Yes it is not the same, but I did say "if I remember right." I remember talk on cnbc talking about not paying tax. I did not look it up, because I was basicly telling sid he sold it. I did qualify it with "If I remember right"
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Yes it is not the same, but I did say "if I remember right." I remember talk on cnbc talking about not paying tax. I did not look it up, because I was basicly telling sid he sold it. I did qualify it with "If I remember right"
Sure, I understand that. I just thought if you posted it you could be the one to look it up. Thanks. I do realize most mongers don't want to sit around reading the Internal Revenue Code but I think what Section 1043 is trying to accomplish is fairly valid. We don't want powerful politicians to own individual equities whose value they could then manipulate through legislation and so forth. Then again, I'm not sure having the [b]Treasury Secretary[/b] owning a bunch of [b]treasury securities[/b] is the way to go either. Maybe that needs to change
Note also that he could have bought any "diversified investment fund" (meaning mutual fund yes but hedge fund no) and achieved the same result. We don't know what he bought when he dumped GS. Of course if he'd bought an index fund around that time he'd be pretty well hosed now too, although not as badly.
[QUOTE=Doppelganger]I don't think giving Treasury authority to buy up $700 billion in "loans" is the way to go, but a knee jerk reaction to save "Wall Street" by a Treasury Secretary from Wall Street who just wants to save his friends.
We are not going to know the value of our financial institutions or the housing market until they are allowed to bottom out at their true value, which is going to be expensive and painful. Attempting to shore it up by the Treasury with our tax dollars will only delay the bitter pill all American's are going to have to swallow at some point and probably make it worse.
I also don't think CEO's should be walking away with tens of millions of dollars in golden parachutes after crashing their companies. There is just something basically wrong in lavishly rewarding failure. I think the guys who ran these firms should be stripped of their wealth and sent to prison; their families thrown out on the streets broke. A few of them swinging from ropes from the lamp posts along Wall Street as an example would be better, but I doubt anyone has the stomach for it. It would not help the situation now but it would set the example for future CEO's thinking of taking the same path in the future that there is responsibility at the end of the road and Uncle Sugar will not come save the day with my money!
I fully believe in the free market, but what we have gotten under both Democrats and Republicans beginning with Clinton is corruption, greed, and theft, not free market. I doubt McCain or Obama have either the brains or the balls to do what it will take to clean it up since no one is going to want to really face up to what this is going to do to the country.[/QUOTE]I do believe in free markets, but I also believe Paulson is doing the right thing. The big problem banks are having is they have to Mark-to-Market. If a security traded in a fire sale for 10 cents on the dollar, which some have, then all banks have to Mark a similar security at 10 cents. Which causes their reserves to be too low, and can force then into bankruptcy.
The vast majority of mortgages are not in default, but some of the prices on the mortgages are assuming default. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to mark down mortgages that where written before the housing bubble, which where not likely to default, since the houses are probably worth more then the mortgages, but since they had to mark-to-market, they had to lower the value, which meant they did not have enough capital. My understanding is that over 90% of their mortgages where written pre housing bubble, I think I even heard on CNBC it was 95% but I don't want to stand by that number.
When a mortgage goes into default, the house is foreclosed and sold, so the bank does not lose 100% of it money, but it can lose 50-70% in this market. Assuming 100% defaults on one particular set of mortgages, which I think has never happen, why would something sell at 10 cents on the dollar? The reason is they had to Mark-to-market, which meant they did not have enough capital, which forced them to sell out their position.
One way that was suggested to address this problem, was to allow banks to Mark-to-Model. That way they cannot be forced into bankruptcy, by someone selling something too cheaply. The problem with Mark-to-Model is that people lose trust in the value of the holdings of these banks.
Paulson came up with a plan to set a floor on the prices of these mortgage backed stuff. The government would put a bid on them, causing a minimum price. So no more banks go under, and they will keep the mark-to-market model. Depending on what price the government buys this stuff, it can make money, if they hold the mortgages until the housing market come up again, which could be years away. Treasury has to pay just enough to keep the bank afloat, but losing money, and not too much more. If Treasury pays too much more, then it will be rewarding bad behavior.
One guy on CNBC 2 days ago, said, once there is a floor on the price, some bank will not sell them, since they can make more money by holding them, and they are not forced to sell, because of Mark-to-market.
The reason it had to be done is that one money market broke the bank. People started pulling their money out all over the country, which was causing good stuff to sell at fire sale prices, which would have cause other money markets to break the buck, which would cause more panic. Money Markets do not hold mortgages, but the panic was spreading. As Values of stuff sold went down, more and more bank would have become insolvent, because they have to mark-to-market. Any many banks doe hold good paper too, which would have to be marked-to-market.
I think he did the right thing, but this does not address credit-default swaps, which is HUGE!
Blaming mark-to-market is a red herring. It's a superior accounting practice. These securities are fungible. If bank X holds security Y and bank Z sells security Y in the open market for N dollars then security Y is also worth N dollars to bank X, [i]by definition[/i], if you really believe in free markets! The concept of a "fire sale" price might make sense in a shallow or illiquid market but the markets in question are broad and liquid.
[QUOTE=Dickhead] The concept of a "fire sale" price might make sense in a shallow or illiquid market but the markets in question are broad and liquid.[/QUOTE]You are wrong, has not been liquid for a while, the mortgage stuff is not liquid now. Ask any trader, only the very best stuff is selling, the less quality stuff is not.
The banks have to Mark-to-market.
"Oil of coal, of course, is a fungible commodity and they don't flag, ya know, the molecules where, where it's going to, where it's not, but and in the, in the sense of the Congress today they know our very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So I believe that what Congress is going to do also is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here; it's gotta flow into our domestic markets first."
