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Obama Policies Will Bankrupt the US Tsarkon Reports
s
- This just in, March 23 2009 Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund

- Russia too: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.

- President Barak "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption, Rahm Emanuel (Radical authoritarian Statist whose father was part of the Murderous Civilian Killing Israeli Terrorist Organization known as IRGUN), Connected to Rod Blagojevich (Rahm inherited Rod's federal-congress seat), Connected to Ayers, a man who promotes the concept that civilian collateral damage is ok in a war against freedom, Preacher Jeremiah Wright, who is himself a black-elitist who wants all the people who largely "pay the freight" to suffer, 31 million on food stamps, more blacks are in prison and on food-stamps per capita than anyone else. The problem with Wright is simply this: the facts are "racist."
- Obama: Racist, AIPAC-bootlicker, Corrupted to the bone Chicago style and a Traitor to the US Constitution and a Liar whose real "legal" name could very well be Barry Sotero and an Indonesian citizen (The US does not allow plural citizenship) (If you care, not that it matters anymore under a Lawless Authoritarian Totalitarian Regime, you can see more here at an aggregator; obamacrimes.info )
- Raytheon lobbyist in Pentagon, lots lobbyists getting exemptions even though he promised not to have them.
- Goldman Sachs insider second in command at Treasury. Bumbling tax cheat idiot in "command" of Treasury with 17 positions unfilled as of late March 2009.
- Cabinet has had several nominees and appointees with multiple tax fraud issues.
- Lied about having a new degree of accountability and a SUNSHINE period of new laws, he has signed bills with little or no review at whitehouse.gov as promised.
- Appointed a second amendment violating Rich-pardoning treasonist Eric Holder as AG, the top cop of the USA, a man who helped a fugitive evade justice.
- Has not put a dime in for a single new nuclear power plant but wants to help bridges and roads to promote more driving.
- Obama, Blagojevich and Rahm Emanuel have a LOT to hide. They literally lived next to each other, Rahm had (until being Chairman Obama's Chief of staff) Blagojevich's old federal congressional seat. Blagojevich helped Chairman "The Teleprompter" Obama cheat his way to the Illinois senate by getting other candidates thrown off the ballot in Illinois. Why do you think Blagojevich was so mad? Obama DID owe him, big time. Rahm and Obama are using Blagojevich and trying to cut his head off to keep him away.
- Tony Rezko, Iraqi Arms Dealer Nahdmi Auchi, and of course Aiham Alsammarae. Chairman "The Teleprompter" Hussein Obama is so corrupted its a joke.
- Fools and "useful idiots" twist the pie charts by leaving welfare, workfare, interest on debt, social security, Medicare and Medicaid out and focusing only on non-whole "discretionary" pie charts.
2007 high level pie chart, Federal Budget, USA
2009 Pie chart, detailed, Federal Budget, USA
- Chairman Obama is drastically increasing spending and creating more entitlements that will make the US less competitive (especially against China, India, East Europe/Russia). This will be a huge disaster and change you can believe in will strap you and your grandkids with more debt. No taxation witho

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt the US Tsarkon Reports
s
- This just in, March 23 2009 Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund

- Russia too: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.

