patrick.net

TOB,

Yes, I have. That is what brought it to mind.

I still don't understand then why the fuck they didn't stay away from the financial bussiness crap ? If i were them i will stay away from the crappy field. believe me.There is lot of anger in US against the financial sector.
Jews have contributed more than enough in technology to prove that they can do much better than finance.

snmr,

You do what is comfortable. The majority of people do what is familiar to them. For some, it is finance. For me, it was industry. For my cousins, it was law. We followed our fathers. Man, I want to slap my dad.

TOB,

What is with you guys? You can spew hatred about anyone but you have to suppress any discussion about you with anti-semitism and the german thing.

TOB,

yes, there is definitely a rise in anti-Semitic sentiment, and it is unfair to most secular Jews who have nothing to do with the Wall Street mess.

The militant Jews on the Wall Street have essentially hijacked their own race.

decipher Says:
TOB,

What is with you guys? You can spew hatred about anyone but you have to suppress any discussion about you with anti-semitism and the german thing.

TOB demostrates a classic case of hypocrisy. period.

snmr,

for many centuries, Jews were not allowed to own land, so the only store of wealth they could resort to is jewelry or money, that's why they are the expert of dealing with both.

Interestingly enough, since the world is more integrated, the use of money rather than land as a store of wealth makes far more sense, so they have a first-mover advantage in this critical link.

I have a lot of respect for Jews as a race. But the militant faction is different, they carry the holocaust chips on their shoulders in a perverted way to avenge on the rest of the world. These militant Jews are extremely driven, and will stop at nothing to get their way, which is exactly what we see the Wall Street acts like.

Ted Haggard moment !!

The Original Bankster Says:
September 15th, 2008 at 6:46 pm

>>I value my citizenship as well. I get mad to think about how the US is diluting the value of my “share” of American stock to illegal aliens.

the problem is that people are valuing it less and less… and for middle class folks, they don’t have the option of trading it up for some other country. To add insult to injury, idiots like Sri have ransacked our concepts of liberty and freedom. So in order to bring back some semblance of quality to american life, you have to make a clear definition of ‘in or out’ of the american system. Without that you will have a free for all. This has been going on since the 70s.

the very rich favor a system where wage earners have no sense of ‘ownership’ as this increases costs of operation.

>>We should use our weapons to take what we have not earned and just refuse to honor the existing debt that we have.

sounds funny… but that is what we are likely to do. Because the people who ran up the debt are going to high tail it out of here once the bill comes due, and who is left? people like you and me who don’t really know where the debt came from and don’t really have the means to pay it off. oh, and ron paul. You think our Chindian friends are going to stick around when the going gets tough? “see ya later suckers! can’t believe you fell for the ‘racism’ thing!!! lol! time to go back to my dravidian slaves in India!”

decipher,

Good find. looks like TOB is finally exposed !

May be, he is one of those militant jews OO is talking about.

OO : Why were they not allowed to own land ? Just curious

OO says :
These militant Jews are extremely driven, and will stop at nothing to get their way, which is exactly what we see the Wall Street acts like

I am surprised.I have many jewish friends whom i respect a lot.Most of them are very secular and open minded ( exactly opposite to TOB )

TOB is anything but closed minded. Watch the context and be enlightened.

snmr,

it is just a small faction, most Jews are respectable people in their area of expertise and just like everyone else, making an honest living.

The Wall Street types are completely different, it takes a certain personality and drive to be successful there. Do you think of Paulson, Fuld, Dimon as a benign, respectable persons who will observe rules and act in honesty? I hope not.

I was at my Dads house last night watching Jeopardy and he got a call from Countrywide wondering if he was going to pay his mortgage this month. He told the guy he had never been late on a payment or anything.....Very weird. Anybody else get these calls?

>> Permarenter is is a typical one-issue voter, whoever that kicks out the H1Bs will be the on his ticket.

