wobatus

AIG Fraud and Goldman's CDO Collateral Calls

Do Lehman, Bear and AIG not bear responsibility for their own collapses? Is there a difference from precipitating collapse (no evidence of which is presented, but merely speculation) and profiting therefrom, perhaps by the very aggressive prudence is suggested here to be malevolent?

I'm just saying. GS isn't the only firm still around. MS, JPM, UBS, Credit Suisse, Deutsche, Barclays, etc., albeit also bailed out to some degree or another. BigAI45, is it just GS gonifs you care about? How about other thieves, blue-blooded or otherwise?

Why This Rally Is Unsustainable

Hey, now we are almost back to where it was when it ws unsustainable. Almost. Not quite.

There's always tomorrow....


On May 08 05:31 PM wobatus wrote:

> Even MORE unsustainable. :)
>
> Good call on TBT. Thought about it myself. Woulda coulda shoulda.
> bad call short financials. I am long some financials that I put on
> in the winter and plan to keep (GS, GFIG, GE), but did add some faz
> this week as a hedge. Gettin' killed, but added some more at $4.55.
>
>
> But that's kinda a lark.
>
> GOOOOOD luck with all the hocus pocus. Thems a lotta words.

Why This Rally Is Unsustainable

Even MORE unsustainable. :)

Good call on TBT. Thought about it myself. Woulda coulda shoulda. bad call short financials. I am long some financials that I put on in the winter and plan to keep (GS, GFIG, GE), but did add some faz this week as a hedge. Gettin' killed, but added some more at $4.55.

But that's kinda a lark.

GOOOOOD luck with all the hocus pocus. Thems a lotta words.


On May 06 04:56 PM wobatus wrote:

> Wow, -5 for staid stuff like this? Wow. You market timing geniuses
> are easily offeneed. How's the unsustainability goin'? Oh, I'm kidding.
> I'm SURE you'll have your day. Is it your jobs to make Cetim look
> good in the interim?
>
> All the best everyone.

Why This Rally Is Unsustainable

Wow, -5 for staid stuff like this? Wow. You market timing geniuses are easily offeneed. How's the unsustainability goin'? Oh, I'm kidding. I'm SURE you'll have your day. Is it your jobs to make Cetim look good in the interim?

All the best everyone.


On May 04 10:09 AM wobatus wrote:

> Highly leveraged heavily shorted garbage almost always leads a rally.
> Note how staid old PG, KO and MCD have just sat there or worse during
> this. Not that they may be spared in a sell-off, but pointing this
> stuff out is pointing out the obvious and doesn't make the market
> as a whole overbought (except on a near term basis, since 9 week
> winning streaks ain't exactly par for the course). I don not expecta
> sel-off eblow the march lows absent some exogenous event.
>
> What i get the sense of was November ws the real financial panic.
> The chances of utter meltdown have abated. But then the real economy
> effects of the Sept-Nov. meltdown became manifest, leading to a retest
> and break of the fall bottom in March. Now the ecomomy seems like
> it won't collapse either, and even absent stellar growth, it was
> oversold. We are just getting back to the "normal" recession prices
> from the uh-oh, maybe deprerssion prices.
>
> And now you have all the voices of "unsustainable" plunge protection,
> goldman is gaming the market voices. Voices of those who want to
> buy in, but at cheaper prices.
>
> Which is why the rally gets into overbought territory.
>
> And then we'll pull back, the "told ya so" disaster voices will come
> back in...lather rinse repeat.
>
> 'Twas ever thus.
>
> Personally, i am not doing much but holding onto stocks bought at
> what i felt were decent prices, collecting dividends, or watching
> the businesses grow even in this climate.

Why This Rally Is Unsustainable

Highly leveraged heavily shorted garbage almost always leads a rally. Note how staid old PG, KO and MCD have just sat there or worse during this. Not that they may be spared in a sell-off, but pointing this stuff out is pointing out the obvious and doesn't make the market as a whole overbought (except on a near term basis, since 9 week winning streaks ain't exactly par for the course). I don not expecta sel-off eblow the march lows absent some exogenous event.

What i get the sense of was November ws the real financial panic. The chances of utter meltdown have abated. But then the real economy effects of the Sept-Nov. meltdown became manifest, leading to a retest and break of the fall bottom in March. Now the ecomomy seems like it won't collapse either, and even absent stellar growth, it was oversold. We are just getting back to the "normal" recession prices from the uh-oh, maybe deprerssion prices.

