Re: the optimized site. We removed auto detection of mobile devices (which was taking those of you viewing on a Blackberry or iPhone directly to the new version and not letting you go to the regular one), so if you want to view standard DB on your iPhone, going to www.dealbreaker.com will still take you there. If you’d like to view the optimized site, which looks better (loads easier, etc) on the Blackberry, go to http://m.dealbreaker.com/.
Goldman To Raise Capital Through Offering (WSJ)
You have to wonder if this is the Treas pulling something of a loan shark move, intent on getting the whole vig and not permitting early repayment. Or on the flip side, it could be a legitimate concern for the banks and having to come back with another bailout.
“The move, which could be announced as early as next week, comes as the firm prepares to report solid first-quarter earnings Tuesday. Goldman executives haven’t determined the exact size of the offering, but it is expected to be at least several billion dollars, these people say. They caution a final decision isn’t made, and will be based partly on market conditions.
In October, the Treasury Department forced the nation’s largest banks, including those that didn’t need additional capital, to take government funds. Goldman received $10 billion. The view was that infusing all banks with capital would help shore up the financial sector more quickly and avoid tarring some banks as weak”
An Ideological Perspective On Short Selling (FR)
Discuss:
“The tendency to demonize short sellers is part and parcel of a larger sickness in the market: the “ever up” philosophy that is linked at the hip with the misnomer that the retail investor is, de facto, entitled by right to 8% returns year after year. Notice, also, that no one seems in a hurry to ban the unpatriotic and evil “put option.” This, of course, is merely a matter of practicality, as the complexities of short selling and the specter of borrowing shares to accomplish it lends itself to criticism and anti-insider class warfare. Naked short selling is, of course, an issue, but not one that is even remotely managed by wholesale bans on the practice of short-selling.”
Barclays Dumps iShares, Picks Up $4.4B (NYT)
This looks more like an AIG spin-off (read: act of desperation) than a rational decision.
“The iShares business, based in San Francisco, has long been a jewel in the crown of Barclays Global Investors, the company’s asset management unit. The bank is financing the sale with a loan of about $3.1 billion and getting about $1 billion of equity in return. It is also banking on about $500 million in profit from the future earnings of the business, “if certain performance-related hurdles are met.”
It said it expected a net gain of about £1.5 billion, or $2.2 billion, which would lift its Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of financial strength, to 7.2 percent, adding 0.54 percentage to the end-2008 level had the sale been applied last year. It will be required to book only a small fraction of the loans against its reserves.
Is Greed Overcoming Fear In The Stock Market? (Reuters)
Yes.
Reinforcements Sent To Pirates! (Bloomberg)
“Somali pirates are sending help to gang members who are holding a U.S. ship captain hostage, while the European Union increased air patrols over the Indian Ocean to counteract a recent spate of piracy attacks.
A U.S. destroyer is continuing to watch over the pirates, who had briefly hijacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama about 250 miles off the Somali coast.”
Why Dylan Ratigan Left CNBC (Clusterstock)
“A lot of things came together. One, it became apparent to me that there had been some major policy failures in America. While clearly pursuable at a place like CNBC, in my opinion, they are more broadly pursuable from a wide variety of other news platforms.”
Chrysler In Debate Over Debt (WSJ)
There’s ongoing talks between Chrysler, the failing company, and the Treasury, the people who give said companies endless amounts of cash. See, the idea here is to protect the debt holders at all costs, even though Chrysler is effectively dead in the water. I can respect that on a certain level; I’ve always been a fan of investments being insured, and if anyone’s going to do it without bias I think the Treasury’s our girl.
“Talks between the U.S. Treasury and Chrysler LLC’s bank lenders have hit a standstill as they debate a multibillion-dollar gap over what the car maker would be worth should it be liquidated in bankruptcy.
Some senior lenders believe they would get more than 70 cents for each dollar of their secured loans if Chrysler is broken up and sold, said people familiar with the talks. Other lenders don’t have an exact number nailed down and are awaiting detailed figures from the auto maker on its assets.
All of the 40-plus lenders and investors are nonetheless incensed by the last Treasury offer: that they accept about 15 cents per dollar of face value of their loans, or roughly $1 billion of the $6.9 billion owed them.”
