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I don't agree with, you can't make your case, and it suddenly becomes "religion"? That's a useful attitude...
I strongly believe housing prices are *extremely* over-valued. The rational approach, IMO, is to let them deflate. What you are describing is fundamentally no different than a price control, and we have ample evidence that price controls cause more problems than they solve.
If you don't agree, don't agree, it's ok with me.
RE is selling below cost of construction.
Great! So let the price of construction fall - which it will, by ~50% IMO - and the problem resolves itself without the need for government price supports.
...they bring in the government as the investor...
Sorry, completely opposed. All this will accomplish is delay yet again the inevitable price discovery for home values, and introduce a fresh batch of distortions into the marketplace.
It is crucial, IMO, that failed investments in homes be allowed to follow their nature course - up to and including foreclosure.
So, you'd like the holder of the note to take a bigger loss than necessary.
The market should determine how big a loss is "necessary". Neither nor I are in a position to determine such a thing.
Rewarding people who make imprudent decisions is the same as punishing people who don't. What you are creating is an incentive for people who are otherwise hanging on to go ahead and default.
I would rather see a wholesale nationalization of the offending institutions - yes, coupled with civil service wage scales - and letting people who made bad choices live with the consequence of those choices.
Yes, no question there would be side effects for pretty much everyone. Well, too bad, these are the policies the electorate voted for. Multiple times.
And let's cut FDIC to $10k while we're cleaning things up. Large majority of people don't even have that squirreled away, which makes the entire thing one giant regressive tax. Anyone who wants to put money in unsafe institutions to chase half a point yield on a term deposit should exclusively bear the risk of that decision.
Why on earth should the mortgages of the people who showed the LEAST good judgement be subsidized? I would much rather have them foreclosed-on into an RTC-like structure.
Wow wow wow - that was a terrific game of baseball. Fenway is going to be a-rocking!
top of the second and they're already back to the top of the order. this could be a looooong night...
Humility won't allow me to answer that as I might. ;) Anyway, here's one for the home team:
The Securities and Exchange Commission will investigate a false report that claimed Steve Jobs had suffered a major heart attack, according to Bloomberg News. The report was posted on the CNN iReport "citizen journalism" website this morning, but was quickly removed.
And...
SEATTLE (AP) -- A CNN-owned Web site called iReport.com, which publishes reports written by ordinary citizens, said Friday it will give the Securities and Exchange Commission information about the author of an item that claimed Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack.
Personally I'd rather see a video of Jobs doing a 10k jog or something this afternoon, but it appears that's what we'll have to settle for.
Now back to the Red Sox game...
no one thought this would drop below 120...then 100...
well, there were a couple of voices in the wilderness here saying just that.
Latest forecast from our friends at Goldman...
The U.S. recession will be "significantly deeper" than they previously thought, Goldman Sachs economists predicted Friday in a research note. ... The unemployment rate will likely rise to 8% by the end of next year from 6.1% currently.
Will that affect AAPL earnings? As the upcoming VP might say - "you betcha!"
Need a number check from Lango - there is about $20 cash in deferred revs - with the current stash that would put AAPL @ $60 at very close to cash value.
Broader markets have hit '04 bottom levels - maybe it's time to start thinking in terms of a retest of the '02 lows. To save anyone the time of looking it up, '02 bottom for AAPL was ~$8.
Given the stock has dumped as much as $20 in a day I'm not sure a move from $102 to $96 qualifies as a "spike".
Not sure whether that's a "feel good" or "feel bad" observation, lol.
PS. I'd look good in the car in your sig. LOL!
You may get your chance - supposedly about a 100 of them hit the used market after Lehman went kablooey. :)
So in keeping with these crazy days, is it too early to have someone crank out a spread sheet showing the, ah, "securitized" point totals in the pool so far? :)
This is being talked about in the middle of a playoff series?
Is the Cubs pitcher having a Free Willy problem down there, or is he just happy to be in the playoffs?
Last four heaters all 95+. Think he was a little pumped? :)
Thirteen pitches, thirteen fastballs, 3 outs, 1 win.
Whew!
Angels playing fire all night, averaging two base runners an inning.
Ok Papelbon, it's all up to you now...
Alright Papi, here's your chance to shine (again).
BC boy. Hey Ho - Let's go!
I know Red Sox fans have a reputation for eating their own post-trade - but I have admit - when Manny was up there with 2 out and 1 on - I was pulling for him.
(No offense to Cubs fans.)
"Hey America! You finally passed ten trillion in federal debt! What are you gonna do now?"
"We're going to Disneyland, to spend more!"
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
They will lose their home
The conversations are wide-ranging and it's not always possible to keep up. There are proposals on the table to keep these "victims" from losing their homes. That would upset me tremendously - it's just not fair for people who acted responsibility. If you don't support cram-downs and related actions, then this concern doesn't apply to you. Apologies if you felt painted with the wrong brush.
Who should bear the brunt of the blame at this point in time.
