Banks...............

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

Ok I waited all fuckin day for someone to make a thread about this shit. No one did, so once again...................Johnny'll do it

What does the failure of Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch mean to the U.S. & global economy?

[voy4her]

it means that maybe the intellectual midgets who came up with the idea of sub-prime loans have caused a worsening financial crisis that is actually affecting the entire world, not just the US. THeres going to be another depression if we cant figure out a way to turn it around, and my memos to the WHite House that $300 tax breaks arent going to fix it have all been returned.

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

is it true that this fool has planned another tax rebate check before he exits the oval office???

I just wanna know so I can prepare my accountant...........

[voy4her]

PS love the new avatar JWBL

[voy4her]

not sure, im so overwhelmed by the sheer arrogance of the current administration im in severe overload and have given myself a political time out.

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

PS love the new avatar JWBL

thanks, if SOME users would slim down their avatars I'd get really creative weekly like I used to

til then enjoy the non-enhanced booty

nothing beats natural jello jiggle

[voy4her]

i would happily replace my down pillows with those.

[ed_jaxon]

Love of money.

This shit has been coming for a while.

Tech bust of 2001. Greedy bastards building companies based on NOTHING.

Housing bust. Greedy motherfuckers buying housing up and flipping the shit for what??? Greed. Buying a house then selling it after 3 months for 100s of thousands after putting in what $10,000?

The surplus??? Gone.

War in Iraq? WMDs???

Trillions wasted and 4,000+ American lives lost. All the while letting Afghanistan fester and the Taliban regroup.

Enron.

Tyco.

Halliburton and Blackwater.

This shit is FAR from over.

[Nowhere]

I think it means nothing. Idiots invested in things they shouldn't have.

What percentage of our economy do those two companies amount to? 0.01%? I know MSNBC and CNNFN will dramatize it to the bitter end, but in the end, these morons have to live with their own decisions, and they amount to such a small part of our country, it doesn't matter (other than the emotional bleed-over, which is real).

It's like those people who lost their shirt with the dot.com crash. It's not a person with an ounce of wisdom couldn't see it coming and that it was foolish, in the first place. They dug their own grave.

[voy4her]

Its not going to go away like it was nothing, and if McAncient gets in, it will get worse- not that im saying Obama is the answer, but god save us when Palin takes over in 6 months after McAncient has a brain aneurism squeezing one out on the pan.

[Legend]

All i know is obama just got some ammunition.

[flabbybody]

I was thinking about starting a thread JW, but I was too depressed.
AIG could be the next one going into the crap heap

all the shit they tell you about putting money in your 401K and investing it in stocks.. turns out to be a load of crap.
yea, I'm glad a lot of rich Wall Street pricks will lose their jobs, but lots of little people will get hurt too

I should have blown my money on loose woman

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

I was thinking about starting a thread JW, but I was too depressed.
AIG could be the next one going into the crap heap

all the shit they tell you about putting money in your 401K and investing it in stocks.. turns out to be a load of crap.
yea, I'm glad a lot of rich Wall Street pricks will lose their jobs, but lots of little people will get hurt too

I should have blown my money on loose woman

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03202008/photos/p6g.jpg

he invested well

[hondarobot]

It's the inevitable result of the Fiat System administrated by idiots, which I believe was inevitable, but the Bush crooks helped knock over the first domino. You can't issue currency on a system based on integrity, when no integrity is present to back it up.

The positive in this is that hopefully some economic genius somewhere will emerge to develop a new/viable monetary standard.

From a fiscal perspective, the US just survived the equivalent of Caligula, hopefully Claudius (Obama) is next in line. With McCain, we'd just jump forward to Nero.

[El Nino]

It means the eventual implementation of the N.A.U. (North American Union)

[masterR]

as long as there are Hung angels, long live the internets

[flabbybody]

Asian markets down big tonite
Tuesday's gonna be another ugly day for US stocks

someone's buying me a drink at Sunny's party tomorrow

[unctrld1]

Don't worry, it will all be over soon . . . .

[blckhaze]

means the strippers get a few less tips, and eros starts to get ugly.


Sign of the times. Just another fallout from the housing and mortgage "boom" of the 90s compound with the ost ill advised "war" in history.
Im hoping that Im on the team that develops the new fuel so Ill be made in the shade come 50.

[flabbybody]

no more lap dances

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/markets/markets_newyork2/index.htm

[Paladin]

Well, it isn't helping my portfolios any :twisted:

As for the wall st types getting their just desserts - did anyone check out the "severance packages" that fannie mae and freddie mac execs got :shock:

AIG is 93% down YTD - that's going to hurt a LOT of folks in a lot of countries

Lehman - largest bankruptcy in history

ML - sucked wind so bad that BOA had to buy them.


And that was only one day this week ! :cry:

I don't know how much more of this i (or my wallet) can take.

And jen paris is asking for 1500 / hr - good luck if you can get any takers (then again only a few per month would suffice).

[yodajazz]

no more lap dances

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/markets/markets_newyork2/index.htm

Looks like hard times ahead.

[bsting]

This is the beginning of a meltdown. The banks invested heavily in CMO's - collateralized mortgage obligations. The lowest tranch was propped up through hedge funds - yes, they're still around. The Chicago School of Economics ascended and unrestrained free markets did what they will do. Greenspan kept the champagne flowing and now is the hangover.

Obama is a traditional socialist. Bush is a welfare capitalist dressed as a free marketeer. McCain is supposed to be the next Bush.

The dollar will fall and inflation will run rampant. There isn't any savior on the ballot. Welcome to the Third World, America.

[hondarobot]

This is the beginning of a meltdown. The banks invested heavily in CMO's - collateralized mortgage obligations. The lowest tranch was propped up through hedge funds - yes, they're still around. The Chicago School of Economics ascended and unrestrained free markets did what they will do. Greenspan kept the champagne flowing and now is the hangover.

Obama is a traditional socialist. Bush is a welfare capitalist dressed as a free marketeer. McCain is supposed to be the next Bush.

The dollar will fall and inflation will run rampant. There isn't any savior on the ballot. Welcome to the Third World, America.

Heh. You apparently don't even understand what "socialism" is, as a concept. Do you really think that Obama would stand a chance of being elected if he was actually following a "socialist" objective?

Beyond that, Socialism actually works in some nations. I don't think we're heading for "The Third World", just correcting problems caused by stupidity and greed.

[Solitary Brother]

Wall Street Bond traders caused this fiasco.

[Justawannabe]

Not sure you can blame an aspect of the financial world more than others. Everyone signed onto this fiasco over the past couple decades.

We had a administration that was obsessed with an 'ownership' society without actually working out how that could happen. You couldn't have falling real incomes and rising adjusted market values of homes and increase home ownership.

Investment in jobs only works in a consumer society if the money gets back into the general public's hands. We were continuing to concentrate wealth at the top instead.

Eh... net result is this isn't the end by far. We'll see a lot more of these at various levels before its over. I'm not sure we'll see general bank runs... but I wouldn't be surprised to see localized incidents.

We're still one of the biggest economies on the planet, but we need to recover our work in real properties and hard products... we've lost our ability to correct back to hard values and the effects of deregulation has turned the markets into even more of a game 'can't catch me' than it was before.

Sean

[NYBURBS]

Capitalism is fueled by selfishness (or better yet self-interest) but this is not a bad thing in and of itself. Two of the large problems though have to do with gov't intervention to bail out companies that make poor decisions, the other being the central bank and it's monetary policies.

Darwinian style weeding out of weak businesses, and also consumers who make poor choices (Balloon style mortgage borrowers for instance), would go a long way toward strengthening our economy. There also needs to be more accountability toward the executives who perpetuate frauds in order to profit themselves before the business goes under. They should be in jail the rest of their life and everything they own should be fair game to plaintiffs in civil suits. Truth is though that none of this will happen; sadly we will simply continue down this self destructive path of debt and taxpayer funded gov't intervention into the markets.

