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Hey, that reminds me... If any of you need a loan mod, drop me a line.
I think Professor Krugman secretly appreciates informed dissent and is giving CR some free publicity.
Wait a minute. If they had a 1-800 number and deposited cashier's checks, how could they possibly not get caught?
Can we really judge this as any worse than the crimes that Wall Street and DC have perpetrated?
I do feel a little sorry for the victims, but I also feel a certain satisfaction that some people who planned to get a free lunch instead got bitten. Not everyone looking for a loan mod is a victim who deserves a break.
I wonder what goes through the mind of this kind of criminal. How do you avoid recognizing yourself as scum every time you look in the mirror?
So she was scammed by small time crooks instead of the big banks?
//Castellanos had been a victim of an alleged loan modification swindle -- a financial crime in which scammers pretend to help distressed borrowers renegotiate their mortgages with their banks but instead pocket the money and leave the homeowners in worse straits than before.//
Feckless,
These people have seen the same face in the mirror their entire lives, and these actions are second nature to them.
I've ceased being amazed by such stories. It's clear that in today's tightly structured financial structure a very small number of people can really eff it up for the majority.
This (latest) Goldman thing with the stolen trading algorithms is very interesting. I think a key question is one the Reuters journalist posed: "It’s not clear why the authorities and apparently Goldman waited so long to move on Aleynikov, even though they knew he had uploaded the information weeks ago." I think ZeroHedge's analysis describing anomalies in trading this last week as the reason is likely correct. GS didn't want to trigger the publicity generated by an arrest as long as Aleynikov hadn't passed the code to a competitor.
Nemo, economic crime pays very well, it's difficult to prosecute, and sentencing is usually light. Sadly, our best hope for meaningul justice is the existence of karma.
I know, TJ. I just wonder what lies they tell themselves to make it okay.
Finally clicked through and read the whole article.
Upshot is that the ringleaders took the cash and ran to Mexico. Awesome.
Our second home loan in 2000 was with the builder, who immediately sold it off to Homeside. Homeside sent me a refund a check for our escrow so that they could force a default and dump their own insurance on us. It was at this point that I realized the United States was no longer a trustworthy country for property rights.
The builder went under a couple weeks after we took title and it turned out that the title company, too, was involved in some level of fraud. They'd certified twenty houses to be clear of liens when perhaps $1 million of liens existed.
Builder deceived us.
Homeside tried to cheat us.
Title company involved in fraud.
This level of fraud no longer surprised me.
Feckless,
You're missing the point -- they aren't like us. They don't have to lie to themselves because there's no remorse for what they do. They enjoy it.
That makes a lot of potential victims, noted Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown. "People are desperate," he added. "Desperate people do desperate things."
That is how the story in the newspaper ends. What they don't acknowledge and few in the USofA acknowledges is that the real desperation was the housing boom ITSELF in Cali ( and elsewhere ) - this is just the fallout. I have so many anecdotes about that desperate madness that descended on human beings.. Like when we sold the house in Simi Valley, CA in 2005 - the freakin' postman wanted to know what we sold it for - "far far more than what its worth" is what I told him, my polite Brit way of saying "none of your damn biz". Or when waiting at the carousel at Las Vegas airport in 2006 ( or whatever the year was when the desert bloomed ) and overhearing:
African-American guy to buddy: "So did you take any money out then ?"
Mid-Eastern guy: " Yeah, I took out about 80K from the house; but there's still another 40K left I reckon".
The ethnic aspects are worth mentioning just to reiterate that the madness infected everybody - no group was immune.
"Nuts, f***king Nuts", I said to myself as I grabbed my bag and headed for the exit.
-K
Nemo, yeah - sounds like $1 million bucks.
No one should pay anyone in advance for a loan mod (not this scam - but a common one).
And no one should mail their payment to a new address. I wonder why the banks didn't recognize this is some sort of fraud?
best to all.
