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Derivative traders open session to reduce Lehman risk(unthinkable is thinkable now)
Reuters ^ | 09/14/08

Posted on 09/15/2008 1:52:08 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster

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To: samtheman; OKIEDOC
What has America gotten from all these genius graduates from the top business schools in America?

You guys are looking at this from the wrong angle. They ARE getting what they want and are taught; make big bucks now and to heck with the people you screw on the way to your millions. In fact, I bet they still, today, are bragging about how their "educations" brought them their wealth.

21 posted on 09/15/2008 4:49:36 AM PDT by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote!)
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To: raybbr

One thing’s for sure: If what these financial wizards have been up to can affect our economy and society to this degree, than it should be tightly regulated.


22 posted on 09/15/2008 5:50:06 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: OKIEDOC
Hey, correct me if I am wrong but are not most of these Wall Street companies that are going broke run by graduates from Ivy League Schools??????????????

This does not speak so well of Obama and his connection to Colombia and Hardboard......

Don't forget the Clinton tag-team and a whole gaggle of Bush family members...

There are mega-bunches of block-heads on this train...all with fine pedigrees.

23 posted on 09/15/2008 5:53:43 AM PDT by pointsal
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To: samtheman
you posted, "These geniuses are the ones (like the CEO of Merrill Lynch) who made the decision to invest full bore in the sub-prime lending market."

Being a genious and having common sense don't necessarily go together...common sense gets lost in the shuffle. because for the most, common sense is way too simple.

24 posted on 09/15/2008 5:54:37 AM PDT by Auntie Toots (The GOP has taken on new life..wirh Sarah)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Hrm There’s a Black Swan Ping list?


25 posted on 09/15/2008 5:54:57 AM PDT by downwdims
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To: downwdims
No, I try to be more informative when I ping other Freepers.:-)
26 posted on 09/15/2008 5:57:04 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster (kim jong-il, chia head, ppogri, In Grim Reaper we trust)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

I enjoyed the book, and your ping is apt :)


27 posted on 09/15/2008 5:58:08 AM PDT by downwdims
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To: OKIEDOC
"However, it will also point out that some of Americas greatest experience in the financial world did not have enough common sense to see that the financial sky was actually falling were getting theirs while the getting was good."

Fixed it for ya, no need to thank me.

28 posted on 09/15/2008 7:14:31 AM PDT by Notary Sojac (America's never won a "war" unless the enemy was named using a proper noun.)
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To: samtheman
Well, actually, we got a lot-- much, much easier access to credit for both individuals and businesses enabled by the creation of more and more derivatives, something that has (as a whole) improved our GDP growth and standard of living.

Right now we're just seeing the inevitable cyclical contraction of the credit markets as the speculative bubble caused by the Fed's low interest rates and too much securitization of too many exotic instruments collapses.

The only part of this that ticks me off is when the Fed steps in to bail out private companies but doesn't force the prior management and major to disgorge their profits.

As for the gripe that the 'little guy' can't bail out of Lehman like the big guys: I don't recall the markets (like a condo association) ever being sold as anything other than an oligarchy. You and I are like the sucker fish following the sharks-- we just hope the Big Kahuna knows what he's doing.

29 posted on 09/15/2008 10:44:05 AM PDT by pierrem15 (Charles Martel: past and future of France)
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To: pierrem15

“major to disgorge” = “major stockholders to disgorge”


30 posted on 09/15/2008 10:46:50 AM PDT by pierrem15 (Charles Martel: past and future of France)
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To: Wolfie
The banking and financial industries are already among the most tightly regulated American industries.

In fact, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were government sponsored entities deliberately constructed to provide easier credit.

All this tighter regulation seems to have bought us is more corruption.

31 posted on 09/15/2008 10:58:42 AM PDT by pierrem15 (Charles Martel: past and future of France)
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To: pierrem15

Good post. I agree with you.


32 posted on 09/15/2008 11:07:35 AM PDT by samtheman
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To: pierrem15

Forcing them to provide easier credit was indeed stupid. Allowing them to bundle risky loans and re-sell them, then re-bundle and re-sell the bundles, over and over and over, until nobody knew who owned what or what it could actually be worth is monumentally stupid, and that practice should be halted forthwith.


33 posted on 09/15/2008 11:11:26 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: Wolfie
I agree with you in part-- the difficulty is to create regulations intelligently crafted to reduce risk without disproportionately benefitting one firm (or sector) over another and without overly tightening credit and destroying markets.

I cringe with fear when I think of the corrupt economic illiterates in the Dem majorities trying to write such regulations.

34 posted on 09/15/2008 11:23:40 AM PDT by pierrem15 (Charles Martel: past and future of France)
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To: pierrem15

Indeed. “Intelligently crafted” and Congress don’t go together. As for disproportionately benefitting anyone, that’s exactly what the system is designed to do, provided the proper payoffs...oh, excuse me...lobbying efforts, have been made.


35 posted on 09/15/2008 11:31:23 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: pierrem15

Ownership society.


36 posted on 09/15/2008 7:51:07 PM PDT by hripka (There are a lot of smart people out there in FReeperLand)
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To: OKIEDOC
You are so correct. Financial pundits from Kudlow to literally hundreds of others were advising to buy these financials when they first started to retreat. I held out for about a month and then against my better judgment sold about 15% of my fixed income instruments and invested in the market. I have watched as these funds lost 5%, then 10%, then 20%, then 40% of value while these same idiots were constantly touting renewed investments. Believe me, never again. Conservatives should trust their own conservative principles. I thank the stars that I invested only 15% of my portfolio. I can afford that loss but I am a bit bitter that I fell for their spin.

I would never have listened to them had they been leftist pundits but feel betrayed by them because they are supposedly conservative economists.

In 2000 and again in 2004 we elected a fake conservative. He, in cahoots with the leftist democrats whose praise he craved, managed to spend this country into economic disaster and got nothing but ridicule from those who he thought would praise him.

37 posted on 09/15/2008 8:11:26 PM PDT by brydic1
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To: hripka

Well, at least we have a free market in congressmen & senators!


38 posted on 09/15/2008 9:18:50 PM PDT by pierrem15 (Charles Martel: past and future of France)
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To: brydic1
Do not feel like the Lone Ranger when it comes to losing money.

In 1987 I sold 30,000 shares of Phillips Petroleum for $17 and invested that money in a meat packing company stock that an account manager assured me would go straight up.

I was in Dallas on business when my secretary finally caught up with me to say that my account manage had called several times and was desperate to talk with me.

I called him and he told me the market had crashed and if I sold right then he might be able to recoup as much as $30,000 of my original investment.

The company I had invested in declared bankruptcy that next week and the stock I sold was worth only pennies on the dollar.

Never again will I trust these Hardvark University know it alls to invest one penny of my money.

Investing in the stock market I have come to conclude is an idiotic gamble unless your a huge player with inside information.

Sort of like the Washington Insiders or the Wall Street gang.

I don't do cocktail parties out here in the California desert so am at a disadvantage with the in crowd.

39 posted on 09/15/2008 9:51:41 PM PDT by OKIEDOC (The Difference Between Palin and Obama is Common Sense, She's GOT IT, He DOESN'T)
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To: Notary Sojac
I can guarantee you that many on Wall street got out with lots of cash and left us little guys holding the bag.
40 posted on 09/15/2008 9:54:20 PM PDT by OKIEDOC (The Difference Between Palin and Obama is Common Sense, She's GOT IT, He DOESN'T)
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