[stewmeat]

Ok I waited all fuckin day for someone to make a thread about this shit. No one did, so once again...................Johnny'll do it

What does the failure of Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch mean to the U.S. & global economy?



Good question. But what does it mean for my money that I have in the bank now?

[NYBURBS]

Ok I waited all fuckin day for someone to make a thread about this shit. No one did, so once again...................Johnny'll do it

What does the failure of Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch mean to the U.S. & global economy?



Good question. But what does it mean for my money that I have in the bank now?

It means you had better make sure you're within the FDIC insured limit on your deposits. There are a couple of banks that have a lot of rumors flying around about them (Washington Mutual being one of them).

[bklynboy]

Its very simple what happened.

1) Phil Gramm - yes that Phil Gramm who is advising McCain on economic policy, was the moving force in deregulating these swaps. It means that the fed had no teeth to stop abuses. It became a shell game you package shitty loans and sell them back and forth and roll them into bigger tranches.

2) The banks/credit card companies were predatory when it came to consumers. Pie in the Sky to an unwitting public meant fees. Large fees. Great big fees and interest rates and restrictions on loans were so out of whack that people were peanilzed for paying early. Again, as much as I am a democrat, both parties were asleep on the wheel. The republicans moreso because of their laisse faire attitude. Oh yeah, the free market forces will correct abuses. Right. I've also got ocean front property in Kansas for sale.

3) Short sellers. Short selling should be illegal, period. Oh yes said a republic economist on Bloomberg the other day, it adds liquidity to the market. Only naked short selling should be eliminated. Bullshit. You are betting against America and its companies and hurting innocent people who have invested. Anyone short selling should be banned from the securities industry for two years. You want to bet against something? Go to fucking Vegas.

4) Greed. When people realize their houses will be worth a little less and not try to glom every house on the open market and become slum lords, we can all get back to work. On another note, Lehman (and I worked for them early in my career), bet on the direction these made up securities would go. How utterly stupid. If there is one thing that is true, very, very few people pay back on time and in full. Lehman got what it deserved but . . .

5) This goes back to the short sellers. Soemone out there, whatever hedge funds, wanted Bear Stearns, Lehman and Merrill out of business. They need to be found and brought to justice. Innocent people - many people who were secretaries, word processors, people who served the firm lost everything because of the greed of these short sellers. They must go. String 'em up by their balls I say.

Having said that, the worst thing anyone can do is panick. OK, you lost your job. Cut back, be frugal, be smart. If you work as a temp, take it day by day. Be smart about it. The smart survive. eBay is a very effective wa of cleaning stuff out you don't want and making money. Price things efficiently, make contacts, make deals offline with other eBayers. Be smart and don't panic.

Right now we have what is called a buying opportunity. Apple is cheap, banks are cheap, consumer cyclicals are cheap. If you are American and truly believe in this country we buy and support this country and go after the short sellers.

[chefmike]

Not to worry, John McSame assured us today that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong..."

[qeuqheeg222]

good post brklynboy..the idea of short selling is really a mystery to me in how this is alloed and regulated..yet i also think capital gains should be taxed at a much higher rate than they are-too many rich fucks coming up with new schemes to move the penny from under one shell to the other is not the same as a honest days work at walmart...

[dafame]

I think it means nothing. Idiots invested in things they shouldn't have.

What percentage of our economy do those two companies amount to? 0.01%? I know MSNBC and CNNFN will dramatize it to the bitter end, but in the end, these morons have to live with their own decisions, and they amount to such a small part of our country, it doesn't matter (other than the emotional bleed-over, which is real).

It's like those people who lost their shirt with the dot.com crash. It's not a person with an ounce of wisdom couldn't see it coming and that it was foolish, in the first place. They dug their own grave.

Wow. It doesn't matter? What economics class did you take. You don't understand the "trickle down effect" do you? Do you realize how many people lost their jobs as a result of this? Do you not see how many people are panicking and removing their money from banks that are barely hanging on themselves? Do you realize what this says about the value of the U.S. dollar in the world economy and how our leverage has yet again been weakened with the word that our economic infrastructure is failing? Do you think that it will end with Lehman Bros.? You probably do don't you?

[dafame]

Not to worry, John McSame assured us today that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong..."

He restated himself. What he actually meant by "fundamentals" was the American people. Which means that in my previous post where I asked the question "do you realize how many people lost their jobs as a result of this", what I should have said is do you realize how many "fundamentals of the economy" lost their jobs? If you people think this man is going to have a clue of what to do about our economic problems or any other problems other than who we should attack next then you're delusional.

[doradora]

rip Lehman Bros and Merrill Lynch.

AIG will be same thing? :?

[flabbybody]

FDIC is the government agency that is supposed to guarantee your account up to $100,000 in the evnent that your bank fails and can't give you your money back
Fact is, if banks fail quickly and in large numbers, it will take FDIC years to honor claims. So it may take 3 or more years before you're actually made whole again. And FDIC does not make good on any accrued interest on a CD. After the long wait, you'll get back principle only

Not looking to scare anyone. Just pointing out that the current Wall Street disease can affect everyone, even people who don't own any stocks

[Oli]

Great responses everyone.

-bklynboy, really informative for those who aren't into this. You need shorts to punish the stupid. Don't disagree about Phil Gramm. Predatory lending relies on the receiver accepting the loan.

-defame, as soon as you mention 'trickle down', you lose. It has not and will never work.

-BURBS, the difference between Bear and Lehman was no one thought Bear would go under, and to avoid the panic the government and Morgan stepped up. People have seen this coming for Lehman for the past 6 months, and did nothing, assuming the Feds would give them the same backing as Bear. Big mistake.

Merrill did a good job recognizing their weakness and finding protection and liquidity in BOA.

[hwbs]

i just got an email from ing...it is very pointless....dont know if this is a warning that they are going belly up, lmfao....now remember guys keep contributing to your 401k as all u will see is red for some time , lmao..

[poncho316]

It's simple the rich get richer ....

[poncho316]

Sub-prime loans have been around for decades and have worked successfully when the economy was strong and the programs made sense. What went wrong with whole financial mess we are in is when Wall Street and the top five banks took advantage of the rate cuts after 9/11 and created all these crazy loan programs,(580-620 credit scores, stated – stated to a 100%) …..come on. Anyone with half a brain could have seen what was going to happen…Their investors made trillions of dollars and they are the one buying everything up at pennies on the dollar.

[flabbybody]

BUT no one complained when millions of folks with zero savings and zero employment history were getting mortgages and buying homes that under normal lending scrutiny would have never been approved. Our elected officials were saying it was an American's birthright to be property owners, so let's invite the entire population to the party. And who cares if you can't make your payments... the value of your house is going up 20% per year

Everyone is blaming Wall Street, but this was going on with the tacit approval of the government and the Federal Reserve Bank.
Keep in mind, Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan (appointed by Ronald Reagon) cut the fed funds rate to 1% back in '04. That's what ultimately made all these funky loans possible. And that's why we're in the shit

[poncho316]

Your right ! I wonder how much more the Federal Reserve Bank can take before it goes under...

[NYBURBS]

BUT no one complained when millions of folks with zero savings and zero employment history were getting mortgages and buying homes that under normal lending scrutiny would have never been approved. Our elected officials were saying it was an American's birthright to be property owners, so let's invite the entire population to the party. And who cares if you can't make your payments... the value of your house is going up 20% per year

Everyone is blaming Wall Street, but this was going on with the tacit approval of the government and the Federal Reserve Bank.
Keep in mind, Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan (appointed by Ronald Reagon) cut the fed funds rate to 1% back in '04. That's what ultimately made all these funky loans possible. And that's why we're in the shit

That's exactly my point. Lenders engaged in foolish practices, consumers took out loans they had no business attempting to obtain, and the central banking system helped it all along. Now we are going to increase the debt on everyone to try and help people dig out.