[url]http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2008/09/24/sarah_palin_energy/[/url]
I think Sarah Palin is caught in the middle of the so called global warming conflict. She doesn't believe in global warming but her running mate does. Consequently she has a hard time telling the global warming advocates to stick a lump of coal up their ass.
Nobody disagrees that we have global warming. The issue is whether it is man made global warming. We have been coming out of a mini ice age for several centuries and there have been minimal increases in temperatures which appear to have peaked in 1998.
As far as I can tell there was a plateau in atmospheric temperatures in 1998 and since 1998 there has been a slight dectreases in atmospheric temperatures.
The real test is Artic ice coverage. This year I. E 2008 there was 10 to 20% more artic ice coverage than in the summer of 2007. This is a trend that I think is going to continue.
I have made a living off the stupidity of others. I will bet the ranch that in the next 5 years the issue of artic ice coverage will disappear. We are entering an age of global cooling.
My source in the Old Farmers Alamanac. They are serious meterologists, although you might not believe it, who recently predicted that this winter will be brutal because we are entering a era of global cooling.
I might be dead wrong but I am willing to bet the ranch that man made global warming, not global warming, is an idea that will rank up with the idea that the world is flat or the moon is made of blue cheese.
Shit, that be@tch is so tight, if you [b]could[/b] shove a lump of coal up her ass before long you'd have a diamond. Love that line about "making a living off other people's stupidity."
Senator Joe Biden Democrat Vice Presidential Nominee held an interview with Katie Couric of CBS Evening News. Biden said [highlight] “Part of what a leader does is to instill confidence is demonstrate that he or she knows what their talking about and communicates to people, if you listen to me and follow what I ’m suggesting we can fix this. When the stock market crashed Franklin Roosevelt got on television and didn ’t just talk about the you know the princes of greed, look, here's what happened,'" [/highlight]
[I]Update: Television was the size of a credit card and was experimental definitely not mainstream. Liberals should quit trying to make Joe Bidens lie a truth by saying President Roosevelt did appear on TV from the Worlds Fair but not speaking about the depression. :rolleyes:
"And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, 'Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?'" [/i]
"Chuck, stand up, let the people see you, Oh, God love ya," Biden said. "What am I talking about?" :eek:
Maybe I'll push that debate back a little!
Hey, El Alamo, you and I may be in a minority, but we are on the same page concerning the manmade theory of global warming.
Claims that the principal cause of global warming is CO2 is a hoax, perhaps just a pretext to enact a worldwide carbon tax, create more bureaucracy and create jobs for failed politicians. It also distracts our attention from the real environmental degradation taking place.
Strange how the media manages to ignore the hundreds of reputable scientists and academics who have poked holes in the CO2 theories and computer models.
The most persuasive theory behind global warming and now global cooling, is sunspot activity. Yes people, it's that simple. When the sun gets hotter, so does the earth and vice versa. But hey, you can't win nobel prizes and generate tax revenues on that. Nope, you have to do that on people's stupidity.
[QUOTE=El Alamo]I think Sarah Palin is caught in the middle of the so called global warming conflict. She doesn't believe in global warming but her running mate does. Consequently she has a hard time telling the global warming advocates to stick a lump of coal up their ass.
Nobody disagrees that we have global warming. The issue is whether it is man made global warming. We have been coming out of a mini ice age for several centuries and there have been minimal increases in temperatures which appear to have peaked in 1998.
As far as I can tell there was a plateau in atmospheric temperatures in 1998 and since 1998 there has been a slight dectreases in atmospheric temperatures.
The real test is Artic ice coverage. This year I. E 2008 there was 10 to 20% more artic ice coverage than in the summer of 2007. This is a trend that I think is going to continue.
I have made a living off the stupidity of others. I will bet the ranch that in the next 5 years the issue of artic ice coverage will disappear. We are entering an age of global cooling.
My source in the Old Farmers Alamanac. They are serious meterologists, although you might not believe it, who recently predicted that this winter will be brutal because we are entering a era of global cooling.
I might be dead wrong but I am willing to bet the ranch that man made global warming, not global warming, is an idea that will rank up with the idea that the world is flat or the moon is made of blue cheese.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Sidney]All his mannerisms and facial contortions seem to confirm this to me. What does Doggboy think? And you other armchair psychologists?
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I had a long, miserable, contentious relation with his Goldman predecessor, Robert Rubin, a totally untrustworthy man and 100% for Goldman to the detriment for the company we served. I can't help but believe Pauley is the same! It seems obvious to me that Pauley is serving Goldman's interest, Wall Street's interest, and that next hugely lucrative Wall Street job, that will be waiting for him!
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Bernie seems like a naive, lifelong academic ''going along for a ride'' with Pauley. Of course, a lucrative Wall Street job will be there for him as well.
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Everything both have done in approximately 2 years in office has been late and disaster. I want no part of giving $700 billion to spend at their discretion. Besides that, the Plan sucks![/QUOTE]Hey Sid-I only saw the first few hours of the first day of hearings. Pauley looked damn nervous and uncomfortable-but who wouldn't be? And for Bernie-an ivory tower, decent guy, I suppose, but out of his element. Cox-a used car salesman, slick and in bed with all the Wall St. Head honchos.
My take on Pauley is that he is anxious because he can't give honest answers to specific questions about the plan-BECAUSE HE DOESN'T KNOW THE SPECIFIC ANSWERS! All he knows is that they have to throw a ton of money at the mess, and they want to work out the nasty details AFTER Congress signs off. So, he comes off as a dissembling, half ignorant, reluctant cheerleader.