Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

not to brag, but check out my avatar to see whose Christmas list I'm on. If any of you serious Dems want I'll have it scanned and printed for you to fake it.


ps is there a way to upload a picture?

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

I'm sure you hear this all of the time: it's too small.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

This made me giggle. I am a child.

LessinAdelaide

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Good article here about OWS.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

2. The problems OWS raised aren't going to go away. And it can be argued, quite persuasively, our "print our way out, instead of addressing the underlying disequilibrium between revenue directed to shareholders and to workers" approach is going to make things even worse.

I used to be persuaded by guys like Marc Faber say the primary adjustment we needed to make was lowering labor costs to compete with developing nations. I'm not so sure that's true anymore. I think the great sucking sound now is money that belongs in the hands of spenders (workers) instead being used to satisfy shareholders and by extension, the excessive fee-charging, middling, talentless fucks we enable in the finance/investment sector. The more time I spend around finance people, the more I realize why we've lost our innovative edge. The people siphoning all the money are the dullest motherfuckers alive.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

It would be better if Wonk said it, but welcome to the dark side.

I'm torn, though. Because on the one hand we need to get our financial sector under control. On the other hand, the financial sector is one area that is somewhat less subject to foreign competition (or at least competition from low-wage developing markets). Nonetheless, it's become too big a part of our economy and the concentration of wealth it causes is a major drag on growth.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

I'm just trying to divine what these fucking people actually do for a living. The math on most deals doesn't require a degree from MIT to divine. Really, seriously. Even I ran a business. The hard part is the sales/marketing side - the finding of customers, etc. Making the numbers work is just doing street work to find the best credit structures (again, brainless work) and paring costs.

What do these private equity geniuses involved in underwriting deals and then overseeing the management of companies do? The lawyers do all the nitty gritty regulatory/transactional/tax work. From my position, these brilliant "dealmakers" do nothing a fucking commercial loan officer couldn't do - read the financials and determine how to get in and out for the fastest, biggest profit, with the least risk. I guess some finance people are useful for their connections to sources of lending, and should receive a premium for that. But this shit isn't genius work. I think a lot of the reason it trades for a high price is that the processes involved in it are made to sound, using silly industry-speak, like insanely complex things. That and the deals are all heads I win tails you lose. Who the fuck can't "succeed" in a structure where he sucks out ten times his skin in the game within the first year of a deal regardless of whether the company goes on to to do well or collapses?

I think the way to deal with the investment/finance sector is to make it more transparent. Educate people as to how uncomplicated most of it is when you boil it down and watch the value of services connected to it drop as they have with law. Yep, I realize - that's fantastic thinking. Allow me to dream.

ETA: Yes, I'm over-simplifying a bit. But it's annoying. I don't mind a guy making a buck in a racket. We all do that to some extent. But these douchebags in the investment/finance sector actually seem to think they are worth what they're getting. It's like listening to a real estate agent claim she's worth her commission.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

The big PE shops do a number of things that make them money. They buy companies (often out of bankruptcy when they can eliminate a bunch of the companies' labor obligations) that they have identified as potential bargains. If they can eliminate as many jobs as they can after paying off the company's owners who are cashing out, they can work the fuck out of the remaining employees and/or replace them with cheap overseas labor.

They also benefit from the fact that they do lots of these deals. The most successful ones are flush with cash and banks love them and want their business. Since banks fight over that business, they take advantage by using very low interest, leveraged buy-out structured loans where the only risk is the fraction of the purchase price they put in in cash. The rest of the debt is on the back of the company. The big sponsors require covenant-light deals so they can extend the amount of time a company has to pay back their investment and their exorbitant management fees before it goes under again. If the company fails again, it typically fails after they've been paid back, so who cares? If it succeeds after being stripped of its employees and loaded up with debt, then there's a huge windfall for the PE firm that holds the equity.

