Posted on 09/21/2008 9:50:13 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
HK investors protest losses on Lehman products
By Jeffrey Hodgson
Sun Sep 21, 6:06 AM ET
More than 100 angry Hong Kong investors marched on government offices on Sunday, calling for action after losing money on structured products linked to failed U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
The protesters, many of them elderly retirees, accused the government of failing to provide proper oversight and said local banks did not do enough to warn of them of the risks involved.
Many had purchased so-called "minibond" products, notes secured by swap obligations guaranteed by Lehman.
"They were misleading investors on the risk. They said the minibonds were highly stable," said W.H. Chiu, a 66-year-old retiree.
Lehman filed the largest U.S. bankruptcy case in history this month after collapsing under the weight of toxic assets, mainly related to real estate, that are now worth only a fraction of their original prices.
Chiu said he purchased about US$20,000 worth of minibonds from a branch of the Hong Kong subsidiary of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). He said he was still fighting to get information on the fate of his investment and feared it would end up as "rubbish."
An advertisement issued by a unit of Sun Hung Kai & Co Ltd touted the product as "a strong collection letting you invest with peace of mind," while noting in fine print that the notes involved "a high degree of risk."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ping!
Let's see to it that every janitor who bought an $800,000 home gets bailed out along side the fat cats on Wall Street. There's whole neighborhoods in Detroit and Vegas where no one is paying a dime for their homes. Community organizers want everyone to have a home and you the taxpayer better pony up.
It's an emergency and we've got to act fast.
FAST
FAST - that's what Paulson says. No time for the people to decide if that's how they want to spend their money. This is BIG.
Rich traders, foolish bankers, and Congresscreeps with their "assessments" to the banking industry can't put off buying the third diamond rings for their mistresses. We gotta move on this - time's a wasting.
So this is a story about non-millionaires who lost money to Lehman, because the government didn’t help out, and you have to turn it into some drama about helping millionaires.
Actually Paulson does have to act fast. The banking market was on the verge of collapse last week.
This Hong Kong story is just one small assemblage of “the mob” that could be building here if not tossed something. I’m figuring stories like this played into the foreign governments telling the US over the weekend that they better bail out all mortgages, even those held by foreign banks or else these countries will not be there to buy our treasury debt needed to finance things.
I do hope that the Democrats hold tight today in requiring limits on executive compensation for these places that are going to get bailouts and also that they grant the Treasury stock warrants down the road. The fat cats need to learn some discipline in this mess.
The DU’ers were actually gloating over Lehman’s demise (until it came out their buddy Hugo Chavez lost over $300 million b/c of worthless bonds).
re “the mob:” that’s how it reads from here. The whole idea of foreign banks being part of this bailout monstrosity gives me a very, very sick feeling. Paulson and the cronies he represents are sounding a new kind of desperate to me.
Fortunately I read the Godfather or none of this would be making any sense.
Maybe the Chinese Tongs will do what DOJ won’t.
Hank is going to wake up with a bloody racehorse’s head in his silk sheets?
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