Mortgages and who is to blame

Going back to President Jimmy Carter, and perhaps even before, US Presidents have been excited about getting people to own homes. So Congress passed easier lending laws.

The banks picked up this hue and cry and ran with it. Like DUH.

So in today's New York Times Mayor Bloomberg "blames" congress for the debt mess, and charismatic ex-Mayor Ed Koch "blames" wall street and wants somebody to be tried as a criminal.

So take the issue I am dealing with, to whit, a Condo that sold at market peak to an unemployed mother of two children. She was given not just one, but two mortgages so she could have a cashless transaction. So who is at fault? Congress for making such loans available via ready markets for mortgage instruments? Countrywide Credit who made this fantastic loan? Or the woman who "bought" the condo knowing the payment far exceeded whatever income she could drum up?

Who would you throw in jail?

Congress, FannieMae, Banks, whoever.  Stop trying to figure out who is at fault.  it is too late.  The accident has happened.  Fix the Ship of State and get us steaming to a meaningful recovery.

Tarpon Fishing 2011

Tarpon fishing is at best a combination of blind luck, good weather, favorable winds and very good technique.
So the question is, what do you do when the king of all game fishes eludes you because the wind is blowing like stink and the clouds obscure what you can see?
If you have a really great guide like I do, you do something different. I did something today i have only just heard of. I went fishing for sharks with a fly.
Right now you are saying to yourself "sharks only eat dead fish" or "sharks don't fight".
Bullshit.

This "little" guy ran off 200 yards of line real fast before getting beat. So the next time Your target fish isn't on the bite, think outside the box, or at least get a great guide like Captain Anthony Skinner of Key West Florida. He will think outside the box  for you.

I landed three of these beautiful killing machines and lost several others because the hook didn't set just right and all the other nonsense that can go on when dealing with fly lines in high wind. 

Bottom line? Tony and I had a blast. Maybe tomorrow we will fish for amberjacks.

Chasing Monsters under the Bed

Isn't politics wonderful?

Goldman Sachs looks like one of the biggest crook on Wall Street because of one of the basic rules required by brokerages to remain at arms length with customer accounts. The concept is called a "Chinese Wall".

Let's take the case of poor Fabrice Tourre, the middle manager that GS has thrown under the bus in this mess. The scope of his job was to sell mortgage derivative securities to customers. As a confident young man, he is brash and apparently uncaring, yet he did his job well.

Because Tourre was in the Sales department, he is not and should not be party to what is going on in the Financial Engineering or Corporate Finance departments. His only contact with the Trading department should be to simply place orders.

I fear, though, that because of Politics, the poor bastard is gonna spend a long time in jail ... just for doing his job.

Brokerages have whole departments in charge of Compliance (with the laws). It is their job to police the practices of a firm. Why aren't they on trial? Why did they allow an institutional customer to cherry pick mortgages for a short portfolio? I spent a lot of years at a brokerage firm, and the institutional guys would not even talk to me except through the Compliance department. And even then, my Office Manager had to be in the loop.

I am not even saying that there are not "iffy" practices at Goldman Sachs. Whenever big money is involved, there are going to be big crooks. Ask Bernie Madoff. But for the most part, we strive to be explicitly fair to the customers, the markets, and our firms just because we are really honest guys save those tiny few.

So Fabrice Tourre is the Monster that Wall Street is going to defeat and be the hero.

Damn Damn Damn

I just downloaded a windows update. It installed fine. Then a second update appeared. It, too, installed fine. A third windows update balloon appeared. When is Microsoft ever going to get it's shit together? I can't network my windows seven starter with the shard folders on my network, and apparently th only way to do it is to buy a windows seven computer that can administer my router (I think). Of course none of this stuff makes sense to me. Outward appearances aside I AM NOT A COMPUTER GEEK! I cannot wait until cloud computing becomes real and I can install an OS that just does what I want instead of all the useless bells and whistles that some computer geeks think are cool.

Microsoft: Just because you have a virtual monopoly, beware. Somebody is coming soon to eat your lunch. I just bought a new computer ... it has XP on it.

Screw Win7.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Tax time came again this year. What else is new? My rant of the day has to do with the Alternative Minimum Tax.  Although I fall squarely in the middle class, I have to pay a lot of extra taxes under the "rich guy" tax rule. Do you know why? because Congress did not see fit to adjust the AMT for inflation.  So as inflation happens, more and more of the middle class gets hit with rich guy taxes. I had to file 19 different forms between the Feds and the State of Connecticut.

When I lived in Vermont, things were simple. 

1. How much did you send the Feds?
2. Send us 17% of that.

Why does it take a rocket scientist ... or more accurately ... a Certified Public Accountant to figure out your taxes? Simple.  I drive a Jeep.  My CPA drives a Beemer. And he is worth every penny. One year I got a bill for underpaying my taxes by $35,000 plus interest and penalties two years after the original return was filed.. I freaked out.  He went over the paperwork and showed them where he thought their keypuncher entered $1,000,000 instead of 100,000. Six months later I got a letter saying in essence nevermind.

Shhesh.

Headline News

April 11, 2011, 3:51 pm 

Why Insider Trading Is Wrong

By PETER J. HENNING New York Times

Are there any literate journalists around any more? Do you know what the punch line to this cogent and carefully thought out article is?

Perhaps the strongest argument about why insider trading is wrong is the simplest: because it is. 