OT, sorry but desperate to figure this out
CR...or anyone
last november the SEC permitted the nyse to create a new category of market maker called an SLP (supplemental liquidity provider)
to my knowledge goldman sachs is the only member of that elite club
why, when GS is already one of the dozen or so primary broker dealers on the nyse, does it advantage either the nyse or goldman to be an slp???
i just heard about this reading comments over at zero hedge regarding the allegation that gs uses web site data to do some front running to which gs of course obfuscated and denied see comments
Goldman Sachs Responds To Zero Hedge | zero hedge
and for the original article announcing the slp program see
NYSE Launches SLP Program with Goldman Sachs
note
jeffery davis chief counsel for nasdaq complained in a letter to the sec that this proposal grants non competitive advantages to gs
http://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nyse-2008-108/nyse2008108-1.pdf
anyone?
TJ, I think we are all equally capable of heinous acts, with no need for remorse. Our brains are wired to believe the stories we tell ourselves. Crooks just tell different stories, that's all.
broward, your story us probably a bit extreme, but it does sound right to me in that home loan fraud became normal in the 2000's. Borrowers lied, mtg brokers lied and misled, lending companies lied, investment banks and rating agencies misled, etc, and there was a lot of averting of gazes. That's one reason I am so agitated about the dumping of the moral hazard issue. We aren't going to do very well in the long run if we are corrupt to the core, even if extending the corruption reduces the impact of one recession.
skk,
No kidding. People were absolutely desperate to get into a house, any house (if not multiple houses). The boom cliches certainly reflect that attitude, too.
p.s.: Good to see you posting.
Goldman wanted the issue contained. Now that the story is out they can't use the technique to continue to steal a penny ten billion times a day and have to revert to the much more transparent and traceable methods of stealing a few million dollars a few times a day.
Feckless,
Although I don't totally disagree, I still believe most people are basically good and definitely know when they're doing wrong. Doesn't always stop them, but it can haunt them.
OTOH, those that prey on other people tend to just be that way, with no conscience whatsoever. Data tends to support that, with 5% of the population generally committing 95% of the crimes (or some such).
""Buy and hold" is dead in an era when the SPARCStations are colo'd on the NYSE and NASDAQ floors and are making fractions of pennies on millions of transactions."
Hoopajoops LTD wrote:
"This is what capitalism has become? Are we living in a science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut? Our market has enough processing power thrown at it to become sentient, and as its first conscious act it decides to jerk itself off at the speed of light until it dies?"
First of all LOL, that was a sharp whack to my funny bone.
Ha ha! I'm glad someone laughed at that. Sometimes telling jokes in here is like doing standup in an empty room in front of a camera. Good thing I laugh at my own jokes, so I get some feedback. I guffawed after I wrote that one.
I really liked the speed of light one too, Hoops.
"why, when GS is already one of the dozen or so primary broker dealers on the nyse, does it advantage either the nyse or goldman to be an slp???"
mock,
When you put it so plainly, it's kind of amazing to realize that this fact has been out there for a while and has gotten little attention.
The flip answer is "Goldman pwnz the FedGov"...
The road to Hesperia is paved with not so good intentions...
Conjure Bag has his own thoughts on how to deal with these con artists, but I won't tell you what they are.
You'd throw up.
But, it would put an end to that type of behavior for a thousand years.
Wasn't Peggy Lipton in the Loan Mod Squad?
From the linked article:
"Santos, who has three children, told investigators she had no idea she was involved in anything illegal. She had answered a help-wanted ad to be the "U.S. financial representative" for a firm selling time-shares in Mexico, according to court papers and Santos' husband."
This reminds my of something. I am something of a student of spam, and it occurs to me that I have seen a lot of solicitations for people to act as financial intermediaries in a strikingly similar way to what is described in the article. Now assuming that you get a 0.01% response rate to spam, and you send 10 million pieces per day...and there are a lot of desperate people out there sitting at home collecting unemployment and reading their email, and we have seem reports in the recent past of people leasing out their credit to FB scammers - put it all together, and the scam described above could be carried out without setting foot on U.S. territory.
Sure Santos may be lying. But I'll bet you could do this by remote control.
Spam #1:
"Earn big bucks placing hand-lettered signs on freeway off-ramps. Payment via Western Union. Work from Home!"
