J Clinton Hill

More on Greed, Regulation, Lehman, The Financial Industry

amen...

25 Companies That Lost America Nearly $1 Trillion

SR9WEB,

I find it extremely challenging to argue with such an intellectually solid based rebuttal and therefore will not debate you, but I will bitch slap you:

It is often said that God takes care of all fools and all Americans. As I apparently represent both, it probably explains why I managed to sidestep this entire downside move since the fit hit the shan in October 2007 and have absolutely zero debt.

Then again, what do I know? You are the expert who spends his time "seeking alpha" and investment advice from surfing the web. Me? I can only rely upon my own resources, experience, and wits.

Sincerely your buddy and village idiot at Seeking Alpha,

Hillbent.com on the Market Direction!!!

p.s. by the way... if these companies did not have the assistance of taxpayer money, do you honestly believe precious capital would be allocated towards "special retention bonuses" in this type of economic environment? the only thing i'd give these guys is a swift kick in the ass and for anyone who wants to stay after being on the receiving end of such, i'd tell them i only want to see assholes and elbows!


On Mar 27 02:12 AM sr9web wrote:

> "As far as accuracy of numbers, this is irrelevant"
>
> Buddy, you are an idiot...

25 Companies That Lost America Nearly $1 Trillion

Teutonic,

I very much agree with your inference of an over-saturated market. With the exception of the mega banks, which pose global systemic risks, I think there is enough financial infrastructure in place to survive the current purging of the financial industry.

As a former and ongoing student of modern economic history and business cycles, I am not surprised to see the influx of snake-oil in the banking industry. The abnormally long cycle of cheap credit was akin to a Faustian proposal too tempting to resist for even the purest of "financial puritans". Now we must wear the scarlet letter of "A" (for asinine) before the entire world to acknowledge and pay for the sins of our lusts.

Once we get thru this and if we learn our lesson, our financial system should be much stronger until future generations will have forgotten the lessons of posterity.

I wish I could give you a more intelligent answer, but I think your question answers your own question.

Best regards,


On Mar 26 11:50 PM Teutonic Knight wrote:

> Mr. Hill,
>
> I wish you could spare a moment to answer one dumb question. I came
> from Canada over 3 decades ago. Over there they "used to" have far
> fewer banks than the U.S. has., and still much fewer now.
>
> Why do we have so many banks in the U.S.? 10,000 or so including
> the credit unions?
>
> From your list, isn't it time to vastly consolidate most if not all
> of them as soon as possible and retrain the folks to other, in my
> opinion, more "productive" industries and services?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> teutonic

25 Companies That Lost America Nearly $1 Trillion

Gentle Readers,

The purpose of this post is not to single out any specific companies. The original title at my website reads: Incentivized Management for Success or Failure: Only in America. SA's editors changed the title and as a result probably redirected the focus and intent of my article. I would strongly encourage you to check the primary source (hillbent.com) regardless of your impressions from reading.

The post was from an email that a CEO friend sent to me and is not my own work. As far as accuracy of numbers, this is irrelevant. The fact remains is that we know many of the companies on this list have lost a LOT OF $$$ thru general incompetence. Period.

Now, let's pretend or hypothetically consider that none of these companies were publicly traded on the exchanges and therefore were private entities. Let's also pretend that you, i.e. individually as the reader, owned these private companies in your portfolio. Given that many of these incurred massive writedowns and losses, would you as the owner of these businesses be awarding your managers of these companies bonuses like this in economic times like this? I'm not going to answer this question, but look forward to your responses.

In the event that any of you would still consider paying out such hefty bonuses, please let me know if you have any positions available. I would love to have a job whereby my success or failure is decoupled from my incentive compensation.

Sworn to fun and accountable to none... Only in America... God bless us all....