Comments on: Jitters Over Greece Quelled by…Lunch?

By: Rick A. Fan

Rick A. Fan — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:04:32 +0000

President Obama, Bernanke, and Jim Cramer are in a MOVIE about hedge funds called “Stock Shock.” Even though the movie mostly focuses on Sirius XM stock being naked-short-sold to near bankruptcy (5 cents/share), I liked it because it exposes the dark side of Wall Street and reveals some of their secrets. DVD is everywhere but cheaper at http://www.stockshockmovie.com

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:32:22 +0000

And here it is right on schedule as the sobering market reflects fiscal reality,
This headline on CNBC:
Will Baby Boomers Bankrupt Social Security?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34941334
As if two generations of Congress, Courts and Administrations borrowing
and spending FICA on the budget and replacing it with non-marketable IOUs did not already do that?
The article has the temerity to quote experts that Social Security is sound
until 2017 or 2037, when it can only pay 75% of benefits.
Then it even suggests 78 M Baby Boomers are stealing from GenX because they paid less in and gave themselves COLA and free drugs.
Actually, COLA was repeatedly defined down and delayed by the Greenspan Commission (THAT Greenspan Fed Chair who did not see 2008 coming), so 2010 COLA is definitely not 1980 COLA. See Shadowstats for the differences.
If Social Security were actuarially sound like a privately regulated business or like Chile, there would be no problem. But Reid Pelosi and Obama so far refused to fix Social Security except with a backdoor tax scheme and spending cut called Healthcare. Medicare is in far worse shape, upside down in a few years. But the CNBC article does n0t dare go there. The article concludes with the message that taxes will have to be raised and spending cut, something Congress, Courts and Presidents avoided for generations.
A weak economy is hardly the time to do that. As Harry Dent and others suggested, the real economic destroyer is demographics with upside down entitlements and destroyed retirement savings. (The average person has less than $10,000 saved for retirement.)
Just in case Baby Boomers do not get the message, Tom (The Greatest Generation) Brokaw will have a special report called Boomer$ out on March 4. Get the KY Jelly or vaseline ready…

By: TahoeBilly

TahoeBilly — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:32:12 +0000

It seems like this Tea Party is just a standard Republican resurgence. Have they stood up against the unconstitutional undeclared war in Iraq, or just the same old song? It just feels like the Ron Paul movement is getting overrun by the Fox news crowd wearing different hats.
Ug!

By: Chris T.

Chris T. — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:26:01 +0000

“…SEC wants to ban shorts…”

That’ll be the day. There go most of the streets profits. Never happen, BUT it would be the PROPER thing to do.

Short selling is fraud, just as fractional reserve banking is fraud.
Not just naked shorting, all shorting is fraud.
Why?

Because while the shares are on loan, the original owner (whose account the loaning institution took them from) is still the owner (in fact, he is probably not even aware the shares were loaned out) and he would exercise full ownership rights if any voting these shares were coming up.

But the new owner (the one who bought the borrowed shares from the short seller) would also deem himself an unencumbered owner, and would exercise his voting rights if that came up during the open-short period.

Thus two “owners” of the same shares with “full” ownership rights, that is fraud.
The egregious overvoting of shares, where more are voted than outstanding (which has been documented) is due not just to the naked shorting, but to the “legitimate” kind as well.

Shorting could be made legitimate, IF the borrowed-from account would give up its ownership rights (ie, unable to sell or vote the shares) and become creditor only for the duration of the open short, so that only the new buyer enjoys those rights until closed.
But, who would be so stupid, especially as currently the “creditor” is not even compensated one dime?

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:28:57 +0000

Apparently the G7 emergency weekend meeting in Canada’s Arctic Inqaluit failed to come up with any solutions for the STUPID PIIGs, so Ambrose Evans Pritchards sees
the third Lehman style Tsunami in 18 months. And China declared cold war on US because of arms sales to Taiwan. Usually fade headlines, but we may have a lot further in deflationary default implosions to go…

By: bill

bill — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:22:02 +0000

When will the legal eagles send the banker gangsters to :THE BIG HOUSE”. ??

By: Dusty

Dusty — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:56:00 +0000

::Geithner claims there will be no double dip and USA will never lose its top credit rating, Palin hits a populist home run at the Nashville Tea Party putting DC on notice, the SEC wants to ban shorts, GS investigated for manipulating AIG and sentiment as bullish and complacent as it was four weeks ago…::

With all of the BS coming out of DC lately, by both sides, I often wonder if it was 2 feet of manure that fell on them over the weekend. Now that’s a sight I’d like to see on FoxNews. LOL

Dusty

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:57:51 +0000

Speaking of defaults, John Thain back from MER failure to head CIT,
Geithner claims there will be no double dip and USA will never lose its top credit rating, Palin hits a populist home run at the Nashville Tea Party putting DC on notice, the SEC wants to ban shorts, GS investigated for manipulating AIG and sentiment as bullish and complacent as it was four weeks ago…
Interesting times to be short with Big4 using trailing stops…