Spam #2:
"Make big bucks answering telephones for our collections service. Work from Home!"
Spam #3:
"Our international company needs local agents to set up accounts and manage our customer relationships in your area. Work from Home!"
I have already seen #2 and #3. Maybe #3 hires #1?
mp,
Pitch it to Hollywood as a horror/slasher type flick and make a few mil.
TJ, Hollywood couldn't deal with it.
No how, no way.
mock-
This is lifted from KD's site in the comments section...it sure sounds to me that it is very likely...props to "mediocre fred"
"My bet is that this code is front-running transactions by GS's own customers. You place a bid for 3x the daily average volume for a stock, GS would detect that, and run their own transaction just ahead of yours, hopefully absorbing some part of that profit margin by driving up the price before it hits the trade floor, and then selling into your trade. You place an offer to dump 1% of some company, they execute a short just before your offer hits. If you think about it, this is effective against you BEST customers. After all, the bigger the transaction, the more it will move the market. But if 10,000 customers decide at the same time to buy a commodity, and you can know ahead of time, you can take a quick profit."
The real shitter here is that we all KNEW they were up to something now it appears we know how....and so do ALOT of people with the means to screw them back for a change. If that code has notes attached to it I bet it has alot of incriminating information for the NYSE, Treasury, FED and the Obamaniacs .
This is a huge story however it involves GS and people who have been untouchable so it may not get much play.
Futures don't seem to be down enough for it to warrant what this really points out IMO.
Ciao
MS
mp, does it involve the soft-serv ice cream machine son of mp bought second hand?
"I think we are all equally capable of heinous acts, with no need for remorse. Our brains are wired to believe the stories we tell ourselves."
.....I hate to break it to you, feckless......we all AREN'T capable of heiness acts. There are still a few left that wouldn't even think of taking advantage of another person nor steal from anyone. Remorse never even enters into it. I've realized there ARE "bad guys" out there that would just as soon shoot you as look at you, but if a person is aware of this, the idiot usually moves on to the person that "doesn't notice the surroundings".
"mp, does it involve the soft-serv ice cream machine son of mp bought second hand?"
Nope.
Let's just say that scam artists should be on a lookout for mp and Conjure Bag.
And avoid them at all costs.
mp,
Please tell Conjure that my analysis above was pure speculation and that I may have simply been studying spam too long in an effort to create better filters.
Thanks,
SM
The thing about the GS front-running that gets me is the disclosure was there in plain language; it was just buried in the "fine print" of the website.
my analysis above was pure speculation
The "financial agent" jobs are already documented as a scam.
Scams Target Online Job Seekers
unsuspecting job seekers were �hired� by overseas con artists in a modern-day take on the old-fashioned check cashing scheme. In these cases, the scammers claimed to need a financial agent to cash and write checks for their international company, with a percentage of each transaction promised to the employee
mp,
Count me in. I'll bring the black flame candles and the Necronomicon. Tell Conjure that Cthhulhu sends his regards and thanks him. That last batch of souls were delicious.
Some peoples' vulnerability surprises me. Genuinely.
We do a lot of research on every entity with which we deal, on both the buy and sell sides.
The intelligence value alone makes it worth it.
I found this comment over at ZeroHedge to be very insightful, from a poster "ARM":
"I am somewhat surprised by the GS reaction. IP theft happens all the time and would very rarely involve prosecution. In fact this guy was the VP in charge of the developers, for all practical purposes he knew (should have known) the working principles of all the moving parts. I know coders love to blow their horn, code is important, but the underlying principles for the trade are much more so. If this guy knew the trades, he could easily replicate them with a new set of coders. In fact that is what usually happens, and why quant funds have a hard time keeping their edge. Thus the reaction is unexpected. I would love to know if there is anything else in those codes. If I was GS, I too would be very nervous about executing a code, whose weaknesses are exposed. I would not expect that particular team to be trading tomorrow."
I think this is likely highly accurate...the software itself is irrelevant. Once the algorithm gets out new software implementing the algorithm is relatively trivial to reproduce.
