Tuesday, July 31, 2007

International Banking Conspiracy Proven False Today as Bankers Duped by "Liar Loans"

Hundreds of thousands of Webmasters find themselves red-faced today as their carefully crafted conspiracy theories are beginning to unravel, or at least need updating in the face of the subprime mini-crisis. A simple Google search for "International Banking Conspiracy" will turn up at least 1,910,000 hits, and the jist of them all is that somehow "Bankers" have duped the average person into giving the banker's all of their hard earned money.

But today's developments have financiers around the world scrambling to assess just how badly Joe Q Public has duped them out of Billions of dollars. Todays developments include the near collapse of AHM (American Home Mortgage) stock and Moody's realization that perhaps many more than anticipated of the Alt-A loans might never be repaid (see this link http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_Wr2eJ6sESE&refer=home ).

As the grim truth about just how badly Joe Q Public has ripped off investment bankers, slick hedge fund managers, and the local credit union became more apparent today, one hedge fund manager was quoted as saying "It's like I have been robbed, I feel so violated".

Reached for comment outside his 3,700 sq. ft. house, Joe Q Public said: "Do I owe you money? No? Hey, great, can I borrow some money, just like $50,000.00, I promise I will pay you back."

Webmasters of banking conspiracy websites vow to 'never give up the fight' and promise to update their conspiracy theories to account for what is an obvious trick by the Bankers to create 'phony' losses in their never ending quest to enslave the population of the western world.

Monday, July 30, 2007

No You Can't Have Your Money Back, I Lost it, or Spent it on My Yacht.

Another exerpt link to a CNN Money Article. According to the article He buys himself a 142 ft Yacht and later must stop honoring investor requests for redemptions! he is selling his Yacht due to some bad investments presumably...

"Devaney's fund has run into trouble lately. A spokesman for the firm told Reuters on July 3 that it had stopped honoring request from some of its investors for redemptions, or withdrawal, of investments."


http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/30/news/newsmakers/yacht_sale/

Ford Spends $150,000,000 Developing US Standard Electric Car - Car Division Later Purchased For 10 Cents on the Dollar by New Rival.

Doesn't $150 Million look like a lot of money when written out as $150,000,000? But you can't blame Ford, gas was cheap between 1999 and 2006, who could possibly have known it would go up and there might really be a market for electric cars? Someone eventually bought their well developed product for 15 million, just 10% of what Ford put into it. The new company will compete with Ford in the near future. What a waste.

Quotes from the CNN money article are below along with a link to the original article. The comedy writes itself today:

With its eye on the California market, Ford pumped $150 million into the company to design a next-generation City that met European and U.S. safety standards. But when it looked like the automakers were going to kill the California regulation, Ford promptly sold Think to a Swiss electronics company.

By 2006, Think was in bankruptcy. Willums, meanwhile, was about to leave his firm for private foundation work, having made a mint from his investment in REC, an $8 billion Norwegian solar energy company. But the little electric car manufacturer caught his eye.

"So I called the two other key investors in REC about buying Think," says Willums, 60. "We didn't know anything about the car business. But we knew how to build successful businesses."
Willums picked up Think, its factory, and Ford's nearly completed design for a new-model City for the fire-sale price of about $15 million. That freed him to think about how to create a 21st-century car company. Much had changed since Ford sold Think: Global warming was dominating the headlines, the Iraq war had Americans on edge about energy security, and governments were beginning to provide generous tax breaks for electric cars.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/08/01/100138830/index.htm?postversion=2007073006

Sunday, July 29, 2007

The week ahead: Traders, Brokers Hoping for Increased Panic and Volume on Subprime Worries

"We can make a killing when we know the panic has set in." say top wall street institutional traders. That's because the lifeblood of traders is volatility, whether it's up or down.

There's lots of money to be made short selling stocks as they plummet in a panic inspired free fall. And the increased volume can bring bigger commissions into the brokerage houses as well. "The average investor will exit for a while, but they'll be back when they see the DOW up 500 or 1000 points in 5 months - or whenever they get bored of 5.05% money market returns." said one savvy trader. "We usually have a nice rally around Christmas when the fund managers are trying to make year end bonuses, they'll be back by then."

"What we are all hoping for in the next few weeks, is that joe public looks in the mirror, blinks, and runs screaming from previously well thought out asset allocation decisions. We all know that people love to dump good stocks and funds indiscriminately when panic sets in, and that's what we are hoping for. It gives us an opportunity to make money on the way down - or snap up some bargains for our personal 401k plans."

