quote:

Originally posted by Comrade Stalin Bring back Glass-Steagall is all I'm saying.

+1

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Quarantine Classics Brunello di Montalcino (In Transit) Edition [Progressive Classics] (August 2020)
Quarantine Classics - Puligny-Montrachet Edition [Progressive Classics] (April 2020)
What Is Progressive Anyways? [Progressive House Classics] (November 2019)

USAA is going to be fine! They operated great for 80 years under the New Deal regulations. They will operate fine with these.

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i wonder if the WSJ realise they're making a great case for more regulation.

I think this is part of what scares me. There is broad bi-partisan support for financial reform--something will get done, there is little doubt about it. However, I fear we may end up with 3,000 pages of over-the-top nonsense once the sausage finally gets made.

Wow. Wanna see the world's biggest witch hunt? Tune into CNBC, Bloomberg, or Fox Business (or probably CSPAN or any other legislative or business related news channel). I have heard our classy elected officials say "shitty" no fewer than 10 times in the last hour. Goldman, on the other hand, is exhibiting nothing but class. It is also clear that these congressional inquisitors have about as much understanding of business as your average dung beetle.

It does look pretty ridiculous. The primary question one should ask when doing a derivative trade is how the other side is going to fuck you. Not Goldman's fault that some didn't do their due diligence. So-called sophisticated investors. Sophisticated my ass...

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i wonder if the WSJ realise they're making a great case for more regulation.

You mean Murdock's new toy?

The WSJ doesn't have a clue any more, if it ever did. With a drive to generate revenue while maintaining ideology the paper is going 'populous' by focusing on issues that readers want to hear about, not what they need to hear about to make informed decisions in a world of global capital markets.

People playing in global markets need global understanding, the WSJ barely looks away from the NYSE, which is a huge mistake, and certain topics are off side, like talk of currency valuation.

I'd be very careful with using the WSJ as a guage of anything more than the sentiment of the ill informed. Still something for investors to know about because sentiment can break banks.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka I think this is part of what scares me. There is broad bi-partisan support for financial reform--something will get done, there is little doubt about it. However, I fear we may end up with 3,000 pages of over-the-top nonsense once the sausage finally gets made.

The bill I downloaded in Dec. 09 was 1,200 pages. Needless to say I've yet to really 'get into' that...

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka Wow. Wanna see the world's biggest witch hunt? Tune into CNBC, Bloomberg, or Fox Business (or probably CSPAN or any other legislative or business related news channel). I have heard our classy elected officials say "shitty" no fewer than 10 times in the last hour. Goldman, on the other hand, is exhibiting nothing but class. It is also clear that these congressional inquisitors have about as much understanding of business as your average dung beetle.

I agree with this, the senators and regulators aren't looking good. But isn't this something to be expected from a long held culture of giving government little respect or funding to attract skilled people? Haven't all the brightest lights in the US been avoiding public service like the plauge for decades?

I did a read over of this about a month ago and seemed to feel that there was something not quite right in the whole set of charges. The thing that got me most was that the charges fly in the face of what has been long held as a US tenant of buyer beware. Does this open up Las Vegas to similar charges? They know that they are encouraging customers to 'invest' in games that are designed to make the customers loose.

I just spoke with a friend today about the issue and it happens that she'd actually met the G+S guy who's on trial a few times (she does that whole finance thing) She agreed that he wasn't the most pleasant of people all the time. French educated, at one of the big schools, and I think Stanford after that if I remember what she said right. One point she brought up was that the whole debate set of charges are being brought in a really suspect way.

She said that most of the charges had to do with European desks, based out of London, and investing in places like Germany. Although I might be off on the exact nature of this the point remains that she said it wasn't a US issue at all really.

I find this adds an even more crazy dimension to the whole thing. From my reading, mostly CNN + Financial Times, I was under the impression that this was a primarily US type of thing. I completely feel that it has been set up as 'Goldman + a Jerk with more than one girl friend V. the people who lost it all in the heart land of the US'. It has been held up as a continuation of the 'Banks screwed you over' narative that the media and politicians in the US are loving right now.