In free markets the only true ethical/moral code is risk. You have to be able to fail and fail big in order to discourage bad business practices (you also have to severely punish fraud). This crap that some companies are just too big to fail sets such a bad precedent for the future (though truthfully this is not the first example of it). Also let's not forget that in good economic times companies love to remind us that they are global and owe no allegiance to any particular nation, but when the shit hits the fan they want our taxpayers to shovel them out.

[hippifried]

All in all this is a pretty good thread. A couple of points:

All these things that're happening, from individual mortgage problems to bank collapses, are symptoms of a deeper malaise. I'm not buying that this is the result of laissez faire policies. There haven't been any. This is the result of economic manipulation from the top. Going back to at least the era of Calvin Coolige, trickle down or supply side economic theory has been geared toward consolidating wealth & economic control in the hands of fewer & fewer people. Consolidation leads to monopolization, & monopolies are anathema to a free market. A free market requires a laissez faire policy to remain so.

Laissez faire policies can mean deregulation but that's not necessarily what it's about. It's about maintaining open competition & allowing the markets to correct themselves. That won't happen in a cornered market. The purpose of regulaton is to make sure everybody' playing by the same rules & that nobody gets total control of anything. That's why we have anti-trust laws. The deregulation policies of the last 25 years or more have been geared toward promoting consolidation, & the manipulators at the top have taken advantage.

What's happening now looks like chaos, but what's actually hapening is the big guys are swallowing up the competition. The feds reclaim Fannie Mae. Morgan grabs Bear Sterns. B of A snatches up Merril Lynch. Best bet is that Goldman Sachs ends up with Lehman. (Do I have those 2 backwards?) Then they all start jockeying to see who's going to end up with all the marbles when they start buying each other. We saw a preview in the late '80s & early '90s when the entire savings & loan industry went down the tubes & got swalowed by the major banks. Credit unions are fighting tooth & nail since then to keep from being forced into the federal reserve.

There's more, but I have to run for now.

[InHouston]

it means that maybe the intellectual midgets who came up with the idea of sub-prime loans have caused a worsening financial crisis that is actually affecting the entire world, not just the US. THeres going to be another depression if we cant figure out a way to turn it around, and my memos to the WHite House that $300 tax breaks arent going to fix it have all been returned.

I agree with all you've said, except for the part about going into a depression. I work with the banking industry, and the greedy Loan Officers decided they could make a butt-load of money by baiting people into sub primes loans they couldn't afford in the end. Personally, I'm glad that came right back and bit the banks right in the ass. For the banks who shut down due to this, it serves them right for ripping the public off. Now there is a market for people in need of fair loans, and some fair-minded financial institutions will steup up and fill that need.

Bastards!

[Buzz]

Soon you too will feel Wall Street's pain. Have any money in a money market fund? You may not be able to get it out, or you will take a loss on what you thought was like a savings account.

Money market giant freezes redemptions (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/money-market-giant-freezes-redemptions/story.aspx?guid=%7B691A8CB9%2DB98F%2D4677%2D87D3%2 D1CC274AB5103%7D)


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- One of the first and largest money market funds has put a seven-day freeze on redemptions after the net asset value of its shares fell below $1. Primary Fund, a $62 billion fund managed by money market fund inventor The Reserve, said Tuesday afternoon that its $785 million holding of Lehman Brothers Holdings debt has been valued at zero. As of 4 p.m., the value of the fund's share is 97 cents. The Reserve said that redemption requests received before 3 p.m. Tuesday will be paid out at $1 a share.
I really question the sanity of anyone who would reelect Bush, by voting for McCain/Palin, so we can suffer through another 4 years of republican mismanagement of the country.

[InHouston]

Soon you too will feel Wall Street's pain. Have any money in a money market fund? You may not be able to get it out, or you will take a loss on what you thought was like a savings account.

Money market giant freezes redemptions (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/money-market-giant-freezes-redemptions/story.aspx?guid=%7B691A8CB9%2DB98F%2D4677%2D87D3%2 D1CC274AB5103%7D)


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- One of the first and largest money market funds has put a seven-day freeze on redemptions after the net asset value of its shares fell below $1. Primary Fund, a $62 billion fund managed by money market fund inventor The Reserve, said Tuesday afternoon that its $785 million holding of Lehman Brothers Holdings debt has been valued at zero. As of 4 p.m., the value of the fund's share is 97 cents. The Reserve said that redemption requests received before 3 p.m. Tuesday will be paid out at $1 a share.
I really question the sanity of anyone who would reelect Bush, by voting for McCain/Palin, so we can suffer through another 4 years of republican mismanagement of the country.

Okay, go crawl back into your doom's day bunker.

[flabbybody]

looks like Uncle Sam's gonna bail out AIG

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080916/aig_loan.html

[ed_jaxon]

I want to hear how people plan on riding this thing out.

I felt bad selling my house but now I feel kinda lucky that it didn't lose more value. Greenspan said home values are going to continue to drop at least for the next 6 months.

I'll get back in the market but I don't have the type of dough to make a killing in this market, I got the kinda dough to get killed if I try to get cute.

I plan on keeping my relatively solid job, finishing my masters, dumping what little debt I have and riding this next four years out.

[Jasadin]

Dow Plunges 300 Points After Lehman Files for Bankruptcy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcQCdLAAb8I

[El Nino]

http://digg.com/political_opinion/Someone_predicted_this_economic_collapse_A_year_ag o_who

[bklynboy]

Folks:

Everyone is good at pointing fingers. At least Obama came out with a six point plan that he had formulated a while ago. McCain did what is called a misdirection. He is for less government, yet called for a commission similar to a 9/11 commission. Guess what. They'll find the usual . . . greed avarice and stupidity. A waste of taxpayer money.

It all comes down to us, the little folks, who can decide the fate of the economy. I am a believer in what I call the Joseph Theorum. Seven years of good will be followed by seven years of suffering. Myself, who has always been conservative and put myself through college and graduate school, I was dumb when it came to my girlfriends and that's why I am in the position I am in. I can only blame myself for that mess.

Regardless, like most, I am going to pay for what Gramm's politicking and ramming through a swaps deregulation bill did. And the government was asleep at the wheel. A shell game was afoot and no one was smart enough to stop it. It went like this. A bank would convince good ol' mom and pop to take out a mortgage or a second mortgage. Buy a second house. Buy a third. Take the money and invest it somewhere. Too bad mom and pop didn't have the collateral to pay for it, but what the heck, right? Times are good and people are rollin'. When banks, who probably knew getting even 50% paid back was impossible, they packaged these loans as some new fandangled financial instrument. Then in a stroke of brilliance, as per the Gramm bill, investment banks bought these packaged duds and borrowed on a 30 or 40 to 1 ratio meaning for every dollar they had in assets, they could borrow 30 or 40 dollars to pay for these and insurance against default. Well guess what. People panicked big time. So did the banks. A small fire became a forest fire real fast. So the Lehmans of the world were left with worthless paper. Their assets became worthless when the shorts forced their stock prices down. Why? Greed, hatred. Because any punk who thinks he is a geek and got shit upon by life wants to take his revenge and sits behind a computer all day to day-trade, that's not mention the hedge funds who should be illegal.

The upshot? Because of Gramm, deregulation, stupidity and greed, innocent hard working people are now bankrupt, or close to it and jobless. And if you don't think the jobless rate is severely understated, guess again. AIG . . Lehman . . .Bear . . .Merrill. Did you see Gov. Patterson of NY State saying that's 11,000 jobs right there? Innocent, bottom-rung, salt of the earth hard working people. That then extends to the service providers - temp agencies, cab companies, food service, security, etc. We call that economic rings.