And now you have all the voices of "unsustainable" plunge protection, goldman is gaming the market voices. Voices of those who want to buy in, but at cheaper prices.

Which is why the rally gets into overbought territory.

And then we'll pull back, the "told ya so" disaster voices will come back in...lather rinse repeat.

'Twas ever thus.

Personally, i am not doing much but holding onto stocks bought at what i felt were decent prices, collecting dividends, or watching the businesses grow even in this climate.

Seething Over Liddy's AIG-Goldman Connection

So, I don't believe there is some goldman led conspiracy and I get a negative rec for saying so.

Seething Over Liddy's AIG-Goldman Connection

I am not buying into anyone's argument necessarily. I know the sequence. Bear forced marriage. LEH they decide to let fail since everyone is harping on moral hazard. Then they see that is a disaster. Could be just the way things went. Admittedly with no real guidelines.

Lotsa bankruptcies are last minute panic decisions. I'm a bankruptcy lawyer and they can be disasters. :) LEH from what I gather was not very pre-planned and has been a bit of a bear to deal with.

Since the alternative did not happen, I guess we don't know if things would have ended disastrously if the government just stepped back and let the chips fall where they might, or if they nationalized everyone.

And maybe in the fullness of time, when and if investigations find out what went down, perhaps it was all a conspiracy, or engineered, or done to help Goldman. Maybe Goldman just was more cautious and better prepared than Bear an LEH.




On Apr 19 12:26 PM dcb wrote:

> I appear you have bought into their argument hook line and sinker.
> Isn't it strange that every argument they always make appears to
> line their won pockets. Unless you give me your money you will be
> worse off. :-) . The way that Lehman went down is what caused the
> problem. They were allowed to go down the way that they did. The
> had no plans for an organized bankruptcy and this caused chaos. the
> chaos was done on purpose to secure funds form the government and
> lack of oversight. It worked beautifully. A real coup.

Seething Over Liddy's AIG-Goldman Connection

I didn't say it absolves Goldman. I said the focus on the is obsessive. Lots of banks got funds. Morgan Stanley did too. They were in the room because they are willing to go work in government. They always have. And after LEH failed and the world seized up it was decided to save all these huge institutions.

It is distasteful and they shouldn't have gotten too big to fail to begin with. But i also think doing nothing would have been disastrous. I don't know that GS would have failed. At that time, fear was rampant, and runs can become self-fulfilling.

The question to me isn't so much did GS have influence as whether what was done was correct. What as the alternative and what would have happened. Since we don't know for sure what would have happened, very easy to give counter-factuals. Given that the financial system did not collapse, and it appears that it came close to in the Fall, it is possible some benefit came from using AIG as a conduit.

This isn't all a secret. Everyone knows, hank Paulsen was at Goldman, Bob Rubin, late of citi, was at Goldman. Yeah, we know. Kashkari was at Goldman. They had a hard time replacing him. He was willing to serve. A lot of others are not.

I have a friend who is an economist. He was at the Fed, then at a big bank. They asked him if he wanted to work for TARP (this was Bush admin., pre-Obama). He said no. What thanks would he get? Less money. Intense scrutiny of his personal life and some FOIA request for every e-mail he ever sent, and maybe sent packing when new admin came in-even though he isn't exactly political or a registered republican or anything? No, he is not from Goldman. :)

Ed Liddy didn't have to come do this job for a buck either. The folks who post on message boards, me included, generally couldn't do the job or wouldn't do the job. Count me in both categories.

I tend to think these things happened haphazardly, and not by nefarious design.

And Tim Geithner never worked for Goldman and was born into a life of public service. He may have grown close to them, but I just don't see the evil conspiracy most people see, although there's obvious appearances, and the whole caesar's should be above reproach kinda thing.

Have a great end of your weekend everyone. Enjoy it.



On Apr 18 09:13 PM Allan Frain wrote:

> "The focus on Goldman is obsessive. Lotsa banks got tarp funds and
> were counter-parties to AIG. Deutsche. Societe. etc"
>
> The focus on Goldman is becuase they were in the room with their
> alumnus in Treasury when the AIG scheme was hatched. Payments to
> other banks was collateral damage and absolves Goldman not in the
> least..

