Smilin' Jack

Ten Reasons to Avoid the Gold ETF

Well written and good advice for those open to advice.. For those who believe whatever Wall St PR firms publish (remember Lehman was "in great shape" two weeks before it failed...) status quo is fine.. For others, there may be smarter ways to protect against the risk of defaulting shorts and empty vaults...

An Obama Speech to Light Wall Street on Fire

Nationalization is bad, but endless "injections" of government (taxpayer) capital are good? Washington didn't cause this mess by approving sub-prime loans to people with low FICO scores, or by securitizing those loans. Wall St Investment banks and ratings firms did by packaging garbage (exotic ARM's and NINJA Loans) and calling them investment grade, and selling most (but not all) of them to downstream suckers. And the real driver was the trillions of mystical derivatives and CDS sold by scammers who never expected (or could afford) to pay off their bets.

These shareholders (like Lehman) deserve mroe than a haircut, they deserve a full shave with a straight razor. There are plenty of competent bank managers at mid-size banks who understand banking, who could do a fine job with some DIP financing after the big banks have either raised their own capital or filed for managerd bankruptcy. And AIG and the other CDS marketeers shuold be allowed to sink as well, so the markets can finally get a handle on what is real and what is going missing in protections...