Damn, I'm agreeing twice with JIMGA in one morning. Make it stop. First, if I were one of the guys getting the bonus- I'd say "asses to you" and take my money. Maybe give back a token portion to get the boss off my back, but, honestly- these are not really bonuses like we think of bonuses. They're basically "don't leave the company and we'll give you cash to stay here instead of jump off this sinking ship". Like Flasch said, they'd get jobs elsewhere. That said, if we want to tax the heck out of them, particularly those in the financial instruments division, I'm game.

Also, to one of your other posts, there's no way we, through AIG, should be paying stuff out at 100% of value when they don't have that value. That's just adding to the liquidity problem as people won't move those useless financial instruments until they get full value rather than getting fair market value. You bought crappy valued stuff by extending your risk, you lose a significant percentage.

SI

Face it, our government is in bed with all of these banks and wall street companies. Doesn't matter if you are Democrat or Republican.

Using a sports analogy since this is a sports board. The fans of the Red Sox and Yankees get all fired up about how much they hate each other, sometimes actually getting into altercations with opposing teams' fans. And then after the game who is Derek Jeter more likely to go have a beer with, a Red Sox player or a Yankee fan? Watch as they switch teams anytime the money is right and tell me where their allegiance is.

It's all a game to these Washington guys also. They play "main street" vs "Wall Street" and then at the end of the day Dodd, Reid, Pelosi, Frist, McConell, Boehner, the owners of all forms of media, and all of the Wall Street guys go have a drink and a laugh as we debate Republican vs Democrat. And then when the public starts to catch on to their game they throw us a bone like the millions of dollars of AIG bonuses or the earmarks. So instead of (stealing from Mizzourah's cartoon) questioning the warehouse full of money being moved around we fixate on the relatively tiny crate of a couple of million dollars and feel satisfied when they "stick" it to one the Wall Street guys. In the meantime another one of their friends gets another hundred billion dollars. But we got em! We taxed those million dollar bonuses and showed them!

Ready for more faux outrage? Wait until 2010 when these companies that we will still be bailing out contribute money to both political parties. That will be quite the shock. Wait so AIG still has a millions times more influence than panerd! How can it be? So AIG means more to the Republicans then MizzouBallFan and AIG means more to the Democrats than Flasch? But they debate your talking points all the time! The system can't be this openly corrupt, can it? :devil:

The dollar is plunging and oil is up just over $3 right now.

Surely you mean gas? I don't think oil's been near $3 for a long time (unless you're using a non-standard measure for oil).

I think I want to spoon with panerd right now.

Opps...Meant to say the price of a barrel of oil is up $3.

Gold is pretty volatile, but its up 25% since October (when I started ranting and raving about inflation). I think we're going to see the other side of the commodity killfest of last year... especially because I think people over crapped on otherwise productive companies over fears the economy was never going to buy anything ever again. Some of my Feb/Mar pickups show hope (after initially showing red :( ).

In my opinion the only person who makes any sense on this issue. I love how he asks for more time and gets shut down. And then the guy is an asshole to him again when his time runs out. You know both sides hate him but it is unbelievable that he doesn't have a bigger following with the public who is so outraged at how their tax money is being spent.

YouTube - Ron Paul on house floor: "We create these problems" (03/19/09)

Not a WalMart fan but I'll give them credit where credit's due:

Wal-Mart Giving Workers $933M In Bonuses - Money News Story - WKMG Orlando

They took advantage of the free press being given as part of bonus outrage and turned it into a plus for them. Sure, it's only about $700 per worker but they didn't have to do it and those workers receiving it probably could really use it.

SI

Maybe they should give them better health care instead so 75% of them aren't on taxpayer funds.

I can understand your views on the taxpayer-supported health care, but why do they have to provide health care? It's not like they held guns to their heads to take the jobs.

That does go back to the age old argument of "does Wal Mart put other companies out of business by throwing their weight around". If they're the only game in town, they're the only game in town.

