Earnings Are Imaginary 27 comments
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Earnings season has always been a crapshoot, largely because of the nature of our financial system. To whit, we have accountants whose jobs consist entirely of finding ways to minimize taxes and eek out profits from even the flimsiest of circumstances (financial firms have become masters of this).
Indeed, it’s common practice for companies to prepare TWO tax statements, one that is released to the public and another that goes to the IRS. The IRS version usually features numerous tax dodges such as shifting revenues to tax havens / offshore subsidiaries, as well as phony accounting charges and the like.
After the accountants get through with “cooking the books,” corporate earnings are then supposed to be accurately forecast by Wall Street analysts, most if not all of whom work for firms that make millions performing mergers / acquisitions / IPOs and other investment banking deals with the very companies the analysts are supposed to be objectively covering.
We then have institutional investors who invest based on the analysts’ views which are based on the accountants’ voodoo (the institutions themselves usually have relationships with the analysts’ firms as well). And then we have the public, whose funds are either invested with the institutions OR are whipsawed and destroyed by the institutions moves.
All of these moves have become exacerbated by the US’s decision to abandon anything remotely resembling accurate accounting standards. Nowhere is this more evident that in the financials sector.
Most commentators were ecstatic that banks such as Goldman Sachs (GS) reported stellar 1Q09 earnings. They’re equally thrilled that Goldman et al are so far producing strong results this quarter too (Goldman’s 2Q09 results released yesterday beat expectations). However, no one seems to bother looking at where these “earnings” are coming from.
The banks’ 1Q09 results were largely the result of accounting gimmicks, NOT actual money being made. The most obvious gimmick involved marking down debt and recording the mark down as a profit.
In laymen’s terms, banks had issued bonds to investors (the banks get the investors’ money, the investors get a bond with a certain yield). These bonds have since fallen in value. So the bank is claiming that because it could repurchase the bonds at lower prices (pocketing the difference between the lower price and the initial higher price the investors paid), that these bonds could be recorded at a profit.
Take a moment to let that sink in... The banks DID NOT actually buy back the bonds (they couldn’t even if they wanted to since they doesn’t have the funds), so they’re merely claiming that they COULD do this if they WANTED to.
Using this kind of logic, someone could claim that they made $3 million last year because technically they could rob every store they’ve ever spent money at during their lifetime in order to recoup their earnings. There’s a word for this type of thinking: it’s called insanity.
Aside from this, financial firms have posted profits based on all kinds of other accounting fraud including but not limited to: marking junk assets at super inflated levels, papering over real losses with one time charge-offs, and more.
Heck, even the alleged best of the bunch (Goldman Sachs) now openly admits that their trading programs can manipulate markets and that they received $13 billion in taxpayer money while hedging against their AIG (AIG) exposure (essentially making the $13 billion a freebie that Goldman could play around with for a few months).
If those two items alone aren’t enough proof that profits from banks and other financials are a load of bunk, consider that Goldman insiders sold nearly $700 million in stock at the SAME TIME they were receiving bailout money. If the guys inside the firm are cashing out while receiving OUR money, what does that say about the stability of their firm… not to mention the abject failure of the SEC to do anything resembling real regulation.
Bottom line: Earnings, especially financials’ earnings are a load of nonsense.
The fact of however many companies beat earnings estimates in 2Q09 is irrelevant. You might as well say 70% of companies beat an imaginary number. Anyone betting on a strong 3Q09 or 4Q09 is in for a REAL surprise.
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Investors need to be a little better about breaking down the fundamentals and put them in context of meaningful financial ratios. This gets rid of some accounting fluctuations and shows a firm's true health. My favorites vary by sector and product, but I like to use these by rule of thumb: Lt Debt / Equity, RoA, Revenue growth, sharpe ratio, Quick/Current ratio, operating margin, and cash flow adequacy.
Why would they do this? After all, failure and further credibility damage imposes new risks.
Because they are unwilling to make the tough decisions to clean up or flush these damaged companies. So they’re hoping for an immaculate recovery built on BS.
OIR,
Good article.
Goldman's bailouts are especially disturbing given our unemployment rate and our mushrooming budget deficits. It's hard to believe that America added $13 billion to its deficit to bail out Goldman. Outrageous.
I respectfully disagree, however, that it is wrong for corporations to keep two sets of books (i.e., tax accounting and financial accounting). Tax accounting CAN be used responsibly, and for the benefit of shareholders. (Whether this actually happens is another story altogether.)