By the way, for those of you who don't know, short selling is the act of borrowing stock, selling it and rebuying it at a hopefully cheaper price to pay back the stock. Naked short selling means you have no stock in a company at all, sell it and hopefully buy it back at a cheaper price. Say company x's stock is at $100. You sell 10 shares you've borrowed so cash in hand, minus fees is say $900 ($100 for fees). When enough people do that with vast quantities of stock, as per supply and demand, stock price falls. At the close of the market, company x's stock is now $85 a share. You buy it back for 10 shares x $85 and you pay $850. You bank the $50. Do that with enough shares and you can make plenty of money. It should be illegal. You are betting against America and companies. Want to gamble? Go to bleepin' Vegas. You don't like company x or y? Buy shares and complain to management and fellow shareholders, or sell the stock and buy something else. These people should be strung up by their balls. I want these assholes to go to jail and be barred from security trading for a minimum of 2 years. You want to see more of this happen, vote McCain.

Now, I know a lot of you out there will be hurting. We all will be. So be smart, budget and do what you need to in order to save money. How can Hung Angels help? Well, I'll get straiffed and excoriated for this, but $30 to go to a party is more than some can afford. $15 drinks ain't gonna help either. Would you rather have 10 people at $30 a head, or 10 at $15 a head spending more at the bar and having more people come and more customers staying late.

Think about it.

[NYBURBS]

http://digg.com/political_opinion/Someone_predicted_this_economic_collapse_A_year_ag o_who

Yes he did, the man is right on the mark.

[NYBURBS]

blame greenspan he made some bad choices in the 90's and now it is coming back to haunt us all!!!!

It's not about any one specific man or event, but rather a large combination of factors. We continue to engage in bad practices and policies as a nation and now it is biting us in the ass.

[chefmike]

If John McSame had his way, that'd be our social security money Wall St. is losing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-neffinger/hello-if-mccain-had-his-w_b_126968.html

[glenntinnyc]

There is nothing wrog with with short selling, the problem lies in the removal pf the uptick rule, which was put in place after that market crash of 1929. Once this rule was eliminated you had an overwhelmomg case of "naked Shorts" which in turn caused a downward spiral. Also the practice of mark to market accounting took a heavy toll on the capital markeys. When Merril divested a portion of their sub prime loans at 22cents on the dollar all other subprime loand were instantly worth 22cents on the dollar, so in essence evrey other bank looked at their assests in the mortgage buisness drop by 78% instantly. Now if you take into coniseration that fact that we had derugulation in the industry on a whole , the removal of Glass Stegal which separated Comerrcial banks from Investment banks , etc you have a scenario in which all of the financial institutions are intertwined.

It is doubtful this will lead to a depression however. on a whole things will get a bit worse befor ethey get better. As for what it means personally, fdic insures deposits up to 100k in your bank. SPIC acts as the insurance agency for the investment banks, and these banks are not permitted to use investors stocks, bonds wtc to cover debt, so your portfolios if at Lehman will be moved to whomever buys them, as will your portfolios at Merril.

The fact is I would love to blame this administartion for everything but this was brought on by both parties, and the lack removal of oversight that had been in place since 1929 to prevent this exact scenario. On a bright note there are still very bullish areas of the market right now, ie biotech, tech, healthcare etc, so when u get lemons make lemonade.

[DJ_Asia]

it means that maybe the intellectual midgets who came up with the idea of sub-prime loans have caused a worsening financial crisis that is actually affecting the entire world, not just the US. THeres going to be another depression if we cant figure out a way to turn it around, and my memos to the WHite House that $300 tax breaks arent going to fix it have all been returned.

Got news ...its going to be WORSE than the Great Depression! Why?
From Gerald Celente:

WITH EVERYONE RUNNING TO TREASURIES AND INTERNATIONAL MARKETS ON SEPTEMBER 15, 2008, WHAT IS THE BOTTOM LINE TO THE IMPLICATION OF WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW?

We’re going into the worst depression that any living person has ever seen. It’s going to be worse than the Great Depression of 1929 and I’ll give you a some reasons why.

1) In the 1929 Depression, not many people owned homes, so they weren’t carrying that heavy mortgage load. The people who did have homes did not have something called ‘home equity loans,’ which is more money owed on top of the other money. They used to have something else back then called a ‘second mortgage.’ If you had one, you were a loser.

2) Back in the 1929 Depression days, people didn’t have things called ‘credit cards.’

3) The United States didn’t have $14 trillion worth of debt.

4) We still had a manufacturing base in the United States so that when WWII broke out and the economy improved afterwards, we were still able to produce more so than any other country in the world. But now, the U. S. off-shores so much manufacturing now.

5) Back in the Great Depression of 1929, the U. S. government was not $14 trillion in debt and they had a trade surplus, not a trade deficit.

6) We weren’t fighting two wars that have sapped already $2 trillion from our American treasury and it’s getting worse.



“Dragflation”

So, we’re going into a downturn as America is sinking. This is ‘dragflation,’ a term that we at The Trends Journal have coined. When you had stagflation you had a declining and stagnate economy; you had rising inflation. But you also had rising wages. People remember back in the 1970s, they got a 10% cost-of-living increase in our wages.

Now wages are declining, you’re lucky to have a job, the median American household income is below 1999 levels. So we’re in for a devastating crash and people are not prepared for it.

[hondarobot]

Yup, this is gonna be a bad stretch of road for awhile. I'm curious how it will effect adult entertainment in general. From my employment prospective, I think I'll ride this storm out pretty well, strippers and booze will probably be in even more demand then ever. Fortunately, I also have no debt, but I'm pretty much the only person I know who can say that. This is not a good time for owing anyone money (unless it's a bank, because they might just shut down, ironically).

Fasten your seat belts. . .

[Minutemouse9]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=185162&title=Crash-of-the-Titans

[Buzz]

I think this is the interview with Gerald Celente that DJ_Asia was quoting from:

Economic 9/11
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1473

It's a frightening scenario, but it's no longer hypothetical anymore. It's happening now, and gathering momentum.

[DJ_Asia]

I think this is the interview with Gerald Celente that DJ_Asia was quoting from:

Economic 9/11
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1473

It's a frightening scenario, but it's no longer hypothetical anymore. It's happening now, and gathering momentum.

Been listening to Gerald Celente for awhile talk about how bad things were going to get,and at first I thought that he was a classic Doom and Gloomer trying to make a buck by scaring the shit outta everyone.Then everything he said has happened,exactly as he said it would....very bad situation.

[Solitary Brother]

That fucker McCain!
He is acting like he is the answer to this shit when he is the problem.
That Mutha fucka is REALLY trying it.
He must think the media forgot about HIS PAST entanglement in the KEATING 5 BANKING fiasco!
Shut your muth fucka mouth up crook!
The nerve of this guy............

Obama is talking mad shit too...........
He has taken TONS of money from these wall street crooks.

Damned if you do damned if you dont.

You will lose.

Your only choosing by how much.

Good night.

[bklynboy]

Uh, there's plenty wrong with short selling. Selling what you've borrowed or don't have? That's completly anti American and anti business. If there is a company you don't like then don't take out your frustrations on other innocent people. Buy stock in the company and be an advocate of change or don't go near it. Simple as that. The fuckers that sell short are two-bit whores. Plain and simple. They are out to make a fast buck and they don't give a goo fuck who they hurt. Anyone short selling should serve a two-year ban minimum from the securities market. You are manipulating the market.

Yeah, I know all about marking to market - that's just an excuse. What the Republicans did in ramming through the repeal of Glass-Stegal is disgusting. Deregulating markets and stripping the SEC of powers (hello Mr. Gramm) is even worse. Can anyone really tell what the true value of commodities are right now? Gramm "re-Enron'd" the securities markets.

