The Nightmare Must End

hamidm2...
if you are now in USA and not in your native place, rearing herd of goats and your daily routine do not include beating your 2nd wife and then having s** with your 3rd wife...much of the credit should go to brits...but little credit you should give to a short,dhoti clad brahmin from Bengal village,Iswar Chandra Bandopadhyay as well. He formed the education policy of Bengal, with help of Brits and then that was replicated accross British India...more and more you rename the institutions established by Sir Ganga Ram etc. to arab and central asian raiders, you will move closer to ideal islamic country...a pure chaos...and Pakis are doing exactly that....if you live another 20/30 years, may be you will see such situation...and that will not be something unexpected...whatever way you want to define "good moslems" like "special" tea, served by roadside stalls of delhi, that may not work....

hamdm2...
you are real punju joker and entertainer...

you want to be a musla without association with 7th century arab raider, his cock and bull story and related 7th century arabic stupidity and barbarism!!!
But then that is foundation of Islam/muslaism...

In Delhi (may be some part of cow belt as well), you can order "special" tea from roadside stalls...whole lot of sugar and milk, but not a single drop of tea liquor...but the stall owners will insist,they are serving you "tea" only...

Re: # 259
tahmed...
"not because of, traditional hindu culture (regardless of how the hindu nationalists seek to portray this and to twist history to fit their emotional needs)...."

Here the beduinoid is back with usual islamic wishdom...

So, the contributions of aryabhattas etc...which even scientists like Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein acknowledged as foundation of mathematics, is something muslas originatining in this part of world like to downplay...and that was british induced education!!!!

Re: # 368 Posted by rf786 on February 17, 2009 8:12:07 am
Re: # 367

bismillah bhai,

It is unfair to place all the blame at the doorstep of the republicans. It is true though that republicans would like more freedom and small government. The housing mess that brought all the current financial mess actually started during the Carter administration.

Obama's administration has this uncanny style of placing the fault line rhetorically on the last 8 years, which actually is totally bogus. And Obama himself admitted that Regan had much better economic performance. Well then, Dems have to place negative rhetoric on either on H.W. Bush and the Clinton administration. Actually, H.W.Bush lost the election precisely because of his "Read my lips, No new taxes" rhetoric, and then to get elected and raise taxes. H.W. Bush lost because of that. And of course, Clinton administration had an "enjoy-now-pay-later" world economy. It just so happened that the world economy was just entering a new phase after the soviet demise.

Of course this economy needs a long-term solution. How can anyone trust the feds to run with a $15T economy efficiently? It is very difficult to suggest that governments can run economies efficiently than the private sector.

I agree that main street should be rewarded, and not the wall street. We should ask the democratic congress this question. Since July of 2008, the democrats in Congress voted for TARP money, and now money for stimulus, and the coming bank bailout. All the bells and whistles required to manage this largess was conveniently ignored by Barney Frank.

I have suggested for a long time that this is a financial war with China. Their USD 2T foreign account will be depleted pretty soon buying all these dollar-bonds and the Euro-bonds which will be floated to get the dollars/euro in their respective economies. Actually, IMO, the Chinese mercantilist economy will lose to the knowledge based anglo-saxon economy. What do you think?

Good night sirji...I am no trader. I like to protect my downside (and also the backside) heheheh

Re: # 380

Spoken like a true trader, I wish you all the best.

Time to pull the shutters, goodnight.

on that I couldn't agree with you more. Sort of the natural tendency for populists and politicians to go over to teh extremes. But I have faith that the innovative spirit of the people in general will keep the gov't from messing around with the market system too much. Derivatives are not bad things you know...;-) I mean, in a few decades when machinese produce everything and human intervention is diminimus, we will all be trading derivatives o fthings made by machines....I like my odds in that casino.

Re: # 378

Createalpha Sahib

I always enjoy our conversations, thanks.

For those such as myself tied to this business have very little choice but to agree, it will be resolved. Having said the necessary disclaimer clause its important to emphasis the importance of healthy financial markets for global growth and prosperity. My biggest fear is the potential political and social backlash. Protectionism is rearing its ugly head, social unrest in eastern Europe and Asia will deteriorate, populist ideas will gain momentum and wall street will be vilified for the next one year at least.

rf sahib, I am not sure if it was a scam. Madoff was a scam, today's Stanford financial news..is a scam. this was a clusterfk....but it will be resolved. and if your beta is checked then alpha is not a bad thing to seek.

Flat "createalpha" Iron

Re: # 376

Investment banks are supposed to have comprehensive compliance policies, huge risk management departments, highly qualified people, best of the brightest yet they share bulk of the responsibility.

Like u rightly said, human behavior was an important factor which drove the need to achieve short term profit targets for that bonus and second vacation home. Improper practices were ignored for the sake of profits, compliance was ignored and risk management made subservient to alpha generators. Only the brave and strong could resist such temptations but the price was high as they were ridiculed and sidelined. Political leadership was also a beneficiary and chose to glorify and perpetuate the biggest financial scam of the century.

and about regulatiory environment and banking. contrary to popular belief, investment banks are some of the most regulated entities in all corporates. Billions are spent on compliance and risk management. risk mgmt in global investment banking is perhaps the largest department in all of operations.

one of the other problems as I see it is also the earnings guidance BS in the global equity markets. balance sheet health, which traditionally had been a key component in stock selections over the course of the last 15 years gave way to EPS. think about how many companies leveraged their cash, set up treasury desks, etc. instead of holding it in reserve or safer instruments.

the last 4 years were the worst. but we will come out it, hamidm will buy that lake front house in Mackinac Island and Tahmed will visit him to discuss the talibanization of karachi over some scotch and pakoRas.

Re: # 373

Very well said.

Leverage, leverage, leverage and more leverage was used to drive profits higher, profits based on assets with unsustainable prices.

rf sahib, take a look at investment bank profits in trading vs. advisory before 1995 and uptill 2008. during this time where both reps and dems were in control....we have structural changes to the market system like decimalization for example, which (as I mentioend below can be rhetorically justified) ate into teh traditional commission structures of the brokers, then came the ECN's which started providing direct market access to every tom dick adn harry that can have an online trading account and a computer with better priccing and info feeds. This also drive down the revenues for stock brokers. the idea was good, lower the cost of trading, enable greater competition etc. But the downside was...the banks, which traditionally had smaller trading and brokerages vis-a-vis advisory businesses like M&A/restructurings etc. looked to create instruments to list and trade. SO whereas before they were just executors of the trades, they now began to be executors, market makers and counterparties with balance sheet assets in all these products that they selves created (a taboo in a traditional investment banking set up)

all because of the road was paved with good intentions.

Re: # 369

True, but one has to judge circumstances on events directly preceding this crises. Bush took over with a budget surplus and converted into a deficit, Republican economic philosophy promoted self-regulation by capital markets and we know its end result, went to war without any tax hikes to fund the war, promoted a culture of cronyism and complete lack of focus on the real issues.

Financial services, Universities with their high flying business programs, greed and poor regulation can be used to explain this crises but have little policy impact.

Re: # 370

Hamidm sahib:

"... bill clinton says (as usual) he didn't do it :..."

The bigger irony is that Bush says he did it, then what. Although Clinton also said "I did not have sex with that woman".