A company may accelerate depreciation, for example, to depress reported earnings. This lowers their tax bill, and is a logical form of tax avoidance. As you noted, there are many other reasons that tax accounting may differ from financial accounting, and these CAN be done for the benefit of shareholders.
Accelerated depreciation is an incentive for capital spending, just as the mortgage interest deduction is an incentive for residential housing. These types of supply-side economics are one of the reasons that the U.S. tax code is so complex, and so lucrative for accountants and attorneys.
Bottom line: TWO sets of books isn't the problem. The U.S. TAX CODE is the problem. Its complexity is fertile ground for corporate chicanery.
Thanks for the article.
Rob
On Aug 14 02:26 PM Graham and Dodd Investor wrote:
> Earnings were imaginary in 2001, also during the last "recovery."
> That's why the market tanked in 2002 (when people finally figured
> it out.) Ditto for 2010.
I think anoter crucial unanswered question is this: If earnings are so great, why do banks need ever-increasing leverage to produce these mediocre operating earnings?
Their own economists are terrified of deflation. If they actually believe in the deflation case, they should be rushing to pay off debt. Either they're too worried about their bonuses next quarter, or they know that soon inflation will benefit the highly leveraged.
Insiders are still selling more of the financial stocks than buying. Wonder why?
When the big companies start to announce executive "changes" beware.
And take all money off the table cuz the shit is about to hit the fan.
The road map to La La Land.
Where earnings are better than expected.
The two sets of books, financial and tax for corporations, is absolute total nonsense. There is not one single valid reason for this. The only reason it is done is because of political payoffs by corporations to achieve economic advantages and politicans are happy to comply to get the hugh corporate donations and get re-elected. There is not one single logical or economic reason for it. GAAP reported earning should be 100% equal to taxable corporate income. To do otherwise distorts economic reporting, provides significant opportunities for fraud/manipulation/dis... and further wastes hugh resources in ongoing and nonproductive attempts to constantly develop/find/exploit new or existing loopholes. Furthermore, it imposes significant costs and burdens on the IRS in maintaining a totally unnecessary and complex corporate tax code. If the corporate tax code were simply set as the same reporting standard as GAAP reported earning, then massive costs, inequities, favoritism, waste, etc could be eliminated. A much better corporate tax system would simply be to use GAAP reported earnings THEN provide direct tax credits for any particular ST program that the politicans want to incentivize some particular behavior (eg. job creation). This would be far simpler, much fairer, much more transparent, and much more cost effective. In addtion it would clearly show exactly what the "payoffs" are, because direct tax credits are much easier to see and track. Unfortunately this is not what either the politicans or the corporations want ... they both want fraud, complexity, payoffs, non-transparency, etc.
In short, there are reasonable and fairly simple solutions in the US to many of our major issues such as: corporate tax, healthcare, social security, military over expenditures, massive corporate fraud, etc. Unfortunately they would reduce the power, influence, and wealth transfer to the US elite being the politicans, lobbyists, and corporate oligarchs. Thus they will never get done, because the top 1% of the elite has no real interest in seeing their weatlh/power/influence diluted, despite the fact that that is exactly what is in the best interests of the other 99% of Americans.
Wish it were different, but cannot see it happening until some type of super-karismatic, visionary, uber-honest leader emerges that is willing to take on both the Republicans and Democrats and clean their clocks with a third party. The only alternative seems to be a revolution by a majority of the American people, but that won't happen either without the above mentioned type of leader.
On Aug 14 06:10 PM Robert Martorana wrote:
>
> OIR,
>
> Good article.
>
> Goldman's bailouts are especially disturbing given our unemployment
> rate and our mushrooming budget deficits. It's hard to believe that
> America added $13 billion to its deficit to bail out Goldman. Outrageous.
>
>
> I respectfully disagree, however, that it is wrong for corporations
> to keep two sets of books (i.e., tax accounting and financial accounting).
> Tax accounting CAN be used responsibly, and for the benefit of shareholders.
> (Whether this actually happens is another story altogether.)
>
> A company may accelerate depreciation, for example, to depress reported
> earnings. This lowers their tax bill, and is a logical form of tax
> avoidance. As you noted, there are many other reasons that tax accounting
> may differ from financial accounting, and these CAN be done for the
> benefit of shareholders.