I am against:

* Illegal Immigration

* Lax regulation of wall street and shameless bailout

* The federal reserve

I will vote against incumbents en masse and will vote independent this year. I can not vote for Obama since I do not believe he will effectively change anything. I am a conservative person by nature.

Richmond, does context explain this away too

# The Original Bankster Says:
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:58 am

basically, they are concerned with things hitting the CDS markets… think about this scenario:

Foreclosures continue
massive credit card defaults
CDS depreciate
CDS market dead
credit card rates shoot the moon
no consumer spending
consumer stocks begin to fail
??? (the rapture?)

or an alternative scenario

major dollar decline
indian services exports become too expensive
1) indian GDP plummets, 2) corporations can no longer run their IT
mass panic in central asia, kashmir and punjab secede, Sri’s families entire herd of cows gets raped by marauding pakistanis
mass panic in boardroom
bill gates suggests importing the entire country of india

I generally support Ron Paul’s solution… stop sending money to EVERYONE over there. A solution which I don’t think Israel would be opposed to.

You and I might like that solution, but I doubt Israel would. They recieve by far, the lions share of US foreign aid. Add to that billions in loan guarantees, billions more in military loans (all which were converted to grants) and a billion or so in private (tax deductable) funds. For a "student" of Israel, you must know this.

I do not think Jewish infiltration our society is the reason for our incredible bias for Israel. That bias stems from so many Christians who do not distinguish betweens the Jews of the Bible and modern day Israelis. These Christians think that not supporting Israel is a crime against God. The bapp33 comment When America moves away from Isreal it is time to duck and cover. demonstrates what I am talking about.

Just listen to Bush, McCain, and Obama profess their love of Israel. Anyone running for President who would say anything about "cutting back aid or support for Israel" would find himself immediately out of the running. Not because he would lose the Jewish vote, but because he would anger so many Christians.

PermaRenter, with ur issues, here are what McCain can do:

* Illegal Immigration
- not much, and you do not need to worry about it, illegal immigrants don't come here seeking freedom of religion or human rights, they come here for the greenback. If the greenback is gone, they are gone. The Latino labor crowd in front of Home Depot is mostly gone in the Bay Area, what do you worry about?

* Lax regulation of wall street and shameless bailout
- Nothing. Do you see Fiorina not passing the buck among her own circle?

* The federal reserve
- Are we looking at a McCain assassination here? Did McCain mention anything about the Fed?

Speaking of being conservative, did you hear about the McCain mortgage bailout lately? The solution for you, stay home on election day.

Bernanke is just an academic nerd, not harmful unless you put him a position to cause harm.

Paulson is an entirely different kind. The likes of Paulson need to stay awake and ponder where their future generations can live, because America and Europe have had enough, perhaps they should consider Africa.

>> Speaking of being conservative, did you hear about the McCain mortgage bailout lately? The solution for you, stay home on election day.

Nope, I am going to vote independent and anti-incumbent. I will mail my votes this Sunday.

They are coming after your retirement money...

http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081007/REG/810079894

This might be interesting.

Top Recipients of Fannie and Freddie Campaign Contributions:
1. Dodd, Christopher J, D-CT
2. Kerry, John, D-MA
3. Obama, Barack, D-IL
4. Clinton, Hillary, D-NY

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/top-senate-recipients-of-fanni.html

I don't think of this as an indictment of all Democrats. But, it would appear that Fannie and Freddie believed Democrats would be more useful.

CleansingSphere Says:

October 8th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
This might be interesting.
Top Recipients of Fannie and Freddie Campaign Contributions:
1. Dodd, Christopher J, D-CT
2. Kerry, John, D-MA
3. Obama, Barack, D-IL
4. Clinton, Hillary, D-NY

So what is your point ?
how many times do i have to repeat this :
The Fact that spain and other European countries are having huge “domestic” mortgage related toxic debt issues means that fannie mae/freddie mac in USA are not the problem.fannie mae and freddie mac don't work in spain and europe.

Right on.