- President Barak "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption, Rahm Emanuel (Radical authoritarian Statist whose father was part of the Murderous Civilian Killing Israeli Terrorist Organization known as IRGUN), Connected to Rod Blagojevich (Rahm inherited Rod's federal-congress seat), Connected to Ayers, a man who promotes the concept that civilian collateral damage is ok in a war against freedom, Preacher Jeremiah Wright, who is himself a black-elitist who wants all the people who largely "pay the freight" to suffer, 31 million on food stamps, more blacks are in prison and on food-stamps per capita than anyone else. The problem with Wright is simply this: the facts are "racist."
- Obama: Racist, AIPAC-bootlicker, Corrupted to the bone Chicago style and a Traitor to the US Constitution and a Liar whose real "legal" name could very well be Barry Sotero and an Indonesian citizen (The US does not allow plural citizenship) (If you care, not that it matters anymore under a Lawless Authoritarian Totalitarian Regime, you can see more here at an aggregator; obamacrimes.info )
- Raytheon lobbyist in Pentagon, lots lobbyists getting exemptions even though he promised not to have them.
- Goldman Sachs insider second in command at Treasury. Bumbling tax cheat idiot in "command" of Treasury with 17 positions unfilled as of late March 2009.
- Cabinet has had several nominees and appointees with multiple tax fraud issues.
- Lied about having a new degree of accountability and a SUNSHINE period of new laws, he has signed bills with little or no review at whitehouse.gov as promised.
- Appointed a second amendment violating Rich-pardoning treasonist Eric Holder as AG, the top cop of the USA, a man who helped a fugitive evade justice.
- Has not put a dime in for a single new nuclear power plant but wants to help bridges and roads to promote more driving.
- Obama, Blagojevich and Rahm Emanuel have a LOT to hide. They literally lived next to each other, Rahm had (until being Chairman Obama's Chief of staff) Blagojevich's old federal congressional seat. Blagojevich helped Chairman "The Teleprompter" Obama cheat his way to the Illinois senate by getting other candidates thrown off the ballot in Illinois. Why do you think Blagojevich was so mad? Obama DID owe him, big time. Rahm and Obama are using Blagojevich and trying to cut his head off to keep him away.
- Tony Rezko, Iraqi Arms Dealer Nahdmi Auchi, and of course Aiham Alsammarae. Chairman "The Teleprompter" Hussein Obama is so corrupted its a joke.
- Fools and "useful idiots" twist the pie charts by leaving welfare, workfare, interest on debt, social security, Medicare and Medicaid out and focusing only on non-whole "discretionary" pie charts.
2007 high level pie chart, Federal Budget, USA
2009 Pie chart, detailed, Federal Budget, USA
- Chairman Obama is drastically increasing spending and creating more entitlements that will make the US less competitive (especially against China, India, East Europe/Russia). This will be a huge disaster and change you can believe in will strap you and your grandkids with more debt. No taxation witho

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt the US Tsarkon Reports

- This just in, March 23 2009 Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund

- Russia too: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.

- President Barak "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption, Rahm Emanuel (Radical authoritarian Statist whose father was part of the Murderous Civilian Killing Israeli Terrorist Organization known as IRGUN), Connected to Rod Blagojevich (Rahm inherited Rod's federal-congress seat), Connected to Ayers, a man who promotes the concept that civilian collateral damage is ok in a war against freedom, Preacher Jeremiah Wright, who is himself a black-elitist who wants all the people who largely "pay the freight" to suffer, 31 million on food stamps, more blacks are in prison and on food-stamps per capita than anyone else. The problem with Wright is simply this: the facts are "racist."
- Obama: Racist, AIPAC-bootlicker, Corrupted to the bone Chicago style and a Traitor to the US Constitution and a Liar who can't even produce a valid birth certificate (which is not a certificate of live birth)
- Raytheon lobbyist in Pentagon, lots lobbyists getting exemptions even though he promised not to have them.
- Goldman Sachs insider second in command at Treasury. Bumbling tax cheat idiot in "command" of Treasury with 17 positions unfilled as of late March 2009.
- Cabinet has had several nominees and appointees with multiple tax fraud issues.
- Lied about having a new degree of accountability and a SUNSHINE period of new laws, he has signed bills with little or no review at whitehouse.gov as promised.
- Appointed a second amendment violating Rich-pardoning treasonist Eric Holder as AG, the top cop of the USA, a man who helped a fugitive evade justice.
- Has not put a dime in for a single new nuclear power plant but wants to help bridges and roads to promote more driving.
- Obama, Blagojevich and Rahm Emanuel have a LOT to hide. They literally lived next to each other, Rahm had (until being Chairman Obama's Chief of staff) Blagojevich's old federal congressional seat. Blagojevich helped Chairman "The Teleprompter" Obama cheat his way to the Illinois senate by getting other candidates thrown off the ballot in Illinois. Why do you think Blagojevich was so mad? Obama DID owe him, big time. Rahm and Obama are using Blagojevich and trying to cut his head off to keep him away.
- Tony Rezko, Iraqi Arms Dealer Nahdmi Auchi, and of course Aiham Alsammarae. Chairman "The Teleprompter" Hussein Obama is so corrupted its a joke.
- Fools and "useful idiots" twist the pie charts by leaving welfare, workfare, interest on debt, social security, Medicare and Medicaid out and focusing only on non-whole "discretionary" pie charts.
2007 high level pie chart, Federal Budget, USA
2009 Pie chart, detailed, Federal Budget, USA
- Chairman Obama is drastically increasing spending and creating more entitlements that will make the US less competitive (especially against China, India, East Europe/Russia). This will be a huge disaster and change you can believe in will strap you and your grandkids with more debt. No taxation without representation? Obama is spending money for the next two-three generations and they can't even vote yet, or even have been born.
- An alternative to the dollar and a forex and a reserve currency came up at the last G20 meeting. The

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt the US Tsarkon Reports
s
- This just in, March 23 2009 Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund

- Russia too: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.

