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  not2needy5 months, 2 weeks ago

  It bit them!

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  ameliog5 months, 2 weeks ago

  Greed has a downside? Go figure.

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    RichFatCat5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Greed has a downside? Well, for some people, perhaps.

    But for those who know how to profit from it...... Well, as the fictitious Gordon Gecko of "Wall Street" movie fame so aptly put it..... "Greed is good!"

    Yeah, I know, the question gets asked, "How do you greedy, rich bastards sleep at night?"

    And the answer is, quite well, indeed, on $5,000 Egyptian cotton sheets with $5,000 per night companions in places you'll only see on TV. And as for being a bastard, no, my mother was married.

    I'm supporting McCain for President and you would be wise to do the same. He will "stay the course" and keep the ball rolling so to say.

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    • lovermanComment removed: User banned.1 Reply

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        RichFatCat5 months, 2 weeks ago

        Damn right! All of the above. Yes, yes, yes. There's billions and billions yet to be fleeced from the voters who favor this war. Make hay while the suckers keep the sun shining. Little fish were created to be eaten by big fish. Civil liberties? A laugh! We voted in two guys TWICE, repeat, TWICE who have plainly stated that the Constitution is nothing but an old piece of paper. Obviously that is what the people of this country want, and they'll do it AGAIN! Fear works every time. The law is nothing but "that which is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained."

        Whether I approve of any of this is immaterial. It is profitable beyond description.

        Mortal sin? A good time had by all! Go Bush, go McCain, all praise to Mammon.

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  Shadowolf5 months, 2 weeks ago

  OK, math was NEVER my strong suite...but even I know if ya spend money ya ain't got,you're headed for trouble...

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  stephen-johnson5 months, 2 weeks ago

  Bear Stearns made a big bet on subprime mortgage backed securities - and lost. Looking back with 20-20 hindsight, there's no mystery why Bear Stearns went under. But it's hard to have 20-20 foresight about the dangers of subprime mortgages when visions of dollar bills are dancing around your head, like sugarplums on the night before Christmas.

  Funny that JP Morgan Chase - which was a laggard in the subprime market initially - would up losing "only" $3.5 billion (compared to $22 billion for Citigroup) and also wound up buying Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar. missing out on the leading (bleeding?) edge pays off sometimes.

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    RichFatCat5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Suckers! You'll never get it, and that's good for us Fatcats. It's why we have most of the wealth in this country and are on the way to getting about 90%.

    Too bad for Bear Stearns, but it's the little schmucks that take the hit. The clerks, secretaries, and drones who had their retirement in the stock got wiped out. Like Enron. That's how it works. You dump your future retirement dollars in our hands, we take the cash, sink the ship, and the Fed prints money to bail us out. Our cash has been in gold, offshore, for months now. Meanwhile, we pick up the pieces for 2 bucks a share, with GOVERNMENT MONEY!!!! We'll refloat the company, make billions more, and do it again and again and again in upcoming months. Just WATCH! Thanks to our man in the White House who we got elected (not an easy task) we got all those stupid financial market regulations repealed so we could rock and roll with previously illegal derivatives and stuff you fools will never understand.

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      stephen-johnson5 months, 1 week ago

      "Too bad for Bear Stearns, but it's the little schmucks that take the hit."

      Some big fish took a hit, too:

      http://www.nypost.com/seven/03192008/business/b...

      "Secretive billionaire Joseph Lewis and former Bear Stearns chief Jimmy Cayne are quietly searching for a white knight to top the $276 million takeover offer by JPMorgan for the iconic brokerage firm, according to sources familiar with the matter.

      The two friends, each of whom has lost over $1 billion in Bear's collapse, have contacted several private-equity firms, including J.C. Flowers and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., as well as several overseas banks including Barclays, HSBC, Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Scotland, sources said."

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  texangelwings5 months, 2 weeks ago

  Bear Stearns did itself in, it is called "counting your chickens before they hatch." They were expecting to collect the money over a long period of time.

  Thanks Mozz!

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  flyonthewallzz5 months, 2 weeks ago

  "The Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 was a United States federal law enacted in 1982 that deregulated the Savings and Loan industry. This Act turned out to be one of many contributing factors that lead to the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s."