Even more disturbing was a note I saw on Bloomberg last night. I forget the exact wording but it was that hedge funds are beating each other up by short selling what the other guy has. So while these rich, spoiled assholes, who really add nothing to the economy, they don't do research, don't work on a cure for disease, aren't in manufacturing, are trying to spite each others like two-year olds in a sand box, we have to suffer. Goldman dropping $30 a share in one day? Why? Because they didn't make enough money as the analysts said they would?

This is absolutely sickening. McCain is an enabler (this just in - you know he invented the blackberry? Wow . . .). So what ever became of Sarbanes-Oxley? Uh, not so much . . .

Hedge fund managers should be lined up and shot at dawn.

I say now is the time to buy and stick it to these fuckers.

[glenntinnyc]

Short selling in and of itself is fine. Lets not talk about about marke manipulation as if only the shorts are doing it. The problem with shorting was the rremoval of the uptck rule and the ability of naked shorting. In the past both of these rules prevented what we now saw. In actuality it is far riskier to be short a stock than long it, since if you own a stock at 10 then your total exposure is 10 points, if you short it at 10 or any other number for that matter your total exposure is unlimited to the upside while maximun gain is limited to the underlying stcok value.

As for manipulation of the markets, on the long side, what about institutional investments getting in much eralier than the average retail customer who in turn normally buys at the top and provides a measure of liquidity for the insititutions to divest their positions. Is that not manipulation?

If you want to blame the wwhole system fine, a revamp of the rules is something we all need, but to say that shorts should be illegal etc is just plain silly. BTW Goldman reported net income off 70 pewrcent from the same quarter last year. Any other company posting those numbers would have had similiar results on the street, a 20% drop on a 70% quarterly income loss is not unusual.

Sarbanes Oxley has little to do with what we have just seen, It was put in place mainly to account for fraudulent accounting procedures, which goes back to my original point of Mark to Market accounting. Also it deals with Corporate fraud which we have not seen here as well an general conflict of interests via anylasts, also not seen. The fact is what has happened is simply a matter of our country and corporate insitutions living on credits for the last 60 years, and now the well has run dry. You want to blame short sellers fine but in the end they were just the culmination of the whole situation.

And what is more American than making money? all of a sudden everyone sits here and screams corportae greed and preying on the weak is un American, really guy have you not looked at our foreign policy over the past 100 years, have you no concept of the capital markts over that same time frame, Its what America does best., except this time we did it to ourselves. Sit there and cry foul but while all those shorts were coming in, you the investor did fuck all to stop it, you the institutions did fuck all to stop it, the markets are simple more sellers and stocks go down more buyers and they go up, fact is not one person was sitting there buying blocks of Lehman or Merril or Aig or wamu or for that matter anything yesterday, because if they had been the shorts would have lost. And take things further if people had any sense at all and they are going long in a distressed company at least hedge yourself with a put a few points out of the money to mitigate your risk, Lehman dec 09 5's were trading at a hardly any premium when the stck was 17 or 18 or even 12 a share.
You donlt like greedy hedge funds, why because those guys make a ton, get an mba and go work there then, I am not discounting the hard work that every person puts in their day, and Teachers and Doctors and Police men atc should not have to bear the brunt of these problems but the fact is those same people whom you villify , that 1% of the population account for mor ethan 50% of our national taxes, so while they may make a ton they also are the ones who will now pay more back via taxes. I for one was once on that side and chose to do something else for a living but i don'y hold any grudge for friends still making the money.

[moonvisage]

A lot seems to have happened today,including a massive global crackdown on speculators,who have caused all the problems.

[lahabra1976]

Well short selling has been in effect eversince the market has been around, its nothing new. And in effect, isn't a bad thing since the shares are being borrowed and, therefore, don't effect forces of supply and demand. But what they call "naked" shorts I believe do effect the market, meaning shorting shares of stock that haven't been borrowed. Its good the SEC has finally put a rule to help prevent this, I already see some financial stocks recovering today. I think it should have been obvious to the SEC that this partially had to do with downfall of some financial stocks when they first "threatened" to establish the rule back in the summer and all the sudden many financial stocks went up. I think the IYG (represents the overall financial sector) went up about 12% or so. When Bear Sterns went bankrupt, I believe about 98% of their shares were being shorted statistically (would be impossible without "naked" shorts). So I think the evidence is pretty strong of the effect of these "naked" shorts, but the SEC being themselves just took so long to put a rule in effect.

I guess the tougher question is if this rule was in effect earlier lets say maybe back in beginning of the year, could have the takeover of Fennie Mae, Lehman Brothers bankruptsy could have been prevented. Probably way to tough of a question to answer. Financial stocks depend heavily on selling stock to the public to raise funds and the selling pressure of the "naked shorts" could have theoretically kept the stock price down making it to hard to raise new capital. And it was the lack of capital that apparently lead to all this.

Will this effect the global economy? Even harder to answer, but as far now, the credit problems are mainly isolated to real estate, it hasn't significantly spread to commercial credit. If it did, then it be something to really worry about. The stock market itself is only made about 4-5% real estate so if the credit problem remained isolated to real estate, not likely going to see an effect on the global economy. The takeover the Fennie Mae isn't a surprise and actually I was hoping for a while because Fennie Mae is pretty much heavily levered to real estate and since that is where the credit problems are, it couldn't survive. Lehman Brothers is also heavily invested in real estate although less than Fennie Mae so it took longer for it to go under. Washington Mutual and Wachovia are both heavily into real estate also, in fact, I wouldn't suprise if many of you, you house loans are done by Washington Mutual, mines are. So basically the downfall of these companies are expected. Wells Fargo and Bank of America, however, are more diversified so thus are able to survive in this environment. In fact, the take out of some of their competitors will likely strengthen these companies and in the long run, will probably bring better strength to the financial sector.

As far as the market dropping, 500 points (a drop of 4.7%), will its up nearly 400 points today. Welcome to the greatest manic depressive, Mr. Market. Never let Mr. Market tell you how things are going day to day. He or she (maybe even a he-she perhaps :) has happy and depressive moods more than any other person you will know. Back in late 2002, the market nearly dropped as much and everyone was screaming "doomsday", but about a year later the market was up about 15% and stayed up to mid 2007.

[glenntinnyc]

I mentioned the issue of named shorts eralier, and yes it was a mojor problem thta led to the rapid erosion of the underlyg stock pricesok LEH, AIg GS etc, however your thoughts about this not having effect on the world economy are wishful thinking. Allready Russia England China japan Australia etc have had to open their fed windows to infude cash into the markets, As the US market goes so goes the world. You need to understand that while maybe 4-5% percent of the stock exchange is real estate based as you say, it is the credit swpas and derivatives that are the the major concern, Being that these are traded with extremely high leverage ( in LEH case as high 30,40 -1) it makes the situation much worse. For instance if even though A company may have 1 billiion in cash, if it leveraged to 30 billion and fails all of its creditors are now in jeopardy. And as we can clearly see there is no more cheap money to be had, as every major bank hias tightened credit across the board.

