Financial Crisis

[midas]

why do Americans put up with this crap ?

Midas, your postings are getting nowadays really ridiculous. except for some peanuts "phone" surcharges/taxes you find the same bloody taxes AND MANY MORE in a lot other countries (i am referring especially to Europe).

any citizen/taxpayer of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium would happily pay all those fees and taxes you listed if his income tax would be levied according to the income tax percentages applied in the Greatest Nation on Earth™.

That was not the point

How does the average American keep up with 224 taxes with higher Medicare taxes coming and maybe eve a 10 percent VAT and have time to keep up with the new 2000 page health care bill and new changes in education and scratch themselves ?[/b]

next... perhaps your bid of 21.3% for greek treasuries which you posted a week ago? for your information: Greece sold day before yesterday 6 and 12 mth treasury bills

quote: "The 26-week Treasury bills saw a uniform yield set at 4.55%. ...the proportion of bids received to bids accepted -- of 7.67 to 1."

I read this on Bloomberg™. on 04/09/2010 and yes they pulled a rabbit out of the hat …………….in the end…….but the game isn’t quit over yet

" Bloomberg calculates the yield on the Greek 3 Month as determined by the bid, or where investors are willing to buy it, based on BVAL sources at 21.3%. In all honesty the bid/offer market in the 3 Month are all over the place. HDAT gives it as 99.650x99.840, BVAL is at 99.470x99.773. The HDAT bid implies a yield of 14.049%, which is still game over for Greece "

this result sheds some light on the shitty² obscure sources you use for information and post here

I dunno ……I would not class Bloomberg™ as a shitty or obscure source but each to their own

Edited April 15, 2010 by midas

[Gambles]

an interesting opinion published jan 5, 2010

Diversify and watch your investment portfolio

In an uncertain environment diversification is accepted to the the best answer. We wouldn't be surprised to see the Stock Exchange of Thailand Index (SET) below 300 points, the Down Jones Industrial Average Index (DJIA) below 5000 or gold above $2000 per ounce. The best way to capture opportunities and avoid risk is not to pick individual stocks, but to diversify acrosss investement asset classes.

Yep!

Active, pragmatic, open-minded diversification.

Spot on!!!

Gambles,

looking back, 2008 proved that being broadly diversified was a huge drawback. everything dropped like a stone, liquidity in my asset class dried up within a very short period of time (less than a couple of weeks!). those with not too many but highly liquid assets which could be sold at a loss of 20, 30 and some even 50% were able to make a killing with their cash only a few months later. until Lehman sep 2008 i too thought being broadly diversified is the non-plus-ultra of investing. but i was totally wrong! only the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009. without that cash and the opportunities my total net today would be less than it was at the end of 2007.

I feel another of our heated agreements coming on!

QED - cash is an asset class - we call it the primary asset class; all other assets need to justify their inclusion in a portfolio relative to cash - cash should always be a starting point. Holding cash is a diversification decisions- we held up to 93% cash in some portfolios in 2008 which is how we made profits in such a difficult year.

Cash, sovereign debt, gold and managed futures were our 4 most successful holdings in '08.

Edited April 15, 2010 by Gambles

[Gambles]

an interesting opinion published jan 5, 2010

Diversify and watch your investment portfolio

In an uncertain environment diversification is accepted to the the best answer. We wouldn't be surprised to see the Stock Exchange of Thailand Index (SET) below 300 points, the Down Jones Industrial Average Index (DJIA) below 5000 or gold above $2000 per ounce. The best way to capture opportunities and avoid risk is not to pick individual stocks, but to diversify acrosss investement asset classes.

Yep!

Active, pragmatic, open-minded diversification.

Spot on!!!

Gambles,

looking back, 2008 proved that being broadly diversified was a huge drawback. everything dropped like a stone, liquidity in my asset class dried up within a very short period of time (less than a couple of weeks!). those with not too many but highly liquid assets which could be sold at a loss of 20, 30 and some even 50% were able to make a killing with their cash only a few months later. until Lehman sep 2008 i too thought being broadly diversified is the non-plus-ultra of investing. but i was totally wrong! only the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009. without that cash and the opportunities my total net today would be less than it was at the end of 2007.

the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009.

That's the epitome of value investing. Having sufficient & 'redundant' cash to take on great opportunities when they finally pop up ...

No!

That's the epitome of pragmatic diversification!

[Gambles]

Well, this thread has lost the initial liveliness.

I suppose this is due to the actions of the various governments and central banks, which have cleverly averted an instant decline in western countries economies and general state of health, and are bringing them all down slowly. I wonder where the bottom will be.

