E Thomas St.

Mark-to-Market Triggered This Recession; It Will Also Trigger the Recovery

An underperforming or defaulting loan is underperforming and defaulting regardless of whether the bank aknowledges it on their balance sheet or not. Hiding that reality behind value at maturity now isn't going to fool anyone who is in a position to take those revalued loans off the struggling banks books.

Why Capping Pay Is Likely to Work

Here is a thought;

If the cap is 500k for receiving funds and the payoff for the executive team is higher for not receiving funds, what is the motivation for taking said funds?

Now to jump into the "talent discussion". Sure there are a lot of people that'd take the CEO job for 500k, but those same people might consider the 600k CEO job more. Further, if the company that offers 500k hires on a CEO for that amount and they fail, the whole "magic bones" fallacy comes into play. Was it the CEO? Does a better CEO cost more? What is the ROI with a CEO anyway? If the CEO succeeds what is the company doing to keep them? The entire question of compensation needs a reevaluation from the side of the business paying out salaries and needs to call the bluff of those people.

How Wall Street Keeps Dooming Itself

Whether you support a system implicitly through participating and whether you idealize the status quo as the person I responded to did, makes a world of difference.

On Jan 30 03:51 PM huangjin wrote:

> "Do you really support a system that is dysfunctional at its very
> core because so many people depend on it? This mentality could be
> used to justify any number of wasteful and inefficient allocations
> of capital."
>
> That explains almost every single government agency and program in
> America, right down to public schools, police and military. So I
> guess the answer is yes, for at least 50(+1)% of the people.

How Wall Street Keeps Dooming Itself

Do you really support a system that is dysfunctional at its very core because so many people depend on it? This mentality could be used to justify any number of wasteful and inefficient allocations of capital.

On Jan 30 01:18 PM TRS wrote:

> A rather inconvenient truth is Albany and NYC also benefit from the
> mothers milk of Wallstreet bonuses. At a mere $18 bln the city and
> state are witnessing a $1.3 bln short fall in tax collections. Followed
> by an announced potential 20,000 job cuts in the service personel
> pool of NYC.
>
> Blasting the bonuses has far reaching consequences. Lambasting is
> easy by those not losing their respective jobs due to the fallout...
> and I'm not talking about wallstreet jobs! I'm talking about the
> better than 8 million people that live in and around Manhattan that
> depend on that injection of cash into the system for their livelyhood.
>
>
> The repercussions of government dictating private business practices
> is far more dangerous than the bonuses. Justified or not.
>
> For the sake of conversation... What do you suppose Wallstreet's
> adjusted hourly rate is? Just curious. Most I know don't work a
> 40 hour week.

Where Citigroup Went Wrong

I'd say that this personnel decision was more of a symptom of the disease rather than the disease itself.

What Would You Do With Just $350 Billion to Spend?

Unemployment benefits.

Number of U.S. Homes With Negative Equity Is Stunning

Say goodbye to construction jobs. Say hello to higher unemployment.


On Nov 12 12:12 PM jimmy46 wrote:

> No one has suggested this, BUT:
>
> Local governments across america need to
>
> CUT THE NUMBER OF BUILDING PERMITS to a fraction of what they are.
>
>
> Building starts are down sharply, but there is still an oversupply
> of houses.
>
> THE SOONER THIS OVERSUPPLY IS RUN DOWN,
>
> THE SOONER THE HOUSE PRICE DECLINE WILL END.

Number of U.S. Homes With Negative Equity Is Stunning

So on a sample size of 33 self selecting people you're going to extrapolate (and poorly extrapolate) unemployment numbers for the entire country? Stay away from stats, you might get hurt.


On Nov 12 07:38 AM vbierschwale wrote:

> One thing I don't think that people realize is that this negative
> equity is paper only as long as they don't try and sell and this
> is only a symptom of the real problem.
>
> I wrote an article this morning at www.KeepAmericaAtWork....
> that describes the real problem of why our manufacturers, retailers
> and raw material producers are suffering now.
>
> The solution is very simple - Give me the names of the CEO's and
> the company names so that I can add them to the "Wall of Shame" on
> my site so that our fellow citizens can see exactly who is responsible
> for this financial crisis.
> === article follows ---
>
> Polls,
>
> You love them or you hate them or in my case, you distrust them because
> they don't provide the detail so that you can verify the accuracy
> of the data.
>
> But on the other hand, I'm noticing some interesting things in the
> "Employed" poll that I am running this month.
>
> As of right this minute we have:
>
> 19 employed for 57.6 %
> 7 unemployed for 21.2 %
> 5 looking for 15.2%
> 2 gave up for 6.1 %
> Now according to the cia's web site we have about 300 million people
> in america, so lets divide that into 3 age groups.
>
> Lets make the assumption that 100 million are under the age of 18
> which leaves 200 million.
>
> So we have an age group from 18 - 98 and 200 million people
>
> A lot of people either retired at 65 or possibly were forced to retire
> at 65 which leaves from a total of 70 working years:
>
> 33 years of retired people and
> 37 years of working people
> That is awful close to 50 % this early in the morning.
>
> So these rough numbers tell me we should have 100 million working
> and 100 million retired as approximate numbers.
>
> Now I read in one of the government reports a while back that our
> government uses 150 million workers which makes me wonder how they
> arrived at that number, but thats another topic at a later date.

>
>
> So we have 100 million workers, now lets deal with the numbers above
> and we'll add the 19 employed and the 5 looking for a total of 24
> working and we'll add the numbers of 7 unemployed and 2 gave up for
> a total of 9
>
> So now we have the numbers of 24 and 9 which gives us 33
>
> So now we will divide 100 million by 33 and we get 3,030,303 per
> number
>
> So now we're going to multiply 3,030,303 times 24 and we get a working
> population of 72,727,273
>
> And now we're going to multiply 3,030,303 times 9 and we get a unemployed
> populaton of 27,272,727
>
> Damn, does that give us an unemployed percentage of 28 % instead
> of the 6 % our experts are telling us.
>
> Now do you see why our economy and the economy of all the democratic
> countries is suffering right now ?
>
> As for you other democratic countries, run the numbers on your own
> country and if your leaders have followed America's lead and sent
> your jobs offshore, then that will explain why you're going through
> the same problems we are.
>