[tsafficianado]

bklyn boy you obviously know a lot about the markets and the intricacies of the issue of the moment, so i am a little surprised at your singular fixation with short sellers and hedge funds. i am sure you are aware that short selling has been an important part of market liquidity for about 4 centuries. there are many modern market activities that are singly dependent on short sales....for instance market makers in derivatives sell short to hedge their risk every time they make a mark. there are dozens more similar necessities in stock, derivative, futures, bond and commodity markets and they are entrenched and the markets as they exist could not function if they weren't. one impact of the line in the sand drawn by the SEC (in the middle of the game) was that yesterday morning option market makers were unable to adequately hedge their tickets and the premiums for options skyrocketed....i know, i was trading them.
some control of naked short selling and in particular predatory short selling might be warranted, and considering the immediacy and magnitude of the dilemna in the financial markets some extraordinary and temporary adjustments in the playing field may have been warranted....in large part because the underlying problems were not addressed in a timely manner. saying that sarbanes-oxley and the mark-to-market standards are not of significance is a little naive.
it is certainly unfortunate that the people most complicit in the idiocy will in fact not be the ones paying the price, but i'm afraid that is the nature of the game. hedge funds get a bad name, in part perhaps deserved, but they are intrinsically no worse than mutual funds or investment banks in attempting to maximize profits for their clients....that is their job. if they violate the law or SEC regulations that is certainly a problem.
a purchaser of a long position will, at some point, sell that position...how is that sale supportive of this American idealogue you refer to? hedge funds and short sellers DO in fact provide liquidity in the markets, and they serve another purpose - they identify companies that are performing inadequately and use their trades to reveal that weakness. in some instances they identify technical opportunities and use them to their advantage - would you contend that a fund that uses long positions to incite a technical rally are any less manipulative? in that case, isn't it manipulative when ANYONE takes a position, long or short?
how is a retail investor supposed to make money in a bear market? i have been short oil and commodities for 10 weeks and the returns have been spectacular. at the same time i could have been long the S&P and watched my account dwindle. i shorted financials (SKF calls) last friday afternoon and covered Thursday about 1pm when the FSA announced their short ban and that position was up more than 400% in 4 trading days. i bought call options on Morgan at that moment and covered those this morning in the delirium and that return was 9000% - in less than 24 hours. are you suggesting that i should buy and hold GE and Cisco and Amgen and hope to return 12% a year? i'm not a predator, i'm not out to cost anyone their job, i'm just a retail investor using my own book to try to make a living. i suppose we have a different slant on things - in my mind charts don't look the way you see them, for me it is not 'up is good and down is bad', it is 'where is the opportunity, is it REAL, and can i make a buck on it?' you might say it would be more AMERICAN of me to build something, well, i have been there/done that.
oddly, warren buffett is my hero, but i could never accomplish what he has using his methods....he had a long head start on me. buy and hold is a losing strategy. this week the DJIA moved, just counting daily opens and closes, some 1600 points, but for the WEEK measured open to close it was down 50 points. in that situation trading is the only strategy that can work. my portfolio was up a bit over 14% this week, if i had been sitting on a long basket i would have shed 1/2%.

[PapaGrande]

Uh, there's plenty wrong with short selling. Selling what you've borrowed or don't have? That's completly anti American and anti business. If there is a company you don't like then don't take out your frustrations on other innocent people. Buy stock in the company and be an advocate of change or don't go near it. Simple as that. The fuckers that sell short are two-bit whores. Plain and simple. They are out to make a fast buck and they don't give a goo fuck who they hurt. Anyone short selling should serve a two-year ban minimum from the securities market. You are manipulating the market.

Yeah, I know all about marking to market - that's just an excuse. What the Republicans did in ramming through the repeal of Glass-Stegal is disgusting. Deregulating markets and stripping the SEC of powers (hello Mr. Gramm) is even worse. Can anyone really tell what the true value of commodities are right now? Gramm "re-Enron'd" the securities markets.

Even more disturbing was a note I saw on Bloomberg last night. I forget the exact wording but it was that hedge funds are beating each other up by short selling what the other guy has. So while these rich, spoiled assholes, who really add nothing to the economy, they don't do research, don't work on a cure for disease, aren't in manufacturing, are trying to spite each others like two-year olds in a sand box, we have to suffer. Goldman dropping $30 a share in one day? Why? Because they didn't make enough money as the analysts said they would?

This is absolutely sickening. McCain is an enabler (this just in - you know he invented the blackberry? Wow . . .). So what ever became of Sarbanes-Oxley? Uh, not so much . . .

Hedge fund managers should be lined up and shot at dawn.

I say now is the time to buy and stick it to these fuckers.


Dude, put down the Obama Kool-Aid, please you are making yourself look retarded.
If this really is about "deregulation" (which it is not), them Democrats at the very least are as equal to blame for this if not more. Clinton make bank deregulation of his priorities of his administration. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is the one Democrats seem fixated on at the moment (and the one you mention) was fully supported and signed into law by Clinton. In the senate the bill went down party lines with Democrats voting against, but in the House it passed without objection from anyone, including all Democrats. The Republicans did not have enough of a majority to override a presidential veto, so basically Democrats could have stopped this, and probably all the other bank deregulation passed in the 90s if they wanted to. Of course they took credit for how great it was that everyone in America could buy a home with no money down, no credit checks, interest only loans, etc. It was only when the shit hit the fan that they were all the sudden concerned, but alas, that is what politicians do best.

Also in 2003 Bush wanted to put new regulations in place on Freddie/Fannie to curtail some of their questionable lending and Democrats killed it, here is what some of them had to say:

"Supporters of the [mortgage] companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families.
· ''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

This problem is one of Moral Hazard. Freddie and Fannie were allowed to make risky loans because they knew the government would bail them out.
Both political parties are to blame for this as politicians have long made "affordable home ownership" a prime vote buying tool. Not only that but Freddie and Fannie were two of the largest lobbying companies giving away almost 200 million since 1998, it was fairly evenly split, but Democrats have been friendlier to helping both companies screw the taxpayers, if you want to play the blame game.

Here is something else of interest:
Sen. Barack Obama is the No. 3 recipient of Fannie and Freddie campaign dollars, having collected $123,000 from the companies since he first ran for the Senate in 2004, according to the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics.


P.S. I am not a Republican and the only reason I defend them here is because of the absolute moronic shit that comes out of Obama supporters.

[MrF]

To an outsider like me, it's fascinating to read the business-savvy experts discuss what happened. I have a better feel for it now. I suppose I should read upcoming issues of The Economist magazine.

One question I have is that when the Feds "bail out" the investment banks, where will the tax-payer money go ? (presumably hundreds of billions). And will the banks be required to pay it back with interest ? Will they pay higher taxes ? I worry about a big swindle here, not to mention an enormous increase in the federal budget deficit, which is already too high in my opinion. Why would it be a bad idea to simply let those investment banks fail ? Maybe new and smarter ones would take the place.

[flabbybody]

tsafficianado: the timing of your trades are almost too perfect to believe.
You covered your short and put on a long at exactly the moment the market turned Thursday afternoon? that's almost 800 Dow points in a day and a half

you should be working for Goldman

[tsafficianado]

flabby....

it's not particularly modest to lavish praise on oneself for an occasional success (i could post a copy of my bad trade files but the HA server is probably not large enough to handle it), but it was a pretty exciting week and after a few drinks i was feeling rather full of myself. as far as the timing, i had SKF and MS on my primary watch screen and was on them like a hawk, the release came in on my news feed and i moved on it. it was actually not a big success because i didn't have enough skin in the game to make a big difference, but 9000% is the second best one-day trade i ever made so it felt great. one of my trading friends coughed up $50,000 on the MS collapse Thursday morning but banged the upturn for $300,000, he's a millionaire a few times over and when he makes a move it's big. this week was a very rare opportunity to make a pile and i'm sorry i mostly missed it, but it was still very interesting.

looking back over the week it is easy to spot opportunities i missed, but i have tossed lots of cash jumping on 'false positives' and i am a little more cautious now....that is leading to more errors of omission, but they aren't nearly as expensive as errors of commission. i am also learning that education doesn't necessarily HAVE to be expensive. day trading suits my temperament, to me it's just a game and i don't get too worked up about the ups and downs. i have lost EVERYTHING twice in the last 15 years, and I mean EVERYTHING, and that can be frightening, but i have more discipline now and i still learn a lot every day and the ratio of good trades to bad is improving.

as far as working for Goldman, i interviewed but they are looking for kids who will work for tidbits and cold call for accounts or grind dull analysis....not for me. i advise a few family members and friends and trade my own accounts and that is action enough for me.

