Friday, March 9, 2012

Why does everyone hate short sellers?

This short selling ban is, without question, the scariest thing to come out of the whole mess.



And it is not that I don’t have perspective. The meltdown of three bulge bracket I-banks and the largest insurer in the world is pretty damn scary. But at least it wasn’t the government’s doing. You see, I have a far-fetched and unfashionable faith in this whole free-market thing. I realize the effective shutdown of credit and resulting lack of liquidity would have been devastating to the economy, possibly sending us in to depression. But how in the world does the banning of short sales on the stocks of these financial companies promise resolution? (Answer: it doesn’t, but makes the politicians look good)



Here are a few things I know for sure. First, hedge funds now dominate a huge portion of the stock market in this country. In order to hedge, they use short selling. Without the ability to do so – even if only for a limited number of stocks – their portfolios will be in chaos and this is not right.



Second, short selling is not evil. It is necessary. Typically the only ones who ever gripe about it are the ones frustrated their stocks aren’t going up. But even if it were evil, it was the way the game was played up to this point.



Third, if the bulls really were right, then they would eat the shorts’ lunch. The shorts would drive the price down and at some point, I, the fundamental value investor, would say "Holy cow this stock is cheap!" and buy it up. But we can’t do that with the financials because there is a good chance that they really are worthless.



Fourth, the act of the government telling me these stocks are not worthless does not change their intrinsic value.



Maybe there is a legitimate reason. The most logical one is that some short sellers are spreading false rumors. Well, this is called fraud and it's already illegal. If the SEC wants to go after any idiot that may be doing something like this, they can have at it. But banning short selling across the board is not an appropriate reaction. Jim Cramer articulated a different possibility, that short selling is being used as financial terrorism. I guess the theory is that some Middle East terrorist syndicate is coordinating a series of shorts, knowing that it would cause chaos in our markets. I guess that’s plausible.



Most important, though, is that the SEC itself has yet to justify the attack on shorts. I have yet to hear anyone explain how it is the stock prices of the financial firms that threaten the stability of our economy. I would argue that the stock prices, while reflective of the underlying firms, are not the cause of their troubles. The cause of their troubles lies in the credit market, credit default swap market and/or the mortgage backed securities market. But NOT the stock market. In light of this observation, the only conclusion I can draw is that Washington doesn’t want to see stock prices fall, regardless of the underlying fundamentals of the companies behind them. This is not a free market attitude.



Call me ivory-tower, but it was my understanding that short selling helps in this process we call price discovery, the driving force behind the efficiency of the capital markets. Without shorts, one must own the stock to take a bearish position. With it, the bears and the bulls can battle it out and reach a consensus called the market price. The sad truth is, the financial companies whose stock prices are getting hammered have financial statements that nobody trusts, giving the shorts as much justification in betting against them as the longs would have in betting in favor of a stronger company.



Moreover, the inability to short leads to market bubbles – the very problem (albeit in a housing market) that got us in to this mess to begin with. Short sale constraints are the classic limit to arbitrage. If bearish investors can’t take bets to offset the bulls, prices get completely out of whack. For an example of this see my old posting about the Palm/3Com situation from several years ago.



Herein lies the biggest hypocrisy of all; the SEC seeks to thwart stock market manipulation by short sellers, yet by interfering with investors' ability to short the SEC is itself manipulating stock prices far more than any hedge fund could ever hope to. It should be obvious the market’s rally on Thursday was not “hope for a bailout” as the headlines read, but shorts covering before it was too late. Well on Friday morning it was already is too late. The logic behind forcing investors to purchase stocks (cover shorts) at grossly inflated prices could only be understood by Karl Marx himself. These investors can’t even ride it out.Why does everyone hate short sellers?
Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz scared me as a child so I guess that is where it came fromWhy does everyone hate short sellers?
People hate short sellers because they make money during an economic collapse when all others are suffering.

The capitalist elites ban short selling in another of the many ways in which they attempt to manage and manipulate during a period of crisis. But banning short selling for any period of time cannot protect from ultimate collapse. It can only serve as a temporary restraint on that collapse.Why does everyone hate short sellers?
You have a lot to say in the wrong section, dude

What are the similarities of Republicans to Leprechauns?

Leprechauns are mythological creatures inhabiting the island of Ireland, faerie folk, and *****.

According to lore, the leprechaun is often a cobbler who is prone to mischief and keeps a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow. REPUBLICAN

While American folk storytellers created, for example, the myths of Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Ronald Reagan, the Irish take pride in tales of midget shoemakers who bury gold in a location that can be spotted by anyone with the ability to look up.

It is unclear why leprechauns won't give us their gold, but they appear to be holding out on us simply because they are a bunch of *****.REPUBLICANS

In Ireland, the leprechaun is well known for tricking poor countryfolk into thinking they are going to be rich, only to have them later discover they were exploited for the amusement of the leprechaun and his friends. In America, this creature is known as a :REPUBLICANS.

