Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

And here's the story about the case behind the sign. No matter how sophisticated the investor is, it's bad if you don't disclose that a hedge fund involved in selecting the mortgages back the securities has taken a short position on those securities.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

For these products, that isn't necessarily true. And for the specific product involving Paulson that was the source of the SEC's action against Goldman, this was explicitly not true. The SEC's allegation was that despite that entire pool was disclosed, Goldman violated the law by not saying Paulson was involved.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

Gee, thanks. I had no idea. :rolleyes:

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

Ah, but your paraphrase is wrong. This was a synethetic CDO. The primary "asset" in the "collateral" (a misuse of that term that is common parlance in this area) was a hedge fund with a CDS contract that was a massive bet and/or insurance against the mortgages. That was implicit in the structure of the product.

So what the SEC said was fraud was 1. not saying his name was John Paulson, and 2. that he played a role in selecting the mortgages (which he and Goldman denied).

In hindsight, because Paulson was right, that looks like relevant information. Maybe even material in hindsight.

But do you think it was material or even relevant at the time? Do you think an investor, who could look at each underlying asset in the structure, having been told, by the way, this hedge fund guy named John Paulson is taking the short side on the included CDS and was involved in putting together the reference pool, would have shied away?

The answer is clearly no way. They would not have cared. They believed the housing bubble wasn't over, and they believed the bonds' credit rating.

Had Paulson been wrong about the timing, no one would be saying that Goldman "knew" that the mortgages were bad.

So, yeah, that's the point. Goldman only "knew" (or really cared) that the mortgages were bad with hindsight.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

And, I believe, it was the incompetents at IKB who bought most of that junk. Incompetents whom it was suggested at the time were buying US mortgage debt near blindly. And who have recently admitted to Michael Lewis such allegations were absolutely accurate.

Idiocy is no defense to fraud. But there should be some level of disgust aimed at both sides of this deal: Goldman and Paulson for scumbaggery, IKB for unconscionable negligence.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

Agreed.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Speak for yourself. We need a jobs-led recovery. Only way to get that is to have a shock to the system that forces a 180 degree shift in policy. As long as these waterheads in power coddle the creditors who need to start taking haircuts to work out this otherwise insurmountable debt overhang, nothing is moving.

Except yours and my taxes.

(Who do you think's going to pay to keep all these unemployed/unemployable people from turning into a feral subculture? The rich?)

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

It appears an honest, bullish-on-America* Paulson is not such a good manager.

*Post '08, he took a lot of bullish positions, betting on economic recovery here, including housing. And it's cost him his ass.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

He's taken a beating this year betting on rising interest rates, I think. As has Bill Gross. Oops.

But we left the ratings agency out of our list of the guilty. They deserve opprobrium here too.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

Give me a break.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

They deserve the most.

Underwriter: "What ratings will you give this tranche? "

Rating Agency: "That depends, how much do you want to pay"?

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

Agreed.

What a lovely day of consensus.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

That's twice we have agreed in the last week. And here I thought you were a lost cause . . . .

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Alec Baldwin made $8.5 million last year. If he's going to be part of OWS, shouldn't he bring a $5 or 6 million dollar check?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Speaking of checks. How was the lah-di-dah UES fundraiser where you rubbed shoulders with the 1%?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

first it was in this palace of an apartment, with stunning art work chock-a-block everywhere. I didn't realize until later that the move is to not comment on the art work.

Of the 20 people 1 was a very well know TV personality (a 60 minutes guy), 1 was a writer whose work is very famous, more than his name, and 4 others were very famous artists of one sort or another (not famous to me, put to anyone educated in their respective areas). My wife sat at the artists' table* and they were all sullen or dicky. I sat at the spouses table and they were all great.

My two favorite lines- "My father was chief editor at Newsweek before taking over the journalism department at Columbia" and "I think sometimes we as parents want to force our own diagnosis from our therapy into our children's interaction with their therapists."