The talent is sniffing out companies with labor issues which are otherwise healthy and owners looking to cash out. You can pay off the owners who will pitch the purchase to the employees as "I know we couldn't get you guys to give up your pensions and other benefits, but we're going to go under and you'll all lose your jobs if you don't give up everything you've spent all your careers negotiating for." Obviously this isn't the only business model PE firms use--they identify lots of different types of inefficiencies and poor management approaches--but this seems to be pretty common in my experience.

Yeah. You're dreaming. In an industry made up of the most powerful and wealthy people who consistently cheat and steal millions and billions of dollars and who regularly walk away from it with no punishment whatsoever, getting any kind of change that limits their ability to print money is a joke.

Yes. It is infuckingsane. All of the hedge fund guys, Ibankers, private equity assholes, and a host of others all live within 3 miles of each other, only interact with each other, and complain about how they're hated for their talent and genius and deserve every cent they make because they can get it and work hard are completely delusional. They truly think they deserve what they make and are furious that there are people out there who don't work as hard as they do, aren't as smart and expect things like access to health care. They are furious. They isolate themselves and have absolutely no perspective whatsoever.

I had a conversation with a client at a hedge fund not too long ago. She decided that she was sick of working (at 32), left to travel the world's most exotic and beautiful places for a year and a half and was just angry as hell that Obama might raise her taxes. I said, "Well, he (and Bush have) done nothing but lower her taxes over the last 12 years, so it couldn't be that bad, especially since she was essentially retiring with millions in the bank. She could. not. comprehend. what I was saying. She just stammered and stuttered about having to pay for other people. Hello? You don't work any harder than I or tons of other people do. You're not any smarter. And you have enough money in the bank at 32 to never have to work again! Hell, you're not even making the decisions at the hedge fund. You just monitor the investments. Do you think you deserve what you're making?

It's insane.

TM

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Well, it depends on what you mean. The investment bankers who work on m&a deals are in sales and marketing. Their job is to find the buyer and get the highest price. They have some math people, but they are there for valuations that anyone with an undergrad business degree could do (or any undergrad degree involving a small amount of math). And they are very highly compensated.

The ones designing and analyzing derivatives are actually potentially doing some very complicated math. But it may or may not involve any real understanding of the underlying business or markets.

The ones trading are the worst. They think they are the second group, but they are really the minor leagues of the first group.

Make the money.

I think more of it is that your and the institution's name sounds credible to investors and at the club.

Someone who can't raise the cash to put the deal together.

Has the cost of related legal services dropped? That's not my impression. The same factors are at work. If you have a multibillion dollar deal, you like to be able to tell people you hired Cravath, even though you might have gotten just as good of service from a regional firm (hi!) for a fraction of the cost.

I think we can all mainly agree* that you are right about that.

* I botched that, didn't I?

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Someone should make a movie about it where they take an average grifter off the street and turn him into a big time financial genius trader of commodities.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

http://content8.flixster.com/questio...631930_std.jpg

Good one.

TM

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

It's a classic on so many levels.

Who knew Sebby is a Secret Progressive?
 

Sounds like Sebby to me.

'Given Warren’s star power, the progressive activists who fuel her campaign see her as a leader in Washington whose influence extends far beyond her single vote in the Senate. Many are rallying around her vision of a “balanced approach” to reducing the deficit, which is notch or two to the left of Obama’s.

Beyond tax increases for the wealthy, she has called for the elimination of many agriculture and oil subsidies, cuts to defense and an end to the war in Afghanistan (which costs about $2 billion a week) while leaving Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security untouched.'

(Well, except for not touching entitlements, that is.)

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/poll...nced_approach/

TM

My secret fantasy for the day
 

With the possibility of another Senate Seat opening up in Mass., I'm trying to push Susan Rice as a candidate.

Rice and Warren as Senators from our state. Damn, we'd have some swagger! I just want to see a Rice - McCain foreign policy debate on the floor of the Senate. With a Warren-Shelby banking double bill.

Re: Who knew Sebby is a Secret Progressive?
 

Sounds like my soulmate.