Joulie

GE Says Smart Grid Equal to 41GW of Power Plants

Thank you Greentech media.

Question:

What is the unified field theory of carbon credits vs. KwH vs. money vs. global warming? How does this benefit GE?

GE Hits 12-Year Low: Time To Stock Up

I hope you are right, but I need more information. Here's my question:

Do GE capital contracts still have "triple-A puts" ? (These were common in the early '90s).

Does Warren Buffett Think Goldman Is More Creditworthy Than GE?

Not coincidentally, today the Senate approved the Indian nuclear deal (bringing India into the nuclear club, a controversy), making GE one of the major suppliers of the what -- 18? or so nuclear power plants for India. I see that piece of legislation as very relevant to Mr. Buffet's decision.

It looks like BH/Mr. Buffet made GE capital ugliness a non-issue so that GE can move on with rebuilding the infrastructure of most of the world, financed by GS.

(There is an anecdote about Mr. Buffet wanting to "own a bridge" because everyone had to use it - this reminds me of that).(Except times a zillion).

At any rate, this seems to put a floor on GE's stock price at $22.84 at the end of 5 years time, or before (the strike price for the $3B in warrants).

We've Crossed the Line from Capitalism to Socialism

Regulators: Take out the goodwill from the "asset" column.

C'mon comrades - there's no Pravda in Izvestia and no Izvestia in Pravda as they say.

How We Lost Faith in the Financial Superstructure

Dmitri Kashirin - A job that can be done at a desk can be done at any desk. Here is a report by Rand for the US Dept. of Labor describing the labor pool for the next decade or so - the fastest growth area is in "knowledge workers" - I also thought it was interesting that in 2012, the average age of a US worker will be 59.5 y.o.:
www.rand.org/pubs/mono...

Of course factory floor jobs require on site workers, although I would query whether there will be alternatives to single individuals driving automobiles.

How We Lost Faith in the Financial Superstructure

Oil economic considerations are premised on difficult substitutions for liquid fuel for cars.

Yet, the true cross-elasticity for gas in the tank is the internet -- telecommuting.

This is the fastest, cheapest, and cleanest way to eliminate dependence on mid east oil.

We need to decide if cultural issues are so important that we have to devote most of our national resources to keeping people in their cars so they can drive to a desk downtown.

Another American Money Pit: Infrastructure

China is building 10+ or more cities of about 20-30MM people from scratch, and they're putting in communications, transportation, and energy infrastructure in a coordinated fashion -- state of the art. Jus' sayin'.

Scarlett O'Hara, Doris Day and Financial Market Tumult

Thanks for the article, I thought it was great.

I haven't read the Grant piece, but the gist seems to be: All the backstops in regulatory, corporate governance and simple individual ethics failed, what happened?

Deconstructing what happened, not surprisingly, the theme running through it all like a red thread is, "Maximize my pay regardless of my performance". Put another way, "Money attracts flies."

So where are we: disorientedly afloat. Asset (stock, commodity) market values are untethered from the price of the financial instruments that created them.

The article points to the gold standard. Is gold the answer? It does tie valuation to something. I think it's too early. We don't know what we don't know, we need more unwinding. I don't even think mark to market by selling 10% and seeing what you get will work -- it's a moving target.

My vote: We need damage control during this "Great Unwinding".

Regulate leverage up the wazoo where ever you find it. Naked shorts, commodity futures, whatever. I'm not sure what needs to be done, but, painful as it may be, we need to have supply and demand relate to the asset, not to the financial instrument alone.

So far, the regulators seem to be saying, to paraphrase Scarlet, "[public] opinion is a matter of supreme indifference to me."

I'd like to see the D&O insurers help as far as governance, maybe they can team up with the regulators and make and actual plan, unlike what we have now, which is chaos.

The SEC's Campaign Against Naked Shorting: Misguided or Right On?

Wait . . now there's a report that Market Makers are exempt presumably for administrative reasons (they have to borrow the shares to match the buy and sells or something like that). Is this a full exemption for everything? Hmm.

Pelican may be on to something, higher % returns, this is going on much more than we know.

SEC? Hello?

The SEC's Campaign Against Naked Shorting: Misguided or Right On?

Thanks for the article --

I was unaware it was 17 companies. Why is making a special rule for 17 companies legal? Last time I checked we had a Constitutional Equal Protection clause -- you can't make laws picking only on individuals.

Be that as it may. . .I don't think these amorphous markets should be banned, just transparent.

I think you make an important point: With *unreported* naked shorters around (and dark pools), the public equities markets are now on-line gaming casinos. It's a guess - you don't know the value of the shares because you don't know the volume traded and you don't know the liquidity.

The regs should require that naked short contracts be made public, along with the number of shares or other instruments traded in dark pools.

Will 'Dark Pools' Be the Capital Markets' Next Black Holes?

Thank you for this article, I've been waiting for this issue to come on the national radar. Isn't this illegal gaming? Or at a minimum, event-contract based transactions? I just don't get it: why are these legal? Isn't anyone concerned about the anticompetitive and anti-free market effect?

If I post a web site that says, "Gambling here! Bet that General Electric Stock will go down!" the Feds and the state and the Native American tribes would be all over that for illegal gambling. But aren't dark pools the same thing?

Or, at a minimum, illegal boycotts? Aren't the dark pools refusing to deal in an anticompetitive way?

We need some sunshine on these "dark pools", they defeat the purpose of the securities laws by totally hiding the major risks involved with investing -- which is the exact opposite of what the securities laws were supposed to do. The laws are to let people kick the tires, slam the doors and figure out if the stock is worth the price based on information available to everyone. If the major, market-moving information is secret -- the liquidity (volume of shares) traded -- then isn't that just admitting that the SEC is a farce, and basically the stock markets aren't based on free market, but rather based on collusion of the economically powerful private entities?

Am I overly paranoid? To me this is so obvious -- am I the only one?

Regulators? Business leaders? Hello?