  "TITLE VIII, ALTERNATIVE MORTGAGE TRANSACTIONS, allowed Adjustable rate mortgages"

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garn_-_St_Germain_...

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    RichFatCat5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Fly, you're gettin' too smart! We got Ronnie elected in '81 and he passed that act in '82. It set the stage for tax cuts for us, and deregulation of just about all business activity in the U.S. He also busted the Air Traffic Controllers Union and that put the fear of "The Pres." into the hearts of union working slobs everywhere.

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      RichFatCat5 months, 2 weeks ago

      I'll bet you recall that most workers at that time had "defined benefit" retirement plans. They put in, we put in, and they had a solid guaranteed income for the rest of their lives. Problem was it was REAL cash just sitting around gaining interest for THEIR future.

      We got the law changed, "converted" their retirement programs, pocketed their hard-earned cash, replaced it with annuities, derivatives, and 401K type "stocks" that we could use market manipulation (you can't prove it) to totally wipe out their value at specific intervals.

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        RichFatCat5 months, 2 weeks ago

        We offshore the cash, the drones continue to labor, and the beat goes on!

        Teachers, cops, and municipal employees still have those fantastic, rock-solid, well-managed guaranteed defined benefit programs, but we're working on it. We want that wealth! And we'll get it by "explaining" to politicians (we buy them) and voters (we control all media) that defined benefit is BAD while voo doo economics is their secure financial future. Republican Governor Schwartzenegger has already "borrowed" 500 million from California Teachers Retirement System (waaayyyy too much cash in there) to cover his irresponsible spending. We borrow and spend to make billions in profit on wars! Cut taxes for us! We convince you that this somehow puts more money into your hands to spend. The opposite is true, but you'll never believe it!

        That fool Clinton with his balanced budgets almost convinced people. But we had Monica and Fundamentalist Christians on our team. The rest is history.

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          icono15 months, 2 weeks ago

          I feel good; a member from the 'select council' of the Capitalist Monarchy has spoken.

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          Teech5 months, 1 week ago

          Here's a propeller post for FatCat:

          Cats Found To Be Clean-Burning Fossil Fuel Alternative

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  sotiris-k5 months, 2 weeks ago

  It takes a real pathetic attitude about greed , risk management and the importance of mathematical analysis of an investment empire to get to this mess. Those guys prove consistently that they are no better than compulsive gamblers that have no idea what bankroll management is all about. I mean how is it possible to see so many people take complex trades, synthetic positions that are not properly hedged (multidimensionally so ) , have a party time while it goes ok and then suddenly when the perfect storm comes there is no defense, no plan B, no exit solution, no real tangible hedge in place. Every such story has in its core a methodology to make money that is based on assumptions that are not entirely safe but at the time they are designed to look so due to the simplicity of the original architects, the short term vision and self centered mentality (here and now). The easiest people to lose money are the most rich ones or their companies. And its all due to greed and poor design.

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    sotiris-k5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Sometimes the original designers are even out of job when the storm strikes and the ones that followed them have no clear idea of the compounded risk. Its sounds unbelievable really but every complex risk taking position of a sound financial institution ought to have a clear analysis of all possible outcomes each with some probability estimation. There ought to never be such a thing as we didnt plan this to happen. Every trade even those lasting years must have a clearly defined domain of final outcomes and one must be comfortable with each one of them nomatter how unlikely. You cannot always assume that those that you lend money to will always be able to pay you or that exchange rates wont go against you , interest rates wont impact your customers, wars, real estate collapse etc you name it. What happened to them today should have been previously speculated and explored and deemed acceptable enough even if it occured .Well it isnt!

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      RichFatCat5 months, 2 weeks ago

      ...."The easiest people to lose money are the most rich ones or their companies. And its all due to greed and poor design...."

      But WE don't (lose money) YOU do!

      The Fed has already served notice that they will continue to print as much money as necessary to "cover" any and all large financial institutions that begin to founder during the upcoming "storm". (More like the worst hurricane you could ever imagine.)

      It's becoming quite evident that there is a strong possibility that a Democrat will get elected President in 2008. We'll "permit" that. We'll see to it that they fail. The mess that man or woman will inherit will guarantee Republican victories for at least 2012 and 2016 or more. Our wealth has already been converted to gold, other precious metals and solid foreign currencies. We take the long view. When it becomes profitable to work the system again in America, we'll be back.

