Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

"John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts"

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/0B8E4DB8-5B0C-459F-97EA-D7B542A78235.htm

As we fix Social Security, we must make it a better deal for our younger workers by allowing them to put part of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts.

* Personal accounts would be entirely voluntary.
* The money would go into a conservative mix of bond and stock funds that would have the opportunity to earn a higher rate of return than anything the current system could provide.
* A young person who earns an average of $35,000 a year over his or her career would have nearly a quarter million dollars saved in his or her own account upon retirement.
* That savings would provide a nest egg to supplement that worker’s traditional Social Security check, or to pass on to his or her children.
* Best of all, it would replace the empty promises of the current system with real assets of ownership.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/social-security/

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

you're snorin again, grandpa

Comment on Friedman's latest NYTimes column:

"The regulation of the casino industry is far, far more comprehensive and effective than that of Wall Street."

John G., NYC

comprehensive? no. effective. . .probably?

Ex-SEC regulator lays blame for I-bank blow-ups at the feet of a 2004 SEC rule change:

http://www.nysun.com/business/ex-sec-official-blames-agency-for-blow-up/86130/

I wouldn't treat the NYSun as if it has reliable/depentable sources/commentators

Well, if you don't trust the Sun, here's the same allegations on The Big Picture and an excerpt of an article the guy wrote in American Banker:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/regulatory-exem.html#more

Oh THIS is funny...

John McCain has two words for Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox: You’re Fired.

“The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and has betrayed the public’s trust. If I were president today, I would fire him,” McCain says, according to excerpts for a speech on reforming the ailing U.S. financial markets he will deliver today in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/ChrisCox.jpg/160px-ChrisCox.jpg

"Hey, wha' happen?"

im goin get my ol' WPA job back.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/new_deal_for_the_arts/images/work_pays_america/images/ccc_work_play_health.jpg

Bearish.

So where do we go from here?

I will venture out a brief distance onto an anonymous limb and make a few irresponsible predictions as to what might happen over the next several months. Let us hope I am proved wrong.

We have not seen true capitulation in the markets yet. When it comes, it will come in the form of one or more days with stocks declining closer to 10% a day than 5.

Volatility is going to the moon, with the result that a lot of short sellers are going to get slaughtered, too. There will be no safe haven in this storm.

Morgan Stanley: gone. Goldman Sachs: gone, or mortally wounded.

Timothy Geithner of the New York Fed: Interim Dictator of the United States, or dead in a ditch from a terrorist bomb thrown by someone who has finally figured out who actually runs this country.

Dick Fuld, John Thain, John Mack, and Hank Greenberg: strung up in Times Square with piano wire by rampaging mobs of disgruntled shareholders.

Having fun yet?

The uk regulators have banned shorting banking stocks. Not sure how effective this is going to be.

Dick Fuld, John Thain, John Mack, and Hank Greenberg: strung up in Times Square with piano wire by rampaging mobs of disgruntled shareholders

If I were a Merrill shareholder, I'd think Thain is a hero, at least compared to those other guys.

Wachovia and Morgan close to tying up, who's going to get goldman? RBS, Santander, HSBC, Deutsche? Can't see it being a US bank, who is left?

BNY/Mellon, if they don't go with Morgan Stanley first?

Well seeing as morgan and wachovia ...

Good Economist article on the future of I-banks, and why the suddenly popular universal bank model may not be a good long-term solution:

http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12274054

that is not a good article
that is a page from a college textbook that takes no stance whatsoever
I really, really hate what the latest ed in chief has done to that magazine

that is a page from a college textbook that takes no stance whatsoever

I think that's probably why I liked it.

The uk regulators have banned shorting banking stocks. Not sure how effective this is going to be.

Wouldn't a ban on short selling allow an overvalued stock to remain so for longer? So once investors decide to bail there's pretty much the same effect, especially in a climate of complete panic.

Banning short selling is dumb. Total blame the messenger stuff. Are they going to ban put options too?

^^

HBOS price tumbled because it was in danger of dying this week, not because of short selling

banning short selling is the whiff of panic covering the asses of a strong lobby

and incompetent pension fund managers shifting blame because they couldn't see this shit coming. Money market mutual fund for institutional customers only had to be shuttered because they were all making a run:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/18/AR2008091801792.html?hpid=topnews
Fucking ludicrous. I remember the first time Calculated Risk reported on a state pension plan - I think CA's - buying real estate securities. Utter, utter incompetence.

