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zorrow

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  • 5 Undervalued Dividend Stocks With Strong Profitability [View article]
    I own a couple of thousand shares of STO. My reasoning is that the North Sea oil is not in the Middle East or Russia. I believe the dividend will be held sacrosanct because it is a government owned company. So I load up on it when it drops ten or more percent below its 52 week average. I think the once a year dividend and government ownership keeps the HF speculators away.
    May 2 05:01 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Paul Krugman: "The austerity agenda looks a lot like a simple expression of upper-class preferences, wrapped in a facade of academic rigor. What the top 1% wants becomes what economic science says we must do." Ken Langone responds: Runaway deficits are the older generation "stealing" from the young, and Paul Krugman has never met a payroll and doesn't have to worry about profit margins. [View news story]
    "wrapped in a facade of academic rigor" Right on , Paul--apt description.

    Here is one of my favorite false popular platitudinous similes from the same crowd as Langone--- Government budgets are comparable to a family sitting around a kitchen table deciding their vacation plans.--that's why we have sequester.
    Apr 28 08:28 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned For U.S. And U.K. Depositors [View article]
    From my perspective

    The fraudulent, insider fraud, money laundering and lack of regulation and/or enforcement incidents of late (like Cyprus) are similar to LTCM. (The Fed directing banks to make bridge loans to "special" investors in return for lowering the borrowing costs of those banks--hurting senior savers?)

    The dot Com bomb fiasco on the other hand was just total stupidity on the part of investors.
    Apr 2 10:56 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned For U.S. And U.K. Depositors [View article]
    Reasons it could happen here (again) are short attention spans, short memories, and the destruction of the only organized form of resistance (government regulation) to the Meyer Lansky-- Lucky Luciano inspired financial criminal gangs who have infiltrated and corrupted world markets and banking. the only invisible hands left in our markets are the thumbs on the scale, the hands in your pockets, and the hands bribing our lawmakers.


    LESSONS FROM THE COLLAPSE OF HEDGE FUND, LONG-TERM
    CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
    By David Shirreff
    Barings, the Russian meltdown, Metallgesellschaft, Procter & Gamble,
    LTCM. These are all events in the financial markets which have become marker
    buoys to show us where we went wrong, in the hope that we won't allow quite the
    same thing to happen again. The common weakness, in these cases, was the
    misguided assumption that ëour counterparty and the market it was operating in, were
    performing within manageable limits.í But once those limits were crossed for
    whatever reason, disaster was difficult to head off.
    The LTCM fiasco is full of lessons about:
    1. Model risk
    2. Unexpected correlation or the breakdown of historical correlations
    3. The need for stress-testing
    4. The value of disclosure and transparency
    5. The danger of over-generous extension of trading credit
    6. The woes of investing in star quality
    7. And investing too little in game theory.
    The latter because LTCM's partners were playing a game up to hilt.
    John Meriwether, who founded Long-Term Capital Partners in 1993, had been
    head of fixed income trading at Salomon Brothers. Even when forced to leave
    Salomon in 1991, in the wake of the firm's treasury auction rigging scandal (another
    marker buoy), Meriwether continued to command huge loyalty from a team of highly
    cerebral relative-value fixed income traders, and considerable respect from the street.
    Teamed up with a handful of these traders, two Nobel laureates, Robert Merton and
    Myron Scholes, and former regulator David Mullins, Meriwether and LTCM had
    more credibility than the average broker/dealer on Wall Street.
    It was a game, in that LTCM was unregulated, free to operate in any market,
    without capital charges and only light reporting requirements to the US Securities &
    Exchange Commission (SEC). It traded on its good name with many respectable
    counterparties as if it was a member of the same club. That meant an ability to put on
    interest rate swaps at the market rate for no initial margin - an essential part of its
    strategy. It meant being able to borrow 100% of the value of any top-grade collateral,
    and with that cash to buy more securities and post them as collateral for further
    borrowing: in theory it could leverage itself to infinity. In LTCM's first two full years
    of operation it produced 43% and 41% return on equity and had amassed an
    investment capital of $7 billion.
    Apr 1 08:30 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned For U.S. And U.K. Depositors [View article]
    I would go back further in time--to Phil Gramm and his wife (at CFTC) and Rubin (the Goldman guy) in Clinton's term--and the destruction of Glass Steagall. Its kind of a butterfly effect--that led to the perfect storm of fraud that has wreaked destruction on America, Europe and civilized Asia.
    Mar 31 09:48 AM | 2 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned For U.S. And U.K. Depositors [View article]
    When the ship of state lists dangerously---hopefull... educated, reasonable, principled citizens will right the ship on which they all sail. Sadly, sometimes indoctrinated fools and selfish scalawags stage a successful mutiny, and the ship is lost.
    Mar 31 09:09 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned For U.S. And U.K. Depositors [View article]
    The law needs to state unequivocally that FDIC insured depositors are secured parities with first dibs on all bank assets and that this "first in line" right in no way supersedes or replaces the right to receive full FDIC insurance coverage to the legal limit at time of deposit. If coverage limits are to be changed---current limits must be kept at the greater of the new limit or previous limit for six months on current deposits. This rule must be coupled with an absolute government guarantee to provide liquidity for insured depositors to transfer their money from the infected institution to Treasuries. Otherwise, the author's concerns may become valid.
    Mar 30 09:42 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Ford: Great Dividend Potential [View article]
    I like ford and its management. I own Ford. However Europe is still a drag. My opinion of the Lincoln component problem is that they need a new ad agency. Who wants to see a dark spectral Lincoln haunting their driving experience? Scrap that whole campaign and start over.
    Mar 8 07:33 AM | 2 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Google's Latest Gadget Will Forever Change Our Lives And Send Its Profits To The Sky [View article]
    This could be an opportunity for the senior bomb defusing instructor to "work from home".
    Feb 26 04:49 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Google's Latest Gadget Will Forever Change Our Lives And Send Its Profits To The Sky [View article]
    Just kidding Larry.
    Feb 26 12:02 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Google's Latest Gadget Will Forever Change Our Lives And Send Its Profits To The Sky [View article]
    Everyone with "one viewpoint"---a "god" send for religions and dictators and their enforcement arms.
    Feb 26 10:15 AM | 2 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Credit Rating Agencies In The Crosshairs: A Look At McGraw Hill And Moody's [View article]
    I bought MHP based on the Supreme court decision (although posthumously) for Arthur Anderson, that professional opinions were now classified as "free speech". I think this decision was the height of folly (and that Scalia and his pal "Portnoy") need a competency exam and do not belong on the Supreme Court.

    However, this ridiculous decision seems to be applicable to the MHP "opinions" in that they also will be treated like "free speech", and thus any money damages to people who relied on MHP's opinions will be overturned by the Supreme Court.

    I'd appreciate any criticisms or insights into my my thesis before I lose too much money, clinging to my hypothesis.
    Feb 11 10:42 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • 3D Systems: A Sobering Reality [View article]
    If you were going to add to your ONVO position--what price would you use as an entry point?
    Jan 22 09:41 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • 3D Systems: A Sobering Reality [View article]
    Does anybody think ONVO has any proprietary technology or patents that would make it attractive to an acquirer at a substantial premium from its current price? I've played with it in a speculative manner in the past---but never really considered it ripe for picking. I'm intrigued with the idea of constructing artificial organs-but I don't know if the potential can be monetized during my investment horizons. Anybody have any strong opinions on the investability of ONVO at this time?
    Jan 20 08:18 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Geithner Hits Debt Limit Early To Squeeze Republicans [View article]
    Say it ain't so. . .Joe.
    Dec 27 03:50 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
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