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Main Street's Boycott Of Capital Markets Succeeding: Barclays First Casualty, To Fire Hundreds Due To Plunge In Market Activity
For the longest time it was consensus thought that only Wall Street could fuck Main Street. The ride is now turning. After what the FT reports was a 16% decline in fixed income, currencies and commodities trading
revenues for Q2, coupled with advisory revenues down 17%, the bank is now "planning to cut up to several hundred employees following a sharp fall in market activity in the second quarter. Sources close to the bank say that the job losses, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, will be spread across BarCap’s sales and trading staff as well as its back office support functions." Too bad the SEC has not, and will not realize that its only function is to restore the faith of the retail investors in the credibility of the capital markets. Yes, the same retail investor who both on margin and in total has always been the primary driver of stocks. Alas that has not happened and tens of thousands of Wall Streets will soon feel the wrath of Main Street as the boycott of stocks by the broader population comes to fruition, allowing the former "strategists" to experience just how real the difference between the U-3 and U-6 rate is first hand.
News of the cuts is likely to alarm the City as well as Wall Street, where BarCap has a sizeable presence following its acquisition of the US operations of Lehman Brothers at the height of the financial crisis.
It is also likely to raise questions about BarCap’s aggressive expansion in recent years under the leadership of Bob Diamond.
The investment bank generated more than 80 per cent of Barclays’ pre-tax profits in the first half of the year, in spite of a slowdown in activity amid volatile markets and fears of a sovereign debt crisis in Europe.
Without clear signs of a pick-up in client activity, several analysts have flagged concerns about BarCap’s escalating cost base.
BarCap has added almost 4,000 staff since last June – bringing its total headcount to 25,500 – in its drive to join the ranks of the world’s leading investment banks.
That growth, however, has come at a price, with first-half salary and bonus costs across the Barclays group running at nearly £5bn, £1bn higher than the same period in 2009. Most of that growth is attributable to BarCap.
BarCap sources say that, in spite of the cuts, the bank still plans to finish 2010 with a higher headcount than at the end of 2009
And while Barclays may be the first to experience what a complete lockout of retail participation in stocks means, it certainly won't bet the last.
Headhunters that specialise in financial services have warned that unless there is a substantial pick-up in corporate activity in the coming weeks, many more banks will be looking to trim costs by cutting staff.
Just as several recent campaigns have tried valiantly to get Americans to withdraw their deposits from TBTF banks (an,d unfortunately, have not succeeded...at least not yet), so an ever increasing disclosure into the true criminality of Wall Street's practices has eroded virtually all the credibility of American capital markets, which incidentally was never deserved to begin with.
We can only hope that as headcounts are eliminated in the tens of thousands, and as NY (and other) city income tax revenues plummet, that more and more people will require that the SEC finally do its work, and regain some semblance of control over stock (and other OTC product) trading. Because, as Zero Hedge discloses day after day, the current jungle is a marketplace only fit for algorithms and primary dealers. And as Barclays has now learned the hard way, neither pay the bills at the end of the day. In the meantime, if nothing changes, we will continue exposing the travesty of US markets day after day, as ever more ill-gotten credibility is destroyed, until the point at which none is left will be the singularity in which Wall Street finally consumes itself.
Whether it is by soft, or hard reset, the change is coming.
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How many HFT Atari consoles will get a pink slip?
No worries, it's productivity baby! (sarcasm off)
God this is sweet. Anyone have a list of TBTF banks? I presume BAC C CHASE are a good start. I have no money with them. Want to make sure my $$$ are in a non-TBTF bank while I decide where to put it all.
http://moveyourmoney.info/find-a-bank
I didn't have too much luck with that. The ones it gave me, I wouldn't touch; and the ones that I know are the best, weren't listed.
What I've found to be the best is:
http://banktracker.investigativereportingworkshop.org/
You want to find a Credit Union or Bank which has a Troubled Asset Ratio well below the median. In the lowest 10%, in my opinion.
