the FED. Nobody outranks him now.
Only incompetent people can get to the top! (a variation of Peter Principle?)
Jas,
Bernanke's 2002 defaltion prevention speech was no accident. He was campaigning for the fed chairmanship.
Now he has to make good on his speech. He can't. But he will allow wall street to pass much of their losses onto the public.
What a sham. American's have lost their way.
Angry Saver.. preach it brother. If there were profits there within an acceptable margin of risk there is no way private industry would have left if by the side of the road.
The government needs to get back to what they should be doing, which is making sure that the investor / corp dealings are fair and equitable. They need to force audits and write-downs so that investors know what they are getting into. If needed the govt should make bridge loans to companies that are strong, but need a little something to make the transition to higher interest rates.
Continuing to throw money at the companies and crap will only perpetuate the problems. Propping up the market will only make it crash harder next time.
CSC,
If I understand the situation correctly, here's the deal: all the current financial models are built on the assumption that consumers tomorrow will act like consumers yesterday.
When consumers stopped using real money to buy houses (mid-2005), this broke their models.
Unfortunately for them, they can't hold a gun to our heads and make us borrow money.
Thus, past results may not indicate future returns (however you say it).
The irony of the banksters/fraudsters getting bit in the ass with their own viper is awesome to me.
Bankruptcy has proven that Lehman's book value was NEGATIVE 100 BILLION.
Morgans can't be far off.
Lars, according to the Lehman CDS results, they were underwater by approximately 100B. If anything, I think it likely that MS is in worse shape as they were considerably larger than LEH. Unlike you, I'm not an IB'er (and jaded), and rest assured I'm more than familiar with a banance sheet. The problem is, in current situation you cannot trust them.
Put your money where your mouth is. If you dare.
I will not discuss this further -- I can see that it is an exercise of mental masturbation. You are just another bulltard, and my investment history underscores the accuracy of my viewpoints.
are nikkei futures down? thats what bloomberg says.
but feels like monday will be a big rebound everywhere. What happens after the rebound is more interesting.
--
Excuse me while I read up on US Law. There, done it. I see there is a new law. Paulsen's Law. Supercedes all others."
unit472,
Americans do love strong leaders and fascists. One needs to know how popular Mussolini was in 1930s. Well, 2010s would be worse than 1930s. So, we will have many strong men with dictatorial powers. That is what most Americans really like despite what they proclaim in the public.
Q: Why and how did Paulson get dictatorial powers over the economy?
A: He demanded it as part of taking the job!
Jas
Not a shill just a former IB'er who can read a balance sheet, unlike you it would seem.
it seems to me that there are currently a bunch of "former IB'er"s looking for work right now (or will be in the near future), all of whom, i have no doubt, would have told you with utmost confidence they knew how to read a balance sheet
just sayin ...
All this bottom talk reminds me of the Elliott Waves explanation by Mish
posted on October 10 as well as the NYT graphic comparing recent bear markets.
The Elliott Wave theory says the next phase of this bear market is an up-trend wave that will then crash on the final leg down. The NYT graphic shows an interesting pattern between 8-10 months into each bear market where a rally occurs.
Anyway, looks like history.
@CR,
Mr. CR, Sir:
Do Conjure's revelations at 10 Eastern tonight get their own thread?
I can think of nothing more momentous, more awaited, more portentious, and debated.
The crowd will hush as the minstrel relates the lay of Conjure Baggins and the Scenario of Doom!
Justin by the beach writes:
are nikkei futuresdown? thats what bloomberg says.
Nope. Closed for Health-Sports Day - just another <a href="http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/FR/MKJ/marketholidays/>Wacky Holiday in the land of the Rising Su
For a confidence game to work, you've got to have confidence.
So far, the main efforts to restore confidence have been public statements saying, "We are going to restore confidence".
However, fundamentals continue to disintegrate.
Jas: Re: Praha-Vienna-Budapest
Did that same trip in 2005 and loved it (in that order, no less)! Be sure to hit Budapest's "Freedom Park" (I think?), it's got all the ex-Soviet statues from around the city. I didn't take the time to see it but that's the only thing I was really bumbed about missing. The Bone Church outside of Praha is stunning, and the markets in Budapest are outstanding. Vienna closes shop at 5:30, no matter the night but the government buildings were stunning at night.
Anyway, enjoy!
Cn
The job market will be cruel to ex-IBers. Payback is a b!@tch.