The "too big to fail" guys are fighting through the courts to prevent us from knowing who had received tax payers' cash

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...wn4E&pos=11

Yeah, up yours too.

Strange that the call for more transparency, even if it is two years down the line, still results in the fear of a run on the fuc_king banks. I hate these guys. If they still haven't fixed their dam_n balance sheets after all the QE and ZIRP, then it is about time they went under.

So anybody who has not yet cottoned on to the move in wealth from the West to the East should just review all the latest news. For example

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=axI3bqKyBAac

Yep, Singapore is doing great, as, indeed, all the Asian economies. There is considerable pressure (if they can, indeed, still bring pressure) from the States to bring China to let the Yuan appreciate. Why the Chinese should even bother to make a token response to the yanks I do not know. The Chinese have the money and therefore the power to determine when and how there will be a global re-balancing. And it will not be done in a way to allow G fuc_king S to make more huge profits. I hope that the Chinese work out some means of screwing these guys far into the ground. That is what I would be doing. A free floating currency? Why on earth should they play into the hand s of the speculators?

I can see that the Asian countries will be developing their own internal consumers and move away from exporting credit and products to the West. There are far more Asians than Yanks and Brits. And the Yanks and Brits are all maxed out on debt and totally occupied with the price of their stupid real estate.

In my more than a decade of living here, I have seen massive improvements in Thailand. My local branch of Thai banks offer convenient access to multi-currency accounts. Try that on for size at your local branch in the UK or US. No frigging way. Utterly parochial idiots, managed by morons and employ arrogant staff who have no clue what EUR, AUD mean.

I suppose in the end, I am only concerned with the currency exchange rate. But with the Asians sourcing the worlds' manufacturing, services and food, I would be thinking along the lines of "if the west need what we make, then they will pay so we can profit". And the mechanism will be through the exchange rates.

ultimately non-indebted, non-US$ linked Asian currencies should benefit

May be more of a 2011 theme though but frankly timing is totally impossible to call

[Gambles]

David Bowie 1983

My little China Girl

You shouldn't mess with me

I'll ruin everything you are

I'll give you television

I'll give you eyes of blue

I'll give you a man who wants to rule the world

And when I get excited

My little China Girl says

Oh baby just you shut your mouth

Maybe the little China girl knew what was going on?

Time for the West to shut up?

Bowie was the most disappointing live performer I've ever seen.....must have been an off-night

Elton John comes a close second

[Gambles]

why do Americans put up with this crap ?

Midas, your postings are getting nowadays really ridiculous. except for some peanuts "phone" surcharges/taxes you find the same bloody taxes AND MANY MORE in a lot other countries (i am referring especially to Europe).

any citizen/taxpayer of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium would happily pay all those fees and taxes you listed if his income tax would be levied according to the income tax percentages applied in the Greatest Nation on Earth™.

next... perhaps your bid of 21.3% for greek treasuries which you posted a week ago? for your information: Greece sold day before yesterday 6 and 12 mth treasury bills

quote: "The 26-week Treasury bills saw a uniform yield set at 4.55%. ...the proportion of bids received to bids accepted -- of 7.67 to 1."

this result sheds some light on the shitty² obscure sources you use for information and post here

one swallow as they say, Herr Naam, one swallow

[sokal]

an interesting opinion published jan 5, 2010

Diversify and watch your investment portfolio

In an uncertain environment diversification is accepted to the the best answer. We wouldn't be surprised to see the Stock Exchange of Thailand Index (SET) below 300 points, the Down Jones Industrial Average Index (DJIA) below 5000 or gold above $2000 per ounce. The best way to capture opportunities and avoid risk is not to pick individual stocks, but to diversify acrosss investement asset classes.

Yep!

Active, pragmatic, open-minded diversification.

Spot on!!!

Gambles,

looking back, 2008 proved that being broadly diversified was a huge drawback. everything dropped like a stone, liquidity in my asset class dried up within a very short period of time (less than a couple of weeks!). those with not too many but highly liquid assets which could be sold at a loss of 20, 30 and some even 50% were able to make a killing with their cash only a few months later. until Lehman sep 2008 i too thought being broadly diversified is the non-plus-ultra of investing. but i was totally wrong! only the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009. without that cash and the opportunities my total net today would be less than it was at the end of 2007.

For some reason allot of people cried sell ! sell ! sell ! in 08. I didn't sell anything and rode it out and sold when I was ahead, obviously too early but I still lost nothing in 08

Edited April 15, 2010 by sokal

[sokal]

Well, this thread has lost the initial liveliness.

I suppose this is due to the actions of the various governments and central banks, which have cleverly averted an instant decline in western countries economies and general state of health, and are bringing them all down slowly. I wonder where the bottom will be.