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        sotiris-k5 months, 2 weeks ago

        I was implying losing all your money. An average guy cannot typically suddenly lose all their money due to greed. But a great number of hedge funds, investment banks, large traders, companies etc have lost their entire net worth on simplistic trades.

        I wasnt talking about the rich in general just the fraction of those that like to disregard risk for short term fun and games like so many in W.Street.

        The endgame of simplistic capitalism is a deterioration of the middle class , a collapse of society itself and the eventual distruction of even the big winners of that zero sum game since nobody will be left to exploit. At this point human society will realize that both communism and capitalism have failed it and the only solution is a science based decision world where the emphasis is in cooperative game theory activities that benefit everybody. We will be forced to that conclusion from China and India because in the end the ultimate commodity is human intellect and we ignored it.

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          sotiris-k5 months, 2 weeks ago

          What do i mean by this ? Well clearly the redistribution of wealth among classes is a game we play where we fight each other really or even when we cooperate locally we do so in groups in order to hurt other groups. This is going nowhere really. Not if the focus is cold wealth itself. The only activity in human civilization that is a source of creation of utility is science. Only science can continue to produce utility . Unrestricted by money oriented priorities science and technology are nothing like the zero sum games we have played for thousands of years fighting for land , resources and other tangible utilities of no internal growing nature. Only when we cooperate as a system we see progress. Progress in science is not guided by wealth creation. It is not a hostile game, its a cooperative game (computers,medicine,space etc)

          Consider examples from chips to drugs to energy markets. Progress is currently restricted by the drive of few to maximize wealth at the expense of innovation.

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            sotiris-k5 months, 2 weeks ago

            I mean i know its a popular target for the masses to take on oil companies. But really think about it and there is logic behind the attack or the reason for it. When a company makes $50 bil a year from oil and they have the audacity to declare they will invest less than 1% of their profits to research on new energy sources we do know we are playing a stupid moronic game as a society. Because clearly they want it to remain as is until we exploit all oil . If a new more efficient energy production method emerged they would lose all the money game they enjoy . If the world was stable with no wars the price of oil would be lower etc. In other words they do enjoy what hurts the long term interest of everyone else. Same with chips. Progress in cpu is restricted by the need to make money from it. If you produce faster computers at improved pace you would lose all the extra money made from the slow expansion phase. Same with drug research. We want people to remain long term dependend.

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              sotiris-k5 months, 2 weeks ago

              The flip side of this argument and the defense of capitalism is that inherent in human nature is the drive to create wealth. So as long as there is the possibility to create wealth by exploiting science and technology they are both benefited from this egocentric drive of the individual. Better techniques are developed not because they improve life or protect nature but because they make someone more money faster and better. This is why capitalism worked for a while. Because in a system that is not yet saturated, where there are areas, people, situations left to exploit you can allow wealth creation to guide innovation because it has room to do so. Once however you get near saturation the system in order to continue to make money will choose ways that maximize profit at the expense of real progress because progress itself leads to cheaper services and products and less profits. Collusion between wealth creators will then inhibit real progress and quality of life improvement.

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                RichFatCat5 months, 2 weeks ago

                S.K, you make some good points. You say...."We will be forced to that conclusion from China and India because in the end the ultimate commodity is human intellect and we ignored it..."

                Actually, the ultimate commodity is a FEW human intellects and the REST of humanity's sweat! Or, my intellect and their sweat...for my profit.

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                  sotiris-k5 months, 1 week ago

                  Well of course through history it is the few that have advanced civilization as you say. That will not change as long as we do not modify brain itself. We may be close to that point though. Before getting there however we will realize that China and India with vastly larger populations due to our own large corporations and governments ignorance, narrow minded attitude and stupid myopic wealth creation have now obtained the upper hand. Without having yet a proper social structure with emphasis on freedom and the individual they have managed to accumulate the numbers of scientists and technicians that will win the future wars of innovation. They do not do that the right way (in terms of freedoms for the individual) but they focus on it more than we do. We on the other hand immersed in our egocentric big corporation games that do not view with gratitude the totality of society we have neglected education , science and technology. Emphasis on education is our only defense eventually.

