Archive for March 12th, 2008


Wall Steet “wizardry” tanks Alabama county

wizard
Jefferson County in Alabama, where Birmingham is, wants Wall Street creditors to ease the conditions of their financial swaps in a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy.

While it seems that some stinky stuff might have gone on here, the real problem is that too many municipalities bought exotic securities without really understanding the risk involved. But that said, Jefferson County really pushed it to the max.

The county ended up with 18 different swaps at one point, an extraordinary number for a county government. The notional value of the swaps surpassed the value of the bonds they were supposed to hedge.

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You thought Bush was a warmonger?

McCain more hawkish on foreign policy than Bush, comments show

John McCain is at least as determined as George W. Bush to stay the course in Iraq and more confrontational than the president on foreign policy issues ranging from Russia and China to North Korea.

This from the crazed lefties at Bloomberg News.

All war all the time is NOT what the country needs four more years of.

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Sex addiction and Spitzer

fish hook
How much was Spitzer spending? The bank said Spitzer wanted to transfer more “than $10,000 cash”, but then requested it be broken down into smaller transactions to try to avoid the transactions automatically being reported.

Then, incredibly

After the governor transferred $10,000 by breaking it into smaller amounts, he then called the bank asking that his name be removed from the transactions, sources said.

This is unfathomably stupid. Also, it appears that he moved $40,000 through such accounts in possible violation of money laundering laws.

Then there’s this

The girl they sent to him claimed to have special skills at dealing with his allegedly dangerous requests.

The booker responds that he, in an apparent reference to Client 9, sometimes asks the women “to do things that, like, you might not think were safe

I don’t care what Spitzer does in bed. My point is, this clearly seems quite a lot like the behavior of drug addicts. Utterly reckless behavior. All that matters is the next fix. No concept of consequences. He was a D.A. He knew that multiple sub $10,000 cash transactions are automatically reported to the Feds. So did I, for that matter. My wife, a CPA, knew exactly how they got him when I read the headline, it was a federally mandated Suspicious Activity Report. This is not rocket science nor is it a secret. Especially not to a D.A. who has used such reports to prosecute others.

I’m sticking with my “revenge is a dish best served cold” theory. And I’ll bet the first hit was free. Then he got hooked big time.

PS Spitzer is expected to resign today 11:30am EST, according to Bloomberg TV.

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Vegan Moby vs. Col. Sanders


Let me get this right. Killing animals for food is hideous and must be stopped but killing humans who sell those animals is a righteous act?

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Auction Rate Securities freezing tech startups

ice

Up to 20% of venture backed startups may have been convinced by their financial advisors to put much of their spare cash into something called Auction Rate Securities, on the promise of money market-like liquidity with better returns. Now, that money is frozen, and startups are scrambling to find a way to free up the cash.

The money is frozen because there are no buyers for the securities. So those who own them can’t sell and get their money out. Such investments were supposed to be just like a money market, just like cash - but then the credit crisis hit.

A reader comments to our previous post on this subject that perhaps the brokerages can be forced to respond.

My broker sold me $1,000,000 worth of ARP’s in different funds.

I have filed a formal request for a malpratice claim against the brokers E & O insurance. Since most brokerage houses are self insured and must act under the rules of all insurance companies when claims are presented. They open themselves up to bad faith claims for failure to properly respond. Considering the opposing forces at play, doing the right thing as an insuror places them at odds with themselves. My hope is they act improperly and I will have a more valid claim against them for bad faith which will not be tied to the investment issue at all. It becomes a complete separate issue, and can place tremendous pressure on these firms if everyone pursues this. Being in the insurance industry has made me aware of this angle, should an insurer act in bad faith, the claim for damages can far outweigh the losses in our frozen securities. I encourage everyone to file a written request to open a formal claim. You do not need an attorney to do so.

Thus, he appears to be trying to put the broker into an unwinnable situation where they will then act improperly and give him leverage. Meanwhile employees of those tech startups are probably hoping for an answer real soon, wondering if the company has enough cash to pay them until then.

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