Hmm?!

Earnings Notwithstanding, Citigroup and BofA Have Two Different Stories to Tell

In the end. Maybe they both go down.

The Coming Consequences of Banking Fraud

Mrudula,

The question that begs to be answered is............how are these politicians suddenly worth millions per year as consultants? Consultants are generally industry experts, not government generalists.


On Sep 09 11:40 AM Mrudula Shah wrote:

> The author vents his frustrations as if he is a pro-China anti-Western
> individual, going as far as chraging the likes of Tony Blair and
> Gordon Brown as pupets of banking ologarchs - an exageration of the
> opposite kind!!

Four Reasons We're Headed Even Higher

No Leaf Clover,

It is pretty clear you are new to SA. "things will get better eventually" ? From an investment perpsective there is absolutely no guarantee. There has already been a 25 year span between peaks in the Dow once, it can happen again. Have you ever looked at the Japanese index, now more than 20 years from the last peak.

Even today accounting for dollar inflation......our last peak....was NOT a peak.

And since the indices are constantly changing their stocks by their own parameters, the stocks indices never REALLY recover. Hence your buy statement and logic are incorrect and dangerously flawed.


On Aug 28 11:29 PM No Leaf Clover wrote:

> All the grammar comments are wonderful, except this is not English
> class!!! Try to add some value with insightful market comments instead
> of acting like you are so much better than the rest of us who focus
> on content.
>
> The market is going up at a very basic level due to supply and demand.
> Supply (shares of stock) has not increased substantially, even with
> the secondary offerings of many companies, and demand is increasing.
> People realize that things will get better eventually and when they
> do, their stock investments will pull in great returns, so demand
> is increasing. There are not many alternatives with the extra savings:
> real estate - today not so much, money market - almost no return,
> bonds - maybe but big risk when interest rates rise next year.<br/>
>
> I don't want to give the impression that the market indicators are
> just noise, but at the most basic level the result of increased demand
> with almost constant supply is higher prices...no matter what the
> indicators say.

Thoughts on REITS, Financials and the U.S. Dollar

jasonjim,

I am sorry, you lost me..... how? There are excess homes built.....sold to people on liar loans. Most of the liar loaners will never qualify for a mortgage again, because they didn't even qualify the first time.

I see new and empty strip malls and newer office buildings converted to warehouse space. And yet I am in Dallas Texas..... a city least hit to date, by the downturn.

We have a 70% consumption economy that is out of money and overbuilt as far as the eye can see????

A lowering tide....... lowers ALL boats!

On Aug 23 01:18 PM jasonjim wrote:

> Good quality REITs will follow the financials upwards IMO. Many of
> them are seriously undervalued, which gives an opportunity not only
> for their great dividends but also for serious capital gains over
> the intermediate term.

Five Reasons the Market Could Crash This Fall

Cutting taxes for the rich? The bottom 47% of the population pays no net tax. Look it up.....taxfoundation.org

If you have a better source! Please state it here for everyone!
"only knowledge applied is power"


On Aug 05 09:12 AM Broxburnboy wrote:

> Where have you been... there is already a "war" going on and it it
> has been financed through cutting taxes for the rich.. i.e. borrowing
> from our global rivals in our children's name. That credit is now
> drying up and we'll have to cancel social security or dilute our
> existing dollars to ensure windfall profits for the war industry.
>

Five Reasons the Market Could Crash This Fall

Why are you quoting all the people who got it wrong?? Did they predict the meltdown in stock prices?? Where all the sell signals there when they should have been? Are they ever?

So how can you quote them on the positive side?


On Aug 04 05:30 PM Dan Kieffer wrote:

> Analyst Q3 - Prev. Q3 - Revised
> Credit Suisse 1.30% 2.00%
> "bull-tards" or Soothsayer?
> Getting Stronger: Economists Raise Third-Quarter GDP Forecasts:<br/>D...
> Bank AG 0.00% 2.00%
> J.P. Morgan 2.50% 3.00%
> Moody’s Economy.com 1.10% 1.60%
> Morgan Stanley 1.00% 3.50%
> UBS 2.00% 2.50%
> Wells Fargo 2.20% 3.00%
>
> Average 1.44% 2.51%
> blogs.wsj.com/economic.../

Top 5 Quotes from Berkshire's Annual Meeting

Thanks Jeff. That removes some internal conflict for me. It admits the higly overleveraged reality we are in.

I have noticed that Buffett is increasingly avoiding common equity and lending out Berkshire money for high interest preferreds and warrants. Berkshire also put a lot into COP, a commodity based stock.

IMHO: I think Buffett knows governments have screwed up the monetary gears, ....but being publicly negative about government has no positive consequences, ...and is not doing yourself a favor.


On May 03 12:41 PM Jeff Miller wrote:

> WB did not say that we are headed into stagflation. The CNBC transcript
> cites him as follows: "Inflation has the "potential" to be worse
> than the 1970s." www.cnbc.com/id/29592831
>
> The author of the piece in your link mentioned that the 70's was
> a time of stagflation. The term "stagflation" is not mentioned in
> the transcript.
>
> WB remains positive on economic prospects, as this helpful summary
> indicates.

Mack-Cali Late to the (Follow-On) Party

Where is congress....? ......again?

Not necessarily a fan of Rush......but I completely understand his term "the talking heads" in Washington and the media.

Why It's Better to Bail Out Borrowers than Banks

No one should be bailed out period.