[chefmike]

flabby....

it's not particularly modest to lavish praise on oneself for an occasional success (i could post a copy of my bad trade files but the HA server is probably not large enough to handle it), but it was a pretty exciting week and after a few drinks i was feeling rather full of myself. as far as the timing, i had SKF and MS on my primary watch screen and was on them like a hawk, the release came in on my news feed and i moved on it. it was actually not a big success because i didn't have enough skin in the game to make a big difference, but 9000% is the second best one-day trade i ever made so it felt great. one of my trading friends coughed up $50,000 on the MS collapse Thursday morning but banged the upturn for $300,000, he's a millionaire a few times over and when he makes a move it's big. this week was a very rare opportunity to make a pile and i'm sorry i mostly missed it, but it was still very interesting.

looking back over the week it is easy to spot opportunities i missed, but i have tossed lots of cash jumping on 'false positives' and i am a little more cautious now....that is leading to more errors of omission, but they aren't nearly as expensive as errors of commission. i am also learning that education doesn't necessarily HAVE to be expensive. day trading suits my temperament, to me it's just a game and i don't get too worked up about the ups and downs. i have lost EVERYTHING twice in the last 15 years, and I mean EVERYTHING, and that can be frightening, but i have more discipline now and i still learn a lot every day and the ratio of good trades to bad is improving.

as far as working for Goldman, i interviewed but they are looking for kids who will work for tidbits and cold call for accounts or grind dull analysis....not for me. i advise a few family members and friends and trade my own accounts and that is action enough for me.

And yet he manages to do all this and still be employee of the month at the 7-11 time after time...bravo...

[flabbybody]

if you have any ideas for the coming week, fire away
you got my ear

[edward almond]

Bring the fucking jobs back from communist china. Send every immigrant home, put everyone to work whether they want to or not.Tell welfare mothers if you breed you will pay for your own kids.Put kids in school and tell them if you cause trouble you will be thrown out.Make all lobbying illegal with 20 years in jail for first time conviction. Any politition or government worker convicted of serious crime in office,20 years. Take gasoline off the stock market and control it the way you do electricity.Quit giving tax breaks to corporations that send jobs over seas and tax cuts to the ones that really create jobs.Take all property away from the CEO's that created this mess including the government workers who have allowed people with sorry credit to buy houses.Just a start. This is what a conservative thinks.

[El Nino]

A true conservative that is. Not one of these phony neocons who love their ever-expanding, nanny state government...

[NYBURBS]

Bring the fucking jobs back from communist china. Send every immigrant home, put everyone to work whether they want to or not.Tell welfare mothers if you breed you will pay for your own kids.Put kids in school and tell them if you cause trouble you will be thrown out.Make all lobbying illegal with 20 years in jail for first time conviction. Any politition or government worker convicted of serious crime in office,20 years. Take gasoline off the stock market and control it the way you do electricity.Quit giving tax breaks to corporations that send jobs over seas and tax cuts to the ones that really create jobs.Take all property away from the CEO's that created this mess including the government workers who have allowed people with sorry credit to buy houses.Just a start. This is what a conservative thinks.

I agree with some of that, especially the 20 years for government officials that betray the public trust. However, disallowing lobbying is not such an easy task. "Congress shall make no law.... abridging the freedom of speech". How do you determine who is simply a greedy lobbyist and who is a citizen lobbying for legitimate political change?

Personally I think that no longer allowing political party affiliations on ballots, and requiring signatures instead of party nominations to obtain a place on the ballot is a start.

Also send every immigrant home is an ignorant stance, one that has plagued us for a long time. Immigration is a good thing, illegal and uncontrolled immigration is a bad thing. We should encourage well educated Indians, Chinese, etc to move here and become citizens. Illegals should be removed; however, they are not to blame for all of our ills. Also remember all the American citizens that work off the books and pay nothing from their direct income into the tax system. The whole method of collecting taxes needs to be redressed so it is no longer so biased against every day working people that follow the rules.

[tsafficianado]

flabby

generally i don't like tips. tips are a snapshot, investments are video, the landscape changes moment to moment and, as was obvious last week it can change dramatically in any given moment.

i have no idea how the market will act after the madness last week, but i would not be surprised to see some weakness early this week. there is some relief that it appears there will be some systemic approach to resolve the financial problem, but the problems are still there.

for the most part i TRADE as opposed to investing, at least when it is hard to predict the trend, and right now there is no trend. from 8am to 4pm i am on my platform looking for opportunities, so it is hard for me to tell you on Sunday afternoon what my plan is. when i am focused on trading i stay mostly in cash and pick spots, and right now i am mostly in cash. i have small positions in gold and silver in case things turn ugly and i have some S&P puts to protect against a quick downdraft. i have been short oil and commodities but NEVER hold a short in oil through the weekend, you never know what might happen, and both oil and commodities were strong Friday so i have no idea where they are heading.

that said, there are a couple of situations i like and a couple i am watching.
HOGS (Zonghpin) is a Chinese company, they are a processor and distributor of pork, pork products and some vegetables. By all appearances it is a solid company, they appear to be aligning themselves with Western standards of compliance and transparency, they reported a great quarter despite serious interruption of their plant in the area of the earthquake, and they are about to open a new facility which will double their output and they continue to open new sales venues. Their earnings rate is on the order of $1, the PE is about 12, and I would expect growth to be pretty strong. The price has been held down a little due to the collapse of the Chinese market, but the Chinese have lowered rates and I would expect some recovery. I see it as a play on the expansion of the Chinese middle class, it is one of my few long term holds and I expect it to do well over the next 18-36 months.

GFRE.OB is another Chinese company, they make specialty chemicals (primarily bromide salts) that are used in the paper industry. I don't know as much about them, but I do know they reported 6 cents in earnings in the last quarter, the PPS is 50 cents, and that gives them a PE of 3ish. The PPS is down sharply and I think it has a good chance for an uptick if the Chinese market improves, their business improves or if they get some visibility. It is more spec, but has a higher op.

My main focus now is on the bulk shippers, particularly DRYS, TBSI, GNK and NM. The bulkers are down hard in the last month as the Baltic Dry Index has collapsed as it does every year at this time. It is also down on the collapse in commodity prices in the assumption that commodity prices are down on collapsign demand ala the global slowdown. Friday all of the bulkers were up big time, especially TBSI up 19%, in part because the hard commodities were up big and possibly because the BDI shows signs of bottoming (perhaps). The fall is one of the periods when the BDI often surges as the NA grain harvest comes in and ore shipments expand to beat the next year's price increases. When the BDI surges the bulkers can run hard and fast, as much as 100% in a few months. It is not a sector for the faint of heart and there is an over hang of worry both for the concern about a global slowdown and because th order book for ships is loaded - in about 18-24 months there will be boats everywhere and the BDI will collapse and the bulkers will be up the creek so to speak.

I like Navios (NM) because they have lots of LTCs that isolate them to some degree from BDI spots, althought the market seems to ignore that. I also like DRYS because they have some LTCs and they have two deep drill ships (2 more on order) and in early '09 they intend to spin the deep drill asset off to shareholders. The drill spinoff should be worth about $25-$30 leaving the bulk business valued currently at about $25. They are making LOTS of money and if the BDI surges they should do well in the short run. In either case I expect to be clear of them before mid-December, and at this point I have some calls but am looking for a trend before I get too much skin in the game.