>
> Accelerated depreciation is an incentive for capital spending, just
> as the mortgage interest deduction is an incentive for residential
> housing. These types of supply-side economics are one of the reasons
> that the U.S. tax code is so complex, and so lucrative for accountants
> and attorneys.
>
> Bottom line: TWO sets of books isn't the problem. The U.S. TAX CODE
> is the problem. Its complexity is fertile ground for corporate chicanery.
>
>
> Thanks for the article.
> Rob
On Aug 14 02:20 PM Victor84 wrote:
> Thank you for the article. Companies like GS are parasites to the
> economy, draining value from the economy by manipulating policy and
> the market and then stuffing the pockets of a select few thousand.
> Other than underwriting and facilitating huge mergers/acquisitions,
> they provide no real value to the economy. To think that some of
> the best and brightest people in the world are wasting their talents
> playing with money instead of doing something truly useful is a sad
> thought indeed.
On Aug 15 01:59 AM acttang wrote:
> Oh really? What sort of jobs that you think have real value? Oh,
> I got it, something like an engineer or a doctor or a teacher, right?
> Right. Except that I don't see how nice people with these moral and
> decent jobs can go about living their modern lives without the flow
> of money. When there is flow of money, there are people who try to
> steer it to flow to the right places. When they steer it right, they
> actually do provide value to society, lots of value! And they get
> paid very smartly for doing it right. When they steer it wrong, well,
> they are wrong. Doctors are known for mistakenly killing patience.
> Engineers are known for building collapsed bridges. So what? Nothing
> exists for no reason. If talented people keep themselves in the money
> game, you'd better believe there is good reason. Not recognizing
> the reason, actually, is quite sad.
>
I am providing it for two main reasons -
1) It provides some valuable insights into events.
2) I agree with the basic trust of the article & believe that the information & ramifications are likely to be proven correct, as history unfolds.
That said, my apology to those readers who prefer short posts, as this is not short.
=========================
Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?
Energy is the ultimate enabler of growth (again, this is axiomatic: physics and biology both tell us that without energy nothing happens). Industrial expansion throughout the past two centuries has in every instance been based on increased energy consumption. More specifically, industrialism has been inextricably tied to the availability and consumption of cheap energy from coal and oil (and more recently, natural gas). However, fossil fuels are by their very nature depleting, non-renewable resources. Therefore (according to the Peak Oil thesis), the eventual inability to continue increasing supplies of cheap fossil energy will likely lead to a cessation of economic growth in general, unless alternative energy sources and efficiency of energy use can be deployed rapidly and to a sufficient degree.
Of the three conventional fossil fuels, oil is arguably the most economically vital, since it supplies 95 percent of all transport energy. Further, petroleum is the fuel with which we are likely to encounter supply problems soonest, because global petroleum discoveries have been declining for decades, and most oil producing countries are already seeing production declines.
So, by this logic, the end of economic growth (as conventionally defined) is inevitable, and Peak Oil is the likely trigger.
In effect we have borrowed from future generations so that we could gamble away their capital today.
Why Did Oil Prices Fall? And Why Didn't Lower Oil Prices Lead to a Quick Recovery?
The Peak Oil thesis predicts that, as world oil production reaches its maximum level and begins to decline, the price of oil will rise dramatically. But it also forecasts a dramatic increase in the volatility of prices.
The argument goes as follows. As oil becomes scarce, its price will rise until it begins to undermine economic activity in general. Economic contraction will then result in substantially reduced demand for oil, which will in turn cause its price to fall temporarily. Then one of two things will happen: either (a) the economy will begin to recover, stoking renewed oil demand, leading again to high prices which will again undermine economic activity; or (b), if the economy does not quickly recover, petroleum production will gradually fall due to depletion until spare production capacity (created by lower demand) is wiped out, leading again to higher prices and even more economic contraction. In both cases, oil prices remain volatile and the economy contracts.
One way or another, growth will be highly problematic if not unachievable.
Big Picture Diagnosis: Continuing the Trail of Logic
Thus the Peak Oil crisis is really just the leading edge of a broader Peak Everything dilemma.
In essence, humanity faces an entirely predictable peril: our population has been growing dramatically for the past 200 years (expanding from under one billion to nearly seven billion), while our per-capita consumption of resources has also grown.
If we step back and look at the industrial period from a broad historical perspective that is informed by an appreciation of ecological limits, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are today living at the end of a relatively brief pulse-a 200-year rapid expansionary phase enabled by a temporary energy subsidy (in the form of cheap fossil fuels) that will inevitably be followed by an even more rapid and dramatic contraction as those fuels deplete.
