Alan von Altendorf

http://www.cwsx.org
Total Rating:
+22 / -20

256 Comments

    • Fri Sep 26th 07:53 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Does the House Republican Resistance Make Sense for Their Constituency?
      I disagree completely. Business, large or small, needs capital -- not debt. Business succeeds by making profits, and profit is much harder if you're loaded with debt. Since when is a CNBC article peer-reviewed science?
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    • Fri Sep 26th 07:44 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      We Stand at a Precipice
      Investigation is silly make-work, achieves nothing. Treasury buying stinko ABS and side bets at face value is worse because the hedge funds are no danger to anyone except their locked-up hostages. If Congress wants to help, fine. They can beef up FDIC and FSLIC.
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    • Thu Sep 25th 23:09 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Perfect Storm: Even with Bailout, Economy Is Hurting
      Recent job growth has been government, health care paid for by government, defense contractors, and services catering to government. Strip out the public sector (teachers, bureaucrats, military, computer sales to government, etc) and we have 50% unemployment. Not clear to me how the private sector can create jobs again.
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    • Thu Sep 25th 20:27 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is the $700 Billion Really for Bailing Out the Fed?
      Good job, Avery. Well written. I know how it feels when you're out on a limb, people throwing stones at you. All one can do is state the facts and interpret what you see.
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    • Thu Sep 25th 19:57 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      In Defense of Capitalism
      4:43 PM Global financial turmoil proves free markets have failed, France's Sarkozy says. "The idea that the markets are always right is a mad one... Self-regulation to solve problems is over. Laissez-faire is over. The all-powerful market is over." (SA Breaking News)

      Protect and serve. Eh... close enough for government work.
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    • Thu Sep 25th 00:31 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      What the President Didn't Say
      "More bad news from President Bush. Remember those rebate checks from a few months ago? He wants them back. We need to give that money to rich people on Wall Street. They need it more than you do." — Jay Leno (HT pastpeak.com)
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    • Wed Sep 24th 23:28 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      You Can't Handle The Truth
      I can understand giving the FDIC $700 billion. I can understand giving every household $15,000 earmarked to pay down their mortgage or a first-time buyer down payment. I can even grudingly accept a massive public works program to repair bridges, dams, sewer systems, and highways. Or a $700 billion tax holiday on fuel, capital gains, whatever. But NOT a secret slush fund handed to a Bush crony to goose the i-banks. Team Bush enabled and mismanaged this "crisis."

      Certainly, Mike's right. We've been blustered and threatened, lied to and kept in the dark. I'm starting to think that the Black Hats threatened committeemen behind closed doors. Support TARP or else.

      "Listening to the people briefed by Paulson and Bernanke, they said it was frightening and really really scary... But they refuse to tell us word for word what they were told."

      See what I mean? They have dossiers with x-rated photos, witnesses, and phone tap transcripts. Remember what happened to Spitzer.
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    • Wed Sep 24th 21:19 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Don't Panic
      Markets calm, rational. Pols hysterical. Astonishing, huh?
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    • Wed Sep 24th 03:57 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Call the Treasury's Bluff
      Yowsuh! Right on, David. Thank you.
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    • Wed Sep 24th 02:22 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy
      "you live in Houston Tx, thus you are obviously backward"

      (laughs hard) Y'all don't use linen table napkins at lunch I reckon?
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    • Tue Sep 23rd 20:17 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy
      "Illogical government policies derived by brain-dead, socialism breathing, college professors with grudges against the industrial world which refused to hire them due to their lack of competence and common sense"... like Ben Bernanke?

      The comment by 'carbonates' above is absolutely true, at least among the oil people who know what they're doing. Rugged individualism still exists. We don't give a damn what happens to the world as such. And if you get in the way, we go elsewhere.
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    • Tue Sep 23rd 10:28 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Family Foresight Thought Experiment
      You and I are just not going to get along very well, I can see that without aid of sentinel phastasmagoria. (1) If the hypothetical $1 billion fortune existed in 1908, it was equal to 100% of all the bank capital in the United States and Canada. (2) From 1909-1970, real U.S. GNP growth rate was 3 percent, and from 1970 to 1990 it was 2.7 percent. A balanced portfolio gets you there, no sweat. If you're a super shrewd value investor, buy cheap during the Great Depression. We're not quite there yet. Wait a couple years. (3) Investment horizons are not games or cutesy thought experiments. They pertain to projects that may be few and multigenerational like canals and dams, or many and simple like retirement savings and college money. No one saves for a hypothetical fund-a-genius-descende... (4) Who the hell are you to pose riddles and grade the answers? Lemme know if and when you earn a postgrad degree, sonny. Then I'll ask the questions.
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    • Tue Sep 23rd 02:24 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy
      Thanks Cajun. I wanted to add my highest sincere respect for the G&G work done in the 70s by geologists, engineers and exploration managers at Sun, Amoco, Arco, etc -- excellent companies that were wiped out in the 80s along with most of the rig owners. I swear to God, there's no one left who can read and correlate 1" paper logs. When we plot them out from digi files, the cubicle people scold us for "killing trees again!"
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    • Mon Sep 22nd 22:01 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Robin Hood in Reverse: In Defense of the U.S. Taxpayer
      Excellent, rigourous, fair proposal, Roger. Thank you.
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    • Mon Sep 22nd 21:42 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy
      I concur with the data and analysis presented in the article, but not the concluding thesis about alt energy. Oil is vital for heavy transport, rail, OTR, jet aircraft, construction, mining, etc. There will never be a solar Dreamliner.

      hotforoil wrote: "The lack of success for the current drilling is because they can't drill where the untapped fields are."

      Correct. Offshore California, offshore Washington State, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, and the Bering Sea/offshore western Alaska have significant potential. However...

      hotforoil continues (wrongly): "Todays Drilling technology is miles ahead from ten years ago. Wells are drilled in a quarter of the time required than then and the new enhanced recovery techniques and production proceedures are vastly expanding the amount of hyrocarbons recovered from new field discoveries."

      Drilling costs have risen exponentially in the past decade, partly because remaining reserves are offshore in deeper plays, partly because exploration and construction costs ballooned, but more importantly because the oil business has sacrificed and blunted its scientific and entrepreneurial edge. Candidly, the geologists (now retired or dead) who explored in the 1970s were far superior to the high tech boat anchors and touchy feely corporate "team members" who survived the merger frenzy of the past decade. I know this to be a stone fact. We routinely see bad work at the majors. Exploration has become a lost art, and billions are being wasted attempting to make phony Monte Carlo guesswork into profitable production. That's why the majors have cut back on E&P. They fired or retired their best people.

      Ultimately, what the domestic oil business needs is better financing. M&A deals do not grow production. If the US musters the political will to drill "environmentally sensitive" prospects, there has to be a change in tax laws, too. Make it profitable for VC start-ups to wildcat.
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