Out of curiousity, what kind of a valuation multiple should you apply to negative earnings? And what sort of discounts are you applying to the level 2 and Level 3 assets?
Also, we could get a US trading day in the absence of a Nikkei day and London day to precede, as the Brits might close their market because it's not safe to swim less than 30 minutes after eating.
Something about digestion and cramps.
Update on the Army brigade on call domestically:
YouTube -
The Army is responding to those concerned about 'crowd control' assignments. Their spokesman states very plainly that their mission is nothing like some fear. Integrate it into your own story as you see fit.
Futures rippin'. Great chance to get out of some longs and pile into some short positions.
It's a complicate story to tell and I won't try to explain it here because it is both lengthy and unpopular but the crux of the issue it the disconnect between our social views and our economic ones.
The educated Democrat would not hesitate to 'fire' an incompetent employee but, invest that same person, with political 'coloraton' and their incompetence, their lack of education, their social incompatibility, is no longer an economic issue but at social or political one.
The 'problem' hasn't changed only the 'characterization' of it. If "Joe' was a terrible employee you'd fire him. But if is tardiness, his coarseness, his innate stupidity can be redefined into a 'political or social' issue all of the above can be ignored.
It's caught up with us now. You can't pretend that Fred Sanford is the same as Ozzie and Harriet anymore.
After doubling down Friday, I put my sell limit order GTC for SPY @ $126.50 - should hit in 3 months
EOM
Is Nikkei shut today?
See above
unit. LOL, that's so false. I'm very liberal/progressive, and I won't hire anybody who isn't bad-ass, and I will fire anybody who doesn't pull his/her weight. AND, I'm in non-profit.
So banks are closed tomorrow for Mafia Day, are the exchanges closed also?
anonymouse, did you double down on thursday AND on Friday?
I'm not sure about the bond market, but NYSE open regular hours
A naive question: I can see how the coordinated bailout preventing a systematic meltdown is good for the economy.
But why on earth a (partial) nationalization is good for bank stocks? And financials still represent 15% of SP500.
I must be missing something blindingly obvious...
Comrade Gavshire Hathaway
Retired in the '90's and have nothing to do with the Street today.
So make all the jokes you want about current IB'ers.
I repeat MS is NOT insolvent. End of story.
The very fact that Misubishi stepped up to the table AFTER DUE DILIGENCE would tell most people (even those with brains the size of gnat)that this statement is correct.
The only reason they are renegotiating now is because the stock has dropped due to shorts have driven down the price. NOT because the value of MS's assets have changed in two weeks. GET A CLUE.
Now the smell wafting off you is getting to great for me to continue to educate a DOLT like you.
Jeffrey, I'm in a for profit and I CANT fire some people for political reasons.
Ever here of the 80-20 rule? If you had to make money you might have.
I doubled down when I said I doubled down - Friday. I wrote Thursday night that I will double down Friday. Sheesh! Keep track of my trading better
MTU did, and is, and will continue to hammer MS on the deal, dont look behind the woodshed.....the chipper spray is everywhere.
Thanks Persecuted, you staying up to see if London declares a market holiday? That would be an interesting open in NY if they do!
"I must be missing something blindingly obvious..."
Possibly that the market was beginning to price in zeros.
Paulson not-so-tough love is better than zero.
--
Campbeln, Thanks. -- Jas
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I'll start taking notes
Wow, lars. You can make your point without being a dick. And by that I mean it's possible, not that you can do it.
MS may not be insolvent today but what are the chances it can generate revenue sufficient to carry its debt in the future.
I gnash my teeth in disgust at the valuations some companies now exhibit but,at least, I figure they are going to be a least a percentage of their past profitability. Where does MS fit into that?
Lars, you are a fool. Let me guess, short sellers brought down LEH, BSC, and MER? WAKE UP! It is the same business model.
And this "idiot" has an education that far surpasses your own.
"I repeat MS is NOT insolvent. End of story.
The very fact that Misubishi stepped up to the table AFTER DUE DILIGENCE would tell most people (even those with brains the size of gnat)that this statement is correct."
Like the DUE DILIGENCE that was done on Wamu, Wachovia, DSL before they cratered?
So every other hedge fund, institutional investor/SWF that has invested in financials over the last year and lost everything got it wrong and Mitsibushi got it right?
Sorry Lars, you're full of shit just like most people in or who have been in the IB business.
Because someone did DUE DILIGENCE they're always correct? They always read the books correctly? They always make the correct assumptions? Their investments turned out correctly?