- President Barak "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption, Rahm Emanuel (Radical authoritarian Statist whose father was part of the Murderous Civilian Killing Israeli Terrorist Organization known as IRGUN), Connected to Rod Blagojevich (Rahm inherited Rod's federal-congress seat), Connected to Ayers, a man who promotes the concept that civilian collateral damage is ok in a war against freedom, Preacher Jeremiah Wright, who is himself a black-elitist who wants all the people who largely "pay the freight" to suffer, 31 million on food stamps, more blacks are in prison and on food-stamps per capita than anyone else. The problem with Wright is simply this: the facts are "racist."
- Obama: Racist, AIPAC-bootlicker, Corrupted to the bone Chicago style and a Traitor to the US Constitution and a Liar who can't even produce a valid birth certificate (which is not a certificate of live birth)
- Raytheon lobbyist in Pentagon, lots lobbyists getting exemptions even though he promised not to have them.
- Goldman Sachs insider second in command at Treasury. Bumbling tax cheat idiot in "command" of Treasury with 17 positions unfilled as of late March 2009.
- Cabinet has had several nominees and appointees with multiple tax fraud issues.
- Lied about having a new degree of accountability and a SUNSHINE period of new laws, he has signed bills with little or no review at whitehouse.gov as promised.
- Appointed a second amendment violating Rich-pardoning treasonist Eric Holder as AG, the top cop of the USA, a man who helped a fugitive evade justice.
- Has not put a dime in for a single new nuclear power plant but wants to help bridges and roads to promote more driving.
- Obama, Blagojevich and Rahm Emanuel have a LOT to hide. They literally lived next to each other, Rahm had (until being Chairman Obama's Chief of staff) Blagojevich's old federal congressional seat. Blagojevich helped Chairman "The Teleprompter" Obama cheat his way to the Illinois senate by getting other candidates thrown off the ballot in Illinois. Why do you think Blagojevich was so mad? Obama DID owe him, big time. Rahm and Obama are using Blagojevich and trying to cut his head off to keep him away.
- Tony Rezko, Iraqi Arms Dealer Nahdmi Auchi, and of course Aiham Alsammarae. Chairman "The Teleprompter" Hussein Obama is so corrupted its a joke.
- Fools and "useful idiots" twist the pie charts by leaving welfare, workfare, interest on debt, social security, Medicare and Medicaid out and focusing only on non-whole "discretionary" pie charts.
2007 high level pie chart, Federal Budget, USA
2009 Pie chart, detailed, Federal Budget, USA
- Chairman Obama is drastically increasing spending and creating more entitlements that will make the US less competitive (especially against China, India, East Europe/Russia). This will be a huge disaster and change you can believe in will strap you and your grandkids with more debt. No taxation without representation? Obama is spending money for the next two-three generations and they can't even vote yet, or even have been born.
- An alternative to the dollar and a forex and a reserve currency came up at the last G20 meeting. Th

Yeah, but its calling for a new world-wide reserve currency.

- This just in, March 23 2009 Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund

- Russia too: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.

FACT: THE Dollar is dying.

Netcraft just published this:

- This just in, March 23 2009 Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund

- Russia too: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.

You don't have to be a Kreskin to see where this is going.

FACT: THE Dollar is dying.

Netcraft just published this:

- This just in, March 23 2009 Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund

- Russia too: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.

You don't have to be a Kreskin to see where this is going.

FACT: THE Dollar is dying.

Netcraft just published this:
- This just in, March 23 2009 Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund

- Russia too: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.

It will be available in Europe in 2011. Link.

While some CDS purchasers were buying CDS contracts on their business partners, many more were buying CDS contracts on unrelated companies purely as a derivative instrument to hedge against change in market valuations.