Seething Over Liddy's AIG-Goldman Connection

Ed Liddy isn't running AIG to pad his pockets or reward Goldman. The focus on Goldman is obsessive. Lotsa banks got tarp funds and were counter-parties to AIG. Deutsche. Societe. etc. Money ws given to AIG to make counterparties whole. You can have an issue with that, fine. But AIG wasn't supposed to just sit on the funds. That was what it as for. You go run AIG for free. I really would like to see what all these nattering nabobs on the internet would do or would have done. Capital was fleeing in November. As bad as things got, I think things would have been worse and we would have a Greater Depression.


On Apr 17 12:05 PM User 396757 wrote:

> He was placed in charge od AIG by the government. You would have
> thought he was completely checked out on these issues. Having said
> that and having been exposed to the Administration's Cabinet nominations,
> this is a non-event. You simply need to learn better that politicans
> have their own set of rights and wrongs. The Obama Administration
> should have more focus on all these issues, such as everyone so far
> in charge of this stimulus is an alum of Goldman. Why aren't you
> focused on the whole instead of just continuing to focus on the AIG
> government pipeline to bailout the institutions they did not want
> to publically address. Spend a little of your Barney Frank oversight
> of the GSE's while his significant other was head of product development
> or better yet how many members of congress had family or significant
> others working at the GSE's while they voted or continue to vote
> on their funding. Hell man report the news and stop trying to make
> news. This conflict of interest seems much deeper than AIG and Liddy.
> The Liberal Media just seems to have another agenda and most just
> deals with not focusing on the inept leadership and taking of responsibility
> by those still in power that had as much to do with this debacle
> as anyone at AIG Financial Products.

Goldman Sachs One-Upped Wells Fargo in Accounting Shenanigans

Quant funds are not infallible. They got burned horribly a couple of times in 2008 on average. And churning trading has always been around. Once could just as easily say the lows were achieved by quant funds not based on actual values.

Solid businesses which have withstood recessions and depressions before will still be around and still throwing off free cash flow and paying dividnedfs year's from now. One shouldn't care much what value Mr. market, whether a quant fund, jessie livermore or ma and pa kettle, places on a stock in a given month.

Tech analysis and logic? :) Just kidding. Anyway, certainly, tech analysis can fail, and logic can too in the short run.





On Apr 14 08:45 PM dcb wrote:

> take an accounting class so you know something about cooking the
> books.
> there is ample evidence that this bear bounce was mainly due to their
> quant funds. i.e. people were still buying when tech analysis and
> logic would say sell. too far, too fast.
> they pre announced profits that were likely false, and then made
> a stock sale ASAP before the retail data came in.
> If someone like me can see funny things going on in the market, then
> it is really clear.
> I like to follow oil. I think it give a very good idea to what is
> going on on a macro level.
> I can see it trading 45 at highest, but no matter how bad the data
> got it kept trading back above 50. this followed the pattern of the
> S&P quant funds.
> If you overlap the S&P daily trading lines with vde of example
> you will see that you could almost put one on top of another. <br/>Every
> drop was bought by someone, and many people with a lot of experience
> saw funny things happening. the only person living in the goldilocks
> economy is you because you are living down in some rabbit hole. Wake
> up, companies manipulate the books, manipulate the market and do
> all kinds of things that are either against the law or the spirit
> of the marker.
> It is like saying why are you upset with enron. they had no profits.
> Goldman may have had profits, they may have had no profits without
> government money, they skipped a month of bad results and changed
> their reporting season to hide it, they are dilluting shareholders
> so they can continue to take bigger bonuses. Lastly, they get away
> with it because they are protected. Look at the conditions Buffett
> got with them. there are reasons why he insisted on them. He knows
> what they are like. tell me why is a public company allowed to lean
> their partners money wehn they face margin calls. it that in the
> shareholders best interests. NO. IT IS NOT A PRIVATE COMPANY. THEREFORE
> IT IS NOT THEIR MONEY TO SCREW AROUND WITH. IN FACT EVEN THOUGH I
> DO NOT OWN THEIR STOCK SOME OF THEIR MONEY IS MINE AND THEY HAVE
> IT WITHOUT MY CONSENT AS IT WAS TAKEN FROM ME AGAINST MY WILL BY
> THE GOVERNMENT TO GIVE TO THEM. THAT IS WHY THEY HAVE TO START TO
> PLAY BY THE RULES.
> if you bought their stock today, great for you. you bought it based
> on profits that weren't there and paid more than you should have
> because of market manipulation. that's what the american stock market
> has become. if I am joe six pack who want to retire so I hear buffet
> bought it, they had great profits, and I pick up some I got screwed.
> the point is you can't trust our financial system and the government
> does nothing to keep it from happening. in fact it encourages their
> behavior.
> have you noticed the advice they give. when they tell you to buy
> it is almost the exact time you should be selling. they have been
> in the trade three weeks already, other have joined, and they are
> just fooling with the public. I have followed that advice and it
> always is a sell signal. At that time i didn't know better
>
>
>