The winding down of this historic growth-contraction pulse doesn't necessarily mean the end of the world, but it does mean the end of a certain kind of economy. One way or another, humanity must return to a more normal pattern of existence characterized by reliance on immediate solar income (via crops, wind, or the direct conversion of sunlight to electricity) rather than stored ancient sunlight.
This is not to say that the remainder of the 21st century must consist of a collapse of industrialism, a die-off of most of the human population, and a return by the survivors to a way of life essentially identical to that of 16th century peasants or indigenous hunter-gatherers. It is possible instead to imagine acceptable and even inviting ways in which humanity could adapt to ecological limits while further developing cultural richness, scientific understanding, and quality of life (more of this below).
But however it is negotiated, the transition will spell an end to economic growth in the conventional sense. And that transition appears to have begun.
Whom should we believe?
Could the Alternative Diagnosis be altogether wrong? That is, might conventional economists be right in thinking that growth can continue forever? It is often said that anything is possible, but some things are clearly much more possible than others. The perpetual growth of human population and consumption within the confines of a finite planet seems like a very long shot indeed, especially since warning signs are everywhere apparent that ecological limits are already being reached and surpassed.
What Not to Do: Prescribe Punishingly Expensive Placebos
If the physical scientists who warn about limits to growth are right, confronting the global economic meltdown implies far more than merely getting the banks and mortgage lenders back on their feet. Indeed, in that case we face a fundamental change in our economy as significant as the advent of the industrial revolution. We are at a historic inflection point-the ending of decades of expansion and the beginning of an inevitable period of contraction that will continue until humanity is once again living within the limits of Earth's regenerative systems.
Other nations, including Britain, China, and Germany have committed to paying for stimulus packages and bailouts that, while much smaller in absolute terms, represent an impressive (or should we say frightful?) share of national GDP.
If the Alternative Diagnosis is valid, none of this will work in the end, because existing financial institutions-with their basis in debt and interest and their requirements for constant expansion-cannot be made to function in a context where energy and resource constraints impose effective caps on manufacturing and transport.
What is required but is still utterly lacking is a fundamental recognition that circumstances have changed: what worked decades ago will not work now.
What To Do: Adapt to the New Reality
If the Alternative Diagnosis is correct, there will be no easy fix for the current economic breakdown. Some illnesses are not curable; they require that we simply adapt and make the best of our new situation.
If humanity has indeed embarked upon the contraction phase of the industrial pulse, we should assume that ahead of us lie much lower average income levels (for nearly everyone in the wealthy nations, and for high wage earners in poorer nations); different employment opportunities (fewer jobs in sales, marketing, and finance; more in basic production); and more costly energy, transport, and food. Further, we should assume that key aspects of our economic system that are inextricably tied to the need for future growth will cease to work in this new context.
What can we do to adapt most rapidly and successfully?
Rather than attempting to prop up banks and insurance companies with trillions in bailouts, it would probably be better simply to let them fail, however nasty the short-term consequences, since they will fail anyway sooner or later. The sooner they are replaced with institutions that serve essential functions within a contracting economy, the better off we will all be.
Without cheap energy, global trade cannot increase. This doesn't mean that trade will disappear, only that economic incentives will inexorably shift as transport costs rise, favoring local production for local consumption.
Without cheap fuel for agriculture, farm production will plummet and farmers will go bankrupt-unless proactive efforts are undertaken to reform agriculture to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
With oil becoming increasingly expensive in real terms, we will need more efficient ways of getting people and goods around.
However contentious, the population question must be addressed. All problems that have to do with resources are harder to solve when there are more people needing those resources.
But those in charge need to understand that looking on the bright side doesn't mean promising what can't be delivered-such as a return to the days of growth and thoughtless consumption.
Can We? Will We?
It is important to state the implications of all this as plainly as possible. If the Alternative Diagnosis is correct, there will be no full economic "recovery"-not this year, or the next, or five or ten years from now. There may be temporary rebounds that take us back to some fraction of peak economic activity, but these will be only brief respites.
We have entered a new economic era in which the former rules no longer apply. Low interest rates and government spending no longer translate to incentives for borrowing and job production. Cheap energy won't appear just because there is demand for it. Substitutes for essential resources will in most cases not be found. Over all, the economy will continue to shrink in fits and starts until it can be maintained by the energy and material resources that Earth can supply on ongoing basis.