If that's the sort of circular logic you use to prove that an investment is a good one, thank the lord you are out of investment banking.
"...but are only following "conventional wisdom" of the uninformed herd."
Do you see other people as cattle?
I think we need new data/news, cause the misanthropy here is growing. All ordinaries up 5.5% and my band is playing tonight. There!!
--
"A naive question: I can see how the coordinated bailout preventing a systematic meltdown is good for the economy."
MrM,
Yes, a very naive conclusion. Coordinated bailouts = Financial Central Planning.
Bad system and bad companies must be allowed to meltdown! Then we have a chance at good companies coming into existence. Keeping bad companies with bad managers alive is a very bad thing, both short-term and long-term.
Not a fan, or supporter, of Americas immoral leaders,
Jas
karelian | 10.12.08 - 7:30 pm
Have you been to Estonia lately?
What is "Due diligence" as applied to Level 3 assets?
I am sure that anybody running "Due Diligence" on MS or GS will come up with a number of scenarios, in some of which the i-bank in question is grossly undervalued and in others it is insolvent.
It becomes a judgment call, which had better be accompanied by government guarantees
@ Pissed,
The very fact that Misubishi stepped up to the table AFTER DUE DILIGENCE would tell most people (even those with brains the size of gnat)that this statement is correct."
Like the DUE DILIGENCE that was done on Wamu, Wachovia, DSL before they cratered?
So every other hedge fund, institutional investor/SWF that has invested in financials over the last year and lost everything got it wrong and Mitsibushi got it right?
Sorry Lars, you're full of shit just like most people in or who have been in the IB business.
Because someone did DUE DILIGENCE they're always correct? They always read the books correctly? They always make the correct assumptions? Their investments turned out correctly?
If that's the sort of circular logic you use to prove that an investment is a good one, thank the lord you are out of investment banking.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
"Have you been to Estonia lately?"
I was there just before the fall of the SU, in Talinn. The hatred of many Estonians for Russia was palpable.
An Estonian woman was showing me a photograph of the skyline of Talinn, in which the dome of an Orthodox cathedral was prominent. "The Russians built it," she said. Then, with a frown: "Ugly, isn't it?"
CR has struck again. New kill up.
Do you see other people as cattle?
it's clear where I stand on other people (aside: ON THEIR NECKS), but either way, be they cattle or sheep, as Alton Brown would say, "they're GOOD EATS!"
Anyone have a link to a recent mp/conjure posting? I can't read fast enough to keep up with every thread!?!
UNIT472
What you are is a bigot.
I had my own business for 20 years, sold out this April. Worked with people all over the world, hired and fired employees when needed.
Never faced the situation you are talking about.
Go spew that venom somewhere else.
--
"Do you see other people as cattle?"
Pavel Chichikov,
Mind if I butt in. What do you mean "see?" Aren't they? (Not to me but to their economic rulers).
The relationship between the American People and their economic masters is one between farm owners and the farm animals. Anyway, that is what I observe.
Economic slavery, of various kinds, has been common thru all of history.
Jas
This whole mess reminds me more and more of "Jack and The Beanstalk".
I mean, after Jack came back home and told his family that he had sold the family cow to a swindler for some magic beans, he had to come up with a rousing good tale. A tremendous beanstalk, a Giant, a immense treasure just beyond his grasp.
The scary thing is we aren't hearing this from the family dolt. Wa are hearing this from the Secretary of the Treasury! He is being sent out with $700 billion plus GSE credits plus everything, including Senator Craigs 'wide stance' toilet stall and he is about to report back to the 'taxpayer' that he bought 'magic beans'!
Yes I'm sure "Organic George". I sell real product. I mean 'energy', not discretionary income excrement. I'd give you a look at my delinquent accounts except you'd have to vomit and renounce your stated positions because I deal with reality!!!
"Mind if I butt in"
Not at all. Looking at, conceiving of other people as objects, commodities, property, cattle - is not, unfortunately, so rare as it should be.
Peter Bormann, the son of Martin Bormann, became a Catholic priest and then was laicized. When he and his sister were children they were invited to lunch by Martin Bormann's mistress. After the meal, she told the children to follow her upstairs, where she would show them something fabulous and rare. It was an entire roomful of furniture made from human body parts.
Peter Bormann said that he and his sister then went home, and were terribly shaken by what they had seen.
I think the important point of the story is that they were shaken, terribly.