SI

Wouldn't you argue that we, the consumers, are responsible for that. We complain about companies like Wal Mart, but it doesn't stop a lot of us from spending the dough.

I don't mean this sarcastically, because I really don't know, but was there a time, maybe pre-Walmart dominance, that service industry employees received full benefits? And I'm not talking salespeople at Sears, I mean minimum wage people. I find it hard to believe that "Joe's Downtown Electronics" was offering full dental to shelf stockers.

If they were, I still think that our country is better off having cheaper access to consumer goods for hundreds of millions v. a company's employee's getting greater benefits. That seems like a net gain that we've enthusiastically chose. We picked Walmart. They didn't impose their will on us. They're not an evil concious monster. They're merely what we want.

When Joe's Downtown Electronics was in full swing, we didn't have this odd notion that healthcare is a right instead of a commodity.

I actually spend more money not to patronize Walmart. Some things are more important than saving $10. I'm not going to get in to great detail, but I think the Sam's Clubs and Walmarts are responsible for a lot of crap that's wrong with today's society.

There's two relatively nearby Walmarts in Chamblee and Tucker and I've been to them a few times. Not only do they completely disgust me, but they are quite unsafe as well.

When Joe's Downtown Electronics was in full swing, private health care wasn't more than your salary and providing as small benefit as possible.

To the first paragraph, I kindof doubt it. Which is why I think that the argument used is not a good one.
EDIT: Tho miked put in a counter to this

If we want to argue that having a WalMart out there causes all other standards of living to go down by setting a much lower baseline due to their size, then we might have something. I mean, really, this is a company that is responsible for some stupidly high number of our GDP, like 3%.

Tho, why does salesperson at Sears not count? I'm pretty sure we can chalk up a lot of department store ills to competition from WalMart. Circuit City and Comp USA have gone under in the past couple of years due to intense electonics competition from the "higher end" by Best Buy and on the cheap stuff from WalMart. Yes, bad management by those companies doomed them. I'm sure we can find mistakes made by all of them. But if there's no competitor, particularly a strong ruthless one, they still continue on through a market inefficiency. Now I'm pretty sure that's not the right answer but it is an answer and it's out there.

As to the second paragraph- I'm not sure I'm happy that cheaper consumer goods over industry standard higher wages and benefits is better. With free trade, I know that's where we've been going for 15 years but if you could take away half of my consumer stuff yet guarantee me good benefits and a more stable job environment, I might take that deal.


I thought this was along a similar line so I threw it in here. I don't shop much at WalMart because I'd rather spend more money and get more quality. But my tradeoff is that I get less stuff. I'm comfortable with that but I know others aren't so that's how people have spoken with their wallets.

SI

What department stores do you go to that give their employees such great benefits, or pay their employees so much more (or is the disgust based on something else)?

There seems to be at least a reference to it in the Constitution:


It is widely accepted that Welfare in this instance means health and well-being, not the current social programs that use the moniker.

It is only partly due to their past treatment of employees (you know, all the class-action suits they have pending and have settled). We're supposed to believe they changed their ways.

I'm not going to really get into the rest of it as it tends to generate some controversy (sociological, environmental, etc). I don't too much shopping for stuff, let alone at Dept. stores. I'm quite certain I support some fairly bad practices with some purchases that I need (like my computer for work, shoes, etc) but I try and avoid what I can avoid.

I think Americans have decided we don't like salespeople. In the old days, a guy with a shirt and tie at Sears would sell you a TV, and he'd get a commission. But these days, for all kinds of reasons, we prefer to skip that step (for example, we can figure out what kind of TV we want from the internet).

So get rid of all that customer service that nobody wanted to pay for and we get Walmart. Walmart employees aren't asked to do as much as the Sears salesman did back then. You don't need a high school diploma.