Credit Unions are generally a lot safer than the Banks these days. But some can be bad. The T.A.R. will give you an idea of where the CU or Bank stands, and the graph will show how it's holding up.
During the Great Depression, 80% of the Banks failed. So I shoot for the safest 10%. And I use several different ones. It's no guarantee, but that's the best strategy that I can see.
And be sure to check it each quarter. With a low TAR, it takes a while for it to rise into the danger zone. But a high TAR Bank can go bust overnight.
And make certain that your bank isn't on this list:
http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/07/unofficial-problem-bank...
great site eternal one. thanks for sharing this valuable resource.
oooh, look at this one -- brooklyn federal savings
http://banktracker.investigativereportingworkshop.org/banks/new-york/bro...
0 to 60 in 6 months
must be those condo units going up in smoke
did Charlie Sheen ever sell his penthouse condo after the Wall Street crash of 1980 ?
That is the fastest rise that I can remember seeing. It's an excellent example of why one should always check every quarter. If you check the Bank Failure list on Bank Tracker, you'll see that the TAR is in the range that the FDIC has been closing down.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this bank shut down in the next year or two. In fact, I'd bet money on that. Thanks for posting that.
Can you provide a source for the 80% failure rate? Any idea what % of deposits were in failed banks?
That 80% failure rate was pre-FDIC. Prior to the FDIC if your bank failed you lost everything.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. I was thinking of the following quote, that at one time "Four Districts accounted for 80 percent of total bank suspensions, and slightly over one-half of the deposits of failed banks."
From http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/wicker.banking.panics.us
The number of failures varies from 1/3 [1] to 43%[2]. Add to this that there were a number of banks which closed for a short period of time, only to reopen again. But these were a smaller percentage.
Of particular note back then was the difference in regional specifics.
[1] The Collapse of the United States Banking System during the Great Depression, 1929 to 1933. New Archival Evidence G. Richardson,
Volume 1, Issue 1 2007 Article 4
AUSTRALASIAN ACCOUNTING B USINESS AND FINANCE JOURNAL
[2] "Between 1929 and 1933, 10,763 of the 24,970 commercial banks in the United States failed." From http://www.econlog.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html
Thank you. A large withdrawal and a change of banks is in order for me this week.
Was planning on the $500 ATM withdrawal on Thursday but it will be much larger than that after clicking your links.
"Withdrawal" looks wrong with that extra "a" near the end, but I did spell check it.
We got out of a southern POS Regional FDIC bank years ago and into a good credit union or two.
I am surprised that they have lasted this long.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/222624/
thanks for the sites.
Pulled my last little wad out of BOA last week. Using a regional now for the most part.
May I suggest you bend BOA over a table and give them your last wad where the sun don't shine. It's only fair to return all the love you've received over the last few years back to it's source.
The Invisible Hand begins the Big Slap Down
"We don't need no stinking regulators -- we will kill the bastards ourselves"
In economics, the invisible hand, also known as the invisible hand of the market, is the term economists use to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace.[1] This is a metaphor first coined by the economist Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. For Smith, the invisible hand was created by the conjunction of the forces of self-interest, competition, and supply and demand, which he noted as being capable of allocating resources in society.[2] This is the founding justification for the laissez-faire economic philosophy
Wow, is that ever enlightening. Maybe next time, you could tell us all about that "supply and demand" thingy.
hope they saved their "christmas bonuses"....
what a crock....
now they get to live on what they've stolen. too bad they got away with so much....
by the time this cycle is over, some muthafuckers are gonna get strung up...tall trees and long ropes
Do you mean tall tree and short rope.
that too....and Project Mayhem
Not sure I'd call Main Street's account balances falling to zero a "Boycott". More like the golden goose been fucked to death.
The reason we are where we are is that there has been an impairment of wealth of near Biblical proportions accompanied by a deleveraging of the global economic system of similar proportions.
Whether there should be more or less regulation in order to enhance confidence in the financial system is essentially at this point, a side bar conversation. The developed economies are operating in the early stages of survival mode.