Here's a different topic: AIG is getting another 39B$ loan. Why, and why now?

I read that some large chunk of Lehman CDS paper is coming due on Friday 2008-1010. AIG appears to have been a very big player in the CDS market. Maybe this is the reason??

Another topic: The 799+ shorting ban is still on track to expire (or maybe did expire) at midnight.

I'm quite surprised that the ban has not yet again been extended. I wonder why, it is not like Paulson & Co have been showing much restraint regarding manipulating the market lately.

Can anyone think of a reason it would be *useful* to lift the shorting ban right now? Who stands to gain, and how are they connected to Paulson & Co?

Yeah, I am a bit suspicious about this.

Goldman sachs has changed the status from broker to "Bank holding". Its now able to seek liquidities from the Federal Reserve Board.It won't go bankrupt now.
It will benefit from the weakening competition when other investment banks go under.
All the actions paulson and co. take are mostly oriented towards putting Goldman sachs in a more competitive position.
That was one reason they let lehman bros go under but started govt intervention when goldman sachs was getting affected. paulson worked there for 25 years and was a CEO.He might go back to goldman sachs later.They are milking 700B using goldman sachs now.

>>The Fact that spain and other European countries are having huge “domestic” mortgage related toxic debt issues means that fannie mae/freddie mac in USA are not the problem
snmr,

I did not say that F&F are the *only* problem. But, they are certainly at least a $300 billion dollar problem at the moment. And in my mind they contributed greatly to the systemic risk that our economy has fallen victim to.
They legitimized a trade in paper of such low quality as has never been seen in the secondary mortgage market, and that paper IS absolutely the crux of the current problem -- all of the rest of the economic pain stems from it.
They directly benefited from their contacts in congress and used them to block GSE reform and regulation. Every attempt at reigning in F&F this decade was effectively crushed by their allies in congress. They leveraged themselves actually far more than Bear or Lehman... the only difference is that their margin call was forwarded to congress.
What makes me most angry is that they they changed their own accounting rules so they could write themselves hundred million dollar bonuses.
I think the law should be changed so corporations with a mixed public/private charter should NOT be allowed to lobby.

(ranting a bit more about F&F)

Fannie and Freddie absolutely legitimized the secondary market for poor quality, risky loans. Again, the GSEs are effectively the gov't's policy instrument in the housing market (FHA having long gone by the wayside). The GSE's are *designed* to promote safe, sane lending and abate risky practices. All they have to do is decide what paper they will buy.
The results are no less tangible than standards set by any fully public gov't agency. Instead of saying "No we will not buy your stinking toilet paper", they got in the game themselves for great (but fleeting) profits.

The only thing I can compare it to is if the FDA were to suddenly change its mind and say that melamine was totally cool to put into baby formula, and the FAA said it was fine to fly airplanes without landing gears as long as people aren't complaining about the bumpy landings.

And to top it off, they knew they could get away with it by telling their allies in congress some beautiful fibs. E.g., for subprime lending they could say, "look at the wonderful diverse lending we've been getting into... opening new opportunities for people. Through the mandates of good folks like you in congress, we've finally discovered that captialism and equal opportunity in lending can walk hand in hand", which was sure to evoke watery eyes among a certain crowd.

Tf things got hairy, they could tell congress "we tried so hard to give every good hard-working american the loan they deserved, but it came back to bite us, gosh darnit".

The worst part of it all is that everyone knew that if Fannie and Freddie were doing it, it was safe to jump in, because F&F are too big to fail. If it came down to it, they could pull strings in congress, and the US taxpayer would perform the needed wallet-to-wallet resuscitation.
The "congress put", well hedged -- hundreds of billions of protection for only $174 million to grease congress's pockets in the last 10 years.

Sequoia Rings the Alarm Bell: Silicon Valley Is in Trouble, perhaps the first cracks in the Fortress' growth prospects?

OO said:
The likes of Paulson need to stay awake and ponder where their future generations can live, because America and Europe have had enough, perhaps they should consider Africa.