12D , I feel pretty sure there will be some justification to revive it sooner than later ………

This latest round seems even more negligent than assuming house prices only ever go up

The more people that learn the actual simplicity of not paying your bills and escaping your

obligations under contract law may even result in Wall Street celebrating even more ……………

15,000 here we come ……..total Alice in Wonderland stuff……..

" Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy that the government's tacit encouragement for "homeowners" to not pay their mortgage dues is freeing up $8 billion each month that is artificially increasing consumer spending and iPad preorders. And with banks not marking anything to market, all these houses that generate no cash flow are still marked at 100 cents on the books. If you ever needed a justification to not pay your credit card, your mortgage, or anyone else you owe money, now you know - contract law in America no longer exists. Just stop paying everything. And please dont save. Saving is for non-banana republics. Remember - the market is never wrong. And nobody can remember when was the last time we had a downday. So all must be well. "

http://www.cnbc.com/id/36503380

This whole rally would not have happened if they didn't change the FASB rules in April 09. Otherwise every bank in the US including the big ones would be bankrupt 10 x over.

[sokal]

an interesting opinion published jan 5, 2010

Diversify and watch your investment portfolio

In an uncertain environment diversification is accepted to the the best answer. We wouldn't be surprised to see the Stock Exchange of Thailand Index (SET) below 300 points, the Down Jones Industrial Average Index (DJIA) below 5000 or gold above $2000 per ounce. The best way to capture opportunities and avoid risk is not to pick individual stocks, but to diversify acrosss investement asset classes.

Yep!

Active, pragmatic, open-minded diversification.

Spot on!!!

Gambles,

looking back, 2008 proved that being broadly diversified was a huge drawback. everything dropped like a stone, liquidity in my asset class dried up within a very short period of time (less than a couple of weeks!). those with not too many but highly liquid assets which could be sold at a loss of 20, 30 and some even 50% were able to make a killing with their cash only a few months later. until Lehman sep 2008 i too thought being broadly diversified is the non-plus-ultra of investing. but i was totally wrong! only the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009. without that cash and the opportunities my total net today would be less than it was at the end of 2007.

I feel another of our heated agreements coming on!

QED - cash is an asset class - we call it the primary asset class; all other assets need to justify their inclusion in a portfolio relative to cash - cash should always be a starting point. Holding cash is a diversification decisions- we held up to 93% cash in some portfolios in 2008 which is how we made profits in such a difficult year.

Cash, sovereign debt, gold and managed futures were our 4 most successful holdings in '08.

So was there anybody here that wasn't in cash in 08 that didn't make a killing in 09 ? Lets have some honesty around here for a change.

[sokal]

Well, this thread has lost the initial liveliness.

I suppose this is due to the actions of the various governments and central banks, which have cleverly averted an instant decline in western countries economies and general state of health, and are bringing them all down slowly. I wonder where the bottom will be.

The "too big to fail" guys are fighting through the courts to prevent us from knowing who had received tax payers' cash

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...wn4E&pos=11

Yeah, up yours too.

Strange that the call for more transparency, even if it is two years down the line, still results in the fear of a run on the fuc_king banks. I hate these guys. If they still haven't fixed their dam_n balance sheets after all the QE and ZIRP, then it is about time they went under.

So anybody who has not yet cottoned on to the move in wealth from the West to the East should just review all the latest news. For example

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=axI3bqKyBAac

Yep, Singapore is doing great, as, indeed, all the Asian economies. There is considerable pressure (if they can, indeed, still bring pressure) from the States to bring China to let the Yuan appreciate. Why the Chinese should even bother to make a token response to the yanks I do not know. The Chinese have the money and therefore the power to determine when and how there will be a global re-balancing. And it will not be done in a way to allow G fuc_king S to make more huge profits. I hope that the Chinese work out some means of screwing these guys far into the ground. That is what I would be doing. A free floating currency? Why on earth should they play into the hand s of the speculators?

I can see that the Asian countries will be developing their own internal consumers and move away from exporting credit and products to the West. There are far more Asians than Yanks and Brits. And the Yanks and Brits are all maxed out on debt and totally occupied with the price of their stupid real estate.

In my more than a decade of living here, I have seen massive improvements in Thailand. My local branch of Thai banks offer convenient access to multi-currency accounts. Try that on for size at your local branch in the UK or US. No frigging way. Utterly parochial idiots, managed by morons and employ arrogant staff who have no clue what EUR, AUD mean.