Some readers may note that climate change has not figured prominently in this discussion. It is clearly, after all, the worst environmental catastrophe in human history. Indeed, its consequences could be far worse than the mere destruction of national economies: hundreds of millions of people and millions of other species could be imperiled. The reason for the relatively limited discussion of climate here is that (assuming the Alternative Diagnosis is correct) it is not climate change that has proven to be the most immediate limit to economic growth, but resource depletion. However, while there is not as yet general agreement on the point, climate change itself and the needed steps to minimize it both constitute limits to growth, just as resource depletion does. Moreover, if we fail to successfully manage the inevitable process of economic contraction that will characterize the coming decades, there will be no hope of mounting an organized and coherent response to climate change-a response consisting of efforts both to reduce climate impacts and to adapt to them. It is important to note, though, that the measures advocated here (including the development of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, a rapid reduction of reliance on fossil fuels in transport and agriculture, and the stabilization of population levels) are among the steps that will help most to reduce carbon emissions.
Is this essay likely to change the thinking and actions of policy makers? Unfortunately, that is unlikely. Their belief in the possibility and necessity of continued growth is pervasive, and the notion that growth may no longer be possible is unthinkable. But the Alternative Diagnosis must be a matter of record.
But even if policy makers continue to ignore warnings such as this, individuals and communities can take heed and begin the process of building resilience, and of detaching themselves from reliance on fossil fuels and institutions that are inextricably tied to the perpetual growth machine. We cannot sit passively by as world leaders squander opportunites to awaken and adapt to growth limits. We can make changes in our own lives, and we can join with our neighbors. And we can let policy makers know we disapprove of their allegiance to the status quo, but that there are other options.
Is it too late to begin a managed transition to a post-fossil fuel society? Perhaps. But we will not know unless we try. And if we are to make that effort, we must begin by acknowledging one simple, stark reality: growth as we have known it can no longer be our goal.
Link -
www.theoildrum.com/nod...
Everytime I end up waiting 2 hours for my appointment (which is only one of many reasons I no longer go to drink the kool-aid), the doctors kill my patience too.
Sad they (and Big Pharm) kill actual patients too.
On Aug 15 01:59 AM acttang wrote:
> Oh really? What sort of jobs that you think have real value? Oh,
> I got it, something like an engineer or a doctor or a teacher, right?
> Right. Except that I don't see how nice people with these moral and
> decent jobs can go about living their modern lives without the flow
> of money. When there is flow of money, there are people who try to
> steer it to flow to the right places. When they steer it right, they
> actually do provide value to society, lots of value! And they get
> paid very smartly for doing it right. When they steer it wrong, well,
> they are wrong. Doctors are known for mistakenly killing patience.
> Engineers are known for building collapsed bridges. So what? Nothing
> exists for no reason. If talented people keep themselves in the money
> game, you'd better believe there is good reason. Not recognizing
> the reason, actually, is quite sad.
>
> On Aug 14 02:20 PM Victor84 wrote:
Wall Street have retaken the counter attack initiative the moment Jamie Dimon went on to acquiese on the anger flashed at Wall Street by Congress. With losses recouped through the continued and sustained campaign to talk the market up, Wall Street hit home runs in the last 5 months.
The US is running an international Casino business model and this model necessiates that the best are employed as croupiers, dealers, mathematicians to calculate and permutate how many other ways to rip off the customers, develope strategies to exert influence on other countries to continue buying bonds with no real prospects of a profitable exit.....until recently China flexes its ambition with the YUAN.
For this Wall Street party to come to a stop, the many good and sensible commentaries must get through to the millions of ordinary folks; staying with Seeking Alpha will bring about nothing. The millions of ordinary folks must be mobilise to organise a mass rejection of the Wall Street Business and Culture and bring those crooks to accountability and responsibility. If you want to compare dictatorship, look no further than Wall Street - its actually dictating the terms of who lives/who dies through sheer robbery of political influence from the control of other people's money.
Wall Street is a con-game. It's low tide now so we are seeing the truth -- but they've been lying about earnings from Day One and they pay their accountants to lie about their earnings and the best paid accountants in the world are the ones who are best at lying (veiling the truth).
We have to change our electoral process so that huge corporations and rich individuals can no longer buy candidates for public office and then own them for the rest of their lives. Elections are like a big public sport for us -- but this means that only the super-rich, or those willing to buy whores to the super-rich can run for office and have any realistic chance of being elected. We need a process that is cheap and fair and does not exclude 98% of the American public from holding public office.
