Old Rick

Bank of America's Gain Is Taxpayers' Loss

KDI, I missed the articles on the "tent cities...springing up all over". Would you please provide SA readers (at least this one) with a legit citation on where these cities are located? While things ain't very good except on Wall Street and in Charlotte (as the article points out), the only tent I've seen on the news is the Gadhafi tent in N.J.

Bank of America's Gain Is Taxpayers' Loss

HChang this has not a whit to do with Bush or Obama. In your flawed "analysis", you neglect to mention that the (horrible) TARP was set up under GWB and the initial "heavy-lifting" (for better or, IMHO, worse) was done by Hank Paulsen and Helo Ben before BHO was crowned in January.

The Hole in the FDIC

I've been reading John Mauldin's columns and books for over 10 years. Here is a link to an archive of John's "Thoughts from the Frontlines" on investorsinsight.com. I also recommend his "Outside the Box" series as well. OTB can be accessed through the "Investor Blogs" pulldown menu.

tinyurl.com/3myrwg

Prime Mortgages Are Also Going Sour

suncatcher: "Should all of us "do the right thing" types stop our responsible behavour a see if we can't get a piece of the "free" action? "
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And further $crew our kids and grandkids to the wall 10-20 years down the road. I sure HOPE we can CHANGE things in 2010!

Prime Mortgages Are Also Going Sour

Dusty sez: "The 'Alt-A' and 'Agency' and several other middle class and upper middle class kinds of adjustable real estate loans are only beginning to falter. 'Subprime' was almost a flash in the pan compared to what is just barely started in the Real Estate markets. "
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In addition to the home mortgage issues, Fitch made a statement (carried on SA headlines) 3 days ago that "Commercial Real Estate performance metrics were deteriorating at an unprecedented pace". Here is a link to the entire Fitch story (quick read): www.housingwire.com/20.../

Expecting a Sell-Off: 35 Ways to Protect for Less

Wouldn't the simplest strategy be to purchase slightly in the money puts on SPY or QQQ or (if you feel real lucky) QLD puts for say October09? It eliminates a lot of commissions and note that individual stocks can still go up even if "The Market" declines.

Banks Not Buying FDIC Line on California IOUs

I am a California escapee circa 2003 when (among other things) it became apparent that "The Golden State" was really a "fool's gold state". The liberal democrats of California have had the state on a downward spiral for years. The next step in this evolution is that the "tax and spend" states, NY, NJ, Calif (and a couple others) will go to the Obama administration with hat in hand and ask that the taxpayers of the relatively fiscally responsible states to bail out the democrat owned and operated states.

Why GM's Not the Only Company Rush Limbaugh Should Boycott

John Galt sez to Dagny: "From my experience I see most of the city/suburban drivers in foreign imports, be it Honda civics, Toyota corollas, Nissan, or the more upscale Mercedes, BMW etc."
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John, I guess you've been in the Colorado back country too much lately. Note that all of the above makes (and a few more) are assembled in non-UAW plants in the U.S. In addition, much of the Subaru line is "domestic" by content. Kinda blurs the "us vs. them" paradigm.

Sincerely
Ragnar

Why Obama's Financial Stimulus Plan Will Fail

And I forgot to add that any stimulus spending has to pay wages at prevailing (read union scale) wage.

Why Obama's Financial Stimulus Plan Will Fail

Cetin, You might consider removing your rosy glasses for a bit. The unemployment rate is still going up and while there are signs of progress, things can still be nipped in the bud with BHO tax increases as with FDR in 1937. As far as the stimulus package being a "good" thing, it was neither TIMELY (some spending allocated out as far as 2013), TARGETED (a scattergun of Democrat pork-barrel programs) or TEMPORARY (again, semi-permanent Dem wish list programs). We could have gotten out of the recession with $200B in TTT spending, but now we have built in double-digit inflation baked in starting in 2012 or so. You need to reread your Saul Alinsky to know what is going on.


On May 11 04:12 AM Cetin Hakimoglu wrote:
That would be me. I disagree, obviously. Obama is doing a good job evidenced by the economic and stock market recovery. Too mcuh foom and gloom regarding job loss, but what's being ignored is that 91% of the population is employed. Full employment in the USA is only 95%.

A Stress Test Shocker: BofA Needs $35 Billion

According to reports on CNBC and FOX Biz, the $35B is an "if" number. IF the recession gets much worse; IF ALT-As start massive defaults; IF..IF..IF. Also according to both sources, Treasury (that great bastion of honesty and forthrightness) changed the "rules" of the stress test in the middle of the game. It seems that the real purpose here is to allow the Obama administration to inject added capital by converting preferred to common, thereby getting voting rights and board representation. If you don't think this is a salvo in the fight to nationalize the big banks, you should reread your "Rules for Radicals".

Beware the eloquent liar!

Taxpayers' TARP Warrants Are Worth Billions: Don't Give Them Away

One of the problems with the TARP and the warrants is that (according to some bank insiders) a few of the banks (e.g. JPM, WF) did not want TARP in the first place but were arm-twisted by Paulsen to take some to avoid the solvent bank-insolvent bank appearance.

As far as apppro's comment on the "Shorting of America", I think this will continue for at least 2 years and as long as the socialist/marxist anti-business crowd is in charge here at the White House.

The New Compensation Bill: What Would the Founding Fathers Say?

Ahh, yes. Turn compensation decisions over to Wesley Mouch.

Bank of America: A Risky Bet That May Be Worth It - Barron's

If you have some belief in BAC, a more conservative investment might be some of the "trust preferred" issues which are really fractions of junior debt. BAC-W and BAC-Y. Yields are in the 20% area and are trading at 1/4 of par ($25).

Trading the Mark-to-Market Modification (Updated)

I just looked at long-dated calls on JPM and note that changes to M2M seem to be priced in. Jan 2010 17.50s are at $4.55 on a close today of $15.93