I suppose in the end, I am only concerned with the currency exchange rate. But with the Asians sourcing the worlds' manufacturing, services and food, I would be thinking along the lines of "if the west need what we make, then they will pay so we can profit". And the mechanism will be through the exchange rates.

ultimately non-indebted, non-US$ linked Asian currencies should benefit

May be more of a 2011 theme though but frankly timing is totally impossible to call

Timing is not impossible Wasn't everyone here 100% in cash in 08 and 100% stocks in 09 ?

[Gambles]

So was there anybody here that wasn't in cash in 08 that didn't make a killing in 09 ? Lets have some honesty around here for a change.

our numbers are at least publicly available....can't speak for anyone else

[Gambles]

Well, this thread has lost the initial liveliness.

I suppose this is due to the actions of the various governments and central banks, which have cleverly averted an instant decline in western countries economies and general state of health, and are bringing them all down slowly. I wonder where the bottom will be.

The "too big to fail" guys are fighting through the courts to prevent us from knowing who had received tax payers' cash

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...wn4E&pos=11

Yeah, up yours too.

Strange that the call for more transparency, even if it is two years down the line, still results in the fear of a run on the fuc_king banks. I hate these guys. If they still haven't fixed their dam_n balance sheets after all the QE and ZIRP, then it is about time they went under.

So anybody who has not yet cottoned on to the move in wealth from the West to the East should just review all the latest news. For example

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=axI3bqKyBAac

Yep, Singapore is doing great, as, indeed, all the Asian economies. There is considerable pressure (if they can, indeed, still bring pressure) from the States to bring China to let the Yuan appreciate. Why the Chinese should even bother to make a token response to the yanks I do not know. The Chinese have the money and therefore the power to determine when and how there will be a global re-balancing. And it will not be done in a way to allow G fuc_king S to make more huge profits. I hope that the Chinese work out some means of screwing these guys far into the ground. That is what I would be doing. A free floating currency? Why on earth should they play into the hand s of the speculators?

I can see that the Asian countries will be developing their own internal consumers and move away from exporting credit and products to the West. There are far more Asians than Yanks and Brits. And the Yanks and Brits are all maxed out on debt and totally occupied with the price of their stupid real estate.

In my more than a decade of living here, I have seen massive improvements in Thailand. My local branch of Thai banks offer convenient access to multi-currency accounts. Try that on for size at your local branch in the UK or US. No frigging way. Utterly parochial idiots, managed by morons and employ arrogant staff who have no clue what EUR, AUD mean.

I suppose in the end, I am only concerned with the currency exchange rate. But with the Asians sourcing the worlds' manufacturing, services and food, I would be thinking along the lines of "if the west need what we make, then they will pay so we can profit". And the mechanism will be through the exchange rates.

ultimately non-indebted, non-US$ linked Asian currencies should benefit

May be more of a 2011 theme though but frankly timing is totally impossible to call

Timing is not impossible Wasn't everyone here 100% in cash in 08 and 100% stocks in 09 ?

yeah - the power of 20/20 hindsight...

[Naam]

why do Americans put up with this crap ?

Midas, your postings are getting nowadays really ridiculous. except for some peanuts "phone" surcharges/taxes you find the same bloody taxes AND MANY MORE in a lot other countries (i am referring especially to Europe).

any citizen/taxpayer of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium would happily pay all those fees and taxes you listed if his income tax would be levied according to the income tax percentages applied in the Greatest Nation on Earth™.

next... perhaps your bid of 21.3% for greek treasuries which you posted a week ago? for your information: Greece sold day before yesterday 6 and 12 mth treasury bills

quote: "The 26-week Treasury bills saw a uniform yield set at 4.55%. ...the proportion of bids received to bids accepted -- of 7.67 to 1."

this result sheds some light on the shitty² obscure sources you use for information and post here

one swallow as they say, Herr Naam, one swallow

i fully agree with the "one swallow" Mr Gambles but that is besides the point. i drew the attention to a source which published bullsh*t² and in turn was quoted here as another piece of evidence that the sky is falling and little chicken will be killed.

the same applies to the list which was commented "why do Americans put up with this crap ?"

[Naam]

Gambles,

looking back, 2008 proved that being broadly diversified was a huge drawback. everything dropped like a stone, liquidity in my asset class dried up within a very short period of time (less than a couple of weeks!). those with not too many but highly liquid assets which could be sold at a loss of 20, 30 and some even 50% were able to make a killing with their cash only a few months later. until Lehman sep 2008 i too thought being broadly diversified is the non-plus-ultra of investing. but i was totally wrong! only the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009. without that cash and the opportunities my total net today would be less than it was at the end of 2007.

the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009.

That's the epitome of value investing. Having sufficient & 'redundant' cash to take on great opportunities when they finally pop up ...

No! That's the epitome of pragmatic diversification!

