speeddaimon

The Role of the Database in the Financial Crisis

" I don’t think the Fed or the SEC has a department of relational-database integrity. Maybe they should think about starting one up."

I'd be willing to work there. I think I'd really enjoy ripping these financial companies a new one.

If This Is a Recovery...

Yes, tell us all about those small businesses in China making inferior lead laden goods to sell to Americans with a large consumer appetite and no eye to quality.


On Nov 16 09:42 AM Formyx wrote:

> @damienhaas
>
> You ignore the millions of small suppliers to WMT.

S&P 500 Rallies; Mass Unemployment Is 'So Last Week'

Nice use of the underappreciated "double down on sarcasm".

TM, as always, nice article, short and to the point. I appreciate you laying out the possible scenarios for us bears.


On Oct 06 03:13 PM Socialism cannot compete! wrote:

> Author is delusional.
>
> "Unemployed masses of Americans? That is so last week. Remember,
> the more people out of work - the less expenses for corporate America
> (better profits) ... green shoots."
>
> The fewer consumers to do business with corporate America.

FTC updates its arcane Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising to include bloggers. From now on, a blogger endorsing a product without disclosing his connection to the company will face an $11,000 per-post fine. Soon to come: stricter standards for stock bloggers?

Or not. The disclosure rules have been in place for print media and television for a long time, they're just bringing those rules into the internet age.


On Oct 05 05:23 PM Graham and Dodd Investor wrote:

> Erosion of First Amendment rights.

How off was the government in estimating the recession's toll on employment? The Labor Department will revise its March numbers to subtract more than 800,000 jobs it thought were filled by workers - 0.8% of private-sector jobs - in the largest benchmark revision in a dozen years.

No kidding, back when Bush was president, at least we knew we could trust the government to tell us exactly what was going on in our own economy.

/sarcasm.


On Oct 02 02:34 PM Neil459 wrote:

> Welcome to the Obama transparency.

Do TIPS ETFs Make Sense?

Felix,

I'm curious what your thoughts are regarding WIP? If you're buying TIPS, then obviously you're concerned about inflation (something I'm beginning to question) so would you think that diversifying across different governments' interpretations of inflation would be better than only relying on the US?

Europe Is Recovering More Quickly than U.S. - Why?

I don't know the fundamentals, but it seems to me that one possibility would be that the UK still maintains their own currency and has followed the US onto the righteous path of Quantitative Easing while the EU has not (could not?). Thus they were forced to take their medicine early and now are rebounding from it while the US tried to "ease" into its recession thus prolonging the process.


On Aug 14 10:12 PM Joel87 wrote:

Why hasn't other members of the EU bounced back als including Great Britain?

Europe Is Recovering More Quickly than U.S. - Why?

Yes, fortunately the US has already managed to work through all of their pending issues (inflation/deflation, CRE, housing, unemployment, etc). Thats the only reason that Europe is ahead of us in coming out of the recession, we spent all of our time and resources actually fixing the problems that faced our great nation and patriotic leaders instead of our government lying to its citizens about anything and everything related to fiscal policy like those filthy Europeans did.

Wait....


On Aug 14 03:05 PM chap08 wrote:

> Why? Because this is fundamantally a debt crisis and France and Germany
> never participated in the debt bubble in the same way that the US
> and the UK did. Their banks and consumers have not had to face the
> same kind of crisis. De-leveraging does not have the same meaning
> for them.
>
> They're not out of it yet though. It is untrue to say that there
> has been no stimulus spending, so the question remains, what happens
> when this is dropped. The banks may yet have problems with commercial
> real estate and eastern europe. Also, troubles lie in wait for the
> Euro - the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) are suffering, Ireland
> too.

WHITE HOUSE OUT TO GET GLENN BECK

According to your bio, you live in Spain. So apparently there are other places to go?


On Aug 14 10:40 AM James Levy wrote:

> Thank you Mr. Quinn. Glenn Beck is a great American, and one of the
> only voices in the media who has the courage to defend the Constitution.
> He is literally risking his life and welfare by taking this position
> against the thugs of moveon.org, Acorn, and the other shadow organizations
> who support the President who doesn´t release his long form birth
> certificate, doesn´t release his University transcripts, doesn´t
> release his medical records, and doesn´t permit an serious audit
> of his campaign financing. God help us, and may more people find
> the courage to emulate Glenn Beck.
>
> If we lose our feedom in the United States, there is NOWHERE else
> to go!

WHITE HOUSE OUT TO GET GLENN BECK

Glenn Beck is one of the most retarded "news" personalities on television at the moment (excluding of course CNBC). He seriously called the President racist and started talking about how he has a deep seated hatred of white people, and you want people to watch this garbage? Over the last few months of watching you spam comment boards with your website and nothing else, and reading your sensationalistic headlines written in all caps, I've come to realize that you're just a typical Rush Limbaugh type Republican with no original thoughts of your own. Consider yourself to have one less "follower".

Friday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

David (or anyone else for that matter),

I am currently long DBC and EWA, and yesterday decided to put relatively tight stop-loss orders on both of them (2 standard deviations). Here's my line of thinking, and please correct me if I am mistaken.

1. I feel that stocks are due for a correction
2. If stocks do correct, especially in the US, that means a flight to "safety" (basically UST and USD) which drives the dollar higher.
3. A strong dollar is bad for commodity prices because commodities are best used as an inflation hedge.
4. Obviously the main driver of the Australian market is commodities (being sold to China).

Does this make sense?

July's Budget Deficit: All Benefits, No Costs

Actually, I think I speak on behalf of the US when I say that we would gladly sell you Starbuck's coffee. C'mon, make an offer, we're willing to negotiate!


On Aug 13 08:27 AM Ryu Mei Co wrote:

> Wow..... As a Japanese, I thought Japan were bad 2 decades ago. Well,
> at least you have iPhone, baseball games, cable television, and starbuck
> coffee to keep you away from reality. Good luck.

AMERICAN IDIOTS

He talks about one paragraph ads, yet most of his comments are just a link to his site, nothing else. While I appreciate the attempt to drive traffic to your site to increase page views and ad views, maybe if you left insightful comments people would be more likely to visit your site. Just a thought.

How Banks Give Up Trust for Money

Felix (and others),

I agree that most banks are entirely anti-consumer and are out to take as much money from your wallet as possible.

However there are alternatives, sometimes available at the same bank that is trying to rip you off. Both my bank, and my wife's bank are able to link your checking account to your savings account, they charge you $5 per DAY, if you overdraft, instead of $39/occurrence. They don't advertise, but it is available.

It may not help everyone, but hopefully it helps someone avoid getting bent over and taken advantage of.

On the worst-is-behind-us front, NEC Director Larry Summers expects economic growth in the second half and that the free fall has been contained, though "we have a long way to go." Financier George Soros says the stimulus has made a difference, "the economy has actually bottomed and I think we are facing a positive quarter."

dammit, that was supposed to be commenting on the Mexican Oil announcement, not this one. That should teach me to pay attention to what I'm doing.