Red Hat Inc. (RHT)

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  • commenter
    axelrod608
    Sep 24 03:42 PM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Au contraire. This IS a bailout of Wall St. We have perfectly good bankruptcy courts. We could add a couple dozen more judges and handle this in the way the system is set up to handle it.

    Lehman is back in business, at least the part that was bought and reopened. 10,000 employees are back at work. The ONLY reason Wall St insiders and the legislators are conspiring to use the taxpayers to avoid bankruptcy is to maintain as many of the lucrative jobs as possible for the folks who created this mess.

    Who wins ? New York city and state depend heavily on finco tax receipts. But those are in the toilet regardless - you gotta make money to pay taxes. Shareholders of the many insolvent finco's get at least some of their investment protected by bailing out failed businesses.

    Who loses ? Let's see the hands of every taxpayer who honestly believes that this sale of assets will produce a profit and the gummint will send us all a big check and a thank you note for letting us use our money for the bailout. Seeing no hands raised, I can say that this plan IS sophisticated and expected. I would have expected no less from the administration of George II.

    The Patriot Act was a scam. The Iraq war was/is a scam. This is a scam. The only way a con game can work is if the mark has confidence in the scammer. Do you really have any confidence whatsoever that this group of people can fix this problem ? I spend hours a day reading, investigating, investing and trying to synthesize what's going on into understandable, credible theses. This one doesn't make any sense whatsoever except if you view it from an insider's game to preserve the status quo. On that level, it makes perfect sense.

    We are all going to pay dearly for the fraudulent excess that got our financial markets into this mess. Do we really want to leave the same folks in charge ?     Reply
  • commenter
    Elliot
    Miller
    Sep 24 02:38 PM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    The acrimony and nastiness of some of these posts is disappointing and unsophisticated. This is not a bailout of Wall Street. The owners of Fannie, Freddy, Bear, AIG and Lehman certainly don't feel bailed out. Their ownership interests are worthless. This is simply preserving the financial system, the owners of CDSs, many of which are foreign central banks on which we rely to hold our debt, and the ability of average Americans to get a mortgage or a car loan. Reply
  • commenter
    Woodsey
    Sep 24 02:23 PM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    We have to depend on Congress to put the bailout on firm footing. But is congress equal to the task? Can they even be trusted? Congress started the thing. In 1980 congress (rep-dem) passed a law that effectively overrode state anti-usury laws (like here in takes us). This was the signal from the government that greed is OK. From there on it was laisser-faire (rep-dem); regulation is bad. Woodsey Reply
  • commenter
    axelrod608
    Sep 24 02:03 PM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Reprint it antwhere. Get the word out. This crisis is a CREDIT crisis. Period. The only way Wall St could bloat their leverage is by using the tsunami of liquidity that Greenspin flooded the nation with to make idiotic "investments"...

    Fixing a credit problem with more credit and more liquidity is like taking the AA meeting to the tavern for happy hour. Then again what should we expect from a proposed solution made by one of the chief architects of the problem, Hank Paulson.

    The reason why banks aren't loaning money to one another is simple - THEY know their competitors are insolvent and unable to pay the loans back. That's why they want the government to provide the loans.

    As for the critics that claim not doing anything will result in another depression, prove it.

    Japan had a similar problem 19 years ago. They bailed out the banks with massive amounts of government funds. And today, 18 years later, you can still buy real estate and stocks there for half or less than 19 years ago.

    Pouring more money into the US financial sector at this point is like pouring more liquor into the punchbowl after half the guests have already passed out. It makes no economic sense. No logical sense. No political sense. But it would preserve the jobs of thousands of idiot financiers who created this mess.

    Do we really want to keep these folks at work in the financial sector ?     Reply
  • commenter
    Fairness
    Sep 24 01:48 PM
    My Website
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Recycled.
    The obscene executive compensation payments are major part of the problem, as it was exposed by this financial crisis as outright fraud.
    Generally speaking, no executive is worth getting paid more then the ultimate CEO, the US president.
    No one, no matter how clever or educated, should be allowed to rob their employees and shareholders as shamelessly as the executives do nowadays. The irony of it is, it's all done legally, under the regulators' watchful eye; highway robbery nevertheless. That needs to stop, in the name of fairness, and in order for the investor to regain confidence in our financial structure and business concept.
    Since companies cannot do it themselves, Congress needs to cap executive compensation by law at about the US president's salary level, and index it for inflation. At the very least, executive pay maximums should be tied to a reasonable multiplier of their lowest paid employees’ compensation. If we don't want people to revolt against being robbed by the government too (read heavily taxed) in order to bail out these shameless executive thieves, and keep them doing more of the same, Congress needs to act now. Not until some sort of cap is implemented, we shall see abuses and excesses disappear.
    Reply
  • commenter
    bernie bicoy
    Sep 24 01:41 PM
    My Website
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Has it occured to anyone there is a much simpler way out of this mess than bailing out ''Investment Banks'' (brokerage firms) that created the mess with $700 billion?

