optionsgirl

When Is Insider Trading Legal? The Strange Case of Stephen Friedman

It just goes to show you why regulation and regulators fail. Greed trumps honor. It's a corrupt system with corrupt leaders. Anyone who can, trades on insider information. It's been going on as long as there have been markets, public and private. It never has been a level playing field, and never will be. GS owns everybody. They're modern day "wise guys".

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

I read Spectrulaters comments and am baffled by them. Spec, do you think green tech will advance on a system designed to trade CO2 credits? It's just a taxing scheme.
You"re going to make Al Gore richer. Pickens just cancelled his big wind farm, and is doing much smaller projects. Doesn't that tell you something?

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

That is exactly what is going to happen. The biggest banks that paid TARP want to buy the toxic assets of other TARP recipients. I also read a Bloomberg article some months back that CALPERS (The California Public Employees' Retirement System) intends to buy some of these toxic assets, and so does the public retirement system in MA. Unbelievable.

On Jul 09 08:13 AM AndrewBaker wrote:

> PPIP will make lots of money for the banks who will buy each other's
> debt using bail-out funds and engineering a book profit on the written
> down values, and then when all that money has gone we'll have stimulus
> mark 2, giving them even more of our tax dollars to play with and
> for the top people to get richer on. After that, the real losses
> will come out and the poor stockholders will cry as they watch the
> stock prices drop even more.
>
> One way to stop this cynical manipulatory plan is to sell bank and
> financial stocks now whilst you can still get a reasonable price,
> and in so doing preventing further unwarranted price increases.

The BofA / Merrill Mess - A Misguided Mob Goes After the Wrong Guy

Dear Clinton:
I think Mr. G's got that backwards-
Americans are tired of socialism, not capitalism. That's what we've got, isn't it? We've been heading toward socialism for the past 40+ years.

Why Congress Is Asking Bernanke Bogus Questions

That's like a debate on Hitler v Stalin-who was the most evil?
Both Greenspan and Bernanke stink!


On Jun 27 08:25 PM Sovestor wrote:

> Bernanke is not that bogus vs. Greenspan.

Why Congress Is Asking Bernanke Bogus Questions

Great observation, Thiazole. Sounds like something from a George Orwell novel, doesn't it?


On Jun 26 11:43 AM thiazole wrote:

> In my opinion, politicians want as many scape goats to wag their
> fingers at as they can find so that they can avoid the spotlight
> on themselves. If they can just keep us angry at everyone but them,
> we might forget that it was their policies that ultimately got us
> into this mess in the first place.

Why Should Life Insurers Be Bailed Out?

This is not a question of bad news being a self- fulfilling process. Wake up! The U.S. is functionally bankrupt, and so are our major financial institutions. As to there being guarantees on insurance products, there are very few.

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

We should be working on term limits for congress, and send them packing.


On Mar 30 12:32 PM Big Al45 wrote:

> Considering what we've elected, probably none of it could be understood
> by Congress.

Five Lessons from AIG and Merrill Bonuses

I don't understand why there isn't more outrage that congress is trying to select certain AIG employees for a special punitive tax of 90% of the bonuses. Why isn't there a greater outcry, because this is unconstitutional? Dodd wrote that loophole into the bill, then denied he had anything to do with it. When will the public speak up?


On Mar 20 10:52 AM Econ 101 wrote:

> "In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak
> up because I wasn’t a Communist;
> And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up
> because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
> And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I
> wasn’t a Jew;
> And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was
> no one left to speak up."
>
> Martin Niemöller
>
> congress is fooling you again. They created this problem because
> they knowingly put it in the bailout bill, now they create another
> "crisis" to divert the light from their nifarious work to scapegoats.
> There NEVER should have been a bailout! It was a payoff to fannymae,
> freddymac, C, BAC and the rest of the TARP crowd.
>
> congress is the biggest criminal organization in the United States!

Not the Tax Clawback I Had in Mind

This is excellent commentary. All citizens of the USA should be alarmed at the unconstitutional behavior of this congress. It is time to throw those monkeys out- starting with Dodd, Frank, Pelosi and Reid.


On Mar 20 08:39 AM Lawrence J. Kramer wrote:

> Chris Butler has it exactly right. There is no such thing as a good
> "tax" clawback, because a clawback isn't a tax; it's a forfeiture.
> The Congress can tax income retroactively, and it can impose excise
> taxes on behavior it wishes to deter. But it cannot impose excise
> taxes retroactively. And a special, confiscatory tax on a particular
> kind of income received by a particular kind of person - "When they
> came for the AIGers, I said nothing, because I was not an AIGer"
> - is a tyrant's ploy. Fortunately, the Founding Fathers had words
> for that sort of thing, words like "attainder" and "ex post facto."

The AIG Bonuses: A Welcome Scandal

Your personal circumstances are the last thing on the minds of Congress. Your ire is misdirected.


On Mar 20 08:24 AM OldMarine99 wrote:

> It may seem like a small when compared to $175B but compared to my
> income which has falled to less than $25K per year, it is beyond
> outrageous. This whole "defense" of comparing it to the overall bailout
> completely misses the moral imperative that is at the heart of the
> American people's ire.

The AIG Bonuses: A Welcome Scandal

Why is there no uproar over the fact that Congress is targeting AIG employees specifically with a tax act? This is unconstitutional. You can thank Congress for voting for an act they did not read. You can thank Senator Dodd for including language that permitted these bonuses. 165 Million is a spit in the ocean compared to what is being squandered. I hope this congress will be thrown out on their ears in the next election, with Dodd, Pelosi, Reed and Frank at the top of the list.

AIG's Blackmail Note

No, you are off by a few zeros. 12+ Billion to GS, not million.


On Mar 17 03:02 AM 1 world currency wrote:

> 165 million in bonuses
> 12,900 million direct to Goldman Sachs

AIG's Blackmail Note

"Know what AIG stands for? And it's gone..." Jay Leno, Tonight Show

Here was the problem: AIG couldn't print fiat currency, so they had to go to the Federal Government, the ultimate underwriter with empty coffers.

$35 Billion went to pay off foreign banks, Deutsche Bank among them.

DJIA Components: Are Changes Imminent?

Cisco and Goldman Sachs, the last investment bank left standing.