Some people still want customer service - but a lot, like me, really don't want the help, I'll go in there, get my shit and leave. So I'm glad I have the option not to pay for "customer service", or any kind of employees that don't need any particular expertease or skill.

If I'm feeling charitable, I'll give money to the Idaho Food Bank. I'm confident they'll do more with the money than Target v. Walmart (or whoever the "good" department store is).

These days, the Sears salesperson sells you something nice, and he barely pockets any money whatsoever. :( 1% on most items, I can't believe I still work there.

I think we should go to two stores:

Store A: The employees stock the shelves and do security (maybe man the ever decreasing number of cash registers), but you are on your own.

Store B: Someplace that actually trains and pays their employees to help out.

Watch inevitably the masses throng to Store A for even a 10% discount, all the while bitching about how its such a sucky place. Even if it says in big letters on the side of the store: "no customer service, cheap ass prices"

I personally would pay some sort of fee just to have more that two cash registers open at my local super-duper mart when I go to checkout. The last ten times (and i go so rarely this covers months) I've had to wait in a 6 to 7 cart line if I actually buy more than a few items. And if I buy a couple of things I have to wait in the pooled line for the self-scanners, which would go crazy fast if you didn't have complete fools trying to use them, or people trying elaborate junk that the machine chokes up on and requires a cashier to look at anyway. Or those severely testing the 12 item limit.

Or I would pay for the people at Best Buy just to shut the hell up. I won't go there because I'm sick of them trying to sell stuff you don't want or need, too slimy.

:( :( :(

With the internet, online shopping is also putting a big dent on sales people.

What exactly is "quality" that other stores have that Wal Mart has (I'm not talking about a low-end end TV compare to a high-end TV, ect.)?

If you need a job, here you go:

Pole positions: Strip club holds job fair - U.S. business- msnbc.com

I was reading something the other day that makes sense to me.

I wonder if Congress' current power grab by trying to take back the AIG bonuses will end up becoming the Democrats' Terri Schavio: A naked abuse of power by Congress that seemed to have political support at the time, but the more people examine it, the more it will seem like, "Damn, I don't know if I really want Nancy Pelosi/Bill Frist managing my day to day affairs."

Corporations are going to have to give higher executive bonuses to account for the risk of government appropriations.

Damned if I see corporate welfare, taken straight from the hands of shareholders, being much better than government welfare taken from the hands of the taxpayer.

If there's a legitimate need to pay those workers more then they'll be paid more, that's how things work. But in the case of Wal-Mart that ain't likely to happen since there's no shortage of barely skilled labor to cause the cost of supply to go up.

My incentive to talk someone into anything more than the bare minimum they need these days is nil. We're basically to the point where we downsell even, just to attempt to move overpriced warranties on TV's. I mean, we got this really nice line of Samsung LED LCD's in the other day(like 1.1 inches thick), and I can't foresee a situation where I'd even attempt to sell someone on one. No incentive to me, cause I make more money selling like a 1299 tv and getting a 279 dollar warranty than I do selling a 2999 LCD with no warranty.

In the past, where I actually got more money for stepping up people, I would worry first about what piece of nice high end stuff I'd sell them. Now it's a play to nickle and dime them into stuff they don't need, otherwise I get yelled at. It's basically a daily crisis of conscience with me, as to how I can continue to work for such a slimy company, that expects its workers to be slimy as well. In the end, the customer buys something less than they probably want. It's really a fucked up system, if I was a bit more creative I'd write a book about how fucked Sears is. How it's seemingly better to sell nothing at all, instead of selling low margin stuff.

I was thinking specifically to food but there are other examples as well.

There were a lot of people in Lawrence who shopped at the WalMart super center. I never understood that because prices at the other grocery stores in town were pretty good, especially when compared to now living in Richmond. There were 3 levels of grocery in Lawrence- low end (Checkers), middle (Dillons, a Kroger store), and high (Hy-Vee, oh how I miss them). But WalMart always had so many people buying there and they had worse quality produce and meat than all the other stores.