As this explained in this wonderful quote from a webpage http://thismatter.com/money/insurance/insurable-interest.htm/ explaining why you can't buy life/fire/etc. insurance on a person or piece of property in which you do not have an insurable interest, "The main purpose of buying insurance is to compensate for lossesâ"the insured's losses. To allow someone to be compensated for a loss that does not affect them financially would create a moral hazard. ... Without an insurable interest, buying insurance would be gamblingâ"paying premiums in the hope of making a profit, which is not only against public policy, but also against the purpose of insurance"

In any form of insurance *EXCEPT CDS* it is straight out illegal to take out insurance on a party in whom you do not have an insurable interest (it might have been illegal for CDS's as well if they can be determined to have been an insurance policy but the AGs are ignoring that).

If CDS insurance had also required an insurable interest to purchase, the CDS market would have only been something like a quarter of the level it was allowed to grow to http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/03/should-you-be-able-to-sell-what-you-do-not-own/ (which would have saved the U.S. taxpayer a lot in AIG losses!!).

Don't just parrot talking points from the cheerleader talking heads on CNBC (and I include Jim Cramer in that category) -- make an effort to actually understand the stuff before you spout off.

I love that link, I mean talk about subtle paranoia. The case involves a shipment being accidental stopped for counterfeit drugs, to WHO is hiding something.

What's paranoid about getting upset when this happens:

"Such a seizure occurred last month, when authorities in the port of Rotterdam blocked a consignment of Losartan, a treatment for high blood pressure, that was being shipped from India to Brazil. Although Losartan is a legal generic drug, the seizure took place after an unnamed company claimed to hold the patent for it in the Netherlands."

So, generic drug legally produced in India, on its way for legal distribution in Brazil, gets stopped in the Netherlands because someone asserts that they have a patent on it in a country through which it's merely passing.

That instance occurred in January; since then, HIV medicines have been seized as well.

As the saying goes, it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

I also find it pretty amusing that /. will get its panties in a twist over DRM conspiracies, but not medicines. I mean, really, how important could medicines be?

The things is are the exception of a model 'normal' vs 'abnormal'?

Benoit Mandelbrot and other think that the economy is 'wildly random', see this 2006 paper:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5372968a-ba82-11da-980d-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=77a9a0e8-b442-11da-bd61-0000779e2340.html

Current crisis is one more proof that economy is 'wildly random' and that a stock market is even less reliable than a casino (where the randomness here is just 'normal'), so stock markets are like adding oil in a fire, they make crisis worse..
So the question is: is-it possible to have capitalism without a stock market or with a very regulated one?

I think that this is possible, but that it will take many crisis as the current one before the strict regulations start to kick in..

Here is an article about how executive compensation and the little formula got us into so much trouble:

In fact, the incentive scheme commonly in place does the exact opposite of what an incentive system should be about: it encourages a certain class of risk-hiding and deferred blow-up. It is the reason banks have never made money in the history of banking, losing the equivalent of all their past profits periodically while bankers strike it rich. Furthermore, it is that incentive scheme that got us in the current mess.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fa89be08-02aa-11de-b58b-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

Yes, I can just see the lines of linux users just queuing up in anxious trepidation waiting to be able to use Windows Media Video and Audio files on their beloved linux systems...

The day this article hit slashdot I said that the purpose for this was to insert Microsoft IP into Linux. People called me crazy. Well, we're here! Let's all get comfy in this brave new world, shall we?

Does anybody still trust Novell? Why?

Oh, and Windows Media Player is way cool, because it has the codecs for Plays For Now.

Mergers and acquisitions, rifts between executives, poor economic climate, multiple restructurings - the usual.

Modern "Portfolio" Theory has received at least three Nobels. Yet MPT has lead directly and predictably (no fat tails) to the financial crisis.

I'm very unimpressed and becoming highly cynical on what passes for "accepted science." There seems to be a strengthening political element. Quite obvious in the case of Global Warming.

Probably the best comment on the current financial crisis comes from Mr. Adair Turner.

It is not the computers or the communication standards. Sorry, not our poor computers, not the right target for the blame game.

