Can Casinos apply for TARP since they are basically banks. What is the difference, you deposit your money, make some investments and end up losing a bunch to the management and advisors.
Trump Entertainment "is separate and distinct from Mr. Trump's privately held real estate and other holdings, which the company understands encompasses substantially all of his net worth," the company said.
People can learn a lot about writing press releases from Mr. Trump.
In other words, Mr. Trump is still fine personally.
So Trump Entertainment has a market cap of $10MM and a debt of $1.25B. I guess that means it has an Enterprise Value of $1.26B. What a game.
Meanwhile, on the other part of his current saga, the Deutsche Bank litigation on his personal guarantee on the NYC property, I see that when the going gets tough, the tough call "force majeure."
This guy is a riot. He belongs on TV, just in a comedy.
There are so many casinos, builders, banks, (fill in the _____) that are holding on right now as the realities/financials of 2009 are going to take them under.
Look for the strong brands in position to gain market share as their competition weakens. Unfortunately, I believe our economy will look more like our news sector; a few benefactors left holding all the cards, limiting our choices.
Sheez. The other day I saw Trump on his own infomercial. Although he's plastered his mug on everything from crappy dress shirts to bottled water, I don't ever remember him stooping as low as an infomercial.
trump and co provide numbers to the fed for how many suckers, um uh i mean gamers would have normally lost, i men wagered money on any date when attendance is down
and the fed agrees to give trump casinos an amount of money, i mean t-bills equal; in value (hahaha) to the amount of winnings the house would have fleeced, i mean earned that day
I had heard that casinos usually do well in hard times because more people are desperate to get money somehow, anyhow. How are the state lotteries doing, I wonder?
The Venetian Macao Resort Hotel was supposed to be a 3,000-suite mega-resort, a kind of Disneyland copy of Venice, with casinos and shopping for an upscale Asian market. But now Las Vegas Sands Corp. is $10 billion in debt and sliding...
strongbad, I would have thought the same thing, but I don't think we're at that point yet. Many people still think this will get better soon. As far as state lotteries, someone posted a few threads back that they are sluggish.
The Donald is just a big-haired creep. Why anyone would lend him money is unfathomable.
He's just the kind that would ignite his own hotel full of guests to get the insurance money in order to avoid paying what we owes than cannot ever be earned.
I guess he is spending his time doing infomercials and real estate seminars for a reason.... Kinda like a retired athlete that has to sign stuff to make a living.
I was expecting to see some impact on online poker at this point, but it hasn't happened yet. There does seem to be a bit more of a payday effect (an influx of bad, loose players at the middle and end of the month), but that could just be the tables i was playing on.
-- w
note: poker is one of the few casino games that has positive expectation for skilled players.
Carryover discussion from last thread: sdtfs writes:
I can. This comes dangerously close to being investment advice/forecasting. If his numbers are wrong will he say you can deduct the difference next year? Or go to church with better forecasting? Or that God misled him?
Not really; his point was "Be thankful that we aren't in a depression situation."
The other interesting thing from the message he shared was that 40% of our church members regularly tithe (10%). Which I guess is more than average. I've seen numbers that say that something like 80% of Americans are self-identified Christian, but I think this tithing statistic would be a better indicator of who really practices Christianity versus who goes to church out of habit or tradition.
Also some of Pavel's thoughts regarding atheists in Russia are of interesting to me. Reading from a perspective of persecuted church in Russia and satellite countries gives an entirely different perspective about the communists. Although it probably only takes about 5% of people to be willing to commit such evil acts. There have been books written by the Christians but I'm not aware of the books written by their torturers (and no doubt they probably targeted more than Christianity).
To bring this back on topic, I'd be surprised if Trump tithes proper.
rew writes:
Trump's Chicago hotel/condo highrise is also rumored to be having problems selling out the residential and hotel-room condos.
It's not a rumor, Trump is in fact having difficulty selling his remaining inventory. Reasons, a lack of high-end buyers, tighter credit, plus competition from his previous buyers who are selling their as-of-yet unoccupied units. Additionally he is having problems selling the commercial space and had put together some sort of a package that was being touted. And then there is the ongoing problems he's having over financing from Deutsche Bank for the balance of the project expenses...
Why does anyone do business with this guy anymore? He is like a Ponzi scheme, the first ones out of the deal get paid and everyone that comes after (especially the bondholders) get screwed.
We saw Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall last night. They did a hilarious tune called "I'm changing my name to Fannie Mae" and I thought of all you crazy kids. CR, enjoy - I found a slightly older version on youtube: YouTube - Arlo Guthrie/I'm Changing My Name To Fannie Mae
From the if it's not illegal, it must be moral file:
Power Point Presentation from A-O Financial on Stock Loans:
"The investor simply keeps the 90% principal and whatever it has been used to purchase. Better yet, the investor simply refuses to repay the loan. After all, he has that right. Only the now deflated stock serves as collateral -- so everything else is safe. This is important...The lender has NO RECOURSE, except to keep the stock that served as the loans ONLY collateral. Remember, the lender is able to do this because it is protected by collaring or placing its own hedge on the pledged securities."
I had a aquaintence who claimed he and his friends could fix on line poker if they could get on the same table together. They used cell phones to make their bets. Don't know what happened to him, he was a forex trader, and lost his job.
There is enormous Indian casino space coming on line in SoCal in the next 12 months. Not that this has anything to do with Trump. But its going to be awful. Most of the buildings are paid for with debt. Whoever has alot of this stuff on their books is going to get pummeled....
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
November 1, 2008
The developers of the Trump Ocean Resort in Baja California have lost their financing for the project, and it's unlikely a new lender will be secured until the economy halts its downhill slide.
"This is the first time since I came to America in 1972 that Ive heard almost every day of well-off people sounding somewhat distraught at the money theyve lost. From this richer crowd one hears daily stories of portfolios worth half or less of their value three and four month ago, of people losing high salary jobs, often only months shy of log-scheduled retirement on full benefits."
It's the name of his new pageant and his get out of debt strategy: Miss Payment, 20 women fighting for the chance to be the one...coming to NBC this fall.
Krugman : ""We have magneto trouble," said John Maynard Keynes at the start of the Great Depression: most of the economic engine was in good shape, but a crucial component, the financial system, wasn't working. He also said this: "We have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand." Both statements are as true now as they were then."
Um sorry Paul .... the economy was not in good shape, hemorrhaging capital through a massive trade deficit and the ballooning aggregate debt of the U.S. which now stands at 50 trillion.
the nerve! missing a payment!? oughtta be thrown in jail with all the jerks who could'nt pay those giant mortgages on cratering McMansions. because i payed my bills and i am better than him. yeah.
stopped in the giant cabela's in Thanksgiving point (outside Salt lake city) on friday. effing madhouse. nothing like the joy of a little boy running up to his father, plastic camo mossberg in hand, shouting "ya think i could kill sumpin with this pop?"
picnicked in Zion saturday. the place was dead dead dead. beautiful. no thanksgiving sale on a daypass i guess.
(And the conundrum of the Big 3 is that the alternatives to a pre-planned bankruptcy with the Federales providing DIP financing is either liquidation or money pit - GM may need 100 billion by end of 2009! Can you say Carservatorship? - AM)
Institutional Risk Analyst
November 24, 2008
Our friends at Katten Muchin Rosenman in Chicago wrote last week in their excellent Client Advisory: "On November 13, 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and its U.S. affiliates in bankruptcy, including Lehman Brothers Special Financing and Lehman Brothers Commercial Paper (collectively, "Lehman") filed a motion asking that certain expedited procedures be put in place to allow Lehman to assume, assign or terminate the thousands of executory derivative contracts to which they are a party. If Lehman's motion is granted, counterparties to transactions that have not been terminated will have very little time to react and will likely find themselves with new counterparties and no further recourse to Lehman because, by assigning contracts to third parties, Lehman will effectively receive, by normal operation of the Bankruptcy Code, a novation."
The bankruptcy court process also allows for parties to terminate or "rip up" CDS contracts, something that has also been fully enabled by the DTCC. The bankruptcy can dispose and the DTCC will confirm.
Hopefully somebody will pull President-elect Obama aside and give him the facts on this mess before reality bites us all in the collective arse with, say, a bankruptcy filing by GM.
You see, there are trillions of dollars in outstanding CDS contracts for the Big Three automakers, their suppliers and financing vehicles. A filing by GM is not only going to put the real economy into cardiac arrest but will also start a chain reaction meltdown in the CDS markets as other automakers, vendors and finance units like GMAC are also sucked into the quicksand of bankruptcy. You knew when the vendor insurers pulled back from GM a few weeks ago that the jig was up.
And many of these CDS contracts were written two, three and four years ago, at annual spreads and upfront fees far smaller than the 90 plus percent payouts that will likely be required upon a GM default. That's the dirty little secret we peripherally discussed in our interview last week with Bill Janeway, namely that most of these CDS contracts were never priced correctly to reflect the true probability of default. In a true insurance market with capital and reserve requirements, the spreads on CDS would be multiples of those demanded today for such highly correlated risks. Or to put it in fair value accounting terms, pricing CDS vs. the current yield on the underlying basis is a fool's game. Truth is not beauty, price is not value.
If you assume a recovery value of say 20% against all of the CDS tied to the auto industry, directly and indirectly, that is a really big number. The spreads on GM today suggest recovery rates in single digits, making the potential cash payout on the CDS even larger.
