Yep, it is not a banking system. It is just a giant ponzi scheme with no real utility to the rest of us.

//I do not think that phrase means what they want you to think it means.//

When I first watched the Princess Bride, I never thought so many of its quotes would be applicable to finance.

I am shocked that people are gambling..

Uh huh, this is from Gordon Brown, the chair of the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the IMF/World Bank for like how many years??

Bit late, mate.

C

"by London Banker on 2009-03-15

Deja vu all over again. I wrote the following 15 months ago. It looks like this dead cat bounce is yet another set up, but I suspect the next listing of this wreck will flood steerage. The last lifeboats, well stocked with comforts for the few passengers invited, are quietly loosing themselves and rowing for safety."

But lifeboats have to land somewhere. If, in this hypothetical disaster, there is stability and security somewhere, then a refuge might be attained. But the assurance of a safe haven is only an assumption, and a global catastrophe may take many forms, some of them universal.

If I were on that exclusive list, I would want to assure the stability of the system I know, if possible, rather than rely on a notional refuge.

"Regulating shadows now are we?
Try chopping down a tree by taking an axe to
its' shadow. Zen like."

Strong image. One reads such interesting things here.

Remeber when Hillary took 1k and turned into 100k with no experience in the commodity markets. Democracy my ass
Repubs are no better for you equal timers

“You are going to see a massive change in the supervisory system. It’s going to include tax havens and institutions where it didn’t before,” [Prime Minister Gordon Brown] said.

While it is unfair to pounce on an unfortunate choice of words I think in this case it is deserved. It is hubris and overreach to presume mere regulation can control the proliferation of "shadow banking." We need set up some arbitrary definitions so we can separate the different things people may think when they hear "shadow banking." For but two examples; there's the shadow manipulation when the LIBOR is set differently from what banks are actually charging each other. The same sort of thing when the US prime rate is set at exactly 300bps above the offical FFR. There's the dozen of shadow banking operations. The banksters want them all. The banksters need them all in order to bring new participants into the pyramid scheme that preserves their position at the top. Mr. Potter is using this crisis to take control of the Bailey Building & Loan. The more things change...

Liz, I must be too dense to understand what you meant here. I do think that a better analogy is a rape victim being raped again and again, by all those response teams who are supposed to be helping her.

Re: half sib

Half twin, full sib? Twib?

"Unintended consequence" of continuing to do what got you in trouble in the first place.

I think we are witnessing the begining of the total collapse of Marxism. Time will tell, but remember this process will not be a peaceful one. It is scary.

Mission to be accomplished at all costs: Nawaz

LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-N Quaid Mian Nawaz Sharif said on Sunday that the long march would be taken to its logical conclusion.

Talking to Geo news, Nawaz said the rally would now go to Data Darbar and then leave for Islamabad. He said the program of staging rally at GPO chowk was called off due to unavailability of loudspeakers.

Responding to a question, he said the country needs a system purely based on justice. The PML-N Quaid said Pakistan is passing through a golden moment of its history which is prelude to a great revolution. Nawaz said no one has authority to defy the constitution, snub the parliament and decide the fate of people.

He asked the PCO judges to step down else the nation would throw them out. Nawaz urged the government should take saner decisions and honour mass aspirations. He said the long march aims at restoring deposed judges and ensuring justice in the country.
Mission to be accomplished at all costs: Nawaz

I love seeing that this wonderful "G-20" meeting is filled with our leading bankers and economists. Not a single one of these bums has a creative or productive bone in their body. They are all thieves and like any meeting of thieves there is no honor to be found. They spout and they spew and they collude just to steal more.

I want to see a G-20 meeting of inventors, painters, writers, musicians, craftsmen, chefs, real entrepreneurs, winemakers and other productive people. Let them discuss how best we can use the world's assets and share ideas. Let them share foods and songs, ideas and thoughts. That would be a real, productive meeting. Putting financiers in a room and acting like they represent any of our nations is just an exercise in complete bullshit.

Mish is the Ron Paul of finance; contrarian, usually correct and doomed to irrelevance.

You may be on to something, but this doesn't work so well if it just gives the public a second thing to be mad about.

Liz - I see, I thought you were referring to the Times article (previous thread?), which is why I thought of a rape analogy

I was not being metaphoric. Just riffing off someone else's comment. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

You know, I'm wondering why I tapped out the above. It's not that regulators here don't have a grip on finance. They probably do. I like that Lord Turner's paper is pitched for a thinking, adult reader. Here we get 'as told to the children'. Default swaps are 'too difficult to understand' or CDOs are 'bewildering' or 'the administration is waging a wonderful battle'.

Third grade classroom. Again.

"Some of those best and brightest aren't so much good and smart as they are alpha and pushy."

I've dealt with some of these people. It's interesting how many of them were competitors of mine. Two things happened with many of them in the past couple of years. 1. Other alpha males had them at the top of their list of people to lay off. 2. Clients who ran into clear, honest, analytic people who could demonstrate better policies fired them.

Meanwhile, the US is loosening the leash for public accounting firms. More and more, they're getting back into consulting roles and acting as advocates for their clients in writing position papers, etc. in order to keep the money coming in a dry economy.
That's 8 years to get back to the same framwork that allowed Enron. I'll bet Congress will pass some garbage regulation of banking in the next year or so and declare a victory. That'll make people feel secure.