The challenge of the crisis is intellectual. Look, I remember that economists always explained me that they have no clue where the US growth rates come from systemically or can explain where the financial markets make all that money. The surprise was that it didn't crash earlier.

http://blogs.ft.com/rachmanblog/2008/12/covered-in-internet-slime/

in all seriousness though: exactly what is wrong with the idea one DEMOCRATIC world government?

i think its our future. and a good one

And the bigger and harder their model is, the more ridiculously overconfident they are.

The difficulty of economics is well illustrated by how easily the stock market and the finance industry are swayed by intellectual fads. Of course, good models can't replace fads, because they don't promise neverending risk-free market-beating returns. What you really need is models so complicated that no one can tell whether they're good or bad.

And that's exactly how we created the credit crisis.

As they pet the hounds, allowing the animals to memorise their scent, the master huntsman Clive Richardson offers a few words of encouragement. "Don't worry," he says. "When a limb's torn from you, it really doesn't bleed that much."

I wish I had a scanner so I could post the print photo. It's a runner in modern gear sprinting across a field of cut straw being chased by four hounds and two dozen mounted men wearing traditional suits.

The reason people attempt to file perpetual copyright is that the things being copyrighted, in most cases, still have value. If others are uncomfortable with that, they are perfectly free to create something different/better. People should stop arguing for the removal of other's rights because it's inconvenient for them.

You're looking at this through the European perspective -- as if the creator's monopoly on their work is a natural right.

Look at it again, as if the natural order of things in for information to be usable without restriction, and copyright is an artificial monopoly created for the sole purpose of benefiting the greater good of the public as a whole.

To be sure, things which are copyrighted may have value to the eventual rightsholder 90 years later -- but if you calculate present value at the time of creation (if you've never taken an accounting class, this determines the amount which would need to be invested, at current interest rates, to yield the same eventual income as the extended monopoly period would grant; this sum effectively represents the amount of economic motivation granted to an author to create their work), the amount of value which the creator receives at the time of creation based on this extended grant of exclusive rights is absolutely minimal. On the other hand, the costs levied on the rest of the economy -- even excluding the unknowns of derivative works which aren't created, public-benefit performances which don't occur, and enhanced breadth of society's culture as a whole based on expanded exposure to knowledge -- are considerable indeed.

See this amicus brief to the Supreme Court challenge of the DMCA, An Economic Analysis of Copyright Law (Landes and Posner), Forever Minus A Day? Some Theory And Empirics of Optimal Copyright (Rufus Pollock), and (for lighter reading) this analysis in the Financial Times.

I agree that shorter terms with an option to renew are desirable, but also hold that the length of renewal should be limited either explicitly or via economic incentives (ie. attaching significant cost for renewal after a reasonable period).

What are you talking about sir? GS hasn't had a quarter where they lost money yet. Paulson is in Washington, and I have worked at the big banks, its popular among conspiracy theorists to think that there are back room machinations going on, but this is speculation based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever. He talks to the CEO's of all the major financials and there is no indication that GS has received any favorable treatment.

Really? So let all the others fail until the sights turn on GS? If GS was doing so well why would the fed need to shield them?

As for Buffet, I doubt the gov't had any influence whatsoever. The man is known for making deals when he feels there is value- and GS's

He didn't have to look for value. The fed told him that they wouldn't let GS fail and GS promised buffet 10% on his investment. That's the biggest no brainer I've ever seen. What's most amazing about this financial crisis is that these deals used to be in secret. Now they are all mostly out in the open. It's like they (the gov.) don't care anymore. You don't need conspiracy theories when the facts are on CNBC every day.

Do you have any evidence for this? Goldman Sachs was the most highly regarded of the investment banks well before Paulson. And plenty of financial companies were smart enough to stay relatively clean from this, in that they managed their risks a lot better.

The only financial companies that have been anywhere near okay are deposit banks. There are no investment only banks left. The last 2 standing were MS and GS. Without the fast intervention of the fed they would have also failed. And finally they chose to become deposit banks, signaling the end of investment only banking.

So GS might have been highly regarded, but they were also caught with their hand in the 30x leverage cookie jar. What I find disgusting is I wonder how many companies GS themselves ruined with CDSs and naked short selling before crying to the fed with the cross hairs pointed at them? We'll never know since the current rules don't force companies to show their short positions.

