bills_fan

I always buy scalped tickets to most events. Never had a problem and usually get much better seats than I could have gotten online or through a broker. Always get the real seats and usually 10 minutes before kickoff. I have rarely paid more than 10-20 bucks over face. Doesn't matter if its the WS at Yankee Stadium, a Bruce concert at Shea or any Bills game (home or away) that I have attended. Most times, I will choose an away game and not even buy tickets until 10 minutes before the game. Always have a seating chart with you.

No, but what is news is that WaMu's board and senior management didn't even know this was happening today. They thought they had more time.

I had thought of that, but the capital would be there due to oil revenues. I also thought the FBI investigation to be odd.

I do agree with you...wonder if KC would take a 2nd & 5th for him? Gonzalez would really open up the field. Imagine the room the outside guys would have with Gonzalez taking a double team down the middle.

You see...I knew I liked you. What a real decent thing to do for someone. to you stuckincincy

I admit this has all the making of the moon-landing-was-staged crackpots, but the original site I linked to, Minyanville, has been a trusted resource of mine for years. To put that out there, would destroy all future credibility. That is the only reason I'm not dismissing this as a ghost story right now.

No clue, certainly not advocating this theory at all. Just asking if anyone else heard anything about this.

This quote is from I site I respect and consult daily. Anyone hearing anything about this from other sites/work/etc. that you could post? I have heard nothing. Full Article EDIT: Another site report on this... http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/200...r-attack-o.html

Its always a good time to do that...that is if you have an extra $133,300 laying around.

And it came down to a game winning FG...nah, sh*t like that never happens twice.

No, you misread me. The problem stems from the relaxation of lending standards for all homebuyers, encouraged by each successive administration since Reagan. If lending standards were still tight, like in the NYC program, there would be no crisis.

Change interest rate to discount rate and you just hit the trillion dollar question. These securities are debt instruments. The way to properly value one of these things (once it is unwound) is a method called the discounted cash flows model learned in Finance 101. Basically, you take all the cash flows that the instrument will pay from now through maturity, and discount them to present day. The whole time value of money concept. Once unwound/unbundled/sorted out, the cash flows are pretty easy to determine. The determination of the discount rate is far more art than science, and one reason why fortunes are made on Wall Street. The discount rate would factor in such things as risk of default, interest rate risk, market risk etc. It make a huge difference if you use, say 6% versus 8%, especially when talking trillions. If I could figure out the discount rate, I'd start my own hedge fund buying these things. Treasury will buy these things at a discount (not the mark-to-market, pennies on the dollar) price they currently sell at. Treasury will then hold or pay someone to administer and then sell at a profit (hopefully, if done right).

Caused...perhaps not. But we started on the path to ruin when lending standards that had been in place since the 1930s were relaxed in the 1980s... and the following.... Finally, and I did not know this, but NYC had a program to help low income residents achieve the dream of home ownership. It was administered by the Bloomberg administration, and properly run. Consider the following... Full articles below for citation purposes Bloomberg Program Other article

But, the plan will be passed. Congress wants to appear to be negotiating a tough bill and not capitulating to White House demands. Another body and you will see the bill passed within 24 hours. And there will be another body...

What are the odds he got her upstairs and was so bombed he just passed out. She figured she would help herself.

Wow! I have known some shady broekrs/bankers/traders in my time...but Wow! I really am speechless.

Absolutely right. But the Dems have had less time to mess it up than the Reps had. I expect that to change if Obama is elected.

And to make it even worse.... Brokerage firms had to mark the assets to market. When there was no market, the asset was worth "zero", even though in most cases the assets were paying what they were supposed to pay and on time. Why was there no market...everyone is afraid of doing a trade, because they don't know what the other guy has. They barely know what they have themselves. These assets are so complex and codependent on one anotehr, that a default at an asset held by a hedge fund, could trigger the value of your asset to fall to zero, even though you did nothing and the payments are made on time. Which is why "credit crisis" is a misnomer..."confidence crisis" is more accurate. Mark-to-market accounting was the SEC's response to Enron. The theory was that if you had to mark your assets to the market value, you could not overstate your position like Enron did. Problem is that no one figured the entire market would freeze up. Now, lets contrast mark-to-market accounting (promulgated by the SEC in a post-Enron world) with commercial banks. Commercial banks (or Bank Holding Companies) are exempt from mark-to-market in long term held assets. They are permitted to mark at historical cost or market. Now you get why Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley converted immediately to Bank Holding Companies? This was one of the chief reasons, that and they figured they would embrace the regulation/regulator they knew (the New York Fed) rather than some ambigous, regulatory scheme cooked up by Congress in response to this disaster.

I certainly would not raise taxes into the teeth of a recession. This rescue package puts a floor under the problem and will save the system. It is not a panacea curing all that ails the system. I would extend the Bush cuts indefinately, proportionally cutting spending (unlike the abhorrant Bush administration and Republican Congress). But then, I am a tax cutter and spending reducer.

This is absolutely the entire point of the rescue package. Anyone disagreeing with it or not understanding it should read and re-read these two paragraphs until they get it.

You are, of course, wrong on this. I want you to read this article about NYS raising taxes, then exacerabte the problem to the rest of the country. If we do raise the taxes, we will have a depression. I don't think that is even open for much debate. Article on Taxes

Yeah, but if we have to face Dallas again, I'm going radio/TV/internet silent for the two weeks leading up to the game.

So she's saying he had game? 50 years later and she still remembers Johnny? Go Johnny go, go Johnny go, go, go...

But would any trading floor mark the asset to zero if there was no liquid market for it? Doubtful. Mark-to-market forced firms to either mark securities to zero with no liquid market (and the SEC was watching for accomodation quotes, so that didn't work) or use a formula. But, if you used a formula, you had to be prepared to defend the formula, with support from your public accountants. Since the Big 8 accounting firms has dwindled to, I believe 3, nobody wanted to defend any formulas in any possible litigation. Hence zero valuations. Now, the securities themselves were far from worthless, with many paying decent cash flows and on time. But since they had no liquid market, they were worth "zero."

There is a lot of blame to go around here. Fannie and Freddie deserve their share, but many other do as well.