I'm of the firm opinion that in a democracy, the citizens are ultimately responsible for what happens. The root cause of all this isn't a regulatory change, it's the attitude that vast expansion of debt is Good Thing. That's what allows the acceptance of the regulatory changes - the regs are a symptom of the sickness, not a cause.
There have been candidates for office who fought this and tried calling Main Street on its behavior - voters jave more or less universally rejected them.
As far as I'm concerned, the electorate demanded to be pandered to. In a democracy, the electorate gets what it want. And now, it's getting what it deserves.
The rise in no-doc, no-equity and ARM loans in the US were a direct result of monetary policy and lack of regulation of the credit derivatives market.
While I agree that's true, I also believe it still puts the cart before the horse. Yes, the bulk of those loans came after the regs changed, however the regs changed precisely to allow more of those loans.
So while the actualization of the plan came post-reg, the regs are a result of the plan, not vice versa.
To now blame the people who signed on to these loans when the banks pushed them on them is ludicrous.
This I disagree with. People have to be held responsible for their own actions. Nobody held a gun to anyone's head. It's also unfair, because not extracting the pound of flesh from people who made clearly idiotic decisions is a direct punishement on people - and there were many of them - who acted prudently and avoided taking on unsustainable debt loads.
Blaming the supplier is just a rehash of the completely failed war on drugs approach.
This does not absolve regulators/leaders for their culpability, of course.
Why are you bothering? This is like arguing Christianity with a born-again Muslim - it's got nothing to do with logic, it's got to do with a fundamental principle of faith - mainly "it's not my fault. it's never my fault".
Could it be that he really is trying to bail out his Wall Street friends? And not just his Wall Street friends, but his friendly Asian bankers as well.
The last estimate I saw had approximately $1T in agency debt being held overseas, by the same people who fund the enormous US federal debt. Perhaps a better question is: if Paulson isn't helping out his overseas "friends" - shouldn't we be encouraging him to?
Either the share price is above $6 at that time, or the conversion price will be lowered, or COIN will need to cough up $6 million.
Woah! Apparently I didn't read the filings back far enough. Thanks for sharing, that is an incredibly important bit of information.
Sorry - didn't realize the reply chain had switched names - I mistakenly thought I had read you advocating cramdowns.
If you want to allow rational thought in, how about just not letting Fanny/Freddie accept:
Fair enough.
But don't the borrowers who signed the papers bear some responsibility in this as well?
Should there not be some kind of financial reward for people who were prudent with their spending habits?
Really sorry to hear about that. Personally, I never use margin, but I'm a safety first kind of guy.
I've been reading through the SEC filings. To be blunt, this doesn't look like a solvent company. The issue of unrestricted options - basically, free shares - to insiders over the summer - 6 weeks before the last pop - is also a bit concerning. It kinda looks like COIN is a stock-selling division of ECap Global - and it doesn't help perceptions that the two companies are run by brothers.
All that said, I'd like to learn more about the company. For example, Do they have an "in" with Ecap's other projects, like Terrasphere? Presumably Terrasphere needs a !@#$#-load of fertilizer for the Pharmasphere project (though the latest photos I can find suggest they haven't even started working on the Worcester site).
Keeping an open mind...
The last three minutes were insane. I had a stinky bid of $201 which actually got hit. 90 seconds later it as sold at $405.
Of course the trade was busted, as were most of the trades in the last 5 minutes, but it sure made the P&L look awfully good while it lasted! :)
...now that we are in this fix, we need to find a way to get out of it...
If problems with the old regs have been found, would it be totally out of line to ask that those things be fixed *first*, before dumping another pile of money into the system?
Treasury and the Executive branch has emergency powers to basically do whatever the hell they want - how about letting them use it and having Congress focus on fixing the regulatory apparatus? Yes, I know they want to leave DC, but they're handsomely paid to do a job, and right now they are needed on that job.
So backing out the cash that's something like $25 + ((0.2)*(105-25)) * 1.25 -> $45.
Weeee...
We need Lango's number expertise here. Let's say the recession is real - Apple's growth rate goes to single digits and expectations are that it will stay there for a couple of years - the usual recessionary P/E compression happens.
So what are we really looking at as a pessimistic but reasonable lower end for this stock?
President is going to address the nation pre-pre-market.
Got cash?
Two questions:
- what is the investment relationship between Ecap Global and Converted Organics?
- is the Bill Gildea of Ecap a relation of Converted Organics' Ed Gildea?
Read through a number of posts but didn't see the answer to these, apologies if my reading was diligent enough!
Graphic representation of today's big vote (thanks to Lango for the link).
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/ROLLCALL.html?currentChamber=house¤tSession=2¤tCongress=110¤tRoll=674
The yes/no seems more correlated with geography than party. Maybe it's worth thinking of turning the Republic into a couple of best-friend Republii...?
my broker called it "an interesting strategy".
Judging by this board, maybe we should call it the Canuck Strategy. :)
Where is everybody? This is the best buying op ages, would've expected this board to be hopping with activity.