mkreisel

The Top 12 Brands Likely to Disappear

dividendmachine, SA is populated by angry, negative doom-n-gloomers. What can you expect?

Often times the least popular comments here (especially if they are bashed by those end-of-the-world crowds) are the best ones for making money.

Bonus Backlash Is Upon Us, But a Well Structured Plan Benefits Shareholders

Most of our current financial industry is nothing but an OPM ponzi scheme, and it has sucked away too many of our bright young people because of the outrageous short term profits.

This entire business model must be dismantled.

If we succeed in doing that, talents will finally be coming back to engineering, science, and other more productive professions.

Will the Fed Finally Embrace Quantitative Easing Tonight?

I find it funny when certain people always throw the "Weimar" scenario. Before you get all fired up about "hyper-inflation", please lookt at some facts about Germany before the 1923 hyper inflation:

1913 GDP: 52044 million Reichsmark(backed by gold)

1919 National debt: ~180000 million Reichsmark(paper currency)

1922 Reparation terms: 132000 million Reichsmark backed by gold


Between 1914-1918, only 8.2% of German government's expenditures were covered by tax incomes.

Between 1914-1918, Germany mobilized 13.456 million soldiers for the war, out of a total 1914 population of 67 million. KIA amounted to 1.95 million, and perhaps twice that many were wounded, disabled, and mentally traumatized. Government was faced with demobilization and benefit payments to ~11 million veterans.

The Versaille treaty reduced Germany's population from 67 million prewar to 51 million and its territory by a third. Combining these two factors, Germany's GDP in 1922 would have been much lower in real terms than 1913.


Weimar government was also under constant assaults by internal and external elements:
- In 1920, Wolfgang Kapp led a coup d'etat (Kapp Putsch) which the military refused to put down. The coup attempt failed in the face of a government called general strike .

- In 1922, German foreign minister Walter Rathenau was assassinated by nationalist terrorists. The Reichsmark's collapse began after that day.

- In Jan 1923, France occupied Ruhr region, Germany's industrial heart, to force payments of reparations. This event gave the final push to hyper-inflation.

AIG Bonuses Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg

We don't have to do it the Stalin way, it's bad PR.

A much better way would be to put personal information of anyone who dares to take that bonus on the web.

What to Buy and Why: Barron's 2009 Roundtable, Part II

Since they all bashed US Treasuries, I would think that Treasuries is the place to be.

As for equities and corporate bonds, please wait at least until the current earning season is over. Then we shall have a better idea about who's holding up well and who's not.

I personally want to know what Buffett had done during the last quarter of 2008. The answer comes out on the first Friday of March.

JPMorgan Chase: Poisoned by Bear's 5,000 Counterparties

"It takes a thief to catch thieves"

AIG seems to be the only idiot in town that has sold a bunch of CDS without any hedging whatsoever.

Berkshire Hathaway also sold a few CDS, but they number only about $8 billion in notional value and Buffett got paid roughly $4 billion upfront.

Buffett Warned Us in 2003

Lots of funny comments here.

It seems nobody understands what great deals those Buffett index puts are! Well, written puts backed up by cash is nothing but well-paid limit buy orders! They are only dangerous if one's buying can't cover the entire liabilities.

AIG Bailout Signals End to American Values

This AIG deal is highway robbery committed by the US government against AIG shareholders.

Before you die-hard "moral hazardist" start having knee-jerk convulsions, please use your brain first.

America Buys AIG

This is a very good deal for the government and American people. Some of the whiners just don't get it.

US Housing Inventories Reach Record Highs

You buy a house when you need one and can afford it.

You especially should buy a house if the equivalent rent is higher.

You gotta live somewhere, don't you?

I prefer my own home over a crappy apartment anytime.