NO! it was nothing but lucky coinciding factors. but it goes without saying that some know-it-alls here (or anywhere else) would base it on their paramount knowledge of markets and investing (based on their education at the Icelandic School of Economics) instead of truthfully admitting that goddess Fortuna made it happen.

[Gambles]

Gambles,

looking back, 2008 proved that being broadly diversified was a huge drawback. everything dropped like a stone, liquidity in my asset class dried up within a very short period of time (less than a couple of weeks!). those with not too many but highly liquid assets which could be sold at a loss of 20, 30 and some even 50% were able to make a killing with their cash only a few months later. until Lehman sep 2008 i too thought being broadly diversified is the non-plus-ultra of investing. but i was totally wrong! only the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009. without that cash and the opportunities my total net today would be less than it was at the end of 2007.

the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009.

That's the epitome of value investing. Having sufficient & 'redundant' cash to take on great opportunities when they finally pop up ...

No! That's the epitome of pragmatic diversification!

NO! it was nothing but lucky coinciding factors. but it goes without saying that some know-it-alls here (or anywhere else) would base it on their paramount knowledge of markets and investing (based on their education at the Icelandic School of Economics) instead of truthfully admitting that goddess Fortuna made it happen.

Indeed

although consistently being lucky is of course, as Napoleon highlighted, a valuable skill in itself....until the luck runs out

this is why methodology and suitability for purpose are much more interesting to me (and I think to you also but I would never want to put words in your mouth) than some mercurial claims that many of the apparently talented speculators on these different threads might make about e.g. individual penny stocks....

[j_cheung]

Gambles,

looking back, 2008 proved that being broadly diversified was a huge drawback. everything dropped like a stone, liquidity in my asset class dried up within a very short period of time (less than a couple of weeks!). those with not too many but highly liquid assets which could be sold at a loss of 20, 30 and some even 50% were able to make a killing with their cash only a few months later. until Lehman sep 2008 i too thought being broadly diversified is the non-plus-ultra of investing. but i was totally wrong! only the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009. without that cash and the opportunities my total net today would be less than it was at the end of 2007.

the fact that i had a lot of cash too made it possible to take my picks end of 2008 and for many months in 2009.

That's the epitome of value investing. Having sufficient & 'redundant' cash to take on great opportunities when they finally pop up ...

No! That's the epitome of pragmatic diversification!

NO! it was nothing but lucky coinciding factors. but it goes without saying that some know-it-alls here (or anywhere else) would base it on their paramount knowledge of markets and investing (based on their education at the Icelandic School of Economics) instead of truthfully admitting that goddess Fortuna made it happen.

In all, I rather be more lucky than just smart & hard-working ... on the other hand, some say, the harder & smarter you work, the luckier you'll get!

[flying]

Indeed

although consistently being lucky is of course, as Napoleon highlighted, a valuable skill in itself....until the luck runs out

this is why methodology and suitability for purpose are much more interesting to me (and I think to you also but I would never want to put words in your mouth) than some mercurial claims that many of the apparently talented speculators on these different threads might make about e.g. individual penny stocks....

:D

That penny stocker is just an attention whore

[midas]

i fully agree with the "one swallow" Mr Gambles but that is besides the point. i drew the attention to a source which published bullsh*t² and in turn was quoted here as another piece of evidence that the sky is falling and little chicken will be killed.

the same applies to the list which was commented "why do Americans put up with this crap ?"

I would like to suggest that the sky will be falling and little chicken will be killed if Americans

start to adopt the same attitude to not paying IRS Debt as they do to not paying , mortgage, credit cards or anyone else they owe money to

Guns and Amo

[Gambles]

[quote name='j_cheung' date='2010-04-16 09:44:38' post='3509831'

In all, I rather be more lucky than just smart & hard-working ... on the other hand, some say, the harder & smarter you work, the luckier you'll get!

True but to a large extent, you make your own luck in this life....

[Gambles]

Indeed

although consistently being lucky is of course, as Napoleon highlighted, a valuable skill in itself....until the luck runs out

this is why methodology and suitability for purpose are much more interesting to me (and I think to you also but I would never want to put words in your mouth) than some mercurial claims that many of the apparently talented speculators on these different threads might make about e.g. individual penny stocks....

That penny stocker is just an attention whore

that's a little unfair...................I think that a lot of attention whores might be writing to complain about the comparison....

[Naam]

I dunno ……I would not class Bloomberg™ as a shitty or obscure source but each to their own

any source publishing what was published is shitty and obscure because most of their unsupervised employees seem to have a shitty and obscure education. that does not only (in part) apply to Bloomberg but to Reuters too. i can't count the times when both "news agencies" mixed up millions and billions. therefore my expression shitty stands and is valid!