Please, no. Africa has suffered enough, and the last thing they need is a bunch of refugee Banksters. :-)

A lot of better thinking has surfaced lately.
MLEC dead (aka Super SIV II).
Direct injection of capital.
Backstopping by Trichet
Coordinated cuts.
We will see some needed weedng of banks and companies soon.

Now, now we can talk about the 800lb gorilla in the room

I think we need to nullify all CDS where the party hedging debt has no interest stake (or a trivial stake) in those bonds. The math is scary.

We will only be truly out of the woods once that CDS market is susupended. Sorted out. Then regulated.

@OO

The Investment News article is an eye opener. Thanks !

apostasy Says:
Sequoia Rings the Alarm Bell: Silicon Valley Is in Trouble, perhaps the first cracks in the Fortress’ growth prospects?

This is another one of those long overdue headlines - the situation on the ground is pretty old, but the MSM ignored it. The fact is that for nearly two years now, the smart money has been sitting out of the tech-startup market. The majority of investments have been triaged into the most viable of _existing_ portfolio companies - i.e. not for a new startup.

From my vantage point, the bust in startups has been like the housing market - it was clearly going on, and the trend seemed pretty well established, but cheerleaders and gossip-rags kept took didn't change their tune, until it was a non-news item.

that last sentence was poorly edited mid-post - it should have said:
"but cheerleaders and gossip-rags didn’t change their tune, until it was a non-news item."

overheard at a breakfast meeting in the cafe just now...:
"Bernanke and the other CB's gave the market a gigantic boner pill yesterday, but still failed to get it up."

"first cracks in the Fortress’ growth prospects"

huh? First? It started cracking with everything else. Personally, I don't think the Bay Area will turn into Detroit, but rather they'll decline per a relative ratio with everything else.

US treasury yield is rising, yet stock market is still dropping.

What does that mean? Foreign flight of capital, NO imaginary flight to safety to the US. The USD euphoria is not created by foreigners desiring the US as a safe harbor, but because the US-based financial institutions are out of money to cover their USD-denominated debt.

IF China, Japan and Middle East are lightening up their load during this time (which we won't know until 1-2months after fact), we are doomed.

But don't worry, Congress will make sure every single American will have to buy patriotic Treasury from the government, what you don't like that? I will just stuff it into your 401K and make that your only choice.

# The Original Bankster Says:
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:58 am

basically, they are concerned with things hitting the CDS markets… think about this scenario:

Foreclosures continue
massive credit card defaults
CDS depreciate
CDS market dead
credit card rates shoot the moon
no consumer spending
consumer stocks begin to fail
??? (the rapture?)

I hope I'm quoting the correct poster on this string. I don't generally comment, more of a lurker, but did want to say I've been watching my credit card statements begin to shoot the moon.

I sent the payment in a day or two late via snail mail on a Visa card a few months ago and Chase hiked the APR rate to 25.99%. That's pretty steep for an average consumer who pays bills on time and has good credit. Even the Target credit card I used to have never went above 18%.

I'm moving the balance to another card but also delaying all non-essential purchases until I pay off the balance. If everyone out there is doing the same, it's going to be a dismal holiday season.

The kids are gettin' clean burning coal in their stockings this X-mas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business

A very good article on what the real issue is now.

Derrivites make the MBS problem look like nothing.

The world needs to strike these down by. . .hrm tomorrow. Lehman CDS are due to be sttled tomorrow and up to $1t may chnage hands. Of course, this would crush the counterparties which would bankrupt which would trigger a CDS event which would crush the counter parties which would. . .
In a nearly $600t CDS market we simply have to stop this. Now. Today.

As much as I dislike Pualson and Cox and as little as I trust Congress, they are not stupid. Look for some anouncement today or after market.

We have done so many game changing rules so far, why not the big one? Nullifying CDS contracts?

DOW may drop below 9,000 today. Glad I'm not in it.