Why anybody buys Goldman stock is beyond me. They diluted their shareholders in March and now they want to do it again.
Go CVC, go!
Barclays: outstanding job pissing off the entire UK.
I meant september
Is Greed Overcoming Fear In The Stock Market? (Reuters)
Yes.
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through
The Somali pirates are like short-sellers. They expose weaknesses in the markets and exploit them.
Give a person a means to enrich himself, and guess what?
He will enrich himself.
The Guy from Delaware
Bet I can guess the Dow by 4PM today.
re: the new writer- just clone bess.
@ 5
DON”T WORRY WE ARE BAILING them out- the Pirates and the Captain!
Yes,wondering if the pirates also need the TRAP MONEY, a new acronym for TARP or the FLAT for TALF.
-MaxineEyeglassesFunClub-
The Pirates need to die, let’s see if Bam has any sort of spine. Kill these fuckers, if the captain is hurt burn there pirate city to the ground.
@9: settle down bro- it’s not like they assassinated Reinhard Heydrich!
-MoneygripWisdom
@9 – please take your Ritalin and re-post when you’re coherent.
Pirates, North Koreans and all other sundry criminals realize fully well that none of their acts will beget any retaliation.
I mean Kim Jong just called everyone’s bluff. The Iranians will be next. Look forward to their nuke test pretty soon.
I mean what is the world gonna do? Pass a watered down UN resolution? Oooooooo… so scary!!
Good Friday celebration video. #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZTC_jUaVPw
Good Friday celebration video. #2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeoxoM_9nH8&feature=related
#3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hSW67ySCio
4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3hHgH5as3Y
Take a look at this call
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=livIQ3mecYM
deal breaker mobile version rocks…:)
The Somali pirates are probably eligible for some stimulus money, as long as they use it to upgrade their boats and weapons with American made ones.
At the very least, they will be receiving iPods as hospitality gifts when the U.S. Government emissaries show up to negotiate the release of their captive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg2GdrjaQHc
beat this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONnIjTQ_YK0
hmmm
“The tendency to demonize short sellers is part and parcel of a larger sickness in the market: the “ever up” philosophy that is linked at the hip with the misnomer that the retail investor is, de facto, entitled by right to 8% returns year after year.”
I didn’t read the article, but I can point out one thing I guarantee isn’t really copped to – that righteous 8% for the retail buyer is something COMPLETELY fabricated by the soulful doucheness of Wall Street’s marketing muscle. The law of 72 is something you’re average Obama voter would know nothing about, if not for American Funds or Franklin Templeton wholesalers.
Let’s dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJJYjszd8vU&feature=related
if only we had shown those pirates “mutual respect”
@19 – Don’t forget, Barry will toss in a free copy of “Pirates of the Caribbean” on NTSC format.
TGFD seems to recall from several months back, the clown Biden saying something about the missiah being “tested by an international crisis during his first few months in office.”
Remember that?
Well, not even Biden imagined that said crisis would be one that the sorry-ass missiah would create for himself through bungling attemps at inept inaction.
BTW, the clown Biden claims he (Biden) is still working “around the clock” to get the crisis resolved.
Carl Rove said that Biden is “a serial exaggerator”. I’m in Delaware, and TGFD knows Rove’s statement to be true. We had that moron Biden in the senate for 36 years too many.
The Guy from Delaware
Cult classic for you EP. It really is totally groovy; man.
The Babysitter – 1969
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTD0kUjtMko&feature=related
You Tube has the censored version. The trailer gives a little more something something if you know what I mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-j3PZqsP2Q&feature=related
“Saturday, April 11, 2009
Goldman Sachs guns for a blogger
By TigerHawk at 4/11/2009 09:22:00 PM
Goldman Sachs is gunning for this blogger, hiring a big law firm to shut him down.” http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2009/04/goldman-sachs-guns-for-blogger.html
bodine you’re a pontificating douche. and i’m a wall street b@tch
semen bodine, u right wing fascist c%nt. i’ve been reading your rants for a long time. do u not have work to do? jeez man! do u even have a clue as to why we’re in this mess? and the subtlety/complexity of trying to sort this out? fck it. too ridicoulous to even try and debare with you dumasses
lol
recession causing morre vasectomies
http://thereformedbroker.com/2009/04/11/vasectomy-boomlet-another-sign-of-the-great-decession-2/
Pirates?