Yet there people were, buying week after week. I'd rather have non-bruised fruit, non-brown lettuce, meat that hasn't been on the shelf for weeks, etc. And you can't get that every week at any place as some stuff is in season, but, on the whole, WalMart was on par with the cheap store in both price and quality and well below the other two. And we're not even talking about service. Yet, again, there would be as many if not more people at WalMart's grocery sections than the other stores. I just never understood that.

But how about comparing things that get you value (i.e. not luxury items but comparing like for like). Think a cheap piece of crap set of tupperware for $10 that will wear out in a year versus one that will last 4 for $30. Or a cheap $5 pillow that will be flat in a couple of weeks versus a $25 pillow that will hold up for months or years. Again, I try to opt towards the latter if I can. Or, for my work shoes, I'll spend a little more and expect them to last for a year or two whereas I go with cheap, crappy WalMart level shoes for running and they're lucky to last a few months.

SI

Must be situational. Here the W-M has the best bakery selection in town, the second best chain grocery meat (i.e. not counting the one specialty butcher shop in the equation). The produce lags behind the others, namely two Krogers & a Publix, but I don't buy produce at WM because of that.

But when the everyday price of Maxwell House coffee is literally half what the others are charging, when the sale price of 2-liter Coke/Pepsi is $1.00 each instead of $1.50, when WM has the largest variety of Little Debbie snack cakes, etc etc, then they're going to draw a body count.

Best I've been able to tell if you really want to minimize grocery cost then you're going to have to selectively shop at least two stores. Who is cheaper on a single trip seems to come down to what your usual shopping cart contains. Here in Athens if you're into prepared food then Kroger is your primary with Wal-Mart for "essentials" like coffee & Cokes. If you're into heavy duty cooking with your own ingredients on a daily basis then it's Publix for the best stuff & Kroger for the more basic stuff. And so forth. What you buy most seems to make the difference in which store is cheaper for satisfactory quality.

I've got a friend in Dunwoody (wealthy Atlanta suburb) who swear by Wal-Mart for best grocery deal, lots of people where I grew up (exurban now)
do too. I swear I consistently get the best overall deal at Kroger, other people here in Athens seem to love Publix. The difference is what we're buying.

That "if I can" part is what I think you're underestimating. I don't really see that many people shopping for tupperware or pillows at Wal-Mart buying the bottom end/knockoff/generic stuff that see the higher stuff as an option.

The Walmart near me is so bad I avoid it if at all possible. I'm willing to pay the extra couple bucks to go to the Super Target, which will have more than two cashiers working on a Saturday night. Standing in line for 30 minutes is not worth the saving IMO.

I find stores like Target and Wal-Mart are very fast when it comes to the check out lanes. Even the ones that have a cashier vs self checkout. Also, not everyone that works at those stores are idiots. The Target staffers seem to be pretty knowledgable in general.

Quality is a hard sell these days. It seems the herd is programmed to 'discount' shopping, even if the numbers are completely gamed. Such as 75% off sales where the final price is 10% less than another store you can the exact same product year round at a stable price, in the color/style you want too.

Walmart actually costs more than our local superstores (Meijer, IMO) and has worst selection, but to be honest, for a lot of perishables you don't really need quality. And given you can sell non-perishables with sticker price games and low quality, or the crazy 'contract' crap Best Buy shoves on you... I'm not surprised that eventually we are going to end up with a two tier store system where the masses go to the Wal-marts for every thing, and the fancy pants go to some high-end store designed to keep out the riff-raff with higher prices.

I personally would love to shop at a third option, the electronic futuristic style store that you go in and get a spiffy little toy that tells you where everything in the store is located and all the deals. Mmmm... shopping carts with computers built into them, that scan the contents of your cart instantly and ring up to charge to your debit card with one signature.... drooool.