As Bloomberg News reported in August: "A default by one of the automakers would trigger writedowns and losses in the $1.2 trillion market for collateralized debt obligations that pool derivatives linked to corporate debt Credit-default swaps on GM and Ford were included in more than 80 percent of CDOs created before they lost their investment-grade debt rankings in 2005, according to data compiled by Standard & Poor's."
At some point, Washington is going to be forced to accept that bankruptcy and liquidation, the harsh medicine used with other financial insolvencies, are the best ways to deal with the last, greatest bubble, namely the CDS market. When the end comes, it will effect some of the largest financial institutions in the world, chief among them Citigroup (NYSE:C), JPMorganChase (NYSE:JPM), GS and MS, as well as some large Euroland banks.
The impending blowback from a CDS unwind at less than face amount is one of the reasons that the financial markets have been pummeling the equity values of the larger banks last week. Any bank with a large derivatives trading book is likely to be mortally wounded as the CDS markets finally collapse. We don't see problems with interest rate or currency contracts, by the way, only the great CDS Ponzi scheme is at issue - hopefully, if authorities around the world act with purpose on rendering extinct CDS contracts as they exist today. Call it a Christmas present to the entire world
'Maybe,just maybe,blanket guarantees from governments dilute the nature of a guarantee.' - John Jansen
'JP Morgan (with a credit derivatives book of 9.2 trillion) is on one side or another of one out of every six contracts ...It has counterparty risk on the contracts it has bought, even with collateral and faces losses on the contracts it has sold.' - Henny Sender
'There's going to be a lot of information that is not public (about the bailouts & facilities) and it is going to take investigative reporters to find out things that congressman can't find out and the public is not going to be aware of' - Representative Brad Sherma
Hey Morocco, here's some of that community service meme from Robert "help repeal Glass-Steagal" Rubin:
"The Journal said Rubin has earned $115 million in pay since 1999, excluding stock options. "I bet there's not a single year where I couldn't have gone somewhere else and made more," said Rubin, according to the Journal."
I spent Thanksgiving with my retired father in a very afluent community in Florida on the gulf. These homes sold from 750k for a fixer-up'er to several million. My fathers first mortgage was an option ARM when he had no residence and only his word about his pension ( now a 30 year fixed ).
Economy was all the talk this week. How many homes are being foreclosed upon, who has gone missing, banks manipulation of the "prime" rate that some are paying on their ARM's, and more. You can see who still has money by how much damage is visible on the property.
It's amazing to see how the grand have fallen. I could have easily picked up a 2 bedroom home for less than 200k at this point.
I'm not as anti-Keynes as many posters here, but even I wonder if his theories should be applied to our current circumstances.
The US faces much different problems now. The trade deficit and massive debt, as mmckinl mentions, but also stagnant wages -- and a populace that is much further removed from the land and any type of manufacturing.
A good case can be made for some increased infrastructure spending and more support for the most vulnerable -- but on their own merits. I'm doubtful we can spend our way out of this mess.
And if it results in the same over-consuming, over-indebted society as before, I'm doubtful we should try.
tranches of leinenkugel writes:
I'm not as anti-Keynes as many posters here, but even I wonder if his theories should be applied to our current circumstances.
~~~~
Exactly, aggregate US debt was a single multiple of GDP before the Great Depression. The current multiple is 3.5.
Debt will be reduced, voluntarily or involuntarily. We can not service this amount of debt.
They may try inflation but that has serious problems as well.
In past times, there was a reluctance to force default due to social or other "squishy" reasons.
Now, there are actually legally enforceable contracts which are designed to encourage them.
In that respect, we are most definitely NOT like Japan as the absence of CDS gave them latitude to zombify their financial institutions. We don't have that, um, luxury.
has anyone here seen the las vegas trump tower? boooooor-innnnng.
i bought some gold from apmex today. i have decided to prepare for inflation, deflation, collapse, bis as usual, and solid economic growth. the price of the coins made me want to puke.
in other news, i know yet one more family that is going to walk away from their house here in las vegas. they owe 240k. a foreclosed house on the same street has been on the market for a year now with no takers. the price on the foreclosed house: 130k. my friends are trying to work out a short sale but feel like they are making no progress with their lender. they are going back to (you can't make this crap up) detroit. these are really nice, hard working people. damn shame.
Ha! You got it right there! The whole consumer age is due to women. Honestly, women buy most of the consumer goods and the things that we do buy, well, its to please women and get laid. The crasiest thing of the recent bubble has been single women in their early 20s buying homes, debt up to their eyeballs, and half the time, their parents are paying part of the mortgage. Ya, that makes sense. Not to mentioned $2k purses bought by women that make $60k a year, now theres a great investment.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Aristocracies and their silver
By Dakin Campbell
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- In the best year for Treasuries since 2002, fund managers who only buy government bonds are seeking permission to invest in corporate debt they considered toxic just a month ago.
Treasuries are yielding next to nothing,'' said Robert Millikan, who manages $5 billion at BB&T Asset Management in Raleigh, North Carolina, including the $51 million BB&T Short U.S. Government Fund.Trying to do something for your shareholders, it's hard to sit there and buy a bond that yields less than any fees you charge.''
That helps explain why BB&T, BlackRock Inc., T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Sage Advisory Services Ltd. are looking elsewhere for returns, including bonds of the banks that were almost ruined by $967 billion in losses and writedowns since the start of 2007. Treasury funds are receiving permission to buy debt of Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. finalized plans on Nov. 21 to guarantee their debt.
The FDIC program announced on Oct. 14 is part of the more than $1.5 trillion in unprecedented financing from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to end the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The U.S. now guarantees more than $13 trillion of debt.
`Great Substitute'
Goldman, which registered as a bank in September after 139 years as a securities firm, became the first U.S. company to take advantage of the program, selling $5 billion of 3.25 percent FDIC-backed notes on Nov. 25. The debt, which matures June 2012, was priced to yield two percentage points more than Treasuries of similar maturity. Before the government announced the guarantees, New York-based Goldman's 6.15 percent bonds due 2018 yielded about five percentage points more than government debt.
Morgan Stanley, which also became a bank on Sept. 21, sold $5.75 billion in FDIC-backed debt in three series, including $2.5 billion of three-year, 3.25 percent notes at a spread of 186 basis points. As recently as Oct. 13, the New York-based company's notes yielded more than six percentage points more than Treasuries.
``It's a great substitute,'' said Millikan, whose Short U.S. Government Fund returned 4.55 percent the past year, beating 78 percent of its peers. He gained approval from BB&T's lawyers to purchase FDIC-backed debt and may buy bonds from New York-based Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina.
As much as $600 billion of the FDIC-backed bonds may be issued by the time the program ends in June, according to Barclays Plc. Sales of the bonds already total $17.25 billion.
A lot of Treasury-only funds will be looking at'' FDIC- backed notes, said Brian Brennan, who helps oversee $13 billion in fixed-income assets at T. Rowe Price in Baltimore.For investors who are seeking safety, this is a safe instrument that provides more yield.''
Treasury rates are going higher,'' said Mark MacQueen, a partner and money manager at Austin, Texas-based Sage Advisory, which oversees $6 billion.I plan to invest in the guaranteed debt.
CRFaN,
From your previous post about the wealthy always saying how hard they work.
I have a wealthy friend who in reality still lives off of her parents, even tho she is pushing 50. I don't talk to her that frequently, so when I do, I always ask what's been going on with her. Her answer for many years was that she was working hard, and was very busy (with an implied attiude of superiority & sacrifice). One day I finally called BS on her, and made her tell me what she had done that week. At first, there was total silence, then she finally fessed up that her "busy working week" actually consisted of taking the dog to the vet one day.
Stop and think for a minute. Does everyone understand how completely and totally incompetent AND crooked you need to be to lose money in the gaming industry? Being merely incompetent or merely crooked is nowhere near enough.
I had not ever heard of topless poolside bars in the US. I was stunned, shocked and surprised. Then again, I've only been to vegas once, for a wedding, and my only gambling vice is taking money away from "bearly" and giving it to CR!
Now I've been to spring break and mardi gras, and I'm no prude, so in no sense scandalized . . . just never expected that.
Goldman, which registered as a bank in September after 139 years as a securities firm, became the first U.S. company to take advantage of the program, selling $5 billion of 3.25 percent FDIC-backed notes on Nov. 25.
What a great idea! I'd like to see the SEC issue some bonds, along with the GAO, the FHA Home Loan Bank, the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, and maybe the Army Corps of Engineers.
Every agency or pseudo agency should issues new debt. More debt is more better!
the cause of the problem is not so hard to understand..massive debt in the US at all levels, and on the flip side - entire economies based upon selling us stuff.
And raising wages in the 2nd world on a per-country basis means the loss of competitive advantage - capital goes to another country.
Not sure if someone has a real answer to that , at least, while preserving capitalism. The reason this has gone on so long is because there are no obvious solutions. That's why I expect the bubble to be reflated.
Oops! Time for me to drain my comp account by going to the gift shop at the Taj. I have a $4500 comp balance, making me one of the few creditors that has any hope of getting paid off in December.
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Chinas manufacturing contracted by the most on record and export orders slumped as a slowdown in the worlds fourth-biggest economy deepened.