It was fun, in a "holy crap the movies about these people are pretty accurate" kind of way.

*As near as I can sort out, of the 20 people there only 4 of us weren't on the same cocktail party circuit. The host stuck us at our respective tables since my wife paid the charge when ordering the tickets so she "deserved" the artists' table.

Re: Lemony Snicket on #OWS
 

Looks like the SEC is at it again. This time with Citigroup playing the Paulson role.

I'm still not sure why it would be material to purchasers of a synthetic CDO, which is by definition based on someone like Citi either buying protection or shorting mortgage securities, that someone who was buying protection or shorting mortgage securities was involved in selecting the collateral. But I guess the SEC is.

The '60's will always be with us.
 

When they polled New Yorkers, support for OWS was positively correlated with income. Apparently your blue-collar types don't like the hippies.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I am so very, very tired of Joe Lieberman.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

So is he!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--53qJvgcHr...rmanAsleep.jpg

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

But we need less firefighters, not more, in most places. At least in SF where 85% of the calls are non-fire related, and most of them are to pick up (literally from where they have fallen) chronic bums and take them to the emergency room, sometimes the same guy more than 100 times a year. Their reduction would be a good form of reverse death panels.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

With firefighters, like electricity, you pay to have the capacity you want at peak demand.

http://0.tqn.com/d/history1900s/1/0/H/V/sf15.gif

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

You would prefer that calls be answered by more widely-dispersed ambulances?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

It would be nice if OWS would lead to changes in the way that police generally and the NYPD in particular seem to have carte blanche to suppress political speech.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

No. I would prefer they not be answered. But, if they must, yes. They would die more often.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

And it didn't matter because there was no water pressure.

And bullshit. Should we have one million EMTs/morticians in case smallpox comes back?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Surely there are some calls that you would like answered and in a timely fashion. Perhaps an accident involving your favorite band or bartender or something?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

A firetruck showed up at our flipover wreck in April. I was glad they were there, because otherwise there wouldn't have been anyone to take our dog while we were taken to the hospital (apparently dogs aren't allowed in ambulances). Graham would have stayed on the freeway with her instead of getting medical attention if there hadn't been someone to take her and ensure that she was safe. I guess they come to those sorts of wrecks in case one of the cars bursts into flame.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

My understanding is that in many jurisdictions it is their role to be the literal first responder, whether fire is a possibility or not.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Sure, but not whatever the Code is for "Angelo is lying in a pool of his own shit, again." See, e.g. Angelo's story - http://www.reportingonhealth.org/res...meless-patient

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I saw a bike rider hit by a cab last week at Columbus and 96th. A fire truck showed up as EMS. I don't know how he got to the hospital if he did go.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Structures are a tad less fire conducive these days.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

The Malcolm Gladwell piece linked there is interesting too. He takes a strange disgression into car emissions, but otherwise highlights how its probably cheaper to give these people an apartment than to keep picking them up off the street.

Makes me think of the local wet houses along the same lines (also profiled here, but requires free registration)

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

This guy's unbreakable.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I was thinking of our wet houses and how they save a lot of money compared to letting alcoholics stay on the streets because they won't go to the places where you can't drink.

Glad you posted because I was too lazy to Google and find the article.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Reason 98 not to drink every day.

Number one, and most important, being that if you drink every day, you'll lose the ability to feel the high of getting saucy. This would be an intolerable existence.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Depends on how much you drink each day.

One of those facilities is close to my place, although across the interstate. I've walked by and seen some of the residents out front. It's useful to reinforce a goal of not ending up in one of those places.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Not sure that is a real divide, but yeah, there's not much Obama can do, but that doesn't mean he can afford to do nothing.

Meanwhile, again, there is no reason that fixing this shouldn't be a bipartisan and uncontroversial form of stimulus if we had two parties who actually were interested in improving things:

link (pesky registration again)

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Those sound like a great idea to me. Kind of the opposite of taking porn from prisoners. Where are they going to turn but some other's guys (likely involuntary) ass?