The very system itself has been broken by those responsible for its health and well being.
"Whether there should be more or less regulation in order to enhance confidence in the financial system is essentially at this point, a side bar conversation."
I sat on this one...and spun. Round and round I went, until I finally popped off. I concluded that not only is it not "a side bar conversation", but it is actually the crux of the matter. It's a soft money vs hard money issue. The more credit (promises, ious, speculations, "social contracts", etc) in the system, the more need for regulation. Remove all the regulations and you unleash the forces of freedom...global capital markets get crystal clear in a real quick moment. The trouble is, the US will end up with the shortest straw.
GOOD I hope they all starve to death!
While I understand the sentiment, I will dig down deep and resist the urge to celebrate. What I can say is that I hope they find productive work that benefits society. I do wonder what type of market there is for people with such specialized skills, when those skills are no longer needed. Will they have the humility to find a real job . . . maybe go to a technical school, and learn to be an electrician, plumber, or maybe even learn to cut hair?
They can get a job, in the military. Send their asses overseas to get shot at for a change, and bring the real fighters home. How many Harvard or Yale assholes have you seen in the military fighting for this country? ZERO! And do not send them to tech school or put them into trades, they will just find a way to turn that industry into a scam. Send their asses into the military, period.
I want to see an end to our military engagements abroad. Further, my husband, for instance, works at one of the TBTF's...he's on the marketing side. He got hired in July, in September: bammo. It certainly isn't his fault. And we have been grateful he has a job. Our son went to one of the country's top schools. He is currently serving.
Let's not paint with too broad a brush...we've all been greedy. Let's ask God to be kind to our country and to help us to find a way back to our moral base.
Lets leave God out of this mess, and fix it ourselves.
Well if we paid attention to God we would have: FULL RESERVE GOLD AND SILVER AND ZERO USUARY. Sounds like we SHOULD leave our own "intellectual hubris" out of it and then we will prosper.
++++
There's a lot of other things we'd have if we 'paid attention to [one particular] God', not all of them good.
The justification for full reserve metal standard and no usury is freedom, not a zoroastrian mythology.
Your name is faustian bargain yet you eschew God. Irony. If you are embracing the cultural motif of a deal made with the devil then you by that logic have also embraced his counterpart, God.
Freedom comes from truth and the truth comes from God.
ahh, but which "god" lilimarlene1?
there are so many flavours, worldwide. . .
the "truth" of one god that does not include all gods is still a partial truth - when you find the whole truth, it will include "gods". . . and then some.
We are doing so well with that "fix it ourselves" approach!
Lets leave God out of this mess, and fix it ourselves.
Yes.
Manufacture license plates, break up rocks into road gravel, and digging ditches sounds good. Throw in a corrupt warden and some anal rape, and we'll have some semblance of justice.
these guys getting the arse wont be banksters you morons they will be the plebs who had nothing to do with it, that have been brainwashed into thinking their employer is doing "god's work" and probably don't even realise the scouge on society their employer has become, especially the back office staff who will feel the brunt of the cuts. They will have children, mortgages and very little chance of quick re employment in a fucked economy. You people celebrating this need to have a good look at yourselves. the banksters will still be sitting in their ivory towers you dipshits! They will be the last to go and will sacrifice everyone else before they relinquish control. So go ahead and laugh, celebrate as more of your fellow human kinds lives turn to misery.
Good work to ZH though on your relentless coverage of these manipulated markets. Seems more and more people are waking up to the fraud. Unfortunately there will be many more innocent victims here before this thing rights itself.
>They will be the last to go and will sacrifice everyone else before they relinquish control
Agreed. This is just another reason short term stimulus with long term side effects are so easily passed during a crisis, and the can gets kicked down the road while the average person's life gets slowly worse.
However, I believe that the number of people who are willing to sacrifice themselves to put an end to this fraudulent economy are slowly increasing. Once an society becomes distressed to a certain point, those kind of people increases, and in extreme cases, result in suicide attacks.
Of course, I am not celebrating this situation since I fortunately have a job and I don't see the end of this fraud imminent.