BlackRock: Goldman's Q1 Profit Non-Recurring and a Result of AIG Unwinds

Yeah, we bailed out AIG so almost all other large isnttutions wouldn't collapse. And so foreign banks wouldn't be destroyed. And the chinese pull their money out. We attract capital here and it was fleeing.

Did you think the idea was for AIG to keep all the money lying around?

The financial system and economy was about to collapse. look how badly the economy did collapse for that credit freeze up, which was nothing compared to what would have happened. We are talking everyone's pension, 401(k), ira, bank account, insurance. everything was up for grabs.

And sure, we should nationalize all of it, take everyone's capital and say it belongs to everyone.

Who likes the position we wre in? what would you have done and how would it all have played out?

Goldman says we want to pay the money back. FT says don't let'em, keep them under thumb. They want out. Why do they want out if they control it all?

What if they paid back the tarp. Unwound the AIG transactions (and went back and looked to whatever other hedges they had). And paid a premium for whatever FDIC guarantees and other assistance they got. Is that enough? I bet they could do it and survive. may have to do another raise. :)

I love the strange bvedfellows this makes. Rabid libertarians and rabid anti-capitalists want the exat same thing. hey, you need aleft wing and a right wing to fly, baby. LOL!


On Apr 15 06:38 AM Fred Voetsch wrote:

> On Apr 15 06:30 AM I weep for this country. wrote:

BlackRock: Goldman's Q1 Profit Non-Recurring and a Result of AIG Unwinds

Define your use of ethics? :)

BTW, the guy said some, not "mostly".

I like how thhe message boards are full of posters saying the public has been deceived, all agreeing with one another.

I have a new name for the folks known as "Tyler." Carl Switzer. Seeking Alfalfa:

www.youtube.com/watch?...


On Apr 14 08:04 PM yellowhoard wrote:

> Is it just me, or does it seem like these fellows at Goldman Sachs
> are not the most ethical people in New York?

Goldman Sachs Backlash Is Picking Up Steam

Picking up steam? Well, it certainly sounds like venting. :)

The AIG/Bank Counterparty Scandal Escalates

Isn't this a contradiction of the prior article, that the US banks were getting sweetheart deals?

Anyway, is this guy a pseudonym or just an amalgam? Does Sidney Falco ghost write the column?

Exclusive: Big Banks' Recent Profitability Due to AIG Scam?

This is all perfectly proper. AIG made losing bets and had to payoff. Taxpayers fund it because taxpayers benefit inmany ways. The financial system doesn't collapse. The other banks they lent to pay them off and survive. Their 401(k), pensions, insurance, etc. remain viable. Fewer jobs are lost. Economy recovers sooner. Folks, why complain about this while at the same time complaining that banks aren't lending, OR that AIG and other banks should be forced to mark to market and stop puting off losses. well, they stopped putting it off. And foreigners will continue to support our financial system, buying our bonds and supporting our currency.

No one likes that we got to this point but here we are.

I think the people most ticked off are massively short. This board reeks of goldbugs, conspiracy theorists, etc. It is all pretty black and white.


On Mar 31 10:42 PM Kanomi wrote:

> This article is correct. It's becoming clearer and clearer that AIG
> is being used as a pass-through operation to steal trillions of dollars
> of taxpayer money and give it directly to a criminal banking cartel,
> similar to how the mafia as 'silent partners' will loot a business
> completely before driving it into bankruptcy.
>
> Think of the episode of the Sopranos where the guy with gambling
> debts had his sporting goods store looted into bankruptcy by Tony's
> crew -- except on a vastly more sophisticated and breathtaking scale.
>
>
> There should immediately be a special independent prosecutor appointed
> to investigate Paulson, Geithner, Greenberg, Casanno, Summers, Blankefein
> and their cohorts for criminal racketeering and conspiracy under
> the RICO act.
>
> Follow the money, cui bono.