That Buffett was encouraged to invest doesn't mean that he doesn't think it was a good idea. It's not like they can push him around. Sure, he was betting on the bailout, but everybody was betting one way or another on a bailout, which is why you saw the 777 point drop when it failed the first time.

Buffet was on a phone interview on CNBC. He said that if the bailout didn't happen that buying into GE and GS would be the worst investment decision he's ever made. That tells you a lot. One is says that the gov. was on the phone with him explaining how the plan would help GS (and thus him) and that they really wanted him to get onboard. And two, look at the return he is getting on his risk. 10% dividend on the money he invested plus a buyout upside if they want to purchase the shares back from him.

Still, that's exactly what the Treasury and the Fed should be doing about now. A lot of people are scared just because other people are scared, and not because they know much of anything.

No, the fed and treasury need to get out of the way and let the markets correct. It was obvious years ago we had a problem. Some people in gov. noticed it (Ron Paul comes to mind), but were generally ignored or shouted down. Now we have a large class of assets declining in price with numerous derivatives (iirc, GS created some of the most dangerous ones to own right now) based on the said asset. We have to let these trades unwind before things can start to become normal again. Some people will lose 50% of the value of their house and even more people will lose their jobs. This is what happens when you attempt to prop up prices using gov. intervention. Eventually you can't keep printing money fast enough to keep inflation going.

I'll take your NYTimes article and raise you a Financial Times editorial.

The dumbest thing the democrats have done so far in this campaign is focus on Palin. What the hell happened to the issue-driven debate? This was really the time for Obama&Co to shine, so if they botch the whole deal because they chose to make the election a question of character, which is the republicans' favorite playing ground, they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

Get back on topic!

Most people seem to place the blame with Lehman's CEO

I am an investment banker and can say with confidence that the datacenters were an afterthought in this deal. Important? Certainly. The most important? a joke. Bob Diamond and Barclays have wanted to extend its US investment banking business for several years, and found an opportunity to grab one at a fire sale. But the true value of the deal is enormously larger than listed, as it involves taking on assets estimated (with confidence, I'm sure)at $72 billion and liabilities of $68 billion. I'd recommend reading http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5c9dcc26-83f1-11dd-bf00-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1 to inform yourselves about the transaction.

As to the Bear Stearns datacenters comprising the bulk of the value - that is about as wrong as you can get. The breakup fee (the fee paid to JP Morgan if the deal did not go through) was the building. JPM could have walked from the deal and gotten the builing, so to argue that the deal was for the building/datacenter is absurd. Let's not forget that the Federal Reserve alone lent $29 billion for the transaction. Datacenters are valuable, but not worth that amount of money.

First of all, these are unprecedented times in global financial markets. Once in 100 years is putting it mildly.

Second, a data center and a building are the only assets that can be valued with the shotgun marriages the Administration, Treasury, and Fed are making right **now.** By now, I mean no sleep, no one leaves until the deal is closed NOW.

BofA got a sweetheart deal with Countrywide, they are getting another sweetheart deal with whatever brokerage they acquire. The same holds true of JPMorgan Chase and Co.

The Fed has literally run out of money with the AIG nationalization and has asked the treasury to print more dollars NOW. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/271257f2-83f1-11dd-bf00-000077b07658.html

Once again, the losses are being socialized while the titans of financial executive management just walk away.

You would be wise to re-balance your asset pool to reflect coming inflation. And any pension holders out there should do your best to liquidate your pension today, that is, if your pension isn't underfunded already or if that is even possible.

This is because of the woman who is facing a £16,000 ($32,000) fine for sharing Dream Pinball online.

Considering the number of scandals in which Siemens has been involved in the last few years, I guess
it would be a good idea to use this to spy on it's own employees
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/75295b46-dcc9-11db-a21d-000b5df10621.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/13/business/siemens.php
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=97185

The "illegal downloads" were torrents. The number "legal downloads" (i.e. from the official source) was small in comparison to the torrent activity.

The study by the MCPS-PRS Alliance, which represents music rights holders, and Big Champagne, an online media measurement company, found that legal downloads of In Rainbows were far exceeded by illegal torrent downloads of the album.

Almost 400,000 illegal torrent downloads were made on the first day and 2.3m in the 25 days following the albumâ(TM)s release, compared with a full-weekâ(TM)s peak of just 158,000 for the next most popular album of the period.

