got tonkaed wrote:admittedly im a little too intoxicated to understand where im going to go with this but....
fruitcake....what kind of impact does the cheap buyout have on shareholders? Also one of the strategies i heard about earlier today was to allow some of the non-performing loans to stay on the books a little longer, though i understand how this can help, is it really a systemic type of change or just a stop gap measure?
Depends which shareholders you are referring to got tonkaed. If you were a Bear Stearns shareholder, having been clever enough to buy in last August, I would imagine you are waking up this Tuesday wondering which truck it was that hit you, worse if you are pensioner who placed a great deal of savings into those shares because this was a ‘blue chip’ investment (always staggers me how these so called blue chip investments are run, but there you go, people have said I was a party pooper for the last 3 years).
If you are a Lehman Brothers shareholder, I would imagine you would be heading for the exit as fast as you could, sure in the knowledge that those on the ‘inside’ i.e. the investment operations, banks etc, had already exited before you, the audience, knew what was happening!
If you were a JP Morgan Chase shareholder, I would imagine you would be quietly sidling up the wall while the show was still on, trying to stealthily head for the exit, problem being, you keep bumping into others surreptitiously trying to do the same!! I would be wondering what the assets are now worth that this operation has on its balance sheet, after all, they were valued last December, before the real meltdown began.
Moving on, re the non-performing loans, I think the answer is in the title of the loans. Only a self important, self satisfied, smug bunch of complete hypocrites could look at
NON PERFORMING loans, and say to each other…”oh, tell you what, let’s keep them on the books for now, that way the balance sheet will be shorn up (this way we still get to stick our greedy self interested fat snouts in the trough a little while longer, and screw the shareholders and everyone else, the party’s over anyway)” Staggering.
Let’s get this right….this is a system that has got so rich and powerful over the last 30 to 50 years, that it has forgotten the basics. It is a system that has become so involved with its own incredible greed that it has stopped looking out at the world. It is a system that has become so far up its own derrière; it has stopped doing all the basics anymore.
Retail banking: When I opened my first account, I had to sit in front of the Manager, explain what I was going to do, build a relationship with the bank over some period and generally behave myself. Now you walk in, the Computer decides while some moronic mediocre middle manager (ahem) does not care if you live or die! So you have no loyalty in return, your whole attitude is one of ‘screw em’. I almost fell off my chair a couple of years ago when listening to a senior banking guy being interviewed on a money program we have over here…he said (get this) “Young people today are far better equipped to understand the rigours of using the Bank system than ever before” I was staggered…WRONG!!!! The young people of today are no different to how they were in my day, as venal, self interested, selfish and daft as they ever were!!! (And rightly so, enough shit will hit them as they get older) So what do the Banks do…oh yes…they throw debt at them like it’s the last thing they are going to have in their lives!!!
You are Mr and Mrs below average, you have a record of debt problems, your income is low and you are generally the first casualty in any slowdown…what do the Banks do??? Oh yes, open you an account, and then offer you money!!!!!!!!!! And this is where the banks greed becomes just too much to bear…
Because they don’t actually want to dirty their hands with their own money, they sell your debt to them on to another (along with a bunch of other debts), skimming a small percent off the top for themselves, now they then take this income money and do the whole process all over again!!! The next in line thinks...hmmm...lets pass the parcel, so they sell it on at more discount to yet another, who may well be a non bank. Now everything is fine, but they also pass on a load of shit (as we now know)
Now, your Mr and Mrs below average hit some problems…because the banks have been ramming debt down your willing throats they hit problems. The ultimate owners of the debts start saying WTF!!! This isn’t what we bought is it??? The banks say yes, so the others turn round and say, well screw you, we ain’t doing business with you anymore. One by one, you all stand in a circle shouting, until someone turns round and says…oh dear, my income is now drying up to the point at which I can no longer pay my own debts! (Having borrowed £/$97 for every £/$3 you stumped up!) Who do you owe this 97 to…oh yes, the very same people who are screaming in the circle!!!!!!!!!
IT HAD TO END!!!!!!!!
Everything was slowly but inexorably winding itself tighter and tighter because of one simple thing, greed born of laziness.
Moving on….CNN may tell you to do that, they would be right. However…a 25% return on an investment that fails is a piss poor record against 2% on an investment that succeeds. I always say, screw ‘em all, spend the cash on your own family, best investment there is. My sons already give their Mother an allowance ( and rightly so, she put up with their shit for years) they are steadily moving up in the world and will always be there for her…I invested heavily in them, this is our payback. (As my Dad did me, etc etc)
Hope that helps…some rants, but I tried to pain the picture so it was understandable.