For hundreds of years, leprechauns have been engaging in financial practices that are suspicious and ill-advised at best. For example, is a well-known fact that leprechauns keep their savings in giant crock pots, which, even in theory, is highly risky. REPUBLICANS

The circumstances have yet to be explained concerning how and where leprechauns came into possession of the gold coins they stockpile across the countryside鈥攅specially on a shoemaker's salary鈥攖hough observers might speculate involvement of some sort of organized crime syndicate, horserace fixing scandal, or other criminal enterprise wherein the presence of a bunch of very short people would not seem out of the ordinary. REPUBLICANS

It also remains unclear as to why there is such ignorance amongst the leprechaun community about the existence of banks. REPUBLICANS

These practices of collecting gold and then hiding it in pots are particularly despicable in light of the current worldwide economic struggles. With the stock markets in such flux, the modern leprechaun insistence upon hoarding capital鈥攅ven in a volatile market鈥攊s just the kind of fiscal isolationism that prevents market stimulation and, therefore, should be considered selfish and unpatriotic. RICH REPUBLICANS

In much of the world, leprechauns in popular culture simply depict an amalgamation .Doesn't this explain the culture and ideology of the Republican party ?What are the similarities of Republicans to Leprechauns?
that's waaay too much reading

Should I believe Bernake "recession over" Or Regan's former treasury Secretary - "Great depression"?

Below are excepts from Paul Craig Roberts syndicated columns

This article written Sept 21 2009

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/090921_econ鈥?/a>



Index of articles written by Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/all_columns鈥?/a>

--------------------------



Americans are being driven into the ground economically, with one million school children now homeless, while Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announces that the recession is over.



The spin that masquerades as news is becoming more delusional. Consumer spending is 70% of the US economy. It is the driving force, and it has been shut down. Except for the super rich, there has been no growth in consumer incomes in the 21st century. Statistician John Williams of shadowstats.com reports that real household income has never recovered its pre-2001 peak.



At the urging of Larry Summers and Goldman Sachs鈥? CEO Henry Paulson, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bush administration went along with removing restrictions on debt leverage.



When the bubble burst, the extraordinary leverage threatened the financial system with collapse. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve stepped forward with no one knows how many trillions of dollars to "save the financial system," which, of course, meant to save the greed-driven financial institutions that had caused the economic crisis that dispossessed ordinary Americans of half of their life savings.



The unemployment rate, as reported, is a fiction and has been since the Clinton administration. The unemployment rate does not include jobless Americans who have been unemployed for more than a year and have given up on finding work. The reported 10% unemployment rate is understated by the millions of Americans who are suffering long-term unemployment and are no longer counted as unemployed. As each month passes, unemployed Americans drop off the unemployment role due to nothing except the passing of time.



The worst part of the decline is yet to come. Bank failures and home foreclosures are yet to peak. The commercial real estate bust is yet to hit. The dollar crisis is building.



In the midst of the highest unemployment since the Great Depression what kind of a fool do you need to be to think that there is a shortage of qualified US workers?Should I believe Bernake "recession over" Or Regan's former treasury Secretary - "Great depression"?
Have you read "1984?"



**I seriously don't know who to believe anymore.



But I sense that the crap is fixin' to hit the fan...



...I think "they" want it to.





*I wish I knew who "they" were, so I could kick the crap out of them.
Soon 2+2 will equal 5, or does it already?



I'll hold on to Jesus, the only TRUTH I KNOW.

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Should I believe Bernake "recession over" Or Regan's former treasury Secretary - "Great depression"?
At 10% unemployment Bernanke is wrong. Obama has taken a mild recession and turned it into a depression.
Reality doesn't seem to be a part of the feds world. importunately, they will probably not wake up until the pitchforks %26amp; torches are knocking on the door.Should I believe Bernake "recession over" Or Regan's former treasury Secretary - "Great depression"?
Unemployment was higher under Reagan. Are we to believe that the 80's was the Great Depression?
The definition of a recession is two or more consecutive quarters of shrinkage of GDP. A recovery is two consecutive quarters of positive growth of GDP. Most likely after we receive the quarterly report for last quarter of 2009 the recession will be officially over.
Bernake said the recession was "technically over," but that unemployment would continue to be a problem.