    If, as Paulson and Bernanke assert, if they aren't bailed out money will not be available to make consumer and business loans, then why not make the $700 billion available for traditional banks (i.e. FDIC banks that existed BEFORE Wall Street ''Investment Banks'' were created by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act).

    According to the FDIC chairman traditional banks are in fairly good shape. If so, then make the $700 billion available as 'emergency loan funds' at, say, half of the fed discount window rate so the banks can make the loans that Paulson and Bernanke are worried will collpase the economic level of activity.

    The traditional banks could also, if they want, cherry pick the Investment Banks mortgage portfolios, and buy them at a price determined by the banks, and not by the government or the Investment Banks, both of which are likely to be way too high.

    Then let the Wall Street probably-should-have-s... ''Investment Banks'' deal with the mortgage securities no one wants, and deal with the FBI.

    Bernie Bicoy
    Reply
  • commenter
    martinj
    Sep 24 01:38 PM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Call it what it is: The Mussolini Plan--all three pages. I am in charge.There is no time to waste or we are all lost. And please no peeking. There are no details because it is only 700 billion--and if we need more, we'll just take it
    See you at the forum...
    martinj     Reply
  • commenter
    GregY
    Sep 24 01:03 PM
    My Website
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Axelrod, I hope you don't mind a full copy your comment to be published on my blog. It's just that I couldn't express it better myself. Thanks you. Reply
  • commenter
    jetpilot
    Sep 24 12:49 PM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    axelrod608 for President 08! Reply
  • commenter
    Shaggieman
    Sep 24 11:52 AM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Hooray Axelrod608, Great job! Well said, I'd vote for you for Fed Chief but we've stuck with a bunch of idiots that I doubt can be stopped. When are folks going to wake up and realize they've been had?

    Remember G.W.'s good pal "Kenny Boy" better known as Ken Lay from Enron? I am affraid they have more then just bike riding in common.     Reply
  • commenter
    Right in
    San
    Francisco
    Sep 24 11:49 AM
    My Website
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Rudyard Kipling - "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...". Obviously there are a lot of people who cannot.
    There is a serious problem - and it is not just that we may enter a normal recession. The heart of the problem is that the finance/mortgage industry ran amock - with plenty of blame to go around - for the past 20 years or so. The short term solution involves some manner of taking care of this huge trove of toxic mortgage-based debt. The Treasury can buy it at a discount and sell it once markets have stabilized. Now, what is the best mechanism to do that?     Reply
  • commenter
    jackooo
    Sep 24 11:43 AM
    My Website
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Just write the check!!! This display by Sen. Dodd is a farce.
    We all know it will go through.     Reply
  • commenter
    sieraromero
    Sep 24 11:21 AM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Why repeal the mark to market rule. Why not just repeal accounting standards? By the way we can say the failed securities are worth hundreds of times their current value while we are at it and all of a sudden we have no problem and we can all go along our merry way with our heads in the sand as we have for so long now, at the expense of our future generations! Reply
  • commenter
    TBill
    Sep 24 11:06 AM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    Repeal Sarbanes Oxley and the stringent mark to market rule and this problem would fix itself. There are some influential people advising this, but as you can hear, none of the Congresscritter are talking about it. Not sexy enough, no power involved, no money to throw around. Reply
  • commenter
    OldNavySailo
    r
    Sep 24 10:55 AM
    Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
    It's my limited understanding that credit (loans to industry/citizens) will shrink to unsustainable levels for the economy if the Congress doesn't fund the Paulson/Bernanke tag team proposal. Major lenders/investors will go bankrupt and their assets sold off to the private sector. Is this correct so far?

    Now, I believe the US treasury will still have the capacity to print inflated fiat dollars, unlike the depression of the '30's which limited the printing due to the gold standard. So inflation will rise, but money will still be available to the rest of the lenders who are not part of the problem. That means regional banks as an example, through their state charters potentially could receive federal treasury loans to offer to industry/citizens.

    I am suggesting all is not loss for the world economy due to a credit 'freeze', but only that high profile financial companies will suffer the consequences of their own actions.

    I would like to explore this scenario, if only to educated myself as to other options the Congress could consider instead of trusting what the former CEO of Goldman Sachs is saying.     Reply
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