Really Mr Henning? You truly have the courage to cash your paycheck? This debate is so vague. Are Wall Street analysts who do real homework on the companies they recommend subject to dealing on "non-public' information? They go to company presentations and interview management. Go to Seeking Alpha com and read some of the transcripts. There is a list of questioners that are the cream of Market analysis in each transcript.  Maybe the real question is: if your money is in the market, why aren't you part of the transcript?

And do not worry about "inside trading". The secretaries who read documents they are copying will get caught when their boyfriends make life changing profits on a trade. And it will be nearly impossible to convince me that analysts with their ears everywhere on Wall Street will trade away their livelihood for 1/2 of 1% of their assets.

Biggest Baddest Whoever

I saw the headline today:
Google Said to Be Possible Target of Antitrust Probe by FTC
Give a freaking break. They didn't start out as the only game in town like Microsoft did. And you know what a disaster that was. Google is the Johnny-come-lately that consumers want/need/crave to get out from the eternal blue screen money pit that is Microsoft. My personal Microsoft stuff is so riddled with errors that I have to restart my machine twice a day just to read email. So much for "hotfixes" The biggest virus I have ever had on my machine is Microsoft itself. Don't get me started on Windows 7. That's another whole rant.

So when someone comes out with a product that is so superior that consumers (users and Taxpayers) flee to it in droves, who do you suspect is behind the FTC claims? Thanks for chewing up more of my taxpayer dollars Mr. Microsoft besides all the money I have dropped in your pocket to date.

Deja Vu

One of the advantages of being an old fart is that nothing is really new.

Yesterday I read how bell-bottom  blue jeans were the new "it". Remember the 70's anyone?

Now I am listening to President Obama speak about reducing our dependence on foreign oil.  Did you know that that is why the Energy Department was created? I was a brand new program under President Jimmy Carter. Its budget has inflated wildly as has the number of barrels of oil we import.

Let's get another Government program with our taxpayer dollars.

Hip Hip Hooray

blech

Oh shit Oh dear

I have recently come to the conclusion that at heart I am a Libertarian.  The Republican party is too involved with the assorted "Christian" agendas to understand that by excluding people they are being decidedly un-Christian.  The Tea Party is too anti everything to really get n board, I actually think they, too are falling into the "Christian" agenda trap.

As an avowed Libertarian, though, I do every once in a while see a headline that makes my blood boil:

I.R.S. Sits on Data Pointing to Missing Children

The whole raison d'etre of the IRS is to collect data on us to pay our taxes to be part of a bloated and uncontrollable system.  Yes I am a fan of privacy laws, and the IRS should sit on 99.9% of that data as a fiduciary of public funds. But for all of those sad faces I see on the sides on Milk Cartons ... they need Federal protection and all the resources that our government can provide 
 

4 letter words

There are certain things I do that I feel require the liberal use of 4 letter words. I am actually doing one of those things now. After dealing with a "press 1 for English" telephone tree at 1-800-BEST BUY, I have been getting shuffled around from department to department to figure out why I am not getting confirmation emails from them. My big worry is that my Kaspersky will not renew when due.even though my credit card number is on file for automatic renewal.

PS If anyone at Best Buy  reads this turn down the volume on your hold music.

Phony Internet Advertising

Does it sound too good to be true?  It probably is. I clicked a link from an About.com news story. Should be okay, it's the New York Times for Pete's sake.
http://markets.about.com/about/news/read?GUID=17855217

I read this: Read our shocking news report on e-cigarette. You will be surprised what we found.

So I did. It brought me to a "news" site http://www.channel7wbc.com/electronic-cigarettes.htm 

It is a "Channel 7" News station that tells of a news anchor who quit smoking lickety split with an electronic cigarette that could be smoked in public places. The problem is that the call letters WBTV belong to a TV station in North Carolina, and they have no such news anchor.And it is on channel 3.

Are you getting all this? I did a little more fooling around and there actually is a "channel7wbc" web site with news from September 27, 2010. Interestingly enough, the links work to some extent. This is a very elaborate hoax.  It works on several levels, all the way to the point where the venerable New York Times takes their money for their phony advertising.

In sum, it might be in writing, but if it on the internet it can easily be a phony. Please my friends, be careful.

A New Year

Hmm ... I really feel that I should have a lot to say.  It is a bright shining New Year and everything ought to look rosy. This is a Red Letter year for me.  Lots of developments, including ... sit down everyone ... my 60th birthday on May 15th. If you had asked me in 1981 (age 30) how old 60 was ... I would have looked at my 4 grandparents, all in their 80's and said I guess 60 is getting up there, and I don't think I will make it. But these octogenarians are going fishing, playing golf, sitting on Boards of Directors, active at Church and like that.
As I prepare for the coming snowstorm I made sure the oil was changed in the snow blower I operate to dig myself and the rest of my condo out. I have plans to go to the  movies tonight, and I have plans in Yonkers on Saturday night (a little over an hour away in good conditions) at UrbanH2O .Do I feel old? No way. I Skyped with my Parents this morning just before Dad took Mom to another of her myriad Doctors' appointments.
I do hold out hope for the coming year. I would like to see the world resolve its problems without bullets or bombs or the threat of them, but I am smart enough to keep my shotgun handy
.
I hope everyone has a peaceful New Year and has a wonderful network of friends and family ... in short real wealth.