IRONY Index Rises as AHM Investors Complain of Missed Payment

In a shocking move to those holding AHM (American Home Mortgage) stock over the weekend, AHM announced that it would have to 'delay' a dividend payment. (See link to Reuters article at bottom.)

"Investors expect to be paid their dividends on time, as promised" said one investment banker whose fund leveraged a disproportionaltely large share of AHM in their 'Guaranteed High Returns' fund. "When I buy a stock, and that stock announces a dividend, I have an 100% expectation that the dividend be paid, and on time. " he said. Further: "The market, as we know it, is simply going to break down and grind to a halt if institutional investors are forced to examine whether each particular company they are involved with has the ability to make good on it's promises."

He concluded with: "I know that AHMs customer base generally provided little documentation proving their ability to pay, but I banked on that dividend announcement filed with the SEC. As a sophisticated investor who manages billions, I do not expect to be exposed to this kind of risk. This is an unexpected outrage."

Link to Reuters article follows:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2007-07-29T201723Z_01_N29340267_RTRIDST_0_AMERICANHOMEMORTGAGE-UPDATE-2.XML&pageNumber=1&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=InvArt-C1-ArticlePage1

Saturday, July 28, 2007

In Depth Analysis: Minimum Wage to Top $40.00 by 2021, $80.00 by 2026.

After successfully passing a minimum wage hike every year, for the next 3 years, the Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy want to build on their success. The Democrats have just passed the The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 which raises the minimum amount from $5.15 to $5.85 to $6.55 next year and then $7.25 in 2009. Kennedy is proposing a new minimum wage of $9.50 in 2011.

Market Factors noted that going from "about $5.00" to "about $10.00" by 2011 is, in fact, a doubling of the minumum wage in 5 short years. Using state-of-the-art software, our numbers show that based on planned initiaves, should they continue, the minumum wage may double again and hit about $20.00 by 2016 and about $40.00 by 2021.

"We weren't having much luck with the rest of our agenda, so we have decided to stick with what we know we can acomplish." said one Democratic insider. "We may or may not have a minimum wage bill pass every year, but we feel pretty confident we can double, or nearly double, the minimum wage every 5 years. It keeps our base happy and if we could get these increases passed sooner, much sooner, it may really help with the current market liquidity problems."

Friday, July 27, 2007

US, China Headed to Court Over Credit, Cell Phone Bills

A barely noticed development in this weeks credit meltdown was a lawsuit by the People's Republic of China in a California small claims court naming the USA as defendant seeking damages of $5,000.00 US and return of real property.

The foundation for China's claim is that some time in the past, the USA granted China Most Favored Nation Status and they began a long relationship. During that relationship China claims that the USA failed to pay rent on several occasions as well as ran up $800.00 in shared cell phone charges in the spring of 2007. As well, China claims to be holding "some very large" I.O.U.'s and says it has been unable to convince the USA to exchange anything of any real value for what it calls "worthless paper" in court documents.

China claims that US Treasury bills and other I.O.U.'s given to China in place of real payment have little prospect of being redeemable in exchange for certain household and infrastructure items that China would like to purchase. "I was always telling the USA, 'You have to start working and making something we need, like power plants or computers. But the USA found it more convenient to write checks to other countries to do that work for them. I told them they would overdraft our joint checking account, and in fact, we did incur several overdraft fees which I ended up paying." Those fees totalled $76.50 according to documents filed with the lawsuit.

Further, China claims that it's relationship with the USA has ruined it's credit and that it's relationship with the USA was one-sided with China constantly having to pick up the tab for one expensive item after another. Court papers quote China as saying "I thought we were going to have a long and prosperous relationship, and so, I didn't mind being the hard worker in the family. But now I can see that the USA just used me to provide for it's affluent lifestyle."

Legal experts say that the USA's provision to China of I.O.Us and Treasury Bills could be interpreted as evidence of a promise to pay.

Reached for comment early Saturday morning, a spokesman for the USA said that "China and the USA were never living together and many of the items China gave us were really gifts. We did have a relationship, but we continued to trade with other countries throughout the relationship. We always paid our share of the rent, and as for the gifts, many of those countries know what we are like, and they know that even when we promise to pay them back, we don't really mean it. As for the cell phone bill, there is no way we ran up a cell phone bill of $800.00 this past spring, no way, they would have to show us the phone records."

The USA admitted that "some of the overdraft fees on the checking account may be ours, but we are not so good with numbers or record keeping". The US said they would be responding with documents in court to support their position, if they still can find them.