I'd basically pay a higher price for time. If I can get what I want crazy fast I will steer clear of the Walmarts with there measely penny savings and finish my shopping with a 1 minute checkout, automatic readout of targeted coupons/discounts (go ahead and big brother snoop the hell out of my shopping habits in your store, if it means I get an automatic reminder when peanut butter or Mountain Dew is cheap I am all for it), able to look up info and maybe even reviews on products on demand.

I think that last paragraph probably has a lot of merit. I can only speak to my own circumstances. I'm not making money hand over fist by anyone's measure as my wife and I pretty much make the median income (for dual earner households). But we have no kids and we've been furiously paying off school and other debt over the past couple of years. So, we're fairly comfortable but nowhere near excessive. I realize others aren't nearly that fortunate. If we had a kid or one of us were unemployed, it would be a different story.

Back to the grocery anecdotes- I'm 100% with you about needing to shop in two places (or more). In Lawrence, we used to get food ads so we would get the sale stuff at Kroger and then everything else at Hy-Vee. Here, we have horrible mail service so our food ads get here on Friday sometimes or usually Saturday for sales that end Saturday- it's very frustrating. In general, we hit dry goods at Food Lion, a warehouse style store like HEB/Food4Less/etc, and then produce at the Kroger or Ukrops since the quality is much better. Some weeks, we hit up a famer's market type store for produce, drop it off at home, then go to Food Lion and Ukrops or sometimes just Kroger (as they do a decent job).

Also, I think people really don't pay attention to their grocery bills that closely so I don't trust a lot of anecdotal evidence (which is, of course, the most valid evidence ;) ). You seem like you'd pay attention, but you know what I'm talking about. People see that they can get one thing cheaper at one place and think it's automatically cheaper.

Hell, I think Kroger lives off of that with their membership card- their sale stuff beats the sale stuff at most anywhere else. But, they get sneaky with other prices if you don't watch it. Take advantage of that- get their equivalent of loss leaders but don't put on blinders because you're too lazy to go to another store.

SI

I don't know what *cough*CircuitCityClearance *cough* you could be referring to...


That's what I'm worried about because I used to camp in that middle ground and they are quickly disappearing.

SI

Actually I agree with this, I have done increasing amounts of shopping at Target. Had to fill some prescriptions there, got in, got out, was happy. The local WalMart and Meijer though are terrible about this, especially on crazy Saturdays where they have herds of people and no one working, doesn't even make sense.

Target's computer games also happen to be close to the food... so I'm definitely noticing a change in my shopping trends just as a part of comfort/amusement level, but I also have years of habit in the way (must undo my own programming, eeek, get out of my head consumerist mindwashing!). Doesn't help that my driving pattern goes right by a super store, which along with chineese food, bars, and gas stations tends to have a high correlation. I'm too much of a creature of routine, although one more 5 minutes shopping and 25 minutes in line may be enough for me to give WalMart most unfavored store status.

EDIT: I will say though I have never received rude treatment at those stores, which is about the only thing that gets me to outright band a place. Even when its busy, the workers generally were doing their best to be polite and help people do their shopping. It is management and their incessant tomfoolery and bad policies (like the contract pushing, or chopping costs to the point where there are just not enough workers to get things done) that are causing me to outright blacklist segments of the retail sector.

I've worked at a Walmart close enough to recent memory, I know that half the time a register is empty is because someone is doing three jobs at once. Although I was the electronics geek who would go all out to find the last cheap TV hidden in the backroom rather than just give up. But I also was probably too principled to be there for long, I was perfectly happy to tell people which discount brand had a good failure rate, and which would break at the drop of a hat (if they asked, did not want to come off as judging what you purchased or trying to upsell). Or say straight out I have no clue what the difference is between X and Y on some obscure piece of equipment.