In the immortal words of Starship Troopers: “Kill em all”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7991512.stm
The lily livered ones among us can wring their hands over and over about this.
Final Score:
USA 3
Pirates 0
~the Muleskinner~
Slit the final ones throat and toss him overboard. He can bleed out with the fishes.
You scurvy landlubbers *please* start wringing your hands in sorrow for these poor, defenseless, pirates.
F*ck Somalia. Eat lead motherf*ckers!
Go Bama.
All I have to say is Go SEALS! Firing from a pitching ship, onto a pitching lifeboat, at night, and taking out all 3 of those douche bags at once. You don’t f*ck with the USA!
The skinnies did not see it coming….get me a borrow on the skinnies
i’m so confused.
why don’t we just place some laser guided m61 gatling guns on a couple of private yachts / cargo ships and go to town?
Pussies don’t like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn’t appropriate – and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves… because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don’t know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don’t let us fuck this asshole, we’re going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!
felix salmon would beat william richardson’s ass
aside: somalia is so far gone it makes afghanistan look like Denmark. the choice is between taliban-style islamicists who behead pirates/warlords and profit-hungry warlords/pirates who will back the US given the right pay. i just think its interesting how so many people here didn’t really give two shits when so many tankers were being hijacked until an american one gets picked. there’s no sense of foresight whatsoever that if a whole region is that fucked it could possibly harm us at some point in the near future.
It isnt that complicated. Tell the pirates that they can do whatever the fuck it is that they want to do but IF they happen to ever capture an American vessel or take Americans hostage ever again then everything 50 miles inland from the coast will be blown to bits.
Why waste so much effort and put so many warships there? Make the threat explicit and if it happens again then land a couple of cruise missiles on Eyl as a warning. If the pirates are indeed ‘businessmen’ then they will figure out the cost-benefit equation pretty quickly.
EP,
The short selling article was spot on and the short seller has been demonized because:
1. The great bulk of retail market participants are long and therefore want prices to rise.
2. The vast majority of short sellers are sophisticated money. The retail investor has been led to believe that the short seller has a multitude of advantages unavailable to them. This is partially correct. The evil short seller image is furthered when hollow companies send spokesmen to CNBC to decry short sellers as the cause of their ills.
However, I believe your piece on market manipulation by the government is spot on. I would say it is easily the best piece you have written on any topic. But then again, it does largely correspond to my market views. Regardless, it is quality piece of writing. It is an especially revealing and important piece given the growing whispers for socialized medicine other calls for further government manipulation (not regulation which is necessary) of markets (your entire list is perfect, especially with regard to carbon). It is an incredibly frightening time to be a proponent of free market (with rules).
And I absolutely agree with one of your conclusions: do not blame the failure of manipulated market systems on the agents who operate within them. Punish the cheaters, but realize people will always act in ways (to the greater benefit or otherwise) to maximize their personal gain if the system allows it. How does one blame the player when it is the system’s creator who provides the means for those to ‘game’ the system?
Ask any power trader how they view Enron’s actions during the California energy crisis and they all respond in a like manner: what they did was legal.
-RPB
Just listening to these self righteous cunts makes me want to rip my ear drums out and stomp on them. A communications degree from the local community college and they think their Feurer. I’m sure they have “Shock and Awe” tattooed on their inner thighs. “Give it to me George DubYou know how bad I want that cruise missile.”
Speak Lord I’m listening
Plant your word down deep in me
Speak Lord I’m listening
Please show me the way
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJRDhPha-cg
Fox News, Fuck Yeah!
Low IQ, Fuck Yeah!
Texas Big Hair, Fuck Yeah!
Prohibition, Fuck Yeah!
George Bush, Fuck Yeah!
Shock and Awe, Fuck Yeah!
FUCK YEAH!
I used to egg Sahlins’ house