Yeah, the summary was a bit misleading... but you RTFA, right? ;)

A very little research gives us details on the Directors of Hasbro.

http://markets.ft.com/tearsheets/businessProfile.asp?s=us%3AHAS

The mean ages, which missing out one of them, Bennett Schneir, is 53 years old.

So yeah, perhaps they just would have never considered it.

But just to make another point, consoles and PC games are a different beast than board\card games. It's quite possible to enjoy both.

For your interest here are a few of my current favourites, Zombie Flux, Cthulhu 500, Bang! and Give me the Brain. Check them out, you might enjoy them :-)

As we all know, bank panics don't happen anymore since we left the gold standard...

Exxon and BP have announced that they are selling their retail service stations (most of which were already independent franchises). Retailing oil products is a very competitive, low margin business. Just about every street corner has a gas station and the result is that the retailers' profits are being squeezed hard since no station wants to be the first on the block to raise prices. Exxon and BP have much better uses for their capital.

See this for details.

science is in and has been in for a while.

Maybe you should learn some more about it - there's plenty of references and original source material there for you to read.

It looks like the problem is that these investment vehicles are really hard to understand the intrinsics of, let alone model properly. The FT's awesome finance blog, FT Alphaville goes into a lot more depth on the whole issue - they "explain" the investment thingies themselves, the CPDOs, as well as the failures themselves.

"I'm not sure I buy it really. It just seems like corporate blame deflection."

If anything, the story paints a completely different, much worse picture:
1) Coding bug found to be cause, internally at Moody's
2) Internal docs show adjustment of model factors, ruling out high volatility as part of the model, in order that ratings after the bug fix don't deviate much from those before the bug was found.

That's my understanding of the story, anyway - IANAFinancier. But to me this paints Moody's in a much, much worse light than if they had *just* had a bug in the initial model which they then fixed - after all, that would have resulted in a re-rating...

(Again, I don't quite understand what's going on here, but that was my initial take on the situation)

It looks like the problem is that these investment vehicles are really hard to understand the intrinsics of, let alone model properly. The FT's awesome finance blog, FT Alphaville goes into a lot more depth on the whole issue - they "explain" the investment thingies themselves, the CPDOs, as well as the failures themselves.

"I'm not sure I buy it really. It just seems like corporate blame deflection."

If anything, the story paints a completely different, much worse picture:
1) Coding bug found to be cause, internally at Moody's
2) Internal docs show adjustment of model factors, ruling out high volatility as part of the model, in order that ratings after the bug fix don't deviate much from those before the bug was found.

That's my understanding of the story, anyway - IANAFinancier. But to me this paints Moody's in a much, much worse light than if they had *just* had a bug in the initial model which they then fixed - after all, that would have resulted in a re-rating...

(Again, I don't quite understand what's going on here, but that was my initial take on the situation)

It looks like the problem is that these investment vehicles are really hard to understand the intrinsics of, let alone model properly. The FT's awesome finance blog, FT Alphaville goes into a lot more depth on the whole issue - they "explain" the investment thingies themselves, the CPDOs, as well as the failures themselves.

"I'm not sure I buy it really. It just seems like corporate blame deflection."

If anything, the story paints a completely different, much worse picture:
1) Coding bug found to be cause, internally at Moody's
2) Internal docs show adjustment of model factors, ruling out high volatility as part of the model, in order that ratings after the bug fix don't deviate much from those before the bug was found.

That's my understanding of the story, anyway - IANAFinancier. But to me this paints Moody's in a much, much worse light than if they had *just* had a bug in the initial model which they then fixed - after all, that would have resulted in a re-rating...

(Again, I don't quite understand what's going on here, but that was my initial take on the situation)

"The immediate financial impact of IT security problems has lessened, costing UK businesses about £6bn a year, compared with £10bn in 2006. This is because fewer businesses are falling victim to computer viruses, which have caused substantial financial losses in the past"

ft.com

"The immediate financial impact of IT security problems has lessened, costing UK businesses about £6bn a year, compared with £10bn in 2006"

from today's financial times

Britain turned down the chance to recoup £100m (133m) in unpaid taxes from UK residents with bank accounts in Liechtenstein at least two years ago because revenue officials refused to pay a whistleblower a tiny fraction of that sum. The informant turned instead to Germany's secret service, selling a list of at least 750 wealthy Germans with money stashed away in Liechtenstein. This has sparked Berlin's biggest crackdown on tax evaders and triggered a diplomatic row with the principality. . . Read more via the FT. http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=lichtenstine+secret+service+tax&y=0&aje=true&x=0&id=080225000064&ct=0&nclick_check=1

Microsoft's imploding cash reserves. No cash, no control, end of story.

