Fitz919

The Truth About Unemployment Numbers

I love it when somebody out their tells the truth. My Hero!

Banks: Just a Shadow of Their Former Selves

I've been wondering for a long time now whether the sliced and diced motgage backed securities, so cleverly invented, and so unable to be honestly rated, were even legitamate "mortgage backed" secutities. The secrecy which continues to surround them, the inability of anyone to unravel them and reveal any actual mortgages which could be refinanced at their core, the reluctance of any other financial institution to buy them, the fact that the Govt chose to buy preferred shares rather than these securities, makes me suspect that they were actually just an enormous ponzi scheme, which institutions chose to insure with massive credit default swaps. As long as they could keep selling their phony securities they had lots of money with which to pay the interest to the securities holders, and the premiums on the credit default swaps, and the game could continue on uninterrupted.

Then actual sub-prime mortgages started to reset, and lots of folks had to default. Since no one knew what was in the mortgage backed securities they owned, they suddenly became high risk assets. No one would buy them anymore, and no one could sell the ones they had.

The big players in this scheme don't want to get caught and prosecuted, and figure they still have time on their side. If they can keep getting bailout money for a few more years they'll make it scott free.

Doesn't anyone else think it's odd that these mortgage backed securities aren't being dissassembled, and the good and bad mortgages identified?

If the bulk of them are phony, then the Emperor Has No Clothes, and our prisons will fill up with bankers, and accountants. Maybe the cages at Guantanimo will be useful after all. We could let our soldiers come home, and we could hire some currently unemployed folks to guard them.

The Bottom's Within Sight - Barron's

It's the bottom, when people like you and I decide it's the bottom. When you and I decide it's time to start buying just a little, or buying a whole lot, it's the bottom.