It's hard for me to believe that GS would front-run trades. Not because they are too ethical, it just seems too mundane and low-rent. They must have a lot more ingenious ways to rip people off, just for style points. It'd be like James Bond ordering a Schlitz.
BSR, "heinous" is in the eye of the beholder. What WOULDN'T you do to protect your family?
NorkaWest
wrote: Someone "borrowed" the code for GS secret computer trading programs: (in previous thread)
....
around '95 I was working at a software development firm bear Wall St (later this firm became Plural and was bought by Dell)
Their client base was all the big banks and I-banks. One project we were involved in was with Goldman. It was an M&A analytics
program which we promised to do at a fixed price of 800K. (which was foolhardy in itself) By year end we finally had the project rolled out
after project creep galore. Goldman asked us to do something we had never done for another client - disable the print and copy features,
if memory serves. (EDIT)
GS ordered workstations without floppy drives which made the roll-out a tad more difficult. When the bill came due the
M&A group cried poor said they could only pay us 550K. Told the partners to stand fast on the 800k (even with that we lost money
But, they caved! Goldman's promise to throw them more work in the future was a teaser enough... did GS deliver on their promise?
early that year of '95 I strongly recommended we build up our Internet qroup which was 1 1/2 people. Partners were married to Client/Server and it was only when Bill Gates gave his 'going to go hardcore speech' that they woke up a bit... I was out the door by then...
It is funny to say this, but many fairly honest black guys have been saying that for some time.
//It was at this point that I realized the United States was no longer a trustworthy country for property rights.//
"The thing about the GS front-running that gets me is the disclosure was there in plain language; it was just buried in the "fine print" of the website."
Link?
I don't think you need to front-run in the traditional sense to perpetrate this sort of fraud. All you need is a real time data feed with volume information and the ability to get in and out fast. Trade activities are not Mandelbrot sets beyond a certain depth of zoom. Look at a real-time ticker chart some time and you'll see what I mean.
Of course, having advance knowledge of trades would be a bonus for the criminally inclined.
Thus the reaction is unexpected.
The VP himself may be a fraud that scammed his way into the job.
mp,
Going Vlad 'the impaler' on those scumbags?
Sure puts a whole new light on last weeks' unusual conditions extended trading session eh? Any bets that tomorrow's trading volume is 60% of normal?
sm,
ZeroHedge had a series of articles on how GS agreements and trading platform documents all talk about collecting client data for internal use, and those uses are not clearly defined.
KFP;
"I think this is likely highly accurate...the software itself is irrelevant. Once the algorithm gets out new software implementing the algorithm is relatively trivial to reproduce."
I would like to read the comments in the code. They could be explosive.
//
// here, we capture the incoming orders and compare against volume and direction
// if the ducks are quacking, we feed them now
//
They could be explosive.
IOW, they could be incriminating.
Umyes.
GS owns us.gov.
//IOW, they could be incriminating.//
"front-running clients"
The client XMAS party should be a real "hoot" this year at GS.
"we had a great year here at GS"
"oh you're in the client services account section?"
"well we made a few boo-boo's this year....come over here to this OTHER party....yea the one in the other building serving the subway party platter"
Ciao
MS
sm,
Here's the url for the specific article at ZH:
Is Goldman Legally Frontrunning Its Clients? | zero hedge
In the GS site: "You acknowledge that we may monitor your use of the Services for our own purposes (and not for your benefit). "
By saying "not for your benefit", they are making it pretty plain.
I agree the code would make interesting reading...
Also, sometimes method names can be very interesting to read and think about.
Here's the next VP of Prop Trading:
A step too far for Ecclestone? - Planet-F1 News - from planet-f1.com
Ciao
MS
As BSC and LEH have proven, loss of faith in an institution can kill it more quickly than any criminal act. We can dream...
KFP,
Thanks for the link. I wonder how a court would view that? AFAIK you cannot protect yourself against federal charges by claiming that your customers agreed to be defrauded, for example.
Maybe at this very moment former GS employees now members of the administration are busy constructing a trading program to let the US Treasury front run the US Dollar.