Purple - we're already 2/3 the way down that road. Stock bubble for part 1, housing and debt for part 2. If you reflate a third time, the end game is catastrophic bust and global superdepression. We will be lucky to stave off a very long and very deep downturn that does not devolve into something with stats that resemble those of GD1 (25% unemployment, etc.)
That is just not a solution, even though, so far, we are pretending that it is.
Her answer for many years was that she was working hard, and was very busy (with an implied attiude of superiority & sacrifice).
Show Me The Pony | 11.30.08 - 8:32 pm |
Yeah, amazing isn't it. My most recent exposure to this was a high prestige UN worker whose initial "all work, oh the pressure" story started to lose credibility when I noticed she seemed to fit an awful lot in socially. In fact her UN Work never seemed to be on the weighing on her that much as much as say, picking out new furniture or arranging the next group vacation.
But anyway, I've noticed the work/mantra never stops, because it works I suppose. At least you had the courage to call her on it.
Purple, you are spot-on. World-wide, everybody is looking at what "worked" previously as a model for "stimulus", looking forward. Those models don't apply here and break the mold thinking is required to get us out of this.
[could "we" (gov or fed) just cancell all the contracts?]
Of course cancelling all contracts will cause at least as much harm as leaving them to settle in the event of a default. In fact it would alomost certainly cause defaults to cancel. They are a hedging vehicle to many participants with balance sheet implications and they would immediately go insolvent on a cancel.
My understanding is that the majority of CDS are between 3-5 years till expiration of the contract.
A properly regulated, transparent and trackeable CDS market is now being setup by ISDA.
But the time and money required to go through the underlying assets within the current CDS makes it highly unlikely that existing CDS will be able to be moved to the new CDS clearing house.
The intent appears to be to somehow keeping the system going for the next 5 years until this current batch of CDS mature without major defaults.
"They are a hedging vehicle to many participants with balance sheet implications and they would immediately go insolvent on a cancel."
Any entity whose balance sheet is propped up by CDS should be put down. This is points one and two of things that should be and won't be done to turn back Conjure's new clock.
The Fed released a report Friday saying commercial banks averaged $93.6 billion in daily borrowing for the week ending Wednesday. That was up from an average of $91.6 billion for the week ending Nov. 19.
The report also said investment firms borrowed an average of $52.4 billion from the Fed's emergency loan program over the week ending Wednesday, up from an average of $50.2 billion the previous week.
The Fed said its net holdings of business loans known as commercial paper over the week ending Wednesday averaged $282.2 billion, an increase of $16.5 billion from the previous week.
Financial firms are borrowing from the Fed because they are having trouble raising money through normal channels as the financial system endures its worst crisis since the Great Depression.
Banks are hoarding cash rather than making loans out of fear that they won't be repaid. The Fed and the Treasury have been flooding the financial system with money in hopes that banks can return lending operations to more normal levels. Vectors
Chinas manufacturing contracted by the most on record and export orders slumped as a slowdown in the worlds fourth-biggest economy deepened.
The Purchasing Managers Index fell to a seasonally adjusted 38.8 in November from 44.6 in October, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said today in an e- mailed statement.
Baosteel Group Corp., Chinas biggest steelmaker, is facing its most difficult period since the company was founded 30 years ago as output, sales and profit plunge, an executive said last month.
I knew someone who came from old money. Old as in Rockfeller era. They had numbers after their names to id where they were in relation to the original old man. This was for family use I guess.
She lives rather simply, drives a Honda, and works a 40 hour week. She also is single and loves her cats. One of them had a heart problem. She paid for a cardio team from a major hospital to do its heart surgery. The cat died and was buried in a hand made wooden coffin.
Japan stocks fell on concern business failures and bad loan costs will mount after builder Morimoto Co. became the nations second-biggest bankruptcy this year.
Mitsubishi Estate Co., Japans second-biggest developer, dropped 5.9 percent. Japan General Estate Co. plunged 16 percent after Mainichi Daily News said the company withdrew job offers to university graduates. Inpex Corp., Japans largest oil and gas explorer, lost 4.7 percent after crude prices fell.
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average slumped 190.02, or 2.2 percent, to 8,322.25 as of 10:01 a.m. in Tokyo, retreating from the gauges biggest weekly gain in a month. The broader Topix index declined 12.11, or 1.5 percent, to 822.71, with more than three shares dropping for each that rose.
As I recall, farm subsidies started as an emergency measure during the Great Depression. Of course, the became a permanent (and costly) drain on the Treasury. No one seems to be asking the question "How do we eventually shut all these emergency programs off"? What happens if we can't.
I visited Vegas in 2002 (before I went overseas). I thought it was fun, but I failed to see how casinos, by themselves, could sustain a major metro area. I also thought the pace of construction was unsustainable. Glad to see I was right.
In my opinion, the next sacred cow to get slaughtered is private colleges. The model doesn't work anymore. Why pay $100K + to get a job starting at 30K?
up thread i questioned whether or not CDSs could be canceled by government fiat...if there was a solution along these lines, in response to comrade swans post about GM and CDSs at 743 pm...
Bearly wrote
They are a hedging vehicle to many participants with balance sheet implications and they would immediately go insolvent on a cancel... nonsense
follow up question
is there a way to satisfy balance sheet requirements in substitution for the CDSs
Here in sunny Hawaii, the high end shops and boutiques in Waikiki that cater to tourists are dead. Kinda sad to see all those cute Japanese shop girls standing around looking forlorn.
Ala Moana center (the huge mall in Honolulu) much slower than usual, but still pretty busy. Hawaii is getting crushed as visitor arrivals are running 20% below last year.
BEIJING, September 10, 2007 -- The first card product between China CITIC Bank and American Express was unveiled today at a launch ceremony in Beijing. The new CITIC American Express Card, offering attractive travel benefits and rewards, is tailor-made to keep pace with the rapidly growing demands of Chinese frequent business and leisure travelers for both local and global travel services.
"is there a way to satisfy balance sheet requirements in substitution for the CDSs?"
Sure. Substitute one lie for another. Suspend mark to market. Put it in level twenty-two asset category. Declare hold-to-maturity value to be purchase price. Remove it from the books in the interest of national security.
The CDS lie is preferred because JPM makes money off of it.
I sometimes wonder if the national debt is correlated to the women's rights movement.
But not enough to research it or say it in public.
Broward Horne | Homepage | 11.30.08 - 9:27 pm | #
You just did. But in point of fact the national debt is simply the result of government spending beyond tax receipts. More than half of that deficit spending occurred during two republican administrations, Reagan and Bush jr. During both of those 8 year administrations republicans controlled the house and the senate for approximately 6 of the eight years
Biogeek(Unrated) writes:
Just saw a news story (AP wire I think) - Tanta has passed on. Very sad! My sincere condolences to her family and her blog compatriots.
Biogeek | 11.30.08 - 9:41 pm | #
Local San Francisco news just reported holiday shopping was up 7% this year, and an average of $25 dollars per person.
From WSJ: "In a survey of 3,370 shoppers, the National Retail Federation estimated shoppers spent an average of $372.57 over the weekend, up 7.2% over last year's $347.55. Although unprecedented discounts lured shoppers into stores, momentum ebbed Saturday, raising concerns that shoppers were merely exploiting the "door-buster" deals and then walking out of stores. Indeed, as many as 70% of consumers purchased only deeply-discounted merchandise Friday, according to Charleston, S.C.-based America's Research Group, which polled 700 shoppers over the weekend." Holiday Shopping Off to Strong Start - WSJ.com
I think there is too much noise in these early estimates. One should wait till Tuesday's weekly retail numbers (ICSC-Goldman Store Sales)
Condolences, Ovarian cancer is viscious. When I hit the lab (NIEHS, RTP, NC Cancer Research) tomorrow just more incentive to do better research. Again, condolences.
Tanta - You made me think so hard that my little brain hurt. Few were the writers I have had to read, or wanted to read, 3 times, just so I understood.
I am sad. I was drawn to her writing...she was so good at it. This is very strange for me, because my aunt was an English professor at the Univ. in Normal...she died of ovarian cancer (this was over 50 years ago). I remember my aunt as someone of subtle wit.
This is just horrible. Tanta was such a vital force on this blog, and -- you could tell -- in "real life." I'm very saddened to hear this. Her writing just jumped off the screen at times, with both sharp edges and warm humor.
Steel-toed bunny slippers sums up my image of Tanta.
My condolences to her family, CR, and all affected by this.
CR, please, I have been here in the last couple of months, you can turn grief into strength. There is an alchemy there. It works, I know it.
In my country, we have a saying about our speaking position, our ground from which we speak. It is turangawaewae. This is the place we always come from, always hail, and always love and hanker for.
Our turangawaewae includes the collective memory, and its embedding.
I am going to celebrate that, in my way, through my cultural origins.
If you have a retirement account and/or if you trade or plan to, you must read the article below. Why? Because you could have made 36% return just this past week (Nov 21- Nov28, 2008), and a 100% return on your money from October 10, 2008 to Nov. 28, 2008, by following the public calls on the blog referenced below at no charge, and by making only 5 well timed buy and sell trades that you can place at market close price in your retirement account. Details of the lastest call (just a week ago) which led to a 36% return are below. Example of buy market calls issued recently were at market bottoms such as October 10 bottom, October 16 bottom, and November 21 bottom (2008). The blog also issues take-profit calls, the latest of which was yesterday Friday Nov 28, 2008 with a 36% profit in one week trading a major well diversified market index ETF.
