katec

Should We Reinstate Glass-Steagall?

Yes, we need to move quickly!! Most importantly, if the rule is in place.....it needs to be enforced. It seems that many of strayed, especially the SEC chairman as well as a few others.

BofA, Wells Fargo: No Equity After Accounting for Bad Loans

Why does not someone wake up and realize that we need to get rid of mark to the market accounting?????? This is what led to the depression in 1929~! Furthermore, you cannot combines commercial and investment banking! I had faith in Bernanke as I had understood that he had studied the crash of 1929???? Write your congressmen to get rid of Mark to the Market accounting!!

Top 2009 Fund of Funds

My exact sentiments! Your illustrations were a bit difficult to follow!

Eight Mistakes That Caused the Financial Crisis

I agree with john s gordon.....the "zookeeper for derivatives" is a great idea!

It is a shame that no one with all the economic "savvy" of Hank Paulson or Tim Geitner did not see the impact of letting Lehman fail would have!?!??!!?

Restore the uptick rule, please!

Adding Up the White House Pay Freeze

Now, what did George Bush spend on this inauguration ceremonies? Let us get real and shut-up! We just had an inauguration for our President and I do not care what was spent. Was it not wonderful that Michele did not choose a dress from an upscale designer!?!?!? Let us not forget what the RNC spent on the Palin family. Get over it!!!

Furthermore, the best thing for the Gitmo prisoners would be to incarcerate them in our prisons...they would be taken care of!!

Plus, a strong statement would be for the congress to not accept any pay increases!!

10 Stupid Moves That Created This Mess

Aryamehr,

We never fail to learn from the past! We need regulations which would alleviate more ownership from the US Government. It is strange how everyone thought that Mr. Greenspan was such a genius!! We all know that George W was never elected to be our President. Let us all hope that we are in for a change but a mess for President-elect Obama to clean up or whoever would have been elected!


On Jan 01 12:12 PM Aryamehr wrote:

> As a mortgage banker I saw it all. In 1998 I decided to enter the
> mortgage lending business for a third time. Initially wholesale lending
> worked its cogs, according to the prevailing market parameters. Securitization
> as intended brought about the efficiencies purported by those free
> market advocates of deregulation and the world took heed. As we now
> know securitization of the mortgage industry was on the 'menu de
> fare' of almost every member of the OECD countries. During this same
> period the 'world's central bank,' the Federal Reserve, and I say
> this with emphasis, took a reckless glide path towards lower interest
> rates, even when small bubbles began to manifest themselves in the
> latter part of 2003. The Economist magazine did a perfect job of
> heralding a brewing bubble, however most of those in the financial
> community continued to enjoy the party under its host, Mr. Greenspan.
> Since Mr. Greenspan was given complete latitude under his supervisor,
> Mr. Bush, a nincompoop of the first order; probably and hopefully
> the only one in US history. To make matters worse traditional lending
> standards were compromised: lenders no longer were obligated to hold
> on to the MBS and the CDO they created, once the loans were originated
> they were sold off to disparate investors; AIG, GE, Pension Funds,
> Private Hedge Funds, the GSE’s (FNM & FRE) and many Foreign Investors.
> The investors hedged their losses by buying credit default swaps
> (CDS) under the presumption that this instrument insured them against
> any possible defaults. This all worked well so long as the assets
> they were securitizing performed, however you would have to be an
> idiot to believe real estate values would continue to climb at 20%
> a year while most peoples wages were barely keeping up with the artificial
> rate of inflation (2-3%). In retrospect the media didn’t take much
> time to promulgate the underpinnings of an investment community gone
> wild. The dominos began to fall; Countrywide, Bear Stearns, Lehman
> Brothers, Indymac, Uncle Freddie and Aunty Fannie, AIG, Washington
> Mutual, Wachovia et al. To put things in a laconic perspective: what
> these entities did was create conduits off their balance sheets called
> structured investment vehicles (SIVs) that allowed them to avoid
> banking and insurance regulators. The Banking and Insurance industry
> have rules and regulations that would have barred a lot of the business
> practices that took place had the regulators done their jobs, however
> allowing the financial community to do as they please under the pretext
> of financial innovation is what got us into this mess. Now that the
> underpinnings of this feeding frenzy have been divulged we know that
> CDS are not ersatz forms of insurance and ABS absent of traditional
> governance and regulation are very risking investments. Had it not
> been for the Tax payer benevolence under the troubled asset relief
> program (TARP), I would surmise that the entire financial community
> would have been brought to their knees and the mighty dollar would
> have been toppled from its vaunted mantel. Nevertheless, the bail
> out will do its job, given sufficient time but the financial community
> will need to go through a metamorphosis, from opacity to unequivocal
> transparency if faith in these surviving entities is to be restored.