LOL @ this skunk still writing a column that literally asks "Are things really that bad?"

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWNjZjZkZWQ0NzkxNDAwNzNjMWUzYmMzY2M4YWU2ODU=

(He was also the one that espoused chanting "drill, drill, drill" as the simple mantra that would solve ALL OUR PR0BLEMS!!)

I heard a snippet on the radio early today how the Federal Reserve was now loaning money to huge European & Asian banks that have been affected by the US crisis. Looks like we're getting closer and closer to a one-world currency/one-world government by the hour!

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/protect_and_survive.gif

Perhaps someone can help me understand the short-selling ban. I mean in theory it seems like speculative short-selling should be no worse than speculative buying. So is it:

1) Cynical scapegoating to make it look like the SEC is actually doing something OR

2) Unlike the irrational exuberance that drives stocks up, the irrational (if it is irrational) panic that can drive stocks down can wind up needlessly contributing to the wiping out a company by making it harder for them to raise capital.

a little of A a little of B

So I guess I sort of see the rationale if B is part of it. Drive a stock price up too far and you just get some egg on your face. Drive it down too far and you destroy the company. Efficient markets are supposed to correct this, but markets ain't always efficient.

Wouldn't a ban on short selling allow an overvalued stock to remain so for longer? So once investors decide to bail there's pretty much the same effect, especially in a climate of complete panic.

Not really, as investors can still sell their stock if they think it's overvalued. They just can't lend it to traders who then sell it, promise to buy it back at a later date, at (they hope) a cheaper price, pocket the difference and give it back to the investor.

I have two questions: does there have to be someone taking a long position for every trader taking a short position? a counterparty?

What good does any of this do the system when it's working properly? What is the downside in banning it?

Actually, a third question: are all the speculators who have short positions going to be really burned by the surge in prices today (partly as a result of the ban)? And should we laugh?

i hate fools that bet the no pass line.

the SEC is basically announcing that it functions at the behest of institutional investors, now that godfather I-bank is in the hospital on a ventilator.

Unfortunately most will have closed out positions as soon as news of the ban happened.

Possibly so they could take new long positions in expectation of a rise. These douchebags always win.

this is the most fucking disgusting shit. You don't fire the SEC chief after this, Mr. McCain, you take him out behind the shed and shoot him, double tap.

or, you know, terrorists.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/terror-attack-o.html

Have goldman dodged the bullet again? Ok so they have been the strongest investment house through all of this ( less invested in mortgage backed securities than most). but surely they must be thanking their lucky stars and fairy godfathers.

one of my classmates works at goldman he said they weren't worried.

he also keeps trying to recruit me and everyone else in the class to work there because he gets a $5000 referral bonus.

and they aren't thanking anyone, they are the most arrogant bank for sure

Why not make a rule that prohibits selling a stock for a price lower than the last trade. We'd stop losses altogether.

The programmers of Super Mario Galaxy will generate more profit this year than the average Goldman Sachs banker has ever managed. According to calculations by the Financial Times, the average employee at Japanese video games maker Nintendo is on track to earn more for their company this year than the average Goldman Sachs employee did in 2007, the investment bank’s best ever year. Nintendo also makes more per employee than internet group Google.

STOP MAKING RON PAUL LOOK LIKE A GENIUS

Between the budget deficit and all the new obligations taken on by the Federal Reserve, the US government and its quasi-governmental bank have taken on close to $1 trillion of new debt this year alone. BUT... yesterday the stock indexes rebounded to the tune of about 4%, so we should all start whistling Don't Worry, Be Happy again.

It seems like every time the financial sector discovers that what they told themselves were assets were in fact frauds and baseless illusions, the Fed comes along and bankrolls the illusions back into money again. Yet, the word 'inflation' rarely appears in the news stories about these inspired acts of kindness.

The public must take on $1 trillion of debt to protect the public from the losses made by Wall Street; this makes sense because the public gains from the profits of Wall Street.

Have goldman dodged the bullet again? Ok so they have been the strongest investment house through all of this ( less invested in mortgage backed securities than most). but surely they must be thanking their lucky stars and fairy godfathers.

fairy godfather = Hank Paulson? It doesn't hurt to have a lifelong Goldman man calling the shots at Treasury.