Want a wild card? MIDS.pk, 4 cents, they have built a platform for cross-border trading of stocks, options and futures between South Korea and the US, they have KSD sanction, they have a hard line into the SK exhange and are in fact the only company sanctioned to offer real time trading in either direction. The KOSPI index (SK futures) is THE most active market in the world, the volumes are enormous, and black box traders need instant closure. Unfortunately, the company is run by morons and they have made minimal progress in securing actual activity despite their repeated release of 'contracts'. I would say the chances are 90% that they will be belly up before Christmas. I would say there is a 10% chance they will make it, and if they do the stock could go to $3 easily, to $10 possibly, to $30 with a miracle. It's a lottery ticket, but it might be worth holding a few shares on the slim chance it works. 500 shares plus broker fee would cost $30, if the stock goes to $3 that would be a good trade, but I would consider it a write-off as soon as i booked it. Be forewarned, this is TOXIC. I should know, right now I'm down $400,000 on MIDS.
And, as cook mike will tell you, it takes a lot of hours at the 7-11 to replace $400,000.

[flabbybody]

will put this stuff on watch list
thx for the post
good luck

[tsafficianado]

flabby

soft market this morning, sort of expected that. Gold is up, yippee. Gold is sympathy-trading with oil so I'm letting it be my proxy. I don't think the spike in oil is real, but we'll see, expiration of the October futures contract today has incited a short squeeze and that is a big part of the move this morning. My guess is oil is setting up for another good short, have to wait and see.
Got some Allied Capital back this morning 8% lower after i sold it in the 'short ban' frenzy on Friday. I sold the ALD about a week ago the day before ex-div (they pay like 18%) and got it back the next afternoon down the div and 50 cents. I've traded in and out of the ALD about ten times in the last 4 months and halved my cost basis. Sold some NYX leaps Friday too, got 'em back this morning down 14%. With positions i'm holding longer term i trade out and in to shave down my cost basis, opportunity to make a few bucks on drops like this morning. Those two trades gained 8% and 14% in one trading day, that's what I'm looking for. I figured both were over-reacting to the short restrictions, the catalyst, and i had a pretty concrete goal and got the drop i was looking for....if i hadn't gotten my target today i would have waited for the price to come to me.

Bulkers getting hammered this morning, DRYS and TBSI off 6%, the BDI was down again this morning and there isn't a lot of general strength in the hard commodities. Navios is up 6% bucking the sector, not sure why -there are some rumors that DRYS might make a bid for them, but I doubt there's anything to it. I have a pile of Navios, waiting for the BDI to head up before i move on the others. I'm being patient on this one, something I never tried before.

As far as the 'tips' i mentioned, you don't know me or my motivations and i am by no measure some hotshot trader, so take me with a grain of salt. The one thing i HAVE learned is that every investor or trader has to find what works for them and they have to figure out how to tell the difference between facts and opinions and rely on others only for facts. Maybe that's two things?

MIDS.pk (Midastrade) is a throw-away. One thing I forgot to tell you is that EVERY trade in the last month has hit on the bid, so someone is giving up and salvaging anything they can get. The volume has been negligible so in itself it means nothing. The bid has been 3 cents most of the last few months, but has been 4 for a week and someone has been hitting it (some of the bid is me, i've added 100,000 shares in the last couple of weeks). The stock sometimes gets a bid and wiggles up to 8-14 cents and these shares are for the hopes of shaving off a few cents, there are probably several people doing that, so barring some significant event there is probably lots of resistance close overhead. If something real happens that resistance will mean nothing. Each percent of the existing trade volume MIDS can capture means a buck to the share price, if they capture any.

IF IF IF i had $50 to burn, i would buy 1000 shares for 4 cents (3 if i could get it). If there was a pop to 8-10 cents i would unload half and get most of my money back and let the other 500 shares ride on the ultraslim chance that the market overwhelms the crappy management and turns it into a real business. Not likely, but possible.

Another 'great opportunity/poor execution' story - ON2 Technologies, ONT, the greatest little video codec company in the world. ONT's VP6 is embedded in Flash and is the most pervasive codec on desktops around the world. The big gorilla is H264, Microsoft-backed, but VP6-7-8 are cleaner, faster and use a small fraction of the bandwidth that H264 requires. For mobile devices, particularly phones, the miniscule bandwidth reuirement is the key. Unfortunately, they have never figured how to make money on it. The management has been pretty inept, they have burned through two helpless CEOs in the last 5 years and had an accounting misstep in the last quarter, so the stock has not held up well. On the plus side it is a real company with real technology, the codecs are embedded on several chips and they have deals or agreements with lots of big dogs including TI and Sun and Skype and China Tel. Their business model is migrating towards back-end revs, and if they get per-unit or per-client fee deals with some of the phone mfgs or telecoms they will rock.

The shares have been mired between 50 cents and $1.20 for years, there was a brief spike to $4 on spec last year but the PPS has sagged to 40 cents. It is high risk but there is a real possibility that things will turn out well. The technology is far superior to the competition, but only profit will drive the share price. There is a slight possibility of a bid, perhaps Cisco, dunno.

ONT is far less risky than MIDS, especially with the share price near its 5 year low, but the risk is high. The upside, in the extreme, pales next to MIDS, but upside is far more likely. It's one to watch.

Weird Trades

If you have Level II you know that scavengers troll nickel bids and scalpers post $1000 asks on every stock looking for thin markets and market orders, and sometimes it works.

Friday I saw one trade on a RegSho bank go through at $23 when trades were going through at $4, a market order gone ugly.

About a year ago i saw a trade in pre-market on Google for 1000 shares at $5. Goog was trading just shy of $450. Hard to imagine that liquidity in Google could get that thin even for a moment, but some fool let a market sell order cost him $440,000 and some bottom fisher got a windfall. The 52-week high/low doesn't acknowledge the trade, but i saw it go through.

Earlier in the summer i put a sell on 1000 shares of Silver Wheaton just over the bid but forgot to put it on all or none, someone bit off ONE share and then the market softened and I didn't get another hit. I got $12 for the share and the broker fee was $9. Some market maker got a chuckle out of flipping that. Lesson learned, remember the stipulations.

[Shemale_luver_str8]

What I see happening is well as Don Henly put it
"The Rich get Richer, and the Poor get Poorer."

Bush due to his financial state, is giving tax breaks so he doesnt have to pay that much taxes when he gets out of office.

Everythings going to shit thanks to The Bush Family

[flabbybody]

DRYS
down 17% since Friday

ooch

[tsafficianado]

falbby

yep, bulkers are taking on water. TBSI popped up 19% on Friday, gave it all back yesterday and today. They were all up 15-19% Friday which gives you an idea of how fast they can run. The BDI is still dropping like a brick, until it turns up there is no hope here. The global slowdown thesis is in full gear dropping commodities AND the bulkers. If the commodities turn and the BDI bottoms the bulkers should do well, especially from down here, they are all off more than 30% in the last month. The market seems to be ignoring the DRYS drill ship spinoff (the ships have long term booking at very high rates), at this point the bulk side is priced at about $23 and they will earn $12 this year and $8 next, priced for armageddon.
Market rule #1....the market is always right, no matter how wrong it is.

Today was tough, all of my leaps dropped and MIDS gave up a penny which shaved me $7000. Shorted oil early and sold half up about 30% in the early afternoon, now it appears the Dems are going to let the offshore drill ban expire so oil should get bashed tomorrow. Bought some EMC leaps (calls), stock is way down and the rumor is Cisco might buy EMC or VMWare (EMC owns about 80% of VMWare), either way any lift in the market should move it up, a buyout might be a bonus.

Buffet is buying $5 billion of Goldman Sachs with warrants for another $5 billion so the market will be a lot more buoyant tomorrow. All of the financials are going to pop in the morning, wish i had some calls. If Congress would get the thumb out of their ass and float Paulson $700billion we could get some real lift.