But if I did have children and mortgages without any decent chance of getting a job, I would might as well be celebrating.
"the bankers better buy tractors cuz the farmers are going to be driving ferraris"
- jimboy rogers
I hope they get a bush/MCcain MCjob !!!!!!!!!!! Maybe we should cut unempolyment benefits too !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
most of us are day trading, which is ideal as it can be done from anywhere in the world, so allows a lot of freedom.
I know a few of my ex colleagues who have taken up hobbies they always loved such as woodworking or photography, some bought small businesses.
Severance packages here are a minimum 4 weeks pay for each year of employment, plus immediate vesting of options.
None are starving, sorry. Most are happier than ever.
I hear JetBlue's hiring! Serving the flying public seems like a suitable, even poetic penance.
so wait, if we don't regulate our markets, allow them to be openly manipulated and let computers front-run everyone to steal money this could end badly? Weird.....
Regulation won't help, but if discount window access is removed, and the construct of quantized cost of capital is eliminated (better known as the Fed) it will be little if at all needed. Pure self regulation can only occur in a central bank free environment.
End the Fed! Please see this video of Dr. Ron Paul from the 1980s....he knew it was a fraud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib4Gm-3-yv8&NR=1
When you begin to realize that this is a plan to destroy the middle class, it all makes sense
Does North Dakota count? Are there even any countries that are free of the central banks? <sigh> Where is Galt's Gulch...
I live on one of Galt's culdesacs. They are everywhere, if you look around you. I'm highly impressed to date with the response of my neighbors to this cultural-economic crisis: I can do this, you can do that, we'll be OK no matter what the f**kups in charge do. Of course, I live in an area where the average lot size is something like 40 acres, so that helps a bunch. God help the sheeple in the suburbs, still fighting over who didn't pay their landscaping dues.
Agreed - discount window needs to be abolished, the state of our economy is indeed fragile but we are no longer in that "emergency" situation which would warrant access, they just want to help banks make more money. As for the fed, as much as I'd like to see them gone, to speak as if that will happen anytime soon seems fairly asinine.
When exactly does the discount window close, what triggers the open sign to be flipped around?
amen tyler!... end the fed!... it's our only path to prosperity... otherwise, this giant smoke screen of endless "crisis" only ensures the continued massive transfer of wealth from the american people to the private share holders of the US fed...
hell... i say we start a giant class action law suit against those fu$%^&s for the systematic debasement of our currency... either by design or by complete incompetence... either way... we sue them for trillions! with a T!... on behalf of any american citizen who uses the toilet paper know as the US federal reserve note as a currency...
anybody here a lawyer?
In order to fix our fiat system, all we have to do is look to the constitution. If we could get a case in front of the Supreme Court, the constitution would have to be followed. Unfortunately, it will never get to the Supreme Court because there is too much collusion between the legislative branch and the federal reserve.
Without the Federal Reserve, the legislative branch would have to stop spending. They will not allow the wealth transfer to be interrupted.
“The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence...The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.” (John Galt, "Atlas Shrugged").
Long live Ayn Rand!
Cheeky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?
finest protection racket in the world. And nobody feels safe.
Then what?
While I am just about to start reading Atlas Shrugged (Should I read Rand's previous book first?), if there was a lawsuit that challenged the actions which the government could involve itself in, our country in its current form would shatter. People today are too weak and dependent t fend for themselves (as a whole). It is sad, but the country would not continue to function, it is too late, there is no turning back. This system both suppresses us and supports us at the same time (supports the weakest, suppresses the majority middle class). However, without government assistance, people would naturally become motivated to support themselves, increasing productivity and decreasing gov't burden. Ugh....this whole rant is pointless, it will never happen....
What good is the FED if it doesn't pass free money out the the shareholder banks? (Primary dealers)
Pure self regulation can only occur in Anarchy.