3 Gold Miners That Stand to Sparkle from Growing Demand

Normally, there are rules that if someone owns the stock that is writing a report on a certain sector which includes that stock, they are required to inform the readers. However, I do not know what the rules are on Seeking Alpha and their articles authors. This gives you an idea that you can research prior to investing anyh of his suggestions!


On Jan 01 08:47 PM RBSTOCKS wrote:

> All I can say is WOW!
> First off I really believe that if you write and article, however
> you define "Article", you should not be pushing and stock, maybe
> a sector, but not a specific stock. It seems to me that when you
> push a stock or two or three, it is because you have stake in it
> and hope to drive up the price thru someone else’s excitement. Yes
> I do believe that the mining sector in gold and silver and several
> other minerals’ are ready to start a move back up after a sharp correction,
> but I will not call out any one stock over another. The likely hood
> that I or anyone that writes articles here would pick wisely for
> you is like throwing darts 20 feet at a wall of stocks on post it
> notes. I do agree with one post that this article is a bit late,
> but historically AUY tends to jump ahead of the game, I do not follow
> the other two listed. Perhaps they are an indication that these sectors
> are about to move as a whole. I for one stick to charts for most
> of my decision making processes for buying or selling a stock, and
> could list many miners that appear to have bottomed and are beginning
> to move again, but as I stated it is not my place to push anyone
> to buy anything.

Reasons to Bail Out GM

goanywhere your are right on!! To start with, what I have heard in the past weeks about people who work at GM....are paid those type of wages and do nothing when they get to the job!! Wow! The world must be laughing at us! Why do we not just give them a loan....charge an interest rate, then they can pay the government back like Chrysler did????

The Need for a New Approach to Regulation

The fourth paragraph pretty well sums up what is needed in this country as a direct quote so there is no misunderstanding:

Why can't we take similar steps with other types of companies and place a cap on their growth, so that the health of the economy isn't depending on a small number of executives always making smart, rational decisions?

Global Markets, Meet President Obama. Now What?

It is an amazing day in America! However, the work has just begun. There is alot of dirty laundry that this administration will leave behind. I am only hoping that Obama will surround himself with experienced people and it would be great to have a bipartisan cabinet. I am thankful that Congress did not reach the level that they needed. This government needs to be balanced. We do have to remember that we are citizens of the United States of America and not a country of red & blue states!! I will be anxious to see what Obama brings to this country which hopefully will improve and that we will get back on track in the financial sector. May we all pray for that!

U.S. Voters Lean Toward Government Intervention. Here's How to Invest for It

Sometimes, we have to go through things twice and I am a huge Bob Dylan fan!! We just do not get it!! We need a rail system like Europe and go back to building our infrastructure soon! I am not impressed with either candidate......but we live in a Republic that the electoral college chooses our President!! I am not sure that we need a stimulus package with money from China again!

In Defense of Northrup-Grumman's USAF Contract Win

I think this is one of the most prudent decisions that a branch of our Armed Forces have made in quite sometime! Outsourcing has become that way of American businesses......so spread the wealth and if funds are saved then it is to the taxpayer's benefit.