If you doubt the veracity of the trades, the blogger posts actual (fidelity)l trading reports as evidence of the the actual calls.
Comrade Swan, I hat-tipped you for the Bloomberg article which reminded me to add this point to my FDIC article:
"Why is FDIC insuring debtors instead of depositors? Sheila Bair does not even know what agency she works for and does not understand that the D in FDIC stands for deposit(s) (savings), not debt (not bond investors either). Someone should tell her at her exit interview after she is fired."
This reminds me of the last downturn in the early 90's when the Donald was short of cash for an upcoming note payment.
The solution was for the Donald's father Fred to buy a million dollar's worth of casino chips. Instant cash for the Donald and Fred did not have to wait in line behind other creditors if things went sour.
Allan Sloan wrote an hysterical column about it back then.
Geez, a day for bad surprises. Looks like Meredith Whitney is succumbing to the Dark Side. She says FDIC should expand its guarantee of bank debt, banks just can't afford FAS 140 transparency--and keep the credit card debt coming.
Circling the Drain(Unrated) writes: Geez, a day for bad surprises. Looks like Meredith Whitney is succumbing to the Dark Side.
Everyone is a vested interest in the social order. Either you have a humane or a financial objection to the changes. Everyone eventually cries "enough" before you get genuine reform -- new ministries, new regulatory policy premises, new sectoral framework.
There is no doubt that time will be the greatest healer, but there is a strong argument for putting the financial system through a methadone-clinic-style rehabilitation as opposed to the cold sweats rehab that we face.
The problem with this analogy is that the methadone clinic is not an instrumentality of the person getting the treatment.
When the clinic workers are vulnerable to your political pressure, and when they themselves have an interest in your continued treatment, it's not very much like a methadone clinic at all. It's more like being a completely captive central bank / regulatory apparatus lashed to a zombie financial sector.
The "rehab facility"'s withdrawal of support will be real gradual. Like, you'll be able to make a career in the growing support withdrawal industry.
I certainly see a place for the state to provide low cost / guaranteed availability loans to the consumer side of the market. I see no inherently compelling reason to do it through the CC rcvable ABS market, or the CC payments structure beyond maybe the POS architecture, or even why we should do it as a revolver rather than small-sum term lending.
While just over 70 per cent of US households have access to credit cards, 90 per cent of these people use credit cards as a cash-flow management vehicle, or revolve payments at least once a year.
Whitney here confutes robbing Peter to pay Paul kiting up the balances on your plastic with cash-flow management. Seems to me like she's sneaking this in the back door -- she could just as easily talk about rollover in another way.
While the credit card market is small relative to the mortgage market, it has grown to play a key role in consumer liquidity. Declining liquidity here will have disastrous effects on consumer spending and the economy.
Consumer cash flow management -- as a wise wag here said some time ago, cash flow management is about cash, not debt. Let the US consumer save some pin money. Remember back when positive savings rates were not seen as an economic sea-anchor?
The policy apparatus that got you here is the one that has to get you out. Real reform is new ministries, new policy / regulatory frameworks, new sectoral framework -- I might suggest one with lots of SMALL lenders with LOW leverage gearing; maybe a two-tier regional / local banking system?
Propping up another ABS market is not the answer, because the end-state that emerges from this situation is not status quo ante bellum. We can either undertake fundamental reform starting with the counting of the dead and the winding up of imploded markets, or we can become methadone clinic addicts until the money for the clinic runs out.
if ever there was a poster child for the ridiculous, vapid, fake "wealth" creation of the past 25 years, Donald Trump is it. He has defaulted several times and BKd at least once that I recall. He uses other peoples money to build questionable projects that apparently don't pan out. His greatest talent is not business or real estate, it is his ability to dupe millions of dumb-asses into thinking he is some kind of financial genius. What as ass. I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest his nether region.
Who gets fired?
He needs to go to Washington
Trump misses payment....
In other news, water is wet, and fire is hot.
He's hosed his bondholders so many times in the past, I can't see how he can still raise capital.
time to pay.
Can Casinos apply for TARP since they are basically banks. What is the difference, you deposit your money, make some investments and end up losing a bunch to the management and advisors.
"When you owe the bondholders a million dollars, the bondholders own you, but when you owe the bondholders $1.25 Billion, you own the bondholders."
TRMP trades at 31 pennies, buy now or be priced out forever.
People can learn a lot about writing press releases from Mr. Trump.
In other words, Mr. Trump is still fine personally.
It's you, public, that are screwed.
Rich, he'll still be able to eat, but I am quite sure his personal net worth has been greatly affected.
He almost deserves it.
So Trump Entertainment has a market cap of $10MM and a debt of $1.25B. I guess that means it has an Enterprise Value of $1.26B. What a game.
Meanwhile, on the other part of his current saga, the Deutsche Bank litigation on his personal guarantee on the NYC property, I see that when the going gets tough, the tough call "force majeure."
This guy is a riot. He belongs on TV, just in a comedy.
Trump's Chicago hotel/condo highrise is also rumored to be having problems selling out the residential and hotel-room condos.
There are so many casinos, builders, banks, (fill in the _____) that are holding on right now as the realities/financials of 2009 are going to take them under.
Look for the strong brands in position to gain market share as their competition weakens. Unfortunately, I believe our economy will look more like our news sector; a few benefactors left holding all the cards, limiting our choices.
Time to Re-Leverage
im bettin he dont make it
The Donald just wants a bailout...we'll consider it
Ha ha. When I owe the bank, I'm in trouble; when Trump owes the bank, the bank is in trouble.
Sheez. The other day I saw Trump on his own infomercial. Although he's plastered his mug on everything from crappy dress shirts to bottled water, I don't ever remember him stooping as low as an infomercial.
Oh yeah. The "free" market rides again.
ben just announced the opening of a new window
the C.R.A.P.P. window
casino resource assett protection plan
heres how it works
trump and co provide numbers to the fed for how many suckers, um uh i mean gamers would have normally lost, i men wagered money on any date when attendance is down
and the fed agrees to give trump casinos an amount of money, i mean t-bills equal; in value (hahaha) to the amount of winnings the house would have fleeced, i mean earned that day
I don't ever remember him stooping as low as an infomercial.
Don't watch much, eh?
You're fired.
That's enough to make a guy lose his hair.
The Donald always bounces back. He's indestructable.
The Donald requests coverage under TARP. Paulson says no..The Donald already has a stylish TARP.
I had heard that casinos usually do well in hard times because more people are desperate to get money somehow, anyhow. How are the state lotteries doing, I wonder?
Is Macao a Losing Bet for Las Vegas Sands?
Is Macao a Losing Bet for Las Vegas Sands? | BNET Travel Blog | BNET
The Venetian Macao Resort Hotel was supposed to be a 3,000-suite mega-resort, a kind of Disneyland copy of Venice, with casinos and shopping for an upscale Asian market. But now Las Vegas Sands Corp. is $10 billion in debt and sliding...
strongbad, I would have thought the same thing, but I don't think we're at that point yet. Many people still think this will get better soon. As far as state lotteries, someone posted a few threads back that they are sluggish.
The Donald is just a big-haired creep. Why anyone would lend him money is unfathomable.
He's just the kind that would ignite his own hotel full of guests to get the insurance money in order to avoid paying what we owes than cannot ever be earned.
I guess he is spending his time doing infomercials and real estate seminars for a reason.... Kinda like a retired athlete that has to sign stuff to make a living.
and the winner is....
drumroll
Miss Piggy from Debtorstan.
Isn't the place at the casino where you buy chips called the bank? Problem solved. Next.
Double or nothing on the payment?
this time the dofnald might not pull a rabbit out of his a, um hat
over at the atlanta fed site macroblog there are some interesting numbers
steepest decline in cpi during mo of october SINCE 1947 !!!!
core cpi declined as well and this hasnt happened since 82
the donald is throwing dice on a different table
the article goes on to show how trimmed mean estimators of cpi like numbers published by cleveland fed suggest inflation is on the horizon
hold on to your socks its gonna be a rough ride
macroblog: Thoughts on reading the October CPI
So the toupe gets repo'ed?
Then he'll look like Paulson, and the game will be up.
C
I was expecting to see some impact on online poker at this point, but it hasn't happened yet. There does seem to be a bit more of a payday effect (an influx of bad, loose players at the middle and end of the month), but that could just be the tables i was playing on.
-- w
note: poker is one of the few casino games that has positive expectation for skilled players.
Carryover discussion from last thread:
sdtfs writes:
I can. This comes dangerously close to being investment advice/forecasting. If his numbers are wrong will he say you can deduct the difference next year? Or go to church with better forecasting? Or that God misled him?
Not really; his point was "Be thankful that we aren't in a depression situation."
The other interesting thing from the message he shared was that 40% of our church members regularly tithe (10%). Which I guess is more than average. I've seen numbers that say that something like 80% of Americans are self-identified Christian, but I think this tithing statistic would be a better indicator of who really practices Christianity versus who goes to church out of habit or tradition.
Also some of Pavel's thoughts regarding atheists in Russia are of interesting to me. Reading from a perspective of persecuted church in Russia and satellite countries gives an entirely different perspective about the communists. Although it probably only takes about 5% of people to be willing to commit such evil acts. There have been books written by the Christians but I'm not aware of the books written by their torturers (and no doubt they probably targeted more than Christianity).