I think there is a market out there for well staffed and well trained (I was not really well trained, obviously) stores, but I think it won't succeed as a business model until we get stores on the information superhighway path to differentiate them from the discount service. Technology to lure in the first time, and comfortable quick service to keep any of them with more money than time around, and let the masses wait in line for an extra 5-10 bucks off their cart.

Target tends to be fairly fast. WalMart both here and in Lawrence was slower than mud, in terms of checkout.

SI

Have you tried the website for the chain(s) you aren't getting the circulars on time for? Quite a few of them have their ads searchable by zip code so that you're seeing the right one, that might alleviate some of the aggravation.


Oh that happens big time for sure, my parents are bad about that with groceries I think, although my dad is actually where I get some of my more anal shopping tendencies (checking price per unit/weight, consistently checking use by dates, etc).


Sneaky? Heck, with everyday prices at $9.97 for Maxwell House vs $5.49 at Wal-Mart I don't even think they try to hide it anymore ;) I'm not remotely a fan of those card programs but Kroger's happens to be one that I can use to great advantage, only one ever really. That's a shopping pattern thing, they tend to loyalty discount a lot of things I buy anyway, so it works great for me. My average there is between 25% & 30% off every $100-$150 shopping trip, other places I'd be lucky to get $5 saved. The trick to those, for me at least, is to avoid buying categories you wouldn't buy otherwise but be sure to hit things that you were going to buy anyway. And keep an idea in mind of what the regular prices for things are elsewhere in order to avoid screwing yourself.

Of course it probably bears noting that none of the four different groceries we shop at are really off our beaten path, so there's none of the wasted time or gas that goes with chasing bargains sometimes. That makes our shopping style a lot easier to do than having them be on opposite sides of town or in a bad traffic pattern or something.

I don't think this particularly means anything larger but I thought it was anecdotally interesting anyway. 8th bank failure in 7 months in Georgia as the feds took control of a small three branch bank in the south metro exurb of Stockbridge. The odd part was that it was the first case here where the FDIC couldn't find another bank to take over, meaning the FDIC will be issuing check to depositors on Monday. Of the $270ish million in deposits all but $770k are covered by the insurance.

It strikes me I never gave you a response here. Days slip by.

Here are a couple of reasons why I think Lehman failing was a mistake (and admittedly, some of these are bigger picture, rather than Lehman specific)...

1. Immediate Mess and Turmoil--Lehman's bankruptcy caused an immediate lock up in most of the interbank lending markets. I think a lot of people would argue that pushed us into a deeper recession and was an unnecessary set back that added time and trouble to any recovery. It took a while for Main Street to feel the effects of that, but it did hit pocket books in hidden ways (overnight STIF in mutual funds was essentially non-existent, for example).

Another immediate mess symptom was that the market depreciation and Lehman defaults caused the Reserve Fund to break the buck (first money market fund to do that in 15 years).

The retort here is that it's the market and there's risk, etc. I get that.

2. Inconsistent Policy--Why did the government save Bear last March, but let Lehman go? Why save AIG a day later? What is too big? I think a valid argument is that the real mistake was saving Bear in March, but once that was done, I'm not sure there's a good purpose in making an example out of Lehman. I think that led to an increasing lack of confidence in the goverment and a general sense of bewilderment in the market.

3. Bad Policy as a Result--This may take a while to sort itself out, but the regulatory environment will change and some new regulations will be ridiculous, uncoordinated, overbroad and ineffective. This is one area where it may not be Lehman specific, but more industry wide. We're likely to see some wacky things come out of various regulatory bodies.