Paul Craig Roberts got to the heart of the problem when he pointed out that consumer income hasn't grown this century. Meanwhile CEO income has skyrocketed. Years of Republican union busting and blocking minimum wage increases along with other fair labor practices has taken it's toll.
Bernanke, Geithner, and the entire Obama administration are hiding the truth from the American people. They are buying time in order to implement their agenda before the proverbial 's%it hits the fan. - and it will. Japan is refusing to buy US treasuries unless traded in Yen, HSBC states that the dollar's supremacy is a thing of the past, and the whole group of them are planning to trade in their national currencies until a global monetary system is in place. When the dollar is dumped - probably by the end of the year - it will be known as the Greatest Depression.
I would believe Benake because I have not ever heard him use statistic in a deceptive way but Robert's statement about unemployment vergers on being a lie it is so deceptive. The official unemployment rate is measured the same way now as it was when he was part of the government. The only thing that changed under Clinton is the another measure was also published. If Roberts thinks this is the correct one, why was he silent when he was in a position of power. For both sets of unemployment data see

http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008鈥?/a>

Is it legal to use existing names in a pen and paper rulebook i'm helping to write?

I'm partly responsible for the lore and since it is a cyberpunk setting I need names for the various Mega corps. I have thought up some names but after checking the web they already seem to exist in one form or another. Is it for example allowed to take a name like "Eurocorp" or "Intex Systems" and turn it into a banking multinational or a computer firm in the book even though the name is a real life one linked to another organization. I know that Eurocorp was a corporation in the computer game Syndicate and that Intex Systems was part of the game Alien Breed but both do have several real life organizations linked to that name.



The book will be offered at a webshop so money will be made from it.Is it legal to use existing names in a pen and paper rulebook i'm helping to write?
if they are used in games which have similar settings or stories and a user could reasonably believe your book is related to the existing ones, it would be illegal - or rather subject to copyright infringement. If you are writing a story about banks and the company Eurocorp is a bank, they could take action against you as a person could possibly conclude the story related to the bank. If you are telling a story about a zoo, then there is no probably connection to be made with a bank and you are in the clear.

Could this be the other side of the Strauss Kahn frame-up?

http://www.myspace.com/tom_heneghan_inte鈥?/a>

Re: Strauss Kahn Frame-up--Another Motive revealed

"Item: Attorney General Holder, who was linked to the pardon of noted Bush-Clinton Crime Family Syndicate bagman Marc Rich, is now in a box with sources close to the New York Post reporting that both Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon are about to be indicted by a New York Federal Grand Jury.



Reference: The indictments deal with a violation of the New York state "bucketing" law which forbids false misrepresentation in the sales marketing of derivatives.



Note: And now the plot now thickens. A great deal of the evidence submitted to the Senate Banking Committee, as well as New York state prosecutors, was supplied to them by none other than the current President of the International Monetary Fund and soon to be French Presidential candidate, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.



It is therefore no coincidence that at 4:40 p.m. yesterday, May 14th, Strauss-Kahn was removed from a departing flight and arrested early this morning by New York police and charged with sexual assault of a chambermaid who worked at the Sofitel hotel in New York City near Times Square."



Is it not more to consider?



It reminds me of the recent "second'' death of Osama Bin Laden....But then, only those who look ever find the answers. lol

http://www.blissful-wisdom.com/bogus-bin鈥?/a>Could this be the other side of the Strauss Kahn frame-up?
Yes, quite possible. They need to investigate the hotel owner, managers, employees, since the maid couldn't have had a direct contact with whoever plotted the setup.
Oh, oh. Spaghettio.

Whoa, there are 8 police cars outside right now. I better get my camera and check this out.

All that for a DUI.

Yes. It is quite possible that he is being set up.

***************************************鈥?br>
It looks like the state got itself another nice Mercedes.Could this be the other side of the Strauss Kahn frame-up?
Possibly. i thought from the start that this man was set up. Why, would a man who could have his pick of any high price brass decide to force himself onto a chambermaid. Apart from assassinating him, this is one way to get him out of the way.
or maybe he is just a rapist.



Your question doesn't seem to say much that is intelligible, care to explain what you are trying to tell us?Could this be the other side of the Strauss Kahn frame-up?
There are so many tomes of laws and regulations in the U.S., that the average citizen commits several felonies per day.

Is there an elitist group in the country that believes that it is above the law - a pinstripe mafia? Yes, there is! Could he have been 'framed' for 'ratting out' the others? Yes, it's possible; or, he is being 'outed' - for doing so. One can't be head of the I.M.F., without compromising with what George Bush would call 'evildoers'.

Are there whole Government departments dedicated to 'disinformation'? Yes, but the U.S. may be the most amateur of the lot. Not forgetting that every Government worker promises to uphold the Constitution.

Does the whole Bin Laden story stink? Yes, it does!

LUke 3:14; Romans 13:13-14; Hebrews 13:18.
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  • WWE steal TNA talent...?

    You thugs keep whining... TNA is full of WWE rejects, WWE have taken some TNA guys too.

    WWE gives ex-TNA the belts or fame, to make it look as they made these wrestlers!