The U.S. Banking System's Terrifying Balance Sheet

The real solution to the real problem.

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd stopped banking oversight of Fannie and Freddie in congress in 2003. Banks were also given ridiculous quotas to lend to bad credit customers.

Since Fannie and Freddie now had all the business, no one honest could stay in any bank leadership. There was no honest money left to be made.

Banks invented stories about how they could reduce the risk on terrible credit customers by bundling the notes. AIG claimed to have it all covered with its credit default swaps, which was always impossible.

And now everyone involved continues to try and bury it with taxpayer dollars.

(from Mortgage Liquidity Du Jour by Credit Suisse, March 2007)
"low/no documentation loans increased from just 18% of purchase originations in 2001 to 49% in 2006"

"sampling 100 stated income loans found that 60% of borrowers had "exaggerated" their income by MORE than 50%"

Solution: Clean the guilty out of congress. Let the impossible business models be destroyed. Stop propping up the liar loans.

Warren's (Ridiculous) Prescription for Banks: Wipe Out Shareholders, Fire CEOs

Elizabeth Warren is a Harvard Law Professor who knows nothing about business or economics. She lists "financially distressed companies" as a research interest and that is it!

Great!.......Somebody else experimenting with trillions of our tax dollars.

Meanwhile over 300 hundred economics professors, say NO! Signing a full page ad in the Wall Street saying...... stop the stimulus bill and take back the 200 billion slated for our colleges.

But instead the dog and pony show continues. I hope this one at least paid her taxes.

Buffett and the Banks: Make the Most of a Bad Situation

On Mar 04 11:34 PM Aristophanes wrote:
The highest era of redistribution was from 1945 to 1970 when the highest marginal tax rate was 90% and most higher earners (the top 20% of working citizens) paid well over 60% of their earnings to Uncle Sam. That was a very prosperous time.

>> It would be nice to go back to that......today the top 10% of taxpayers pay 70.79% of all taxes and counting.

www.taxfoundation.org/...


On Mar 04 11:34 PM Aristophanes wrote:
In your example, "propping up the lenders" would do the opposite of what you say. Since the "lenders' are large banks with very high comparative, Executive and management pay scales, then the tax code changes are only shifting wealth from the haves not in banking to have in banking. now, this was going on anyway, when it was called "investment". Obama s simply making sure that the wealthier investors follow up on their commitments to those companies they bought. And it's not a bad idea since the have nots were not running the banks. Let's give them a break.

>> Rarely on this website have I seen such a nonsensical load of crap! The government wants to play God and somehow SOME people still believe the government can take money from wise investors run it through congress without pork or corruption, spend, not invest and it will be an efficient use of capital. Because the same government entity (congress) was unable to stop corruption from within and protect the American people in the first place now you think they should control everything??

Buffett and the Banks: Make the Most of a Bad Situation

Buffett supported him.....in what respect? I am pretty sure he did in some respect.

But the Obama campaign also claimed the support of the heritage foundation among others....and kept playing that claim in tv commercials several hundred times after being legally served a cease order.

On Mar 04 09:19 AM ilovesum wrote:

> well buffett supported obama during the election , now he doesn't
> like him ?

The End of the Credit Crisis

Delbmarcs,

You are right there is something missing and I will keep reposting it, until everybody knows it.

These two statements say it all, if you can do simple math (from Mortgage Liquidity Du Jour by Credit Suisse, March 2007)

"low/no documentation loans increased from just 18% of purchase originations in 2001 to 49% in 2006"

"sampling 100 stated income loans found that 60% of borrowers had "exaggerated" their income by MORE than 50%"

That means 30% of ALL mortgages in 2006, the buyer only had 66% of the income they claimed. Some of the other mortgages were also likely bad from minute one. If the buyer lied by 49% or 30% on their application?

Congress voted against oversight of Fannie and Freddie in 2003 and so most of congress is not really motivated to come out with the entire open truth are they!!




On Mar 01 09:53 AM delbmarcs wrote:

> I think you are right. There is something missing.
>
> Isn't there some leverage on these defaults that is causing the trouble?
> The infamous "CDOs and CDSs?" that even Greensapan can't understand
> and AIG sold without collateral? Isn't it something like: if the
> loans go bad, the CDOs get valuable for the holder? This I think
> is the missing "atomic bomb" and why the gov't is trying everything
> it can to wipe out the home value losses. Despite the fact that the
> home values were inflated falsely - and now we are trying to keep
> them falsely inflated.

U.S. Market: So Much Stupidity in Such Little Time

You are missing a very key point. It was Democrats specifically that stopped oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003. The damage could have been limited significantly.

The key difference is those Democrats are are still in power. I do not blame Democrats in the least. It is a compliant media that has deliberately ignored the issue.


On Jan 20 03:16 PM jamookey wrote:

> Gee,I hate to point this out,but the republicans have held the house
> from '96 to '06 and the senate for most of that time.They chaired
> every finance commitee,they held all the key positions in banking,the
> SEC,etc.To say they are no responsible is to say Clinton never cheated
> on his wife.Every time Greenspan tried to warn of excesses in lending
> practices,the Bush administration(includi... the president himself)kept
> touting the wonders of home ownership.Whether you can afford it or
> not.Yeah,the Dems should have made more noise before the bubble burst,but
> I'm sure they were more than happy to have George jr. hang himself.When
> Jr. took office Clinton left him a surplus of 1 trillion bucks.Within
> two years,we had deficits.Democrats to blame?maybe...