Imploding cash reserves? Microsoft has, and is continuing to spin off, gobs of cash from Office and Windows.

- Cash Flow Statement
- Microsoft's cash position
- Microsoft Looks Mighty

Still around $20 billion in free cash flow per year. That is simply incredible. They buy billion dollar companies for cash, several times a year. They started paying dividends a few years ago, which began to decrease their ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS cash reserves in the early 2000s. Holding $40 bn in cash (as they used to) is an inefficient use of capital, and so the owners are better for them having done something with it.

IIRC, Vista adoption numbers are actually better at this point in its product life-cycle than XP was, contrary to the (somewhat) public perception that Vista's sales are terrible.

If you have facts and analysis to support that Microsoft's cash position is imploding, I'm certainly interested in seeing them. Actually, what I'd like to see a very high-level summary of Microsoft's financials over time, related to their product offerings, seismic industry developments, the Internet, XBox, etc. You know, "look at the revenue spike when the XBox360 was released" or "see how a certain expense line varied with new OS releases." (hypothetical)

You're arguing my point, every musical era has had bad music. I recall year ago when parents called rock n roll devil's music. Many adults call what their children listen to as bad music.

Entertainment is the last thing people make cuts on during economic downturns

From American Express: "We are less weighted toward the travel and entertainment sector and have a larger presence in everyday categories where consumers don't typically reduce their spending during economic downturns to the same extent as they do in T&E spending." "Entertainment is the #1 Largest Optional Spending Catagory." "Demand shocks - reflecting changes in the level and pattern of spending by consumers owing to 'social distancing', eg cuts to travel, tourism and entertainment spending". "Customers from the financial services industry have noticeably cut back on travel and entertainment spending, AmEx believes."

Why buy a CD when you can download it at the same quality?

Same quality? I doubt much downloaded music has the same quality as CDs. I doubt even iTune's higher bit rate and DRM free music sell more than the DRM'ed and lower quality music. And iTunes owns the music download space.

Hillary Clinton, however, could possibly crash the global economy.

Too late for Clinton to claim that - Bush has prior art with the housing bubble.

Housing prices have fallen every month for the last 11 months. Predictions for the next 3 years are more of the same - with the bottom anywhere from 25% to 50% from their peaks.

That's a lot of people who will be upside-down on their mortgages, with a trillion dollars of bad debt still to work its way through the system.

This isn't news - for more than a year, its been predicted that more than 2 million people will lose their homes.

btw. the CD copying issue my be clarified eventually... http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d5cdcfcc-bd8d-11dc-b7e6-0000779fd2ac.html

Oh, and another thing: why do you think that the solution to a bad money system is to return to the gold standard? Consider this: the current amount of U.S. currency in circulation is $783 billion. Current estimates put the US's gold reserves at around $252 billion. So where does the extra $531 billion come from? The government buying massive amounts of gold; about $531 billion. At about $750 a troy ounce, that amounts to about 24,000 short tons. Estimates say that there are 22,000 short tons of gold left in the world. Therefore, the US govt would have to buy up massive amounts of gold, driving the price way up and playing hell with the dental and electronics industries.

Under the agreement, the price of making a call while abroad will be capped at 0.49 per minute, before VAT. While existing roaming charges vary widely, they are generally significantly higher.

from the same article:

A four-minute call home by a French customer in Italy costs 4.72 ($6.39, £3.19), while an Austrian phoning home from Malta would pay 9.51, according to EU data.

For your other reasoning (and that's a guess): A Verizon customer, residing in LA uses the Verizon network while visiting New York. While a Berlin resident may use the Vodafone network in Prague.

It is a bit creative to compare calls with the same company to actual roaming where a different network provides the service. The article can be found here

However I'm left wondering how much this was affected by the Bush admin, who has been cited a number tymes for altering science they didn't agree with even though they didn't have the qualifications, suppressing it, or totally ignoring science.