ZH is definitely a blog to follow. I do. Its gaining a lot of well deserved kudos too. Certainly helped me come to a decision to stop trading from late April onwards - although timeworn principles of "if your system stops working, stop" played a part. I follow what that group of bloggers say there with a a lot of interest. zero hedge | on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero although I prefer the older format at zerohedge.blogspot.com ( btw, sorry, CR for that plug
)
-K
futures getting slowly taken down.......was at -63 now -47
Betcha we get some happy news before the PM tomorrow morning...say something to the effect of the uptick rule being re-instated or outright banning of fin, stocks again...
Ciao
MS
skk,
Yeah, I prefer the older format, too.
sm_landlord
agreed. the algorithm is the gem. some years ago I decided I needed to know more about AI so I enrolled in
2 grad classes at Columbia hoping to plug my knowledge gap.
...
the most important thing I learned about algorithms is that each has a flaw.
....
Rob Dawg asked:
why didn't CR trademark hoocoodanode? under the new copyright law if he can prove he used it first in a material way
then it is his, you don't have to make a formal declaration anymore...
I believe I have a short video of Law Prof. Jennifer Urban of Stanford speaking on this very issue... (I'll check my library and post it...)
I prefer to call that "fraud"
//I think it was Lucifer who said this the other day in the discussion about climate change... about scientists using 'plugs' when the data was inconvenient.//
about scientists using 'plugs' when the data was inconvenient
Frog DNA?
gee I should have trademarked BFF...been using that for three years.....
Ciao
MS
here's a brief scene from David Mamet's House of Games:
seems very apropos here!
(edit)
(sorry for the use of profanity but I'm quoting from the scene)
.....
Joey: The bitch is a booster.
Mike: The bitch is a born thief, man.
Mr. Dean: So, you had her made from the jump?
Mike: I'm tellin' ya. A ton of fuckin' bricks! Show me some REAL con-men.
Joey: Yeah, we showed her some con-men.
Mike: We showed her some DINOSAUR con-men. Some old style.
Joey: Yes, sir.
Mike: Years from now, they're gonna have to go to a museum to see a frame like this.
Joey: That's right.
Mr. Dean: Took her money and screwed her, too.
Mike: A small price to pay.
when to comes to swindlers and con men nobody does it better than Mamet!
note to MS:
the use of BFF would not qualify, it has to be both original and creative,
that is if it is pedestrian it's not copyrightable...
here are a few more pearls of wisdom from Mike played by Joe Mantegna in "House"
....
Mike: Everybody gets something out of every transaction.
Mike: What I'm talking about comes down to a more basic philosophial principle: Don't trust nobody.
Much more common loan mod fraud is borrowers doing occupancy & income fraud upon the banks in order to get their mortgage rate cut. But that story doesn't make the news because the borrowers are the "victims".
duke,
everyone and his brother quotes from Glengarry Glen Ross but there are some real gems
in American Buffalo!
agreed about Mamet... hope he writes a play on Wall St, I always felt that
Stone's movie missed the mark in so many ways. One, that he made
the Gecko character into an anti-hero. I am sure that that was not his artistic goal.
Someone mentioned upthread that the GS code "borrowing" might lead to much lower volume tomorrow. If true, what would that do to the VIX (and how could it make me wealthy)?
re: GS code "theft"
It is difficult to imagine in whose interest it is to publicise the details of this case.
I think we won't hear much now.
TJ & the Bear
wrote:
mp,
Pitch it to Hollywood as a horror/slasher type flick and make a few mil.
hard sell, there. IMO
the old slasher formulas aren't working at the box office anymore,
and the Saw sub-genre is played out...
Duke- "...the old slasher formulas aren't working at the box office anymore, and the Saw sub-genre is played out... "
Agreed. Anyway, slashing and sawing is sooo old.
To all a good night, day, whatever.
They offered her an attractive loan modification that lowered her monthly payments, and instructed her to send the payments to a "Payment Processing Department" at a P.O. Box. They even had a 1-800 number. Amazing.