On Aug 14 02:20 PM Victor84 wrote:
> Thank you for the article. Companies like GS are parasites to the
> economy, draining value from the economy by manipulating policy and
> the market and then stuffing the pockets of a select few thousand.
> Other than underwriting and facilitating huge mergers/acquisitions,
> they provide no real value to the economy. To think that some of
> the best and brightest people in the world are wasting their talents
> playing with money instead of doing something truly useful is a sad
> thought indeed.
I think students are so cynical of the current Wall Street ethos that they are by and large unwilling to take the trip for fear it will end going up the river.
Lawyer used to fear accountants, and accountants used to fear lawyers today, they both fear the FASB which controlled by the mafia in Congress. Welcome to little Italy and may you last under dinner time.
"Steering" money? Don't you mean "siphoning" or "sucking" or "stealing"? A bank leveraging up and GAMBLING with my 12+ years of never missed mortgage payments and LOSING then having the government TAX me and my children into perpetuity to save their sorry asse$ is not "steering" money it is THEFT.
High frequency trading that makes millions at the expense of my hard earned investments and retirement is ROBBERY.
Next you will tell us that FDR confiscating privately held gold was moral and that primogenture should be reinstated for anyone with a net worth in the top 2%.
"Let them eat cake" did not end well for Marie Antoinette or the French upper classes; mind the rights of the citizenry or they will mind your neck.
On Aug 15 01:59 AM acttang wrote:
> Oh really? What sort of jobs that you think have real value? Oh,
> I got it, something like an engineer or a doctor or a teacher, right?
> Right. Except that I don't see how nice people with these moral and
> decent jobs can go about living their modern lives without the flow
> of money. When there is flow of money, there are people who try to
> steer it to flow to the right places. When they steer it right, they
> actually do provide value to society, lots of value! And they get
> paid very smartly for doing it right. When they steer it wrong, well,
> they are wrong. Doctors are known for mistakenly killing patience.
> Engineers are known for building collapsed bridges. So what? Nothing
> exists for no reason. If talented people keep themselves in the money
> game, you'd better believe there is good reason. Not recognizing
> the reason, actually, is quite sad.
>
> On Aug 14 02:20 PM Victor84 wrote:
On Aug 15 01:59 AM acttang wrote:
> Oh really? What sort of jobs that you think have real value? Oh,
> I got it, something like an engineer or a doctor or a teacher, right?
> Right. Except that I don't see how nice people with these moral and
> decent jobs can go about living their modern lives without the flow
> of money. When there is flow of money, there are people who try to
> steer it to flow to the right places. When they steer it right, they
> actually do provide value to society, lots of value! And they get
> paid very smartly for doing it right. When they steer it wrong, well,
> they are wrong. Doctors are known for mistakenly killing patience.
> Engineers are known for building collapsed bridges. So what? Nothing
> exists for no reason. If talented people keep themselves in the money
> game, you'd better believe there is good reason. Not recognizing
> the reason, actually, is quite sad.
>
> On Aug 14 02:20 PM Victor84 wrote:
On Aug 15 09:56 AM kmarkt2 wrote:
> A well argued article with many equally fair minded comments. However,
> all these alternative comments fail to make its impact on the real
> people that matters - those at Congress and the man on the street.
>
> Wall Street have retaken the counter attack initiative the moment
> Jamie Dimon went on to acquiese on the anger flashed at Wall Street
> by Congress. With losses recouped through the continued and sustained
> campaign to talk the market up, Wall Street hit home runs in the
> last 5 months.
> The US is running an international Casino business model and this
> model necessiates that the best are employed as croupiers, dealers,
> mathematicians to calculate and permutate how many other ways to
> rip off the customers, develope strategies to exert influence on
> other countries to continue buying bonds with no real prospects of
> a profitable exit.....until recently China flexes its ambition with
> the YUAN.
> For this Wall Street party to come to a stop, the many good and sensible
> commentaries must get through to the millions of ordinary folks;
> staying with Seeking Alpha will bring about nothing. The millions
> of ordinary folks must be mobilise to organise a mass rejection of
> the Wall Street Business and Culture and bring those crooks to accountability
> and responsibility. If you want to compare dictatorship, look no
> further than Wall Street - its actually dictating the terms of who
> lives/who dies through sheer robbery of political influence from
> the control of other people's money.