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                    sotiris-k5 months, 1 week ago

                    When you have 300 mil and they have over 1 bil they are eventually able to obtain 3-4 times more PhDs . We will be left behind in space research, biology, engineering and even fundamental sciences like mathematics and physics. While we fight stupid resource consuming wars in middle east over the oil profits of some corporations they create universities , improve their middle class and invest more here until they eventually will own our future. If i had no problem with the structure of their culture over there i would nt see that as a threat . May the best win. After all the west has given the world the early lights in science and culture , social justice (at least in principle ) arts etc . Maybe its time to reciprocate. But as things are to allow the middle class in US to collapse , ignore the only real thing that made US a superpower (science , technology, vast resources) in order to maximize short term profits is the ultimate betrayal of the american dream.

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                      sotiris-k5 months, 1 week ago

                      In any case someone may view what i say as an attack on hardcore capitalism and yes it is . It is not an attack on capitalism though, just the narrow minded sector of it that currently dominates most decisions unopposed. You cannot get to the ultimate social structure that maximizes total utility without going through capitalism first. It is why communism failed. It ignored elementary freedoms and the drive of the individual to dictate his/her own life's wealth creation and ultimately direction. Capitalism allowed those freedoms and in fact on occasion improved them for as long as the system wasnt saturated enough to restrict innovation and progress. The correlation was positive initially. In a mature system however the continued emphasis on wealth creation for the most dominant that survive this game at the expense of the totality of society leads to disaster. What we need presently is a more socially sensitive more intelligent version of capitalism that will reexamine our priorities.

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        bonaroo5 months, 2 weeks ago

        Please RichFatCat..... teach me the secret of your kung fu money making ways. All this time I've been thinking that if I just kept my integrity and acted with a conscience together with a credit score in the top 1% I would find the American dream. What a sucker I've been. I'm just a mote on the tax farm, paying for everyone else's dream. As it turns out I make too much money to qualify for any government incentives, although my daughter is getting a few hundred. Whoopee. Watch as I transform the economy with that. I promise I'll vote for whomever you tell me to. Over time, and with your wise council, I'm sure I'll come to see just how lucrative war can be and the advantages of off-shoring my money. Maybe you'll even reveal the hidden secrets of PROMIS.

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          RichFatCat5 months, 1 week ago

          Bonaroo, I love and appreciate your sarcasm. Only intelligent people are capable of using it effectively. Of, course, although sarcastic, everything you have said is, unfortunately, true.

          Gold will fluctuate a bit, but will hit $1,600 or even $2,500. Why? Because everytime a "big" institution gets looted, the market dips...lately as much as 500 pts per week. Look at a graph of the Dow for the past months. We go short when this happens. When the government reacts as we tell them, and the Fed prints more money to bail out us thieves, the Dow bounces up a few hundred points, over 400 today! Now we go long. THE TRICK IS TO MAINTAIN THE VOLATILITY! The ups (long position) and downs (short) are immensely more profitable than a slow, steady rise.

          Deregulation was the key. Go Reagan! Yaaayyy Bush. When the Fed prints more money, gold soars because those dollars are worth less, and less, and less! Find a good broker and buy gold. You'll do well in the long run.

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            RichFatCat5 months, 1 week ago

            Now about that "few hundred" you, your daughter, and I will be getting. Unlike most people who believe that Bush's borrowing a trillion on the national debt to pass out to the drones will really make a difference, you have figured out that it's like putting out a fire with gasoline! Hell, it cost $47 million just for the needless letter to all taxpayers to inform them of what they already knew. But, hey, that's politics and and we all know it. But MOST people would vote for Bush again just for that money! Suicide for the working class who support him, but that's the power of media!

            You know who Warren Buffet is? He has stated that he pays WAY to little in taxes. Me too! We can pay lots more and still be fat, fat, fat. I was just as rich with Clinton's tax tables and balanced budgets as I am now. I'm not really as greedy as I sound, but others are and I'll take advantage of the laws they have gotten passed. You can too! Keep the sarcasm sharp!