Why "you guys" champion self regulation so much while constantly going on about how the SEC does fuck all, the media is asleep and the country is continually getting the shaft by special interests is beyond me. There has to be regulation. Think banks self regulating their own capital requirements would end up much better than what the Fed has done?
did you read the second part of the statement? pure self regulation occurs in all natural "homeostatic" systems. the market in its purest form is one of them. when one introduces skewing factors to a system, such as the elimination of risk from an investment decision via access to the discount window explicitly, or the chairman du jour "put" implicitly, the system breaks, not because of the lack or presence of the regulators but because the balancing point shifts away from equilibrium and a WB Yeats poem follows. regulators by definition are part of the system and not outside of it. it is impossible to regulate a system when the arbiters' decision change not only the very system they participate in, but their own status in it.
ok a door bell?
Yes, I read the second part "the construct of quantized cost of capital is eliminated (better known as the Fed) (regulation) will be little if at all needed". Which is why I mentioned the capital requirements which are set by the central banks (right?).
So if you didn't have the central banks with their regulations your "homeostatic system" would still follow the same direction because it is not a true homeostatic system - the people in charge of the banks are no longer families who wish to maintain stability and their social standing. They are corporations who promote the ones who possess the most greed which is good for both until they go past the equilibrium point too far and then go under (or getted saved by the taxpayers). How can you have a functioning homeostatic system when the person controlling the equilibrium has a vested interest in slanting it to the high profits side?
I'm going to keep self-regulating my beer intake while reading Yeats...
going under is part of the equilibrium process. fear of that is necessary to balance greed.
"...the people in charge of the banks are no longer families who wish to maintain stability and their social standing. They are corporations..."
I think you need to take this thread of thought further, Frank. The people in charge of the banks ARE families, a very few in fact. You and I see JPM, Goldman Sachs, BOA, CITI, etc. But who are the specific individuals controlling these corporations?
Think of it this way if you prefer: the Fed's product is debt/credit and the aforementioned commercial and investment banks are the distributors of that debt/credit. The supplier controls the distributor in the same way that Exxon controls your local Exxon distributor. The price is set by Exxon, and your local guy makes money at the pump if the local competitive price gives him a big enough margin to pay his overhead. Suddenly...not only your local guy, but all of the Exxon distributors country-wide don't have the margin to operate and begin to shut down.
Now (in a truly free and open market) this would occur in the gasoline business only via an energy tech breakthrough that replaced the combustion engine. But this is not the case when your product is debt/credit. Credit is exactly what you think it is, whether or not you, me or the guy next door can make good on our promises. Aggregate credit is soft, pliable, easily manipulated. Some peolple make good on their deals, some don't. And the Fed can (to a certain extent) adjust the balance by adjusting interest rates. The incentive is to consistently lower the rates to make more good than bad, but this comes at a steep price. Eventually it gets so low, that a lot of people wake up and say "WTF, they'll give every Tom, Dick, and Harry a loan...this shit must be worthless."
Then the game is at an end. Enter the regulator (stage right).
indeed...the center can not hold
very nice
So Tyler
When are you going to dig up someone that will start a new "script"
http://www.kamron.com/Liberty/colonial_script.htm
Colonial Script
Contributed by: Dave HayesA study of American Colonial history will reveal that Benjamin Franklin went to England as a representative of the Colonies. The English officials asked how it was the Colonies managed to collect enough taxes to build poor houses, and how they were able to handle the great burden of caring for the poor. Franklin's reply was most revealing: "We have no poor houses in the Colonies, and if we had, we would have no one to put in them, as in the Colonies there is not a single unemployed man, no poor and no vagabonds." Think long and hard about this. In the American colonies before the American Revolution, there was "not a single unemployed man, no poor and no vagabonds". -- no one on Welfare, no one on Social Security, no homeless, no income tax, no alphabet agencies, No IRS, BATF, FBI, DEA, CIA, HEW, OSHA, SBA, and on and on and on to provide for the "general welfare" of our villages, towns, cities and states. How did Benjamin Franklin explain this to the British officials of his day?