To bring this back on topic, I'd be surprised if Trump tithes proper.
rew writes:
Trump's Chicago hotel/condo highrise is also rumored to be having problems selling out the residential and hotel-room condos.
It's not a rumor, Trump is in fact having difficulty selling his remaining inventory. Reasons, a lack of high-end buyers, tighter credit, plus competition from his previous buyers who are selling their as-of-yet unoccupied units. Additionally he is having problems selling the commercial space and had put together some sort of a package that was being touted. And then there is the ongoing problems he's having over financing from Deutsche Bank for the balance of the project expenses...
Why does anyone do business with this guy anymore? He is like a Ponzi scheme, the first ones out of the deal get paid and everyone that comes after (especially the bondholders) get screwed.
@mmckinl - from previous thread re FAS140 - Full consolidated reporting from Nov 15, 2009, but additional disclosures about off-balance sheet positions from early 2009
http://www.fasb.org/board_meeting_minutes/07-30-08_fas140andfin46r.pdf
We saw Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall last night. They did a hilarious tune called "I'm changing my name to Fannie Mae" and I thought of all you crazy kids. CR, enjoy - I found a slightly older version on youtube:
YouTube - Arlo Guthrie/I'm Changing My Name To Fannie Mae
From the if it's not illegal, it must be moral file:
Power Point Presentation from A-O Financial on Stock Loans:
"The investor simply keeps the 90% principal and whatever it has been used to purchase. Better yet, the investor simply refuses to repay the loan. After all, he has that right. Only the now deflated stock serves as collateral -- so everything else is safe. This is important...The lender has NO RECOURSE, except to keep the stock that served as the loans ONLY collateral. Remember, the lender is able to do this because it is protected by collaring or placing its own hedge on the pledged securities."
404 Not Found
Most of the casinos in Vegas have topless pools now. Women get in free.
Most of the casinos in Vegas have topless pools now. Women get in free.
Beach Blvd | 11.30.08 - 7:12 pm | #
I was stunned to learn this recently from friends who had recently travelled to Vegas.
I had a aquaintence who claimed he and his friends could fix on line poker if they could get on the same table together. They used cell phones to make their bets. Don't know what happened to him, he was a forex trader, and lost his job.
Maybe we should rename Ponzi schemes to Trump schemes?
"I was stunned to learn this recently from friends who had recently travelled to Vegas."
You may have been stunned, but are you surprised?
MrM
Looks like March for better disclosure but the pressure on FASB must be enormous.
There is enormous Indian casino space coming on line in SoCal in the next 12 months. Not that this has anything to do with Trump. But its going to be awful. Most of the buildings are paid for with debt. Whoever has alot of this stuff on their books is going to get pummeled....
How many times have Trump deals gone under? My god.. is anyone keeping track anymore?
Gary(Unrated) writes:
Most of the casinos in Vegas have topless pools now. Women get in free.
Beach Blvd | 11.30.08 - 7:12 pm | #
I thought women got paid for that?
But I'm old fashioned.
Krugman on the crisis:
The Power of Ideas | MetaFilter
(Link to the Krugman article, additional articles, and discussion on Metafilter.)
Why limit Trump's troubles to this country?
Page not found
\t
Financing gone for Trump-named Baja towers
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
November 1, 2008
The developers of the Trump Ocean Resort in Baja California have lost their financing for the project, and it's unlikely a new lender will be secured until the economy halts its downhill slide.
I thought women got paid for that?
I wonder if they pay some women NOT to take their tops off. Think of all the boomer women thinking this is a chance to relive the carefree 60s...
The horror.
Think of all the boomer men who could now give them a run for their money.
Now that's a horror.
Does C give a 30 day grace period if you miss a mortgage payment?
OT - Cockburn anecdote:
"This is the first time since I came to America in 1972 that Ive heard almost every day of well-off people sounding somewhat distraught at the money theyve lost. From this richer crowd one hears daily stories of portfolios worth half or less of their value three and four month ago, of people losing high salary jobs, often only months shy of log-scheduled retirement on full benefits."
From this article
Alexander Cockburn: In Time of Trouble
It's the name of his new pageant and his get out of debt strategy: Miss Payment, 20 women fighting for the chance to be the one...coming to NBC this fall.
Buy the video!
Last year it was:
"Making money in real estate"
2009 is
"Makin' money by walking away and stiffing your creditors"
Krugman : ""We have magneto trouble," said John Maynard Keynes at the start of the Great Depression: most of the economic engine was in good shape, but a crucial component, the financial system, wasn't working. He also said this: "We have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand." Both statements are as true now as they were then."
Um sorry Paul .... the economy was not in good shape, hemorrhaging capital through a massive trade deficit and the ballooning aggregate debt of the U.S. which now stands at 50 trillion.
You may have been stunned, but are you surprised?
I'm stunned and even surprised, I guess what happens in Vegas really does tend to stay there.
More OT reading on a Sunday night:
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/11/hbc-90003922
Ken Silverstein on Larry Summers' hedge fund employer
the nerve! missing a payment!? oughtta be thrown in jail with all the jerks who could'nt pay those giant mortgages on cratering McMansions. because i payed my bills and i am better than him. yeah.
stopped in the giant cabela's in Thanksgiving point (outside Salt lake city) on friday. effing madhouse. nothing like the joy of a little boy running up to his father, plastic camo mossberg in hand, shouting "ya think i could kill sumpin with this pop?"
picnicked in Zion saturday. the place was dead dead dead. beautiful. no thanksgiving sale on a daypass i guess.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Carservatorship
(And the conundrum of the Big 3 is that the alternatives to a pre-planned bankruptcy with the Federales providing DIP financing is either liquidation or money pit - GM may need 100 billion by end of 2009! Can you say Carservatorship? - AM)
Institutional Risk Analyst
November 24, 2008
Our friends at Katten Muchin Rosenman in Chicago wrote last week in their excellent Client Advisory: "On November 13, 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and its U.S. affiliates in bankruptcy, including Lehman Brothers Special Financing and Lehman Brothers Commercial Paper (collectively, "Lehman") filed a motion asking that certain expedited procedures be put in place to allow Lehman to assume, assign or terminate the thousands of executory derivative contracts to which they are a party. If Lehman's motion is granted, counterparties to transactions that have not been terminated will have very little time to react and will likely find themselves with new counterparties and no further recourse to Lehman because, by assigning contracts to third parties, Lehman will effectively receive, by normal operation of the Bankruptcy Code, a novation."
The bankruptcy court process also allows for parties to terminate or "rip up" CDS contracts, something that has also been fully enabled by the DTCC. The bankruptcy can dispose and the DTCC will confirm.
Hopefully somebody will pull President-elect Obama aside and give him the facts on this mess before reality bites us all in the collective arse with, say, a bankruptcy filing by GM.
You see, there are trillions of dollars in outstanding CDS contracts for the Big Three automakers, their suppliers and financing vehicles. A filing by GM is not only going to put the real economy into cardiac arrest but will also start a chain reaction meltdown in the CDS markets as other automakers, vendors and finance units like GMAC are also sucked into the quicksand of bankruptcy. You knew when the vendor insurers pulled back from GM a few weeks ago that the jig was up.
And many of these CDS contracts were written two, three and four years ago, at annual spreads and upfront fees far smaller than the 90 plus percent payouts that will likely be required upon a GM default. That's the dirty little secret we peripherally discussed in our interview last week with Bill Janeway, namely that most of these CDS contracts were never priced correctly to reflect the true probability of default. In a true insurance market with capital and reserve requirements, the spreads on CDS would be multiples of those demanded today for such highly correlated risks. Or to put it in fair value accounting terms, pricing CDS vs. the current yield on the underlying basis is a fool's game. Truth is not beauty, price is not value.
If you assume a recovery value of say 20% against all of the CDS tied to the auto industry, directly and indirectly, that is a really big number. The spreads on GM today suggest recovery rates in single digits, making the potential cash payout on the CDS even larger.
As Bloomberg News reported in August: "A default by one of the automakers would trigger writedowns and losses in the $1.2 trillion market for collateralized debt obligations that pool derivatives linked to corporate debt Credit-default swaps on GM and Ford were included in more than 80 percent of CDOs created before they lost their investment-grade debt rankings in 2005, according to data compiled by Standard & Poor's."
At some point, Washington is going to be forced to accept that bankruptcy and liquidation, the harsh medicine used with other financial insolvencies, are the best ways to deal with the last, greatest bubble, namely the CDS market. When the end comes, it will effect some of the largest financial institutions in the world, chief among them Citigroup (NYSE:C), JPMorganChase (NYSE:JPM), GS and MS, as well as some large Euroland banks.