That is a sick, sick story.
Sorry, I just looked up M. Bormann's biography, and although I remembered the son's name as Peter, it was also Martin.
--
Gigantic Swiss Banks Hold Steady For Now
The Swiss economy is dwarfed by the size of its leading banks, and there
are growing worries about their health. The government says everything
is fine, but some disagree.
The Financial Tsunami: Gigantic Swiss Banks Hold Steady -- For Now - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
Globalization of contagion? The American Financial Flu??
Jas
Pavel,sorry but your anecdote seems to be just that.
The 'son' of Martin Bormann is likely a fraud. The whereabouts of Herr Martin is somewhat of a mystery and while there was the 'bitch of Buchenwald' who did have some tattoed prisoners skin made into lampshades the idea that there was a 'German monster' who had an entire room furnished with 'human furniture' seems beyond belief.
If WW2 produced human cruely and depravity on a monumental scale it did not produce it on a civilizational one. Thus the Nazis had to conceal their crimes because even in Hitler's Germany one could not sell 'lampshades' made of human skin! No decent person would decorate their house with such 'trophies' not even Americans with Japanese kamikaze
body parts in 1945! Get real.
The last time I was in Estonia was in 1988 as a kid.... Soviet army officers kept hogging the Formula video game at the hotel lobby. The only one in Estonia, probably. Would love to return and see the contrast. The Old Town is the best preserved Medieval town center in the world... something you don't appreciate as a child.
Pretty soon you can pick up an apartment dating back to 1470 for 200 K, I bet.
--
The human history is a story of how those in power have treated those without power across time and societies, or states. Unites States is no different.
Ones without power are allowed to go bankrupt and are evicted (from rentals), can lose their cars, furniture, homes, etc.
Those with power are greatly protected.
Who make the decisions?
People? My ass. Crooks and their agents? YES.
Ugliness of the American system is showing up for all to see. Unfortunately, is everywhere now because of the spread of the American influence.
Go ahead, be optimistic.
Jas
Martin Adolf Borma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bormann's son tells the story himself in a biographical essay. If you doubt it, you can try to get in touch with him and ask him to verify or not. I think he's still alive and living in Germany.
My uncle's half-sister was a thoroughly indoctrinated member of the Hitler youth organization for girls. Not the sort of person one usually meets these days. I hope.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Comrade Gavshire Hathaway
That's because you are just as stupid.
Moo... mooo... that is the herd calling its lost members.
Sorry Pavel. Wickipaedia on Martin Bormann is as bereft of bona fides as is the fate of Martin himself.
Yet, before we bestow this bizarre historical figure anything beyond his actual prominence, we should remember he was but a flunkie, a 'diary secretary' for the German dictator.
This puts him so down the totem pole of human history his main claim to fame is his absence from it.
--
Can someone quantify how much power banking and finance leaders have over Americans' money, their lives, their govt., etc., etc.
Why and how did we get here?
How many warnings against these people were issued by Americans' greatest and most trusted leaders?
Jas
Lars: With a name like "Lars", you belong somewhere in Socialist Eurostan.
MS has $900 billion in CDOs. AIG had over $1 trillion in CDOs. AIG is now 80% owned by the Feds, and they just loaned them anther $37 billion last week on top of the first $85 billion. Get a clue man. The housing market has not bottomed. It won't for at least another year- 5 years out from the peak. This is just the 3rd or 4th inning.
Countries are guaranteeing deposits because they understand that the banks are essentially insolvent without them (simple). Banks lend depositors' money...don't forget that. It's our money to do with what we want. I say that we should teach banks a lesson, cancel direct deposit and pay cash for everything.
Is it morning here?
I just heard a cock.
ha ha
"Sorry Pavel. Wickipaedia on Martin Bormann is as bereft of bona fides as is the fate of Martin himself. "
Which one? I'm referring to Martin Adolf Bormann, ex-Catholic priest and son of the Martin Bormann. Born in 1930. He was a teen-ager during WWII.
"Many of the founding generation of Americans were pretty brazen risk-takers. I mean, putting EVERYTHING into enterprises that could very easily fail, and taking trips to places where yellow fever, etc., could easily more than decimate a town. They lost wives and children all the time, were killed in duels or by disease, and were sustained by a thirst for wealth and prestige that was greater than their thirst to stay alive."
And many of our forefathers came here involuntarily, either imprisoned, orwith a slave brand on their arm, or because they had no where else to go, or nothing to eat if they did have a place to call home.
