As an aside, anecdotally, I drove up to Albany a few weeks ago. Stuff was growing in fields that would normally just grow weeds or whatnot. Food, unlike oil, can have a the supply side of the supply-demand equation adjusted in short order, or at least on the order of a growing season. Also saw much of that the other way going to the Jersey shore last weekend, but that soil usually had stuff growing on it half the time anyway, so now it was maybe 70% or so.
Off topic:
After all the jersey bashing the last few days/weeks (even higher than normal here), I made my annual pilgrimage to shady central new jersey beach town. this year: sleeezeside heights.
Went to one of the bigger bars (pretty easy to figure out which one) for my buddy's birthday. You can make the obligatory joke here about half of them being at citigroup.
Lo and behold, i think i saw a half dozen popped collars before midnight. I really thought that died the horrible death it deserved. Only one of them was from a citi person, the rest were just random people unconnected to the party.
Do I live in a cave, or was that truly a one off, and the popped collar still plagues the nightlife?
Just wanted to point out to all you bitches that I called mediate against a mass of people with 1 and a half strokes.
Anal_yst, way to wuss out, you saved yourself $10.
pictures? you realize this will lead to tremendous amounts of unintentional humor. anal_yst ganking JF Page has his own, im definitely taking Crabhands, etc etc.
where can I sign up for that offer Anal_yst?
heck... with that kinda offer i might as well go all the way with my fraud, buy a 200k house instead of a mil, and use the other 800k and hope i beat 8% a year. if i can do 18% (and why not just get really aggressive with my holdings), i figure i have to pay taxes on the 18%, but get a partial offset from the mortgage interest... i could make... errm, 60-70k a year after taxes
maybe ill keep my day job.
First, before people more savage than me point it out, you said "half write. "
I usually can't type but that is difficult to blame on a typo.
There is a reason they call it a market failure, and not a government failure. But to take apart your point most effectively I'd need to be able to access Malcolm Gladwell's blog and his very insightful defense of Enron which is unfortunately blocked at my present location.
The short version of it, is that it's a market failure because there are those with much more at stake than say, the media, to expose the problems. THe government had some stake, but the mortgage companies alot more, and the companies they were passing the paper off to still more. Merrill took billions in writedowns. Shouldnt it be their responsibility to figure out that the system was broken, and not say, the media's?
So yes, its a MARKET FAILURE.
Not that more government intervention is the answer, but you can't say that it wasnt the market's fault for all of those shady loans and repackaging held on the books of Citi et al.
Affangul --> egggg-zactly.
I don't know if the government is required/best to fix the mess, but the fact is for every moment of goverment stupidity (and there are ALOT of them), there are even more moments of market stupidity.
The fact that most mortgage brokers didnt keep the shady deals they made on their own books gave brokers all the incentive in the world to pass of shady dealers upon greater fools.
The fact remains that people that often didn't have more than a high school degree, and no other discernable skills/talents were often pulling in $150k
a year in that industry tells me all I need to know. I think all of us know someone who was dating someone or had their sister in the industry or whatnot and swearing life was good.
I'm still trying to figure out who the biggest fool of all is.
Thunder: OIH and PXJ just snapped back in focus with eachother. In the last 3 minutes eached moved maybe .5% towards eachother. not sure what happened at 3.
why would he need a laptop?
I mean, he hasn't busted his I-Phone... he can still camp at starbucks, and still look hip... at least if he sets up camp on Fordham's Campus...
Two Thoughts:
Just Me: While its true that maybe fianciers might not make the best people in charge of an assembly line, couldn't the reverse also be true. Namely, that Stan the Man, who worked his way up from the assembly lines at GM, ran a financial institution... errm, tried to run a financial institution... errr... well, you get my idea.
Anal_yst: I 50% agree with you. there are two reasons wall street can compensate better than other institutions, and it all comes down to Lack of Transparency, both in seeing how much someone makes (I have a few friends that work for the Fed and if they made mid-6 figures I am sure it would end up on sixty minutes and such), and also a Lack of Transparency in what value PE, IB, and investment managers provide. Even on the retail side where there is some transparency, I dont think people really understand. Compare that to a pizza mogul. If a pizza mogul tried to charge outlandish fees ala James Simons, they wouldnt be making too many pizzas.
And because of that, you cant compensate bright people as well as you can in wall street.
Of course you all knew this already, so its nothing new.
Lastly, I apologize for the run-on sentences... My brain is already full for today.
Destroy it? You mean beyond the front page articles about Jimmy Cayne et alia that are more appropriate for say, the New York Post or Dealbreaker?
Or the signficant increase in unsubstantiated rumors that turn out false, such as Merrill's unloading of CDO's to hedgefunds with guaranteed principal protection.
Given that I and probably alot of others here read the Post regularly for entertainment value if nothing else, I can completely understand why as a businessman Rupert is tabloiding up the Journal, and to some degree think its the right move, but you can't argue that it hasn't been a pretty big shift.
It's almost as if you have family that works there or something...
i hear Franklin Bank (FBTX) can be had on the cheap...
9090
anyone remember this piece? http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/07/pricing-in-a-bu.html that was the best fake article i've read.
Best of luck Carney. I wouldnt expect anything less than a typo in the header of your final post.
