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Taking Apart Jake DeSantis' Letter

With regards to your link--you're going to a website called 'the Smirking Chimp' for your info? Jeez, you could've done a little bit more homework and come up with a better article. How about an article on the overwhelming sense of entitlement coming, not from those 'rich' people, but from all those people who say people making more than them should pay their 'fair' share?

Taking Apart Jake DeSantis' Letter

He didn't say he knew nothing--he stated he was not responsible for the CDS portfolio, and he wasn't. Frankly, you'd be a bit pissed too if you worked 16 hour days cleaning up someone else's mess and were then told at the end of the year you weren't going to get paid.

It's difficult for me not to see this situation as nothing more than mobs and government thugs robbing these people at gun point. They had a contract, they didn't even attempt to renegotiate it. This was simply an attempt at expropriation at its finest.

All of you supporting this activity will regret it--the exodus of intelligent people has begun already. Who do you think you're going to get to work on unwinding these portfolios? The one-off nature of these contracts requires a level of sophistication that IS hard to come by, in spite of the wall street layoffs. Look to see significant increases in losses as a result and a lesser return to the taxpayers. Congratulations--you all will be so proud of yourselves having done such a fine job of cutting off your noses to spite your faces.

Why I Favor High Yield and Preferred Stocks

On Feb 13 11:01 AM [e-mail] wrote:

> Has anyone been watching what the government has done to destroy
> preferred financial stock. Everytime the government gives them money
> they take a huge position further diluting the shares. Further, doesn't
> any listen to Roubini, schiff, marc faber, gary schilling? if you
> have not then go to youtube and listen. The governments wants dividends
> to be reduced to 1 penny a share. If you listen to the fiasco hearings
> it was clear. Buy preferreds at your own peril.

You're not considering that preferreds have been less affected; common shareholders have been crushed, but preferreds have not, and they are largely continuing to pay out. In many cases the preferreds are cumulative dividend-paying, such that even upon recovery, common shareholders won't get paid any dividends until the issuer makes good on all dividends that should have been paid to the preferred holders in past periods. When considering yields on pff have pushed past 11% in recent periods and the nature of the holdings, the yield makes up for a fair amount of that risk--I've still been getting paid at that yield, even while the share price has fluctuated. Seems reasonable to wait-I'll get the yield either through the dividend or capital appreciation or both.

AIG: Forget about Retention Pay and Buy Them Pizza Instead

You should have told them that approach didn't work especially well for Marie Antoinette...

AIG: The Success of Failure

Typical type of article seen on seeking alpha--overly simplistic; lacking any material analysis of the fundamental issues; sensationalistic. Keep trying for those headlines Ken. Maybe someday you'll become a real journalist.

If I Were a Bear Stearns Speech Writer...

Someone please let me know what the point of this article is....All over the place and provides no useful information.

Ambac, MBIA Finally Get the Rating They Deserve

Garbage article with no substance, spurious use of 'factoids', and obviously conflicted. Graham, get a job flipping burgers--at least then you won't waste our time.