(Since you mentioned credit default swaps, I'll give you one very specific example. You might remember some press about the New York insurance commissioner looking to regulate credit default swaps. He announced a plan that would require "Covered CDS" (when you buy protection on a bond you actually own) to be treated as an insurance contract forcing anyone who sold Covered CDS to register as an insurance broker in New York. That makes some literal sense--when you own a bond and buy protection on it, it is like insurance. But, it makes absolutely no sense if your goal is to reign in some of the speculation in the CDS market because you're leaving unregulated Naked, or uncovered CDS, where protection is being bought and sold without regard to whether or not the underlying bond is owned. To their credit, New York realized that this regulation would add a lot of bureaucracy and paper work without really addressing the problem, so they withdrew their proposed regulations. Quietly, however, the state of Missouri implemented identical regulations at the start of the year. It received no press. So, now, if you're a Missouri company or pension plan you have to follow an ineffective and burdensome regulation put in place by folks who don't understand what they are trying to regulate.)

I fear that folks in Washington or NY aren't much better and we'll see some silly things that don't really address the issues.

4. Bankruptcy Delay--Non-consensual bankruptcies add delay and freeze assets for increasingly long periods of time.

5. Bankruptcy Games--We discussed this one before. Barclays deal. Executory contract cherry picking, etc.

6. Power of the short monsters--There is a theory, now backed by some evidence (though any transparency on Lehman is very slow to come by) that Lehman's balance sheet wasn't comparatively as bad as any other bank on the street. Instead, they were a victim of slowly eroding confidence brought on partially by speculative shorting of their stock. The erosion of confidence builds and folks stop doing business with you and all of a sudden the problem is real. Anecdotally, I know of at least two very large buy side firms who traded away from Lehman in the weeks leading up to the bankruptcy. Were there real reasons for doing that? Absolutely, but it was also in part driven by rumors and fear.

So, we get to the point of whether these damages from the BK outweigh its benefits or the costs of the alternatives (propping up Lehman, forcing a sale). I think it's absolutely fair to come out on different sides of the coin on that argument. And I don't deny that there are some good lessons or benefits to be had from Lehman. Hopefully that is a more fulsome answer. In the end, we probably agree to disagree. The good news is, we can probably debate this one for years to come.

Ya its a pretty complex debate, heck I'd have trouble just dealing with my two internal halves (the practical and theoretical side of me).

I do think Bear Stearns was a mistake, it was essentially a government backed merger, which in my opinion is awful for taxpayers and the economy in the long run.

In my opinion an orderly response to Lehman would practically involve more of a freeze than a straight up collapse. If there is an event significant enough I think as an extreme emergency power the government should be able to put a halt on it being traded out of existence (you really can't stop the trades, but basically freeze the official price to avoid margin call situations that force squeeze sales). Sort out the balance sheet, and where necessary either wipe out the company in an orderly fashion, or publish a corrected set of figures and resume business. The problem is you really can't stop mass panic and fickle investor/consumer confidence, all you can do is stabilize the system so that true long term investors have a chance to say: "ya the assets are there, the stock price is going to be hammered after the freeze, but long term at some price it is a valid buy".

I do not think you have to inject money or bravado into a company in a hatchet job trying to put the genie back in the bottle (like Bear which was moronic on so many levels I don't know where to start). Sometimes shareholders need to be wiped out, it really does not matter whether it happens in a crazy market process driven by panic, or a government freeze where the price instantly drops to 0 afterwards. I do not think we should reward people just because they have the ability to quickly exit their money out of a company (anyways someone has to buy those shares being sold anyway... I'm nervous most of those buys during downslides are actually being subsidized by the pools of money from the masses to cushion big movers).

The point is we need to let these giants fail so we get a more diverse finance industry with more firms so we do not have such an easily destructible house of cards. The policies the government has been pursuing will inevitably lead to more giant 'impossible to fail' banks with no respect for risk. I really do not think they will learn their lesson if the cost of failure is that the government sponsors a mega merger that will give them even more power during the next boom period.

We don't need big banks, I'll argue all day that the critical functions of banks are better served by many smaller specialist banks that are more directly involved with the real economy, than golden tower elitists who have lost touch with reality and are able to harness massed pools of dollars they don't know what to do with it (so they buy imaginary things like wild derivatives and CDS, instead of funding smart home loans, small business, and other more personal services).