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            bonaroo5 months, 1 week ago

            Sure.... any day trader knows how to work the churn of the market. I've owned a lot of the noble metals since they were cheap. What I need to know is how to get the inside information like the put options Before 9/11. Since I'm a little short of the million bucks it takes to get in on a hedge fund, I'm thinking maybe I can sell my soul to make up the difference like so many others. You don't happen to know where those crossroads are do you. I already tried eBay.

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              RichFatCat5 months, 1 week ago

              Ya gotta be a Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice or Rumsfeld to get the pre 9/11 info. I'm nowhere near being in that league. You're talking super-rich, inner sanctum stuff. But many of us have done well by reading between the lines and observing the obvious. OPEC cuts production, oil prices rise, market sags (usually). OPEC increases production, the reverse is true. Anything that affects the dollar negatively usually increases the price of gold. The indiscriminate printing of dollars to fund the war, (M3 increase) in lieu of raising taxes to pay for it, has slaughtered the dollar and literally picked the pockets of American workers, who are already hard pressed to survive. Gold reacts favorably when the dollar gets hammered.

              Try these sites:

              http://www.kitco.com/ind/Turk/turk_mar142008.html

              http://www.jsmineset.com/home.asp

              But use your inherent common sense, too.

              Even if the Dems get elected, this process is too far advanced to be halted.

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  hkeltsch5 months, 2 weeks ago

  Economics is based on theory. If you do this, then that is supposed to happen. Economics never take facts into consideration. The sub-prime crisis was created through theory. Otherwords...if a mortgage company does this, then this should happen. Economics never considers what consumers reactions are going to be. So Bear Sterms was built on a pipe dream of opium. No wonder they crashed and burned

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  flyonthewallzz5 months, 2 weeks ago

  Dingdong dingdong dingdong!

  (nudge nudge) "Honey the doorbells ringing"

  "Go back to sleep it is 3AM"

  (nudge nudge) "Don't you think you should answer it?"

  "Groan"

  "Daddy! the sheriff and the men from JP Morgan are here:

  They say they own our paper."

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    RichFatCat5 months, 1 week ago

    Well, it worked during the last depression. We kicked the Okies off their land, bulldozed their homes, and took the farms when they couldn't make the payments. All those dust storms blew away trillions in topsoil, but the banks did fine by eventally consolidating all those little inefficient mom and pop farms into large corporation owned collectives with subsidies and tax breaks. When FDR's New Deal put America back to work, they had money again, we re-vitalized the land, got crops growing again and got fat. The displaced farmers got hired in California, Oregon and Washington for ultra-low pay piece work. Many eventually migrated to the cities, joined unions, got good jobs and turned out fairly well. Some even tried farming again. Interest rates were up a bit, some made out, some went belly up again. Part of the plan. Sad, but profitable.

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      Teech5 months, 1 week ago

      Cat, I checked out those websites:

      http://www.kitco.com/ind/Turk/turk_mar142008.html

      http://www.jsmineset.com/home.asp

      Pretty interesting stuff there. Scary, too.

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  hkeltsch5 months, 2 weeks ago

  As a Native-American living in this "land-of-plenty" for 65 years, I have found they never get it right. Heck...we are still trying to get them to honor the 400 treaties they signed with us. As for the ecoinomy, I have been in a recessiuon since the day I was born...so...welcome to the Res'

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  canadianrancher575 months, 2 weeks ago

  hkeltsch-Have you ever wondered why cowboys and indians fight, My grandfather said that we were fighting to see who would get the bottom rung of the ladder. Really doesn't matter much though when the bottom rung is under water.

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• lovermanComment removed: User banned.1 Reply

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    Teech5 months, 1 week ago

    No infinite wisdom, here, buddy. I'm just a dumb sh!t who does what really smart, intelligent, astute people do. The economic fate of our nation is no longer in the balance, it has gone way past the tipping point. Check out those web sites I gave you above. Those guys are smart, logical too. You may have to make some tough decisions.

    I do use common sense when I can find it. This extreme volatility in the market is NO accident. It lets the really fat cats out in a slow, orderly fashion, and then the drones get crushed when the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

    It doesn't take much of a prophet to realize he's in the middle of a swamp when he's up to his ears in alligators, water mocs. and stagnant water.

    You can bet that Bush, Cheney, and all top administration figures are already in gold, oil, and solid foreign currencies. They're pulling all the strings, the bastards, but nothing wrong with doing what they do.

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