As an aside, anecdotally, I drove up to Albany a few weeks ago. Stuff was growing in fields that would normally just grow weeds or whatnot. Food, unlike oil, can have a the supply side of the supply-demand equation adjusted in short order, or at least on the order of a growing season. Also saw much of that the other way going to the Jersey shore last weekend, but that soil usually had stuff growing on it half the time anyway, so now it was maybe 70% or so.
Off topic: After all the jersey bashing the last few days/weeks (even higher than normal here), I made my annual pilgrimage to shady central new jersey beach town. this year: sleeezeside heights. Went to one of the bigger bars (pretty easy to figure out which one) for my buddy's birthday. You can make the obligatory joke here about half of them being at citigroup. Lo and behold, i think i saw a half dozen popped collars before midnight. I really thought that died the horrible death it deserved. Only one of them was from a citi person, the rest were just random people unconnected to the party. Do I live in a cave, or was that truly a one off, and the popped collar still plagues the nightlife?
Just wanted to point out to all you bitches that I called mediate against a mass of people with 1 and a half strokes. Anal_yst, way to wuss out, you saved yourself $10.
id be happy to take Rocco and 1.5 strokes. Tiger's knee aint getting better, and Rocco has the disposition to get it done.
Hey now, dont be dissing my belmar. I realize I'm not exactly classy, but Bar A is fantastic.... just be sure to double-bag it... always.
pictures? you realize this will lead to tremendous amounts of unintentional humor. anal_yst ganking JF Page has his own, im definitely taking Crabhands, etc etc.
where can I sign up for that offer Anal_yst? heck... with that kinda offer i might as well go all the way with my fraud, buy a 200k house instead of a mil, and use the other 800k and hope i beat 8% a year. if i can do 18% (and why not just get really aggressive with my holdings), i figure i have to pay taxes on the 18%, but get a partial offset from the mortgage interest... i could make... errm, 60-70k a year after taxes maybe ill keep my day job.
First, before people more savage than me point it out, you said "half write. " I usually can't type but that is difficult to blame on a typo. There is a reason they call it a market failure, and not a government failure. But to take apart your point most effectively I'd need to be able to access Malcolm Gladwell's blog and his very insightful defense of Enron which is unfortunately blocked at my present location. The short version of it, is that it's a market failure because there are those with much more at stake than say, the media, to expose the problems. THe government had some stake, but the mortgage companies alot more, and the companies they were passing the paper off to still more. Merrill took billions in writedowns. Shouldnt it be their responsibility to figure out that the system was broken, and not say, the media's? So yes, its a MARKET FAILURE. Not that more government intervention is the answer, but you can't say that it wasnt the market's fault for all of those shady loans and repackaging held on the books of Citi et al.
Affangul --> egggg-zactly. I don't know if the government is required/best to fix the mess, but the fact is for every moment of goverment stupidity (and there are ALOT of them), there are even more moments of market stupidity. The fact that most mortgage brokers didnt keep the shady deals they made on their own books gave brokers all the incentive in the world to pass of shady dealers upon greater fools. The fact remains that people that often didn't have more than a high school degree, and no other discernable skills/talents were often pulling in $150k a year in that industry tells me all I need to know. I think all of us know someone who was dating someone or had their sister in the industry or whatnot and swearing life was good. I'm still trying to figure out who the biggest fool of all is.
Thunder: OIH and PXJ just snapped back in focus with eachother. In the last 3 minutes eached moved maybe .5% towards eachother. not sure what happened at 3.
why would he need a laptop? I mean, he hasn't busted his I-Phone... he can still camp at starbucks, and still look hip... at least if he sets up camp on Fordham's Campus...
From a top 100 movie: Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics. " i really think that it should be dog-doo.
Hey, hes right 60% of the time, everytime!
Two Thoughts: Just Me: While its true that maybe fianciers might not make the best people in charge of an assembly line, couldn't the reverse also be true. Namely, that Stan the Man, who worked his way up from the assembly lines at GM, ran a financial institution... errm, tried to run a financial institution... errr... well, you get my idea. Anal_yst: I 50% agree with you. there are two reasons wall street can compensate better than other institutions, and it all comes down to Lack of Transparency, both in seeing how much someone makes (I have a few friends that work for the Fed and if they made mid-6 figures I am sure it would end up on sixty minutes and such), and also a Lack of Transparency in what value PE, IB, and investment managers provide. Even on the retail side where there is some transparency, I dont think people really understand. Compare that to a pizza mogul. If a pizza mogul tried to charge outlandish fees ala James Simons, they wouldnt be making too many pizzas. And because of that, you cant compensate bright people as well as you can in wall street. Of course you all knew this already, so its nothing new. Lastly, I apologize for the run-on sentences... My brain is already full for today.
Was It The Start Of A Civil War Between Equities and Fixed Income?
http://archive.salon.com/travel/diary/hest/1999/04/13/passenger/print.html
Destroy it? You mean beyond the front page articles about Jimmy Cayne et alia that are more appropriate for say, the New York Post or Dealbreaker? Or the signficant increase in unsubstantiated rumors that turn out false, such as Merrill's unloading of CDO's to hedgefunds with guaranteed principal protection. Given that I and probably alot of others here read the Post regularly for entertainment value if nothing else, I can completely understand why as a businessman Rupert is tabloiding up the Journal, and to some degree think its the right move, but you can't argue that it hasn't been a pretty big shift. It's almost as if you have family that works there or something...