Yes. Why, it's getting hard to tell the fly-by-night scammers apart from the dependable, legitimate scammers.
the other day I posted my vid mash-up YouTube - Khmer Rouged Up She's Gonna Pop a .30 Caliber Machine Cap in ya' ASS!
of Srey Dau (Lady Star) engaged in weapons training using a MP 5 machine gun...
I also posted this on my Facebook account which BTW is an alias...
surprised how many comments I got from women who wanted to get in on that action!!
they were jazzed, must be that latent Linda Hamilton thing I guess (except she is more ripped)
(deleted) late night only crowd.... duke
Duke of Con Dao -
of Srey Dau (Lady Star) engaged in weapons training...
So why? Did the Dad think he could make some money or just cause?
The mind set escapes me always.
MS -
gee I should have trademarked BFF...been using that for three years.....
It's still outside of normal people working hours right?
Well there is best friend forever.
Bank Failure Friday.
Or as I knew it. Best Fu**ing Friend.
B.... ****** Freak, etc.
You know, I miss the old days when reaching out to touch someone meant something. Or not.
Kauai K.
kidnapping Srey Dau twice in Thailand had nothing to do with money. lack of money or power isn't something her
Daddy suffers from...
....
no, Daddy said to her 'come home to Cambodia'... and he had the resources to bring her home, willingly or unwillingly!
enough said.
Mock,
I only trade futures , so I'm really not a knowledgeable person in this fight. However this looks like a fight over whether an agency order is sent to Goldman Sachs or is sent to another NASD marketmaker which may or may not be a NYSE member (like Goldman). Apparently NASD computers have been taking volume away from other NYSE members so the NYSE is retaliating by offering fee rebates to it's members that execute trades on the NYSE platform if they offer more aggressive and/or larger size quotes. This rule should attract some business to the NYSE from the NASD. My WAG is that some large orders will get a tighter, deeper market as a result of giving special rebates to some firms like GS.
Also, if the law permits, GS could funnel part of its rebate back to the firm which sent GS the order. That rebate won't necessarily be given to the customer.
This seems to be fight over who gets to make money executing an order.
I miss the old days when reaching out to touch someone meant something
I miss the old days when manipulation in all things was the exception instead of the rule.
Lady Star is cute enough but she never goes full-auto, Duke.
Great script but sucky ending.
broward,
baby steps broward, baby steps... I'm working her up to full auto... soon we are going to hit the .30 caliber (I have a vid of me that sooner or later I'll post)
as for the script it's still in development, where's Scott Fitzgerald when you need him?
....
on Barney Frank:
this was posted as a comment to the Frank Rich column in the Times,
"Funny that you quote Barney Frank warning about the consequences of "hanging out with bankers." It's not suprising that Frank understands these consequences "better than the White House" -- he's actually the posterchild for the corrupt, symbiotic relationship he describes. As the ranking Democrat and then the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, he was responsible for the oversight of Fannie Mae -- and some "oversight" it was. His longtime partner, Herb Moses, was a Fannie executive from 1991 to 1998 -- that didn't help much with the public trust, either."
didn't know that about his partner!
Brock Sampson (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/6/2009 - 12:26 am
* reply
* Ignore user
It's hard for me to believe that GS would front-run trades. Not because they are too ethical, it just seems too mundane and low-rent. They must have a lot more ingenious ways to rip people off, just for style points. It'd be like James Bond ordering a Schlitz.
member for 5 hours and 28 minutes at time of my post which is five hours m/l after Brock Sampson posted this horse shit.
Set the scene:
VP for Bad Press @ GS: Get me Brock Sampson.
Asst to VP: Who's Brock Sampson?
VP: you'll find his number on my desktop, it's a word file titled WTSHTF.
Asst: I'm on it.
Ring ring
Brock Sampson: Sampson, talk to me.
Asst: Hold please.
VP: Brock those bastards at CR and ZeroHedge and that asshole Denninger are all over us. I'm sending you an encrypted email, get on it. Of course, this will be at your usual rate.
Sampson: I got it, I'm on it. Out here.
Registers at CR. Posts the above, spreads more dissonance at several other sites, cashes check.
Returns to his other GS project: "How can we sue the fuck out of some guy named Matt."