[Naam]

i fully agree with the "one swallow" Mr Gambles but that is besides the point. i drew the attention to a source which published bullsh*t² and in turn was quoted here as another piece of evidence that the sky is falling and little chicken will be killed.

the same applies to the list which was commented "why do Americans put up with this crap ?"

I would like to suggest that the sky will be falling and little chicken will be killed if Americans start to adopt the same attitude to not paying IRS Debt as they do to not paying , mortgage, credit cards or anyone else they owe money to Guns and Amo

as usual you are dodging Midas, have nothing to say and resort to a diverting "bla-bla-guns and bla-bla-ammo". read those Americans who live abroad and post in Thaivisa. they are nearly shitting in their pants if somebody only whispers IRS.

[Gambles]

I dunno ……I would not class Bloomberg™ as a shitty or obscure source but each to their own

any source publishing what was published is shitty and obscure because most of their unsupervised employees seem to have a shitty and obscure education. that does not only (in part) apply to Bloomberg but to Reuters too. i can't count the times when both "news agencies" mixed up millions and billions. therefore my expression shitty stands and is valid!

Schoolboy errors....I can't believe that number of mistakes that I read daily to do with order and scale (too many of which are errors that I wrote )

To be fair, it's only in the last crisis that the American numerology has become virtually universal and that can be used as a good excuse for tripping up, ahem, more mature students like myself

I still prefer the old-fashioned Anglo-European version where what Americans have always labelled as trillions are known as billions...but no point me holding out as the last island on this one.......

Edited April 16, 2010 by Gambles

[Naam]

NO! it was nothing but lucky coinciding factors. but it goes without saying that some know-it-alls here (or anywhere else) would base it on their paramount knowledge of markets and investing (based on their education at the Icelandic School of Economics) instead of truthfully admitting that goddess Fortuna made it happen.

Indeed

although consistently being lucky is of course, as Napoleon highlighted, a valuable skill in itself....until the luck runs out

this is why methodology and suitability for purpose are much more interesting to me (and I think to you also but I would never want to put words in your mouth) than some mercurial claims that many of the apparently talented speculators on these different threads might make about e.g. individual penny stocks....

personally i find the "talented penny stock speculators" quite amusing even though i am too uneducated to understand most of what they are talking about. what i found amazing three decades ago were a few multimillionaires i met who -besides numbers/amounts- could neither read nor write but possessed business acumen and conducted extremely successful a variety of businesses with a shrewdness which i did not acquire until this very day. genetics?

[Naam]

I dunno ……I would not class Bloomberg™ as a shitty or obscure source but each to their own

any source publishing what was published is shitty and obscure because most of their unsupervised employees seem to have a shitty and obscure education. that does not only (in part) apply to Bloomberg but to Reuters too. i can't count the times when both "news agencies" mixed up millions and billions. therefore my expression shitty stands and is valid!

Schoolboy errors....I can't believe that number of mistakes that I read daily to do with order and scale (too many of which are errors that I wrote )

To be fair, it's only in the last crisis that the American numerology has become virtually universal and that can be used as a good excuse for tripping up, ahem, more mature students like myself

I still prefer the old-fashioned Anglo-European version where what Americans have always labelled as trillions are known as billions...but no point me holding out as the last island on this one.......

you are in good company with people in Germany, Switzerland and Austria where american trillions are just central european billions

[midas]

i fully agree with the "one swallow" Mr Gambles but that is besides the point. i drew the attention to a source which published bullsh*t² and in turn was quoted here as another piece of evidence that the sky is falling and little chicken will be killed.

the same applies to the list which was commented "why do Americans put up with this crap ?"

I would like to suggest that the sky will be falling and little chicken will be killed if Americans start to adopt the same attitude to not paying IRS Debt as they do to not paying , mortgage, credit cards or anyone else they owe money to Guns and Amo

as usual you are dodging Midas, have nothing to say and resort to a diverting "bla-bla-guns and bla-bla-ammo". read those Americans who live abroad and post in Thaivisa. they are nearly shitting in their pants if somebody only whispers IRS.

Nothing to say - that is rich coming from you

I am talking about the " rednecks " in the Midwest

" those Americans who live abroad and post in Thaivisa " are nearly shitting in their pants because they want the " paperwork " completed as soon as possible

More US wealthy opt to surrender their citizenship

As offshore havens comply with transparency demands, a growing number of ultra-wealthy Americans are handing back their passports

Private client lawyers and relocation specialists are reporting a surge in wealthy Americans living abroad who are prepared to give up their citizenship to avoid the scrutiny of US tax authorities.

http://www.wealth-bulletin.com/rich-life/r...ent/1054959505/

Edited April 16, 2010 by midas

[Gambles]

NO! it was nothing but lucky coinciding factors. but it goes without saying that some know-it-alls here (or anywhere else) would base it on their paramount knowledge of markets and investing (based on their education at the Icelandic School of Economics) instead of truthfully admitting that goddess Fortuna made it happen.

