Posted on 10/14/2008 1:39:08 PM PDT by mnehring
It is rare to hear a note of optimism in the midst of the current financial crisis. But Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg, for one, seems unfazed by problems in the financial services industry or 1,000-point intraday swings in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
What enables Seidenberg to stay unconcerned is the relative success of the telecommunications industry, once seen as a disastrous minefield of overleveraged, barely solvent companies.
Even with the credit crisis, the telecommunications industry is in better shape than it has ever been in. It is now competitive, relatively flush with subscribers and strategic options. Seidenberg even praised rival Sprint Nextel, which he acknowledged had its problems but still had a fair capital base. “You’re not seeing the same liquidity issues and hue and cry coming out of the telecom industry that you’re seeing out of other industries,” Seidenberg said.
Seidenberg had no nice words for government intervention...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
“Can you hear them now??”
Some companies are still thriving in this environment.
Maybe this is because the government isn’t forcing them to keep service on for people who can’t afford it. “Affordable cell phone service”. Where’s Barney Frank? He’ll fix this in no time. Verizon will be begging for a bailout.
Telecoms do have a mandate to provide low cost alternatives to low income households. For example.
http://www.lifelinesupport.org/li/low-income/lifelinesupport/browser/
There are government tax reimbursements though (albeit, you and I pay). Look at all your phone bills and you will see regulatory fees, these pay for this type of service. (no, we, nor the telecoms have a choice about paying these..)
But that’s landline, not cell phone. Right?
It is available for both.
^
You mean to tell me that some companies don't run their businesses in continuous debt?
Who knew?
I can’t wait to hear them all on judgment day. A day when justice and righteousness will prevail.
Ivan Seidenberg sounds like a intelligent, good man.
Are they still going to buy Altel? I’d like to see the blond twit on the commercial fired by the Verizon dweeb.
Well, c ertainly MY company doesn’t do anything but pay. These programs of handing out money to pay for inefficent business models only applies to the big guys...
Well the DOW is down another 500 P0INTS, time for another Trillion dollars you all....payup. Remember you just are to dam ignorant to understand why Gobernmint should steal your hard earned money to payoff the bad loans the BANKS made.
The same stinking banks who charge you 100 dollars in “FEES”, when you’re 1 dollar wrong in your calculations.
The same stinking banks who are so worried about peoples CREDIT RATING, unless they think they can loan ‘em millions of dollars.
I wonder what the CREDIT RATING is for the banking industry that needs TRILLION DOLLAR BAILOUTS, and is still in the whole for the 60 trillion dollars of som’in called ..................
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message628364/pg1
What most people outside of Wall Street and Washington don’t know is that a lot of people who bought these risky mortgage securities also went out and bought even more arcane investments that Wall Street was peddling called “credit default swaps.” And they have turned out to be a much bigger problem.
They are private and largely undisclosed contracts that mortgage investors entered into to protect themselves against losses if the investments went bad. And they are part of a huge unregulated market that has already helped bring down three of the largest firms on Wall Street, and still threaten the ones that are left.
Before your eyes glaze over, Michael Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland and a former director of trading and markets for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, says they are much simpler than they sound. “A credit default swap is a contract between two people, one of whom is giving insurance to the other that he will be paid in the event that a financial institution, or a financial instrument, fails,” he explains.
“It is an insurance contract, but they’ve been very careful not to call it that because if it were insurance, it would be regulated. So they use a magic substitute word called a ‘swap,’ which by virtue of federal law is deregulated,” Greenberger adds.
credit default swap, ok so we got 60 trillion of them thangs and then we got ourselves 5 0 0 TRILLION OF THESE>>>>>DERIVI -f**KInG- TIVES
Wall Street didn’t listen to Buffett. Derivatives grew into a massive bubble, from about $100 trillion to $516 trillion by 2007
World’s GDPs for all nations is approximately $50 trillion
Total value of the world’s real estate is estimated at about ........................................$75 trillion
Total value of world’s stock and bond markets is more than ........................................$100 trillion
STILL DON’T ADD UP TO 500 STINKIN TRILLION DOLLARS!
and we’re supposed to help bail THAT out.
Boys and Girls, that like someone trying to go down to the seaSTINKINGfloor with a bucket and try and start bailing out the TIstinkinTANIC!
Opps the DOW is down another 400 stinkin points, START BAILING!
Huh?
Its all about insurance fraud, thats what these CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS are, fake insurance companies passing as CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS.
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