This is not a country by choice for a great many people even today (especially today). These people are not standing at the table with Mouse shooting craps, they don't have money to burn, they barely have money to eat and pay for fuel oil or gas to get to work today. Then comes rent day.
Rich Americans not only loved Mussolini, they nominated and chose Hitler as Time's Man of the Year. They supported the eugenics programs of the third reich before they were the third reich's eugenics programs. They supported the sterilization and institutionalization of the nation's poor, and created a system that gives us over two million prison slave laborers today.
Nothing changes. These wolves need to be taken out and shot.
[Like the DUE DILIGENCE that was done on Wamu, Wachovia, DSL before they cratered]... & C, CFC, MER,..
There was no shortage of dumb money but it is becoming more scarce lately.
Hey MS's market cap right now is 10 billion and falling. Mitsubishi is investing 9 billion. That should give it 90% of Morgan Stanley, not 21%. I never thought Japs were stupid; they'd sure be stupid not to tell MS they want the whole shebang for say, 9.5 billion. Lock stock and barrel.
http://www.sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-10-12.gif
MS would be smart to take an offer of 9.5 billion for it all. Wait a week and it'll be going for 5 billion.
Week after that it'll be gone.
Imagine a country announced that it was bailing out an investment bank, then just days later said it was nationalizing its mortgage industry, and then just days later that it was bailing out its biggest insurance company, and then just days later its government pledged 100's of billions to inject into its failing banks, and then just days later its stock market fell 20%. Would you feel comfortable having your money invested in such a country, in its stock market, in its bond market or in its currency?
The authorities keep saying that they will use all tools available to them. They only have one its an electronic version of the printing press. They will spin it in many different ways using jargon like increased liquidity and injection of capital and buying equity stakes and buying toxic debt but it all translates to create more money out of thin air.
Imagine that instead of living through this nightmare yourself you were watching this complete financial drama unfolding in Venezuela. Who in his right mind would predict that Venezuela would experience massive deflation as a result of creating massive amounts of money and credit out of thin air? So why is it different for America? The laws of economics are not country specific.
G7-G20 GeeWizz..
This time is different?
Well, Bloomberg seems to have settled on 4.64 for the Ted spread for the moment. Not terribly long until shit starts going down in Europe.
Well if we're into horrible stories tonight (avert tender eyes):
In the middle east about 10 years ago I heard stories from multiple sources that Japanese businessmen were offering $10,000 to Israeli tourists -- for their tattoos, which were to be framed and hung on the wall.
Supposedly Protocols of the Elders of Zion is big reading over there too.
My only personal experience was when did business with Japanese importer. He told me that his grandmother told him that Jews would produce black smoke because their souls were black.
I'm only talking about this so people can understand the kind of lunacy that still exists in our melting world.
Japan is perhaps the most xenophobic place on the industrialized planet. People who think the U.S. is intolerant need to take a plane ride...anywhere.
Formula for disaster:
market cap = 10 billion
CDOs = 900 billion
BTW, I got the 900 billion figure from the Wall Street Journal about 3 weeks ago. The article said that MS shed about 100 billion form an initial 1 trillion. Either the Japanese are stupid, or they are really stupid. Anyone leveraged on mortgages more than 10 to 1 is either going bankrupt or will be snapped up for pennies on the dollar.
Good point Purple. I get a little xenophobic around Wahhabi Muslims, especially the women who look though a thin slit AND their men. Every American should know that they wish conversion or death upon all of us, as it's written in several places in their unreformed "Holy" book of death. Say it ain't so.
so the fed/treasury guarantees that they will allow mitsubishi to stay ahead of any future fed/treasury investment
nice, so the taxpayer is going to be second behind a japanese corporation?
excellent plan - save the banksters, screw us
lovin this Hanky, you are really bad at your job, you know that, right?
fla to pa, ever see 2001?
HAL: I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
YouTube - 2001 - HAL takes out Frank
Jan in Stone Mtn writes:
"My brother wants to know why his long term treasury bond fund is declining in value. I can't imagine that Vanguard is taking too much in fees, I have no answer for him."
Only half the bonds are Treasuries. The rest are long term bonds in industrial and financial institutions, which have decreased in value over the last year. See:
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/JSP/Funds/Profile/VGIFundProfile0522Content.jsf?tab=0&FundId=0522&FundIntExt=INT#hist::tab=2
What he probably wanted was VUSTX.