Indeed

although consistently being lucky is of course, as Napoleon highlighted, a valuable skill in itself....until the luck runs out

this is why methodology and suitability for purpose are much more interesting to me (and I think to you also but I would never want to put words in your mouth) than some mercurial claims that many of the apparently talented speculators on these different threads might make about e.g. individual penny stocks....

personally i find the "talented penny stock speculators" quite amusing even though i am too uneducated to understand most of what they are talking about. what i found amazing three decades ago were a few multimillionaires i met who -besides numbers/amounts- could neither read nor write but possessed business acumen and conducted extremely successful a variety of businesses with a shrewdness which i did not acquire until this very day. genetics?

I believe that sociologists have conducted tests on toddlers/babies that conclusively prooved er something about people being different and some being destined to acquire/succeed and others er not

or something

[Gambles]

I dunno ……I would not class Bloomberg™ as a shitty or obscure source but each to their own

any source publishing what was published is shitty and obscure because most of their unsupervised employees seem to have a shitty and obscure education. that does not only (in part) apply to Bloomberg but to Reuters too. i can't count the times when both "news agencies" mixed up millions and billions. therefore my expression shitty stands and is valid!

Schoolboy errors....I can't believe that number of mistakes that I read daily to do with order and scale (too many of which are errors that I wrote )

To be fair, it's only in the last crisis that the American numerology has become virtually universal and that can be used as a good excuse for tripping up, ahem, more mature students like myself

I still prefer the old-fashioned Anglo-European version where what Americans have always labelled as trillions are known as billions...but no point me holding out as the last island on this one.......

you are in good company with people in Germany, Switzerland and Austria where american trillions are just central european billions

Phew!

[ronz28]

FRAUD!!!

Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis, was accused of securities fraud in a civil suit filed Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims the bank created and sold a mortgage investment that was secretly devised to fail.

The move marks the first time that regulators have taken action against a Wall Street deal that helped investors capitalize on the collapse of the housing market. Goldman itself profited by betting against the very mortgage investments that it sold to its customers.

The suit also named Fabrice Tourre, a vice president at Goldman who helped create and sell the investment.

The instrument in the S.E.C. case, called Abacus 2007-AC1, was one of 25 deals that Goldman created so the bank and select clients could bet against the housing market. Those deals, which were the subject of an article in The New York Times in December, initially protected Goldman from losses when the mortgage market disintegrated and later yielded profits for the bank.

As the Abacus deals plunged in value, Goldman and certain hedge funds made money on their negative bets, while the Goldman clients who bought the $10.9 billion in investments lost billions of dollars.

According to the complaint, Goldman created Abacus 2007-AC1 in February 2007, at the request of John A. Paulson, a prominent hedge fund manager who earned an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 by correctly wagering that the housing bubble would burst.

Goldman let Mr. Paulson select mortgage bonds that he wanted to bet against — the ones he believed were most likely to lose value — and packaged those bonds into Abacus 2007-AC1, according to the S.E.C. complaint. Goldman then sold the Abacus deal to investors like foreign banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other hedge funds.

But the deck was stacked against the Abacus investors, the complaint contends, because the investment was filled with bonds chosen by Mr. Paulson as likely to default. Goldman told investors in Abacus marketing materials reviewed by The Times that the bonds would be chosen by an independent manager.

Mr. Paulson is not being named in the lawsuit.

In recent months, Goldman has repeatedly defended its actions in the mortgage market, including its own bets against it. In a letter published last week in Goldman’s annual report, the bank rebutted criticism that it had created, and sold to its clients, mortgage-linked securities that it had little confidence in.

“We certainly did not know the future of the residential housing market in the first half of 2007 anymore than we can predict the future of markets today,” Goldman wrote. “We also did not know whether the value of the instruments we sold would increase or decrease.”

The letter continued: “Although Goldman Sachs held various positions in residential mortgage-related products in 2007, our short positions were not a ‘bet against our clients.’ ” Instead, the trades were used to hedge other trading positions, the bank said.

In a statement provided in December to The Times as it prepared the article on the Abacus deals, Goldman said that it had sold the instruments to sophisticated investors and that these securities “were popular with many investors prior to the financial crisis because they gave investors the ability to work with banks to design tailored securities which met their particular criteria, whether it be ratings, leverage or other aspects of the transaction.”