My hub asked me what I thought of Bailouts II III etc.

I said I haven't the faintest idea.

Anybody know anything about RBC Wealth Management? Royal Bank of Canada? Something else?

Others have alluded to the question of trust.It took decades after GD1 to restore faith in the finance system despite all of the reforms.Once again,the system has been corrupted and the populace looted.Anyone who expects that 401k individuals will feel safe in making long term investments in the stock market is going to be disappointed.Gamblers? sure,there are always Gamblers.One difference this time around is that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the value of the complex financial products,and unwinding them is like trying to unscramble eggs. until there is some way to estimate risk with a reasonable degree of accuracy there are no investors,only gamblers.

NYCityBoy: Your vision of who should run the G-20 reminds me of the Peeps who set sail for Atlantis in Donovan's song Atlantis.

Jo shmoe,

"even top management at AIG does not know who the counterparties are"

Nice point. How exactly does AIG plan to come up with the list of couterparties?

Aren't these counterparties on a computer list somewhere?

I rephrase anybody know anything bad about RBC Wealth Management? RBC has nothing, I assume to do with Royal Bank of Scotland?

Our version of "Russia vs. Afghanistan II" will be like most sequels. USSR had an advantage - they had access - we don't. The whole resupply chain into this country is and will be a nightmare. I personally think the 10-15 years we'll be there will be curtailed by our financial crash "mid-war". This Depression won't be helped by a War but rather it will be the fatal financial arterial wound.

Never let a good crisis go to waste. This sounds like, while well intentioned, a way to establish global central banking control, and reduce US sovereignty. NWO, get it?

"“I can't believe this Denniger guy constantly writing all that bilge. It is a sad say when a man starts believing his own bullshit"

Denninger for President!

Socrates, the Buddha, Christ, were, I opine all alpha males.
I don't know Liz. Socrates was essentially an invention by Plato, and most historical references paint him as a crazy baffon. Christ does not appear anywhere in the historical record, by a Roman or Palestine historian at the time in the area (and the Romans were pretty meticulous historians).
The earliest record of Buddha is the Pali Cannon, written 400 years after his death, in another language, by monastics, on an island in the Indian Ocean. But he does appear in the historical record, so he probably was alpha.

broward, i agree, often, alpha male is a euphemistic term for bully

"more coordination between regulators...to spot signs that economies are overheating". Really? I don't think this is one of the more immediate problems. Maybe that item can wait a year or two.

Let's see here, clamping down on hedge funds + higher regulation of banks that do risky deals + reducing off balance sheet funding = more deleveraging = higher yield on out of favor assets.

Are there any good books on the Shadow banking system, how it works, how much money is hidden in it, and who owns the money there? I here it's trillions and that's where the Pentagon got a trillion from to fund black ops.

"“any good books on the Shadow banking system"

http://www.stewwebb.com/Bush_Millman_Clinton_Lindner_Crime_Family_Flow_Chart1.jpg

(pakistan nukes may fall into the hands of our nemesis)

and so our mortal enemy, bin laden, sees his plan comming together

us goes bust trying to guzzle oil and use exotic securitization in exchange for trade imbalance

and as we took our eye off of afghanistan to conquer iraq

pakistan, a nuclear state, now boarders on the edge of collapse and revolution

and who do you think will bubble up to the surface with his hands on a nuke???

never under estimate your enemy

Besieged Pakistan To Restore Chief Justice - CBS News

In the previous thread, nova said...

"Please feel free not to include me. I am rather shallow. Except when I am at sea."

Nova, you are always in my thoughts, to include you in print would be redundant.

How are they going to get the money to be re-elected if they kill their cash cows? Does he mean to give democracy a chance where incumbents have to fight fair with first-timers. Not!!

This may come as a suprise to some, but the US is the only first world democracy with legalised bribary.

At the start of 1933, two men are walking down the street - one with a gold coin in his pocket and the other with a bottle of whiskey in his coat - the man with the coin would be an upstanding citizen and the man with the whiskey would be the outlaw. A year later, precisely the reverse was true.

Socrates was satirized by Aristophanes and was in some other famous historian's works (Xeno?) I think he had a compeling personality. Altho Christ is mentioned nowhere but the bible, Pontius Pilate was referred to in Josephus' writings. At the time, he was an annoying nobody to the Romans. Early Christians were referred to a lot, including by Nero of starting the famous fire. The bible is of course contradictory, but a compelling personality comes through.

Ok, how about Confusius?

You actually think no alpha male is anything but a jerk?

"“I can't believe this Denniger guy constantly writing all that bilge. It is a sad say when a man starts believing his own bullshit"

Specifically what bilge are you referring to? We'd be a lot better off if Denninger was Treasury Secy. instead of the loser we currently have.

The US seems to be really lagging on this issue, when it should be leading - assuming it wishes to continue to play a leading role in world banking in the future. I think the reason is the fact that the US banks own so much of the government.
However, that excuse won't cut it with the rest of the world. A lot of countries feel they got kneecapped by the US laxity and acceptance of criminal and near-criminal behavior by our biggest banks. We'll reform or we'll lose our position.