The impending blowback from a CDS unwind at less than face amount is one of the reasons that the financial markets have been pummeling the equity values of the larger banks last week. Any bank with a large derivatives trading book is likely to be mortally wounded as the CDS markets finally collapse. We don't see problems with interest rate or currency contracts, by the way, only the great CDS Ponzi scheme is at issue - hopefully, if authorities around the world act with purpose on rendering extinct CDS contracts as they exist today. Call it a Christmas present to the entire world
Quotes from the Wise : Week ending November 30th
'A rolling loan gathers no loss.' - Joshua Rosner
'Maybe,just maybe,blanket guarantees from governments dilute the nature of a guarantee.' - John Jansen
'JP Morgan (with a credit derivatives book of 9.2 trillion) is on one side or another of one out of every six contracts ...It has counterparty risk on the contracts it has bought, even with collateral and faces losses on the contracts it has sold.' - Henny Sender
'There's going to be a lot of information that is not public (about the bailouts & facilities) and it is going to take investigative reporters to find out things that congressman can't find out and the public is not going to be aware of' - Representative Brad Sherma
Hey Morocco, here's some of that community service meme from Robert "help repeal Glass-Steagal" Rubin:
"The Journal said Rubin has earned $115 million in pay since 1999, excluding stock options. "I bet there's not a single year where I couldn't have gone somewhere else and made more," said Rubin, according to the Journal."
The greater good, always the greater good...
I spent Thanksgiving with my retired father in a very afluent community in Florida on the gulf. These homes sold from 750k for a fixer-up'er to several million. My fathers first mortgage was an option ARM when he had no residence and only his word about his pension ( now a 30 year fixed ).
Economy was all the talk this week. How many homes are being foreclosed upon, who has gone missing, banks manipulation of the "prime" rate that some are paying on their ARM's, and more. You can see who still has money by how much damage is visible on the property.
It's amazing to see how the grand have fallen. I could have easily picked up a 2 bedroom home for less than 200k at this point.
I had a aquaintance who claimed he and his friends could fix on line poker if they could get on the same table together.
Undoubtedly. Trivially easy, even in person, two players colluding shift the pay-off expectations. Professional poker is not gambling.
UK Prices Drop To The Lowest In Three Years U.K. House Prices Drop to Lowest Level in Almost Three Years - Bloomberg.com
They better back look much further in the rearview if they want to find the bottom.
I'm not as anti-Keynes as many posters here, but even I wonder if his theories should be applied to our current circumstances.
The US faces much different problems now. The trade deficit and massive debt, as mmckinl mentions, but also stagnant wages -- and a populace that is much further removed from the land and any type of manufacturing.
A good case can be made for some increased infrastructure spending and more support for the most vulnerable -- but on their own merits. I'm doubtful we can spend our way out of this mess.
And if it results in the same over-consuming, over-indebted society as before, I'm doubtful we should try.
it is going to take investigative reporters to find out things that congressman can't find out
There is something seriously wrong with this statement by Rep. Sherman.
"Trump Entertainment"
Now there's an oxymoron...
tranches of leinenkugel writes:
I'm not as anti-Keynes as many posters here, but even I wonder if his theories should be applied to our current circumstances.
~~~~
Exactly, aggregate US debt was a single multiple of GDP before the Great Depression. The current multiple is 3.5.
Debt will be reduced, voluntarily or involuntarily. We can not service this amount of debt.
They may try inflation but that has serious problems as well.
Everyone wants to avoid "credit events".
In past times, there was a reluctance to force default due to social or other "squishy" reasons.
Now, there are actually legally enforceable contracts which are designed to encourage them.
In that respect, we are most definitely NOT like Japan as the absence of CDS gave them latitude to zombify their financial institutions. We don't have that, um, luxury.
has anyone here seen the las vegas trump tower? boooooor-innnnng.
i bought some gold from apmex today. i have decided to prepare for inflation, deflation, collapse, bis as usual, and solid economic growth. the price of the coins made me want to puke.
in other news, i know yet one more family that is going to walk away from their house here in las vegas. they owe 240k. a foreclosed house on the same street has been on the market for a year now with no takers. the price on the foreclosed house: 130k. my friends are trying to work out a short sale but feel like they are making no progress with their lender. they are going back to (you can't make this crap up) detroit. these are really nice, hard working people. damn shame.
CS, a few more from the last couple of weeks:
"The world is flat...broke"
"The market is like a sale at Nordstrom. Many items are over 50% off and they're still overpriced."
"This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, going for broke."
"You know who is to blame for all of this? Women. I can't prove it, but I know it's true."
Trump was swimming naked? Gross.
Ha! You got it right there! The whole consumer age is due to women. Honestly, women buy most of the consumer goods and the things that we do buy, well, its to please women and get laid. The crasiest thing of the recent bubble has been single women in their early 20s buying homes, debt up to their eyeballs, and half the time, their parents are paying part of the mortgage. Ya, that makes sense. Not to mentioned $2k purses bought by women that make $60k a year, now theres a great investment.
Asia not liking our shopping performance...they must have better data than shoppertrak(TM).
Get out there people, buy buy buy!
to The Canary
It was a woman who tried to stop all this but Rubin and Summers got rid of her ...
AHHH,Trump,the Paris Hilton of Real Estate.
WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Aristocracies and their silver
By Dakin Campbell
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- In the best year for Treasuries since 2002, fund managers who only buy government bonds are seeking permission to invest in corporate debt they considered toxic just a month ago.
Treasuries are yielding next to nothing,'' said Robert Millikan, who manages $5 billion at BB&T Asset Management in Raleigh, North Carolina, including the $51 million BB&T Short U.S. Government Fund.Trying to do something for your shareholders, it's hard to sit there and buy a bond that yields less than any fees you charge.''
That helps explain why BB&T, BlackRock Inc., T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Sage Advisory Services Ltd. are looking elsewhere for returns, including bonds of the banks that were almost ruined by $967 billion in losses and writedowns since the start of 2007. Treasury funds are receiving permission to buy debt of Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. finalized plans on Nov. 21 to guarantee their debt.
The FDIC program announced on Oct. 14 is part of the more than $1.5 trillion in unprecedented financing from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to end the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The U.S. now guarantees more than $13 trillion of debt.
`Great Substitute'
Goldman, which registered as a bank in September after 139 years as a securities firm, became the first U.S. company to take advantage of the program, selling $5 billion of 3.25 percent FDIC-backed notes on Nov. 25. The debt, which matures June 2012, was priced to yield two percentage points more than Treasuries of similar maturity. Before the government announced the guarantees, New York-based Goldman's 6.15 percent bonds due 2018 yielded about five percentage points more than government debt.
Morgan Stanley, which also became a bank on Sept. 21, sold $5.75 billion in FDIC-backed debt in three series, including $2.5 billion of three-year, 3.25 percent notes at a spread of 186 basis points. As recently as Oct. 13, the New York-based company's notes yielded more than six percentage points more than Treasuries.
``It's a great substitute,'' said Millikan, whose Short U.S. Government Fund returned 4.55 percent the past year, beating 78 percent of its peers. He gained approval from BB&T's lawyers to purchase FDIC-backed debt and may buy bonds from New York-based Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina.
As much as $600 billion of the FDIC-backed bonds may be issued by the time the program ends in June, according to Barclays Plc. Sales of the bonds already total $17.25 billion.
A lot of Treasury-only funds will be looking at'' FDIC- backed notes, said Brian Brennan, who helps oversee $13 billion in fixed-income assets at T. Rowe Price in Baltimore.For investors who are seeking safety, this is a safe instrument that provides more yield.''
Treasury rates are going higher,'' said Mark MacQueen, a partner and money manager at Austin, Texas-based Sage Advisory, which oversees $6 billion.I plan to invest in the guaranteed debt.
Donald Trump bowling in the wind
http://entimg.msn.com/i/BillMurray/Kingpin_300x298.jpg
shopfact survey in Bay area-
11:00am near daly city-serramonte
nordstrom rack-no line-quiet
Bed n bath-no line-quiet
Costco-2 people in line ahead of me-
quiet-
Golden gate park-free sun, lots of people- great day..
Clear winner-mother nature in bay area today...
Clear winner-mother nature in bay area today...
cd | 11.30.08 - 8:24 pm |
Well, cd, there yuv done it. Once again retailers can blame the weather for low sales.
Mother Nature YOY is unchanged.
CRFaN,
From your previous post about the wealthy always saying how hard they work.
I have a wealthy friend who in reality still lives off of her parents, even tho she is pushing 50. I don't talk to her that frequently, so when I do, I always ask what's been going on with her. Her answer for many years was that she was working hard, and was very busy (with an implied attiude of superiority & sacrifice). One day I finally called BS on her, and made her tell me what she had done that week. At first, there was total silence, then she finally fessed up that her "busy working week" actually consisted of taking the dog to the vet one day.
The Trump International Hotel and Condo project in Dubai was cancelled by Nakheel today. Not a good day for Trump. About time.
Stop and think for a minute. Does everyone understand how completely and totally incompetent AND crooked you need to be to lose money in the gaming industry? Being merely incompetent or merely crooked is nowhere near enough.
mp, believe it or not I was surprised.
I had not ever heard of topless poolside bars in the US. I was stunned, shocked and surprised. Then again, I've only been to vegas once, for a wedding, and my only gambling vice is taking money away from "bearly" and giving it to CR!
Now I've been to spring break and mardi gras, and I'm no prude, so in no sense scandalized . . . just never expected that.
Pico- I couldn't fluff the report...mother nature has excellent intelligence dept...
sorry if a repost, but the Donald is having problems south of the border, too...
http://www.sdlookup.com/Forums/General/tabid/57/forumid/270/tpage/1/view/topic/postid/44977/Default.aspx#44977
comrade swan at 7:43 pm
very heavy, very sobering
im not so smart
so...lease hypothesize how we could unwind the credit default swap mrkt without mahem
could "we" (gov or fed) just cancell all the contracts?
ok so there are CDOs built out of swaps, but couldnt that be undone too
my thinking is that if the gov declared a period "exotic security market holiday"...
long enough period of time to find the end of this rope and untie the gordian knot...undo-ing all the deals...is this thinkable
or what else
or are we doomed
Goldman, which registered as a bank in September after 139 years as a securities firm, became the first U.S. company to take advantage of the program, selling $5 billion of 3.25 percent FDIC-backed notes on Nov. 25.