Goldman was one of many Wall Street firms that created complex mortgage securities — known as synthetic collateralized debt obligations — as the housing wave was cresting. At the time, traders like Mr. Paulson, as well as those within Goldman, were looking for ways to short the overheated market.

Such investments consisted of insurance-like policies written on mortgage bonds. If the mortgage market held up and those bonds did well, investors who bought Abacus notes would have made money from the insurance premiums paid by investors like Mr. Paulson, who were negative on housing and had bought insurance on mortgage bonds. Instead, defaults spread and the bonds plunged, generating billion of dollars in losses for Abacus investors and billions in profits for Mr. Paulson.

For months, S.E.C. officials have been examining mortgage bundles like Abacus that were created across Wall Street. The commission has been interviewing people who structured Goldman mortgage deals about Abacus and other, similar instruments. The S.E.C. advised Goldman that it was likely to face a civil suit in the matter, sending the bank what is known as a Wells notice.

Such investments consisted of insurance-like policies written on mortgage bonds. If the mortgage market held up and those bonds did well, investors who bought Abacus notes would have made money from the insurance premiums paid by investors like Mr. Paulson, who were negative on housing and had bought insurance on mortgage bonds. Instead, defaults spread and the bonds plunged, generating billion of dollars in losses for Abacus investors and billions in profits for Mr. Paulson.

For months, S.E.C. officials have been examining mortgage bundles like Abacus that were created across Wall Street. The commission has been interviewing people who structured Goldman mortgage deals about Abacus and other, similar instruments. The S.E.C. advised Goldman that it was likely to face a civil suit in the matter, sending the bank what is known as a Wells notice.

Mr. Tourre was one of Goldman’s top workers running the Abacus deal, peddling the investment to investors across Europe. Raised in France, Mr. Tourre moved to the United States in 2000 to earn his master’s in operations at Stanford. The next year, he began working at Goldman, according to his profile in LinkedIn.

He rose to prominence working on the Abacus deals under a trader named Jonathan M. Egol. Now a managing director at Goldman, Mr. Egol is not being named in the S.E.C. suit.

Goldman structured the Abacus deals with a sharp eye on the credit ratings assigned to the mortgage bonds associated with the instrument, the S.E.C. said. In the Abacus deal in the S.E.C. complaint, Mr. Paulson pinpointed those mortgage bonds that he believed carried higher ratings than the underlying loans deserved. Goldman placed insurance on those bonds — called credit-default swaps — inside Abacus, allowing Mr. Paulson to short them while clients on the other side of the trade wagered that they would not fail.

But when Goldman sold shares in Abacus to investors, the bank and Mr. Tourre only disclosed the ratings of those bonds and did not disclose that Mr. Paulson was on other side, betting those ratings were wrong.

Mr. Tourre at one point complained to an investor who was buying shares in Abacus that he was having trouble persuading Moody’s to give the deal the rating he desired, according to the investor’s notes, which were provided to The Times by a colleague who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to release them.

In seven of Goldman’s Abacus deals, the bank went to the American International Group for insurance on the bonds. Those deals have led to billions of dollars in losses at A.I.G., which was the subject of an $180 billion taxpayer rescue. The Abacus deal in the S.E.C. complaint was not one of them.

That deal was managed by ACA Management, a part of ACA Capital Holdings, which changed its name in 2008 to Manifold Capital Holdings.

Goldman at first intended for the deal to contain $2 billion of mortgage exposure, according to the deal’s marketing documents, which were given to The Times by an Abacus investor.

On the cover of that flip-book, it says that the mortgage bond portfolio would be “selected by ACA Management.”

In that flip-book, it says that Goldman may have long or short positions in the bonds. It does not mention Mr. Paulson or say that Goldman was in fact short.

The Abacus deals deteriorated rapidly when the housing market hit trouble. For instance, in the Abacus deal in the S.E.C. complaint, 84 percent of the mortgages underlying it were downgraded by rating agencies just five months later, according to a UBS report.

It takes time for such mortgage investments to pay out for investors who short them, like Mr. Paulson. Each deal is structured differently, but generally, the bonds underlying the investment must deteriorate to a certain point before short-sellers get paid. By the end of 2007, Mr. Paulson’s credit hedge fund was up 590 percent.

Mr. Paulson’s firm, Paulson & Company, is paid a management fee and 20 percent of the annual profits that its funds generate, according to a Paulson investor document from late 2008 titled “Navigating Through the Crisis.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/business...ml?pagewanted=2

[flying]

FRAUD!!!

It is about time isn't it

Goldman Sachs charged with fraud by SEC