logicalsinger

Rick Santelli Speaks for the Silent Majority

The Driver, indeed ;)
and Obama is Wesley Mouch
When people in this country start a tax revolt, Atlas will have shrugged

World War III: U.S. vs. China?

<< The bottom line is the Chinese, who are the largest foreign holders of United States Treasury Bills, have been underwriting U.S. economic growth for decades.>>

They have been underwriting mainly their exports of Chinese-made products in the US. At the root, economic growth came from America's tech boom and other innovations. Superpowers don't go to war against one another. Little upside since neither will conquer the other, and huge downside. They wage war through proxies just like the Soviet and US did in the Cold War.

Indians Are Selling Gold - Is Their Thinking Right?

While your prophecy may turn out to be correct, there is little analysis in this post. You present rising inflation and a continued bear market in stocks as foregone conclusions instead of arguing why events should unfold in this manner.

BTW the poor are never ripped off by the rich. Since they are poor, they have nothing to rip off. Maybe you meant the middle class...

Jim Rogers Believes World Is Heading for Depression

I don't think Rogers gets the fundamentals of wealth creation. At the root is the intellectual property machine which has been until now US-based innovation and technology. Emerging markets wealth is derived from that root wealth creation when American and European companies move to outsource manufacturing and services. Until you see major proprietary innovation and intellectual property (tech, pharma, media etc.) coming out of emerging markets, I wouldn't get too excited again about those markets.

More Outrageous than Bailout Bonuses? Nonstop Printing of Money

It's the lawyers against the MBAs. The lawyers (Obama, Congress, etc.) are having a field day while the MBAs (Wall Street, corporate America) are on the defensive. It's a battle of the elites. The populist sentiment is just a tool, in this case in the hands of the lawyers. The media is full of people consumed with envy and they are also mad at MBAs for making so much money.

Many MBAs don't create any wealth but many do! No lawyer creates any wealth but most redistribute it.

WSJ and Barron's Watch: Overall Consensus, Bottom Has Not Been Reached

That is actually good news. The consensus is generally wrong at the extremes, whether it is March 2000 when everyone was bullish (new economy yada yada) or March 2003 when everyone was bearish (Iraq invasion etc). In both cases, the consensus was hugely wrong.

Gold ETFs vs. Fort Knox

Interesting that the amount held by ETFs has gone up 50% in a year. Yet the price of gold has stagnated. Looks fishy.

Another Reason to Be Bullish on Altria

Tough to argue with an 8% yield for a defensive stock. Looks good to me too. Treasury notes pay you 1 or 2%. I think the extra 6% more than compensates for the extra risk of litigation etc. Good call!

What Is the S&P 500's Real P/E?

wooo, thank God there was someone to reveal the big PE conspiracy

The FDIC Is Broke...Or Will Be Soon

This is really a waste of space. More "contributors" like this and Seeking Alpha will also need a bailout.
Note to editors: clear out the trash, we are too busy for this.

The Good and Bad in Hedge Funds Today: A Manager's View

I am less sanguine than you about the future for two reasons:

1- the bear market has shown that a vast majority of hedge funds that outperformed in the good years did so either by pushing illiquid stocks upward (think small caps and emerging markets) or by using a lot of leverage.

2- the biggest scam with hedge funds has been the fact that they charge a performance fee on UNREALIZED gains (unlike private equity funds which charge only on realized gains). A manager who was up 20% in 2007 but down 30% in 2008 still walked away with a large compensation. High water marks are not sufficient for reasons you discuss, and in the future, there will be more clawback and escrow provisions so that a loss in year 2 will mean that the fee taken out in year one will have be partially or fully refunded to investors.

All in, I think the hedge fund business has seen its best days in a generation.

Will the Euro Survive?

I do not wish the Euro to fail, I generally like Europe and Europeans. but if it does, maybe the Europeans will stop acting all superior. For a while there, they were celebrating our demise, and then the roof fell on their heads too.

Financials: Cleaning House Is Always Better

Cleaning House, in particular the House of Representatives, is a great idea. Pelosi and co. are demonstrating their incompetence on a daily basis.

Citadel's New Hedge Funds

<< Ken Griffin's Citadel has plans to roll out a few more funds, even after Citadel's flagship funds had a rough year in 2008.>>

I would rephrase this as "to roll out a few funds BECAUSE Citadel's flagship funds had a rough year". Older funds have a high water mark and won't earn any incentive fees for a while. New funds have no such hurdle.

Goldman Sachs Is Toast

$122 billion in cash??? Really? Are you confusing their own cash and cash held for other parties? And what are the liabilities on the other side of these cash assets?


On Mar 10 05:53 AM [e-mail] wrote:

> I'll take the opposite side of that bet anyday.
>
> Goldman has $122 billion in cash, which I believe is still considered
> a tangible asset. Are you sure that they are 23x overleveraged?<br/&...
>
> It appears to me they have significantly more room for error than
> either Bank of America (seekingalpha.com/symbo...) or Citigroup
> (seekingalpha.com/symbo...). I'd imagine some financial companies
> are going to remain standing when this is all said and done, and
> I see few mega-institutions left standing as cash rich as Goldman.
>
>
> I'm more of a micro-cap hunter than a institutional bank analyzer,
> so correct me where I'm wrong. Perhaps my arguments are too simple.
>
>
> Dave