The Obama Adminstration's Handling of Wall Street.

Call me over-analyzing all you want, it was blatantly obvious to me the Major meant that the retroactive application of newly or potentially future implemented law (as mentioned, ex post facto) was the issue, as witnessed by the line:

Your beef of perceived injustice/uneven application of justice is irrelevant to the subject at hand. Not unimportant, just irrelevant.

And as Major correctly pointed out, there is NO LEGAL BASIS for prosecuting Goldman or Deutsche with retroactively implemented law. If it actually went there, it has zero chance and legs to stand on in the Supreme Court.

If you want to talk about uneven application of justice though, start another thread...

 

No offense or anything, I've met way too many college grad that thought they were hot ****. "Business oriented major" or not, usually takes about only a month to cut them down in size.

And, chuckles, I'd say structured products, fixed income trading, underwriting, brokerage, sales, etc etc etc is largely different from BCom.

I find it funny that you argue "in practise" and "in theory" when it is fairly obvious you have no idea how either works.

Let's start with the usual "ratings agency" rant. Admittedly it's a pet peeve of mine. First of all, you (along with the rest of America, apparently) have no seemingly no working knowledge of how the ratings work. The ratings only mean "the wherewithal to meet one's obligations." Nothing more, nothing less. It gives ZERO indication of whether you will make a return. I could sell you a par bond and promise absolutely nothing and pay ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, it would be a AAA rated bond. Because I did exactly what I told you I would do. Pricing, cash flows didn't mean ****. You were the dumb one who got in that trade.

Secondly, you got your orders reversed. You DON'T go to a ratings agency and say "I structured this sh1tty deal, give the senior tranches AAA ratings." You go to the ratings agency and say, "I got these collateral, I'd like to have some AAA bonds." They'll say, "this is a real pile of ****, we're not giving you AAA for this many bonds unless you have 90% credit enhancement, 5% OC..."

Thirdly, structured products DOES in theory, AND in practice, mitigate the risk. And which window dressing would be? Have you ever actually read the prospectus, PSA, remittance report, 10-K, 8-K, 425(b), 15-15D, research report or any sort of documents related to any MBS, CMO, CLO, CDO, ratio-strip, covered bond or any other structured products?

Every piece of information that you would actually need is disclosed in them; and as of 2004 and later, fairly standardized within class that they're down right boring.

NOBODY at Goldman or anywhere else gave the representation that the collateral is anywhere better than it is. And far more importantly, NOBODY at Goldman or anywhere else gave you a fair market price. So where did the window dressing came from?

Corrections, you have an ALLEGATION of perjury. To have actual perjury you kinda have to prove it in a court of law, which HASN'T been done. As a matter of fact, it isn't even a foregone conclusion that there is even going to be a trail. So in summary I think I pegged you quite well, that you have actually ZERO KNOWLEDGE of the subject at hand.

 

Wow, you talk a lot of **** ... but have you ever clarified what exactly it is that gives YOU any expertise? Go on ... why should people believe what you say?

 

Talk a lot of ****? Do you actually have any substance that can refute any of my points? If your focus is on me, you already lost the argument, because it demonstrates that you can't refute any of the facts on their own merit. It isn't about me. Never was.

As for my expertise, make no mistakes about it, the only reason I don't divulge them is because I don't particularly care for revealing personal information online; but let me say this, I know more about structured finance than 99.99% of the people out there, including so many self-purported online "experts."

 

LOL, dear H1, - as Goldman found out last year, at the cost of about a half a billion dollars - there's no "but I'm not a fiduciary!" exemption to Rule 10b-5, despite what you may have google translated somewhere.

 

All that needed to be done was to stipulate conditions under which TARP funds would be distributed.

 

If you're not advocating that I am not clear why you bring that up. Also I don't think Major is defending a system that doesn't exist as he acknowledges the failings of the system but is pointing out the nature of the laws.

I agree this appears to be a failing of our laws as they are / were.

 

If you are going to claim expertise you should be willing to state where that expertise comes from.

 

I find it disturbing that that wasn't done but from what I recall we were in a crisis and they were desperate to implement TARP as soon as possible.

 

If I ha a nickel for every time I heard that...

 

These "failings" have existed since the country's inception. The argument is that, once again, the establishment has colluded to maintain this "failing" as it conveniently allows for the wealthy and connected to maintain the control that keeps them obscenely wealthy.

Major is arguing "oh, their hands are tied by the law! What a shame, we'll get it right next time, I promise!"

Both parts of that POV are utter malarky.

 

Then do you think we shouldn't have implemented TARP when we did? What do you think would've been the consequences?

I admit that I don't really understand the nuances of the financial system, what really frightens me is the possibility that no one actually does. I didn't like TARP in principle and I question how much it has succeeded but I don't think righteous indignation at the fat cats would've improved things if it did lead to the collapse of our financial system.

 

What are you advocating then? That we ignore the law and throw the rich into jail even though they haven't broken laws?

A lot of what happens in this country makes me angry too and while it feels good to vent about it I actually would like to try to understand the nature of the situation rather than just vent about it.

 

Your article doesn't mention a mechanism that was in place when TARP was implemented but part of the legislation that was packaged with TARP.

Your article also supports my understanding that TARP did save the country from financial meltdown but says that the package wasn't fully implemented.

 

I'm still torn on those questions. I think a lot of the fearmongering was simply that, but I am certainly not capable of gauging the fallout if TARP had been slower to arrive. I do note, however, that TARP failed to pass repeatedly without the world falling apart - in that time a host of stipulations could have been worked into the deal, e.g., the reverse auction idea at a minimum.

In any case, I would have happily taken the risk if it meant correcting the system to the people's benefit.

 

I am advocating that Major get off his high-horse.

 

EDIT: Forget this post. I don't want to derail this thread into a debate about Major.