Registers at CR. Posts the above, spreads more dissonance at several other sites, cashes check.
Alas, the paranoia.
Is it manipulation.... or is it madness?
What did your wife do to those green beans, Volker?
Only a forensic scientist knows for sure.
I take pleasure from tweaking people.
yaneverknow!
My GF went back to Seattle.
Wasting away again on CR Ville.
Waiting for a new pillar of salt
Some people say
That Bernanke's to blame
But I know
it's Greenspan's damn fault.
Volker....
Brock Sampson LOLROTF! (edit)
"As through this world I've travelled,
I've seen lots of funny men.
Some rob you with a six-gun,
Some with a fountain pen.
"As through this world you ramble,
And through this world you roam,
You'll never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home."
Woody Guthrie, "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd"
8)
I have it on good authority that GS is the Anti Christ
Good morrrrning Mary-Nam!
I just love the smell of quants roasting in the morning.
Here's another one: same thing at UBS...
UBS Accuses Three Quant Traders Of Stealing Its Secret Code
I thought there might be a Satyam link somewhere but can't track it at the moment.
Elmo's on the prowl through Europe and US futures. Asia tankity tank.
C
I have it on good authority that GS is the Anti Christ
Does that mean that Wall Street is the Ninth Level Of Hell?
What about California?
We who know anything about the Pacific NW KNOWS California ranks high within the levels of Hell.
Remember Tom McCall: "Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live."
California ranks high within the levels of Hell.
Jackson beats Cobain.
NeverLand beats EMP.
Haunted Mansion beats Forks.
Abraham Lincoln once said "Tis better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
The worst year of my life was the week I spent in Forks.
broward, when you put it that way, I think I'll just stay in flyover land.
The worst year of my life was the week I spent in Forks.
Bah, humbug.
The best vampires live in Sacramento.
.....I hate to break it to you, feckless......we all AREN'T capable of heiness acts.
Screw a person over enough, throw in some sleep deprivation, and they can become a different person ... a person capable of anything.
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
one more reason I won't fly:
Ryanair to make passengers stand - Telegraph
A barstool with a seat belt?
Cripes!
ethnic unrest in China:
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
My first flight was in the summer of '69, LA to NYC on American Airlines..
Passengers were expected to dress upscale for flights back then, the stewardesses were hot as hell, I ate with real cutlery and the airlines were making money...
It's just the opposite now.
OTOH, those that prey on other people tend to just be that way, with no conscience whatsoever
Thre are all kinds. Probably some psychopaths.
But many more probably come from poverty and/or abusive backgrounds. It's easy to rationalize your acts if you think you have been dealt a bad hand and the game is rigged in favor of those who already have everything.
And let's face it, with the upper crust cheating as much as they are, it's hard to decide who's more amoral than the other.
China riots 2000 miles from Beijing.
Sort of like hearing of riots in Billings Montana if you live in NYC.
A barstool with a seatbelt is a good idea in a bar.
Loan mod frauds like this ratchet the moral hazard up ever higher, and the preyed upon see that the TBTF goliaths are getting help, but they aren't.
Barstool will never happen on planes due to liability issues.
seeds of unrest:
Drove 2,000 miles to get axed Day 1! N.Y. miner gets shaft upon arriving in Montana
Comrade: from the article--
"Michael O'Leary, the chief executive, has already held talks with US plane manufacturer Boeing about designing an aircraft with standing room."
Does it really matter where a revolution starts, be it far away in a backwater, or close to home?
BFD. I could have talks with Boeing about having a dreamliner with Beanbags, but the FAA would never approve it and the first hard landing(not an uncommon occurance on that POS airline) you'd have multiple back injuries.
Besides, O'leary is a bullshitter always chasing a headline.
O'Leary's Cash Cow = SRO
"It was at this point that I realized ..."
"This level of fraud no longer surprised me."
OT:
CONsumers, please remove your belt, shoes and prepare to be felt up by a TSA agent before boarding the aircraft...
Meanwhile...
Security Breaches at Federal Buildings - ABC News
Homeland Security is a F*king joke!