    Alexis Laree(women's champ)

    Joey Mathews(won tag titles on his WWE debut as Joey Mercury)

    CM Punk(2 time MITB winner)

    Monty Brown (became one of the best ECW wrestlers)

    Antonio Banks (won 2 U.S titles)

    Shelly Martinez (became member of the greatest syndicate in ECW)

    Chris Harris(undefeated in WWE)

    Kaz (undefeated in WWE)

    Jimmy YangWWE steal TNA talent...?
    Yeah your right and people complain that TNA has WWE Rejects...
    I don't think WWE went out of their way to sign the former TNA talent tho...



    But either way, fans usually don't have a legit reason to say these type of things.WWE steal TNA talent...?
    you missed out r truth but who the f*U*c*k CARES????????????????????????
    i would like to see aj styles in wwe but tna also steral wwe for example jeff hardy ,hulk hogan and bobby lashleyWWE steal TNA talent...?
    WWE is full of TNA rejects as well....you listed all the guys but you didn't mentioned Vance Archer (Lance Hoyt) Kaval (Low Ki) and Kizarny (Sinn).....What's the argument?
    wha about hulk hogan ric flair syxx pac jeff hardy mr.anderson kevin nash booker t kurt angle scott hall mick foley eric bischoff
    Alexis Laree = Mickie James: in TNA less than a year, and was applying to OVW at the time: worked for WWE Belts

    Joey Mathews = he was journeyman Enhancement talent before MNM, his time in TNA was no more notable than any indy fed: in WWE he got a tag push and was eevntually released for drug issue

    CM Punk = in TNA less than a year in Tag division: and worked his way into WWE Main event

    Monty Brown = Marcus Cor Von: Less than a year in WWE (on ECW) no WWE belts

    Antonio Banks = MVP: wrestled 2 matches on TNA TV (over a yr apart)

    Shelly Martinez = was in WWE 1st genius: No belts

    Chris Harris = Braden Walker WWE used him for 3 weeks on ECW : no WWE Belts

    Kaz = 1 month in WWE in 2005, no titles,

    Jimmy Yang = 3 months in TNA in between WWE developent and then going back to WWE: no title



    so um dude your argument doesn't hold water the people you mentioned either weren't in TNA or WWE long enough to unpack or were in fact in WWE before TNA and only a select few have been pushed as champions in WWE... statistically no more than any talent WWE might pick up from any other specific Indy fed

    I am a loan administration clerk. what's next?

    Hi everyone



    I have been doing syndicated loan operation for a while. I am really confused what I can do next.



    My duties include: Handling loan drawdowns, rollovers, rate fixings and payments, monitoring loan events on the banks accounting system and resolving loan queries. My bank is just a small bank so I do not have any agent bank role experience.



    Is it stupid if I keep staying in the same position? What kind of career path can I have? What can I do to help me find a better job?



    I am also not sure if there is any qualification I should take. I am 32 years old already so a wrong qualification might be completely waste of time. I would really appreciate if anyone could give me some advice.



    Thanks a lot



    JoshI am a loan administration clerk. what's next?
    You say you have been in the job 'for a while'. How long is that? Years? Months? Weeks? If you are happy in the job and enjoy it, what's wrong with staying where you are? Are looking for promotion within the company? If so, are there internal vacancies you could apply for? If not, or you are wanting to do something totally different, then it's up to you to decide what kind of work you should look for. Don't give up the one you already have until you are offered a new job though.

    If you have been in your current job for less than 2 years I would stick at it and get some experience behind you. If you are the type of person who flits from one job to the next, staying only a short while in each, you will create a bad impression on your CV as someone who is unreliable and unlikely to remain loyal to a company, so they are less likely to bother offering you a job and waste time and money training you.

    I think you are at a disadvantage in that you did not start working until 2 years ago ie you must have been about 30; either you spent the time up to age 30 in FTE or you have had some periods of unemployment. Either way, most people have entered the workplace well before 30, and have got several years' experience of work by the age of 30.
    Any job that you apply for now is likely to require less qualifications than the ones you have, so that any potential employer will think that you will become bored with the job pretty quickly as you are obviously have an academic mind. Coupled with that, you have very little practical work experience.

    I think you should stick with the job you have, to gain more work experience. By all means, look out for other banking or admin roles, but whether you will even get interviews remains to be seen. There is still a recession on, unemployment is high and I don't think getting any more qualifications is going to help you, unless it's a business-type qualification that you can do in your spare time and still work full time.

    Sorry. I haven't heard of the CISI qualification, but if it's possible to do it and work at the same time it might be worthwhile, but I don't really know. For my part, I am educated to A Level standard; I did not want to go to university as I had had enough of studying. I started full time work aged 18, just 6 days after my last A Level exam. I stayed in the same Civil Service job (though at different offices) for over 16 years before becoming a full-time Mum and then returned to part time working when my children started school.