What a great idea! I'd like to see the SEC issue some bonds, along with the GAO, the FHA Home Loan Bank, the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, and maybe the Army Corps of Engineers.
Every agency or pseudo agency should issues new debt. More debt is more better!
why cant they reverse engineer those things? cds cdo syn.cdos
dont laugh
the cause of the problem is not so hard to understand..massive debt in the US at all levels, and on the flip side - entire economies based upon selling us stuff.
And raising wages in the 2nd world on a per-country basis means the loss of competitive advantage - capital goes to another country.
Not sure if someone has a real answer to that , at least, while preserving capitalism. The reason this has gone on so long is because there are no obvious solutions. That's why I expect the bubble to be reflated.
Oops! Time for me to drain my comp account by going to the gift shop at the Taj. I have a $4500 comp balance, making me one of the few creditors that has any hope of getting paid off in December.
In other news..
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Chinas manufacturing contracted by the most on record and export orders slumped as a slowdown in the worlds fourth-biggest economy deepened.
Purple - we're already 2/3 the way down that road. Stock bubble for part 1, housing and debt for part 2. If you reflate a third time, the end game is catastrophic bust and global superdepression. We will be lucky to stave off a very long and very deep downturn that does not devolve into something with stats that resemble those of GD1 (25% unemployment, etc.)
That is just not a solution, even though, so far, we are pretending that it is.
Thanks for the CDS story. Scary stuff.
Her answer for many years was that she was working hard, and was very busy (with an implied attiude of superiority & sacrifice).
Show Me The Pony | 11.30.08 - 8:32 pm |
Yeah, amazing isn't it. My most recent exposure to this was a high prestige UN worker whose initial "all work, oh the pressure" story started to lose credibility when I noticed she seemed to fit an awful lot in socially. In fact her UN Work never seemed to be on the weighing on her that much as much as say, picking out new furniture or arranging the next group vacation.
But anyway, I've noticed the work/mantra never stops, because it works I suppose. At least you had the courage to call her on it.
Japan's economy minister says stimulus will fail to prevent deflation.
FT.com / Japan - Japanese stimulus will fail, warns minister
Good thing OURS is going to work.
Purple, you are spot-on. World-wide, everybody is looking at what "worked" previously as a model for "stimulus", looking forward. Those models don't apply here and break the mold thinking is required to get us out of this.
[could "we" (gov or fed) just cancell all the contracts?]
Of course cancelling all contracts will cause at least as much harm as leaving them to settle in the event of a default. In fact it would alomost certainly cause defaults to cancel. They are a hedging vehicle to many participants with balance sheet implications and they would immediately go insolvent on a cancel.
Nonsense.
Re : CDS
My understanding is that the majority of CDS are between 3-5 years till expiration of the contract.
A properly regulated, transparent and trackeable CDS market is now being setup by ISDA.
But the time and money required to go through the underlying assets within the current CDS makes it highly unlikely that existing CDS will be able to be moved to the new CDS clearing house.
The intent appears to be to somehow keeping the system going for the next 5 years until this current batch of CDS mature without major defaults.
An indebted man stops by the chuch to talk to his minister.
Man: "Father, I have a problem!"
Minister: "Tell me, my son"
Man: "I owe the bank $100K"
Minister: "And?"
Man: "It's due tomorrow!"
Minister: "I don't see the problem"
Man: "I owe $100K that I don't have!"
Minister: "I still see no problem"
Man: "I can't pay it back!!!!!"
Minister: "Well, son, it seems to me that it's the bank that's got a problem, not you"
That "force majeure" claim won't survive a one page motion to dismiss drawn up in 20 minutes.
"They are a hedging vehicle to many participants with balance sheet implications and they would immediately go insolvent on a cancel."
Any entity whose balance sheet is propped up by CDS should be put down. This is points one and two of things that should be and won't be done to turn back Conjure's new clock.
The Fed released a report Friday saying commercial banks averaged $93.6 billion in daily borrowing for the week ending Wednesday. That was up from an average of $91.6 billion for the week ending Nov. 19.
The report also said investment firms borrowed an average of $52.4 billion from the Fed's emergency loan program over the week ending Wednesday, up from an average of $50.2 billion the previous week.
The Fed said its net holdings of business loans known as commercial paper over the week ending Wednesday averaged $282.2 billion, an increase of $16.5 billion from the previous week.
Financial firms are borrowing from the Fed because they are having trouble raising money through normal channels as the financial system endures its worst crisis since the Great Depression.
Banks are hoarding cash rather than making loans out of fear that they won't be repaid. The Fed and the Treasury have been flooding the financial system with money in hopes that banks can return lending operations to more normal levels.
Vectors
Chinas manufacturing contracted by the most on record and export orders slumped as a slowdown in the worlds fourth-biggest economy deepened.
The Purchasing Managers Index fell to a seasonally adjusted 38.8 in November from 44.6 in October, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said today in an e- mailed statement.
Baosteel Group Corp., Chinas biggest steelmaker, is facing its most difficult period since the company was founded 30 years ago as output, sales and profit plunge, an executive said last month.
I knew someone who came from old money. Old as in Rockfeller era. They had numbers after their names to id where they were in relation to the original old man. This was for family use I guess.
She lives rather simply, drives a Honda, and works a 40 hour week. She also is single and loves her cats. One of them had a heart problem. She paid for a cardio team from a major hospital to do its heart surgery. The cat died and was buried in a hand made wooden coffin.
Mitsubishi Estate Co., Japans second-biggest developer, dropped 5.9 percent. Japan General Estate Co. plunged 16 percent after Mainichi Daily News said the company withdrew job offers to university graduates. Inpex Corp., Japans largest oil and gas explorer, lost 4.7 percent after crude prices fell.
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average slumped 190.02, or 2.2 percent, to 8,322.25 as of 10:01 a.m. in Tokyo, retreating from the gauges biggest weekly gain in a month. The broader Topix index declined 12.11, or 1.5 percent, to 822.71, with more than three shares dropping for each that rose.
The whole consumer age is due to women. Honestly, women buy most of the consumer goods and the things that we do buy
I sometimes wonder if the national debt is correlated to the women's rights movement.
But not enough to research it or say it in public.
sneering nihilist,
What part of Vegas?
As I recall, farm subsidies started as an emergency measure during the Great Depression. Of course, the became a permanent (and costly) drain on the Treasury. No one seems to be asking the question "How do we eventually shut all these emergency programs off"? What happens if we can't.
I visited Vegas in 2002 (before I went overseas). I thought it was fun, but I failed to see how casinos, by themselves, could sustain a major metro area. I also thought the pace of construction was unsustainable. Glad to see I was right.
In my opinion, the next sacred cow to get slaughtered is private colleges. The model doesn't work anymore. Why pay $100K + to get a job starting at 30K?
"I sometimes wonder if the national debt is correlated to the women's rights movement. "
Larry Summers is an economist. Why don't you try out your theory with him?
That's why I expect the bubble to be reflated.
There will be bubbles, but not in any areas TPTB would like.
The radical anti-tax supply-side movement is very much dude based. White and Christian too, if that's relevant.
What happens if we can't.
That problem eventually solves itself.
TPTB?
TJ
Yeah, I guess so. But not in any way we would like.
up thread i questioned whether or not CDSs could be canceled by government fiat...if there was a solution along these lines, in response to comrade swans post about GM and CDSs at 743 pm...
Bearly wrote
They are a hedging vehicle to many participants with balance sheet implications and they would immediately go insolvent on a cancel... nonsense
follow up question
is there a way to satisfy balance sheet requirements in substitution for the CDSs
or, again, what is the alternative
or is this hopeless
Local San Francisco news just reported holiday shopping was up 7% this year, and an average of $25 dollars per person.
They didn't say if this was just locally or otherwise, said the numbers came from a "big research firm" whose name they did not give...
On the topic of shopping...
Here in sunny Hawaii, the high end shops and boutiques in Waikiki that cater to tourists are dead. Kinda sad to see all those cute Japanese shop girls standing around looking forlorn.
Ala Moana center (the huge mall in Honolulu) much slower than usual, but still pretty busy. Hawaii is getting crushed as visitor arrivals are running 20% below last year.
sanity clause,
tptb = the powers that be
BOA has a 8.2 stake in the CHina Construction Bank.
comrade bear
last time i was at their house was about 2-1/2 years ago so my memory is a little sketchy but it was one of the nicer areas off of boulder highway.
So, a lot of investments not working out?
BEIJING, September 10, 2007 -- The first card product between China CITIC Bank and American Express was unveiled today at a launch ceremony in Beijing. The new CITIC American Express Card, offering attractive travel benefits and rewards, is tailor-made to keep pace with the rapidly growing demands of Chinese frequent business and leisure travelers for both local and global travel services.
But why state the obvious.
So does Comex go bust ? Vaporize COMEX countDOWN « Meltdown 2011
The China´s PMI was released a few minutes ago.
See charts in my blog.