I am all for stopping mass turmoil, unfortunately I think you do that through controlled decapitation of companies, not propping them up. In fact, I think the stock market has proven that policy is complete fallacy over the last year (even healthy companies are seeing their stock chopped to a quarter or worst, some have the cash to pay dividends but need to cut them simply because it makes no sense to give such a yield to panic discounted shares).

I used to love shopping at Wal-Mart when we lived in Arkansas. But, down here in Florida, I've not been impressed. I avoid it when I can, just because its always crowded, the staff is generally unhelpful and sometimes downright obnoxious, and the quality of the merchandise, in particular food (especially produce) is second-rate. I'd much rather shop at Publix for groceries.

i think your definition of stopping mass turmoil and the organized unwinding Im seeing are probably close to the same things, no?

oh and nothing ticks me off more than their 4-6 self service checkouts and then only havbing one or in some cases none open. WTF? Although I do find solace in the fact that by using the cashier Im keeping her employed for a while anyways.

In my opinion, the real reason those AIG bonuses are being paid:


http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...BrandChannel=0

Essentially, they are being held hostage, if one of those traders for instance came out and worked with an information hawk like myself we could pretty much shed a lot of light on how screwed they really are and cause them trouble.

In short, they want to restrict information to the people and they are using millions of dollars of the people's money to do it, how grand! Surprised it finally came out in a public article.

I do not think we are seeing an organized unwinding, we are seeing a messy game trying to keep the stock market gamers alive (on all sides, evil short monsters, insiders, and the poor unfortunate public). I think if it crosses what I'll dub the 'Lehman threshold' for now, that all the games should be suspended and the numbers completely unwound and made entirely PUBLIC.

This means as often as not the price will go straight to 0, no passing go, no collecting your golden parachute (either contractually or by offloading your stock with a taxpayer subsidy like some execs have been doing, watch the insider trading on some bailout firms....).

We might have similar goals Flasch, but I'm very particular in having a precise attack strategy on resolving them, and not letting the stock market profit off the misery. Yes, this may have effected my ability to profit off the misery as well (I did not short Lehman, although I did short Bear... but mine was a long standing short made well before the bailout scandal). Mostly, my idea would be to kill off the insider short term super shorters or phantom stock creators, by making it impossible for them to find buyers on the market for a stock they know is about to go bankrupt. You can't stop games set up too early in advance, for instance shorting before the freeze occurs... but in that case I think we use good old fraud and insider trading investigation techniques during the freeze to hunt down illicit mega shorters and sieze whatever assets can be grabbed.

You'll be surprised the firepower you can bring to bear on these clever schemes if you shine a whole lot of light on it, get lots of data in the public, and actually do some investigatory work.

Instead, the government is subsidizing the companies, besides the distaste I have for bailing out incompetence, it lets the 'forces lurking in the shadows' (if you believe they exist) get away with their crime and cover their tracks with generally big pools of fund money and taxpayers sacrificed as the goat. The strategy is wrong on so many levels and easily defeated by even a simple player, and we need to combat it before these clever crooks do more damage than even they can understand.

I also think the way you take care of massive toxic balance sheets is to get it all out in the public and unwind them in plain sight, not backroom doors through AIG as a surrogate. It is an easily obvious corruptible grease machine, and they know it, that is why they did their damndest to keep it hidden, even after its leaked out into the news they are fighting tooth and nail to keep it private or at least delay until the damage is done or the public loses interest.

EDIT: I'm not on my machine of doom right now, and I hate this source, but a quick bit on AIG insider trading for instance, 6 months, sorry I can't vouch personally for the accuracy on these:
AIG - American International Group Incorporated | AIG Stock Quotes | TheStreet.com AIG

Hell I'm anti-AIG today apparently, and have Google to fuel me, so here is another article (possibly biased) about my whole rant of government subsidy leading to inefficient markets:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...szA&refer=news