Just saw a news story (AP wire I think) - Tanta has passed on. Very sad! My sincere condolences to her family and her blog compatriots.
"is there a way to satisfy balance sheet requirements in substitution for the CDSs?"
Sure. Substitute one lie for another. Suspend mark to market. Put it in level twenty-two asset category. Declare hold-to-maturity value to be purchase price. Remove it from the books in the interest of national security.
The CDS lie is preferred because JPM makes money off of it.
Broward Horne writes:
I sometimes wonder if the national debt is correlated to the women's rights movement.
But not enough to research it or say it in public.
Broward Horne | Homepage | 11.30.08 - 9:27 pm | #
You just did. But in point of fact the national debt is simply the result of government spending beyond tax receipts. More than half of that deficit spending occurred during two republican administrations, Reagan and Bush jr. During both of those 8 year administrations republicans controlled the house and the senate for approximately 6 of the eight years
wasn't the last comex panic supposed to be shadowy conspirators covering all of their naked shorts.
comex meltdown -- don't bet on it.
Biogeek(Unrated) writes:
Just saw a news story (AP wire I think) - Tanta has passed on. Very sad! My sincere condolences to her family and her blog compatriots.
Biogeek | 11.30.08 - 9:41 pm | #
No.
Oh wow biogeek, so sorry to hear that...condolences...
Local San Francisco news just reported holiday shopping was up 7% this year, and an average of $25 dollars per person.
From WSJ: "In a survey of 3,370 shoppers, the National Retail Federation estimated shoppers spent an average of $372.57 over the weekend, up 7.2% over last year's $347.55. Although unprecedented discounts lured shoppers into stores, momentum ebbed Saturday, raising concerns that shoppers were merely exploiting the "door-buster" deals and then walking out of stores. Indeed, as many as 70% of consumers purchased only deeply-discounted merchandise Friday, according to Charleston, S.C.-based America's Research Group, which polled 700 shoppers over the weekend."
Holiday Shopping Off to Strong Start - WSJ.com
I think there is too much noise in these early estimates. One should wait till Tuesday's weekly retail numbers (ICSC-Goldman Store Sales)
I'm sorry to hear this..Very sad
Biogeek - Don't mess with her or us.
A horrible thing to say if not true, and a horrible thing if true.
Doris Dungey, Prescient Finance Blogger, Dies at 47
Doris Dungey, 47, Prescient Finance Blogger - NY Times
Ah shit...
Biogeek - when you quote news like this, please do provide a reference.
It is too serious a matter to pass around as a rumor.
RE: Tanta
Doris Dungey, 47, Prescient Finance Blogger - NY Times
RIP
Christ, just saw it on the NYT. Condolences.
Shit!!!!..I'm SO sorry to hear this news...
Biogeek, nova - thank you.
It is very sad. Condolences to Tanta's family and CR.
Very sad...
Oh, no, it's true. I am signing off. Nothing else seems significant at present.
Condolences to family, CR, and friends.
A loss to the cyber community of human beings.
Condolences, Ovarian cancer is viscious. When I hit the lab (NIEHS, RTP, NC Cancer Research) tomorrow just more incentive to do better research. Again, condolences.
damn...
time to think about the truly important things.
peace
Tanta - You made me think so hard that my little brain hurt. Few were the writers I have had to read, or wanted to read, 3 times, just so I understood.
Good luck Diogenes.
Sadly, I arrived at this blog too late to read many of Tanta's posts. How very sad to lose someone so intelligent and so young.
Not good, not good at all.
Goodbye Tanta.
Thank you.
Best wishes to her family.
Never trust shopper surveys.
OMG. That's it for me tonight, too -- I feel like I've lost a family member.
CR, our thoughts are with you and especially Tanta's family.
oh my.
it's amazing, the largest problems, the money, so easy to scale it here and now. by far the greatest loss 2008 will see.
regards and best wishes bill, and all of her loyal readers.
I want to add my condolances to her family, CR, and those here who knew her better than I did.
Tanta we will miss you so very much
You are one tough, smart and funny lady
CR must be beside himself
sorry CR
a few weeks ago CR indicated he could not say very much about her condition out of respect for privacy,
but that she was with family for thankgiving...and then he ended the post with the words...
"very sad"
i got a bad feeling the
I am sad. I was drawn to her writing...she was so good at it. This is very strange for me, because my aunt was an English professor at the Univ. in Normal...she died of ovarian cancer (this was over 50 years ago). I remember my aunt as someone of subtle wit.
that anonymous above was me
sorry
ew thread for tanta...
My condolances to her and her family.
This is just horrible. Tanta was such a vital force on this blog, and -- you could tell -- in "real life." I'm very saddened to hear this. Her writing just jumped off the screen at times, with both sharp edges and warm humor.
Steel-toed bunny slippers sums up my image of Tanta.
My condolences to her family, CR, and all affected by this.
This is a tragedy.
I shall miss her a lot.
CR, what are the arrangements? Do you know?
My condolences, she will be missed.
Farewell Tanta. Bellissima Tanta.
CR, please, I have been here in the last couple of months, you can turn grief into strength. There is an alchemy there. It works, I know it.
In my country, we have a saying about our speaking position, our ground from which we speak. It is turangawaewae. This is the place we always come from, always hail, and always love and hanker for.
Our turangawaewae includes the collective memory, and its embedding.
I am going to celebrate that, in my way, through my cultural origins.
C
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.........a real sad day...........
Comrade Swan, I hat-tipped you for the Bloomberg article which reminded me to add this point to my FDIC article:
"Why is FDIC insuring debtors instead of depositors? Sheila Bair does not even know what agency she works for and does not understand that the D in FDIC stands for deposit(s) (savings), not debt (not bond investors either). Someone should tell her at her exit interview after she is fired."
This reminds me of the last downturn in the early 90's when the Donald was short of cash for an upcoming note payment.
The solution was for the Donald's father Fred to buy a million dollar's worth of casino chips. Instant cash for the Donald and Fred did not have to wait in line behind other creditors if things went sour.
Allan Sloan wrote an hysterical column about it back then.
If anyone can find a link...
Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security - washingtonpost.com
WAPO
Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
(Preparing for the bank riots?)
Geez, a day for bad surprises. Looks like Meredith Whitney is succumbing to the Dark Side. She says FDIC should expand its guarantee of bank debt, banks just can't afford FAS 140 transparency--and keep the credit card debt coming.
Aggravating, really.
FT.com / Comment / Opinion - America must keep consumer liquidity flowing
cd
Circling the Drain(Unrated) writes:
Geez, a day for bad surprises. Looks like Meredith Whitney is succumbing to the Dark Side.
Everyone is a vested interest in the social order. Either you have a humane or a financial objection to the changes. Everyone eventually cries "enough" before you get genuine reform -- new ministries, new regulatory policy premises, new sectoral framework.
To take specific issue with what Whitney says:
There is no doubt that time will be the greatest healer, but there is a strong argument for putting the financial system through a methadone-clinic-style rehabilitation as opposed to the cold sweats rehab that we face.
The problem with this analogy is that the methadone clinic is not an instrumentality of the person getting the treatment.
When the clinic workers are vulnerable to your political pressure, and when they themselves have an interest in your continued treatment, it's not very much like a methadone clinic at all. It's more like being a completely captive central bank / regulatory apparatus lashed to a zombie financial sector.
The "rehab facility"'s withdrawal of support will be real gradual. Like, you'll be able to make a career in the growing support withdrawal industry.
I certainly see a place for the state to provide low cost / guaranteed availability loans to the consumer side of the market. I see no inherently compelling reason to do it through the CC rcvable ABS market, or the CC payments structure beyond maybe the POS architecture, or even why we should do it as a revolver rather than small-sum term lending.
While just over 70 per cent of US households have access to credit cards, 90 per cent of these people use credit cards as a cash-flow management vehicle, or revolve payments at least once a year.
Whitney here confutes robbing Peter to pay Paul kiting up the balances on your plastic with cash-flow management. Seems to me like she's sneaking this in the back door -- she could just as easily talk about rollover in another way.
While the credit card market is small relative to the mortgage market, it has grown to play a key role in consumer liquidity. Declining liquidity here will have disastrous effects on consumer spending and the economy.
Consumer cash flow management -- as a wise wag here said some time ago, cash flow management is about cash, not debt. Let the US consumer save some pin money. Remember back when positive savings rates were not seen as an economic sea-anchor?
The policy apparatus that got you here is the one that has to get you out. Real reform is new ministries, new policy / regulatory frameworks, new sectoral framework -- I might suggest one with lots of SMALL lenders with LOW leverage gearing; maybe a two-tier regional / local banking system?
Propping up another ABS market is not the answer, because the end-state that emerges from this situation is not status quo ante bellum. We can either undertake fundamental reform starting with the counting of the dead and the winding up of imploded markets, or we can become methadone clinic addicts until the money for the clinic runs out.
Boo hoo for Donald. I'm sure that his private assets are well-protected. Maybe it's time for a new hair cut.
if ever there was a poster child for the ridiculous, vapid, fake "wealth" creation of the past 25 years, Donald Trump is it. He has defaulted several times and BKd at least once that I recall. He uses other peoples money to build questionable projects that apparently don't pan out. His greatest talent is not business or real estate, it is his ability to dupe millions of dumb-asses into thinking he is some kind of financial genius. What as ass. I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest his nether region.
hey, i found aforex guide here