How would he explain it to today's lawyers, judges, politicians and other government officials? "It is because, in the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. We call it Colonial Script, and we issue only enough to move all goods freely from the producers to the Consumers; and as we create our money, we control the purchasing power of money, and have no interest to pay." -Benjamin Franklin
This system guarantees HONEST MONEY. It was not controlled by a private corporation with a monopoly on the credit of the nation as it is today.
There was no inflation or deflation, as long as the MONEY SUPPLY WAS KEPT EQUAL TO THE VALUE OF GOODS AND SERVICES TO BE PRODUCED AND MOVED (distributed).
As will be shown later in this paper, what we really need has already proven itself historically -- not only in Franklin's early colonial days, but in other historical instances.
We will see that it was this system which Franklin describes that was taken away from the America colonies through the gradual encroachments of the British Parliament (Legislative branch of Britain's government) and the enforcement of this legislation in King's Admiralty/Maritime/Equity courts set up in the colonies by America's mother country, Britain, without reference to the common law established by Magna Carta that led to the American Revolution.
Those encroachments are described in the Declaration of Independence.
Is America today being governed without reference to Magna Carta and the national and state Constitutions founded thereon?
What was the condition in England, in Franklin's day?
Maybe activity will come back if the stock prices become reasonably priced for the current environment. And that environment is SUCK.
The banking sector can't shrink! What will we do without our best and brightest inventing innovative new financial products??!
+100
L. O. L. !!!!!!!
I thought it was here on ZH that I read that, circa 1965, the banking and financial industry accounted for about 4% of GDP. But recently the banking and financial industry has been 8.5% of GDP.
Almost make one want to file a class action lawsuit against the 6 biggest banks demanding 4.5% of GDP back.
Then add a third for government transfer payments (read wealth redistribution) and voila!
Almost half of what anyone could have said was better than expected ;-)
The boyz have completely emptied the warehouse of all credibility. Now they can fill it up with stagflation. I'll save my tears for the inncocents, not for a single one of these assholes or their agents.
get in the unemployment line fools !!!
Yes.. and they get to hear how the unemployed are lazy, fat , leeches on an otherwise productive system.
Watch porn on your own time bitchez ;-)
Sadly, the worst excesses of porn will remain available to the masses long after our fundamental rights have disappeared. Circus part of the Bread and Circus Big Top Productions to Distract the Sheeple.
Ahhh...but it's almost gladiator time...if they can just hold on till football season all will be in balance again ;-)
I try to never take delight in the misfortunes of others, but in this case I'll make an exception.
WHOOOHOOO!!!!
P.S. I hear the self-important dickhead market is pretty soft right now.
Oh hell yeah, peoples! Cursive is breakin out the Courvoisier on this news!
and what do you think traders who had 7 figure salaries and just got 1 or 2 years severance pay are drinking tonight?
it sure as hell ain't courvoisier
sorry to burst your bubble
Trying to be charitable but also loving funny:P.S. I hear the self-important dickhead market is pretty soft right now
LOL!
Trying to be charitable but also loving funny:P.S. I hear the self-important dickhead market is pretty soft right now
LOL!
So the Stock Market goes up on thin trading and now employee,s face the chop.The shares that have been purchased so that the market rises are obviously not being traded back into the market for a profit because the market would tank.But obviously the market is not being manipulated ? ............. Now every employee who looses their job is a consumer.With the majority of the consumer world facing Austerity,higher taxes,lower purchasing power and job loss just who is going to buy goods to produce profits and therefore wealth.As the downward spiral continues, the desperation that will create hyperinflation is getting more and more tangible.The banks should have been allowed to die through their own greed and profit before security mentality.The fact is that some things are seen as too big to fail,trouble is their lack of real world living will be the end game.What a shitty state of affairs..........
There you go. "The shares have been traded but they obviously cannot be sold into the market or it would tank"
All you need to know. Nothing changed in March of 09 aside from the Fed legalizing short squeezing, insider trading and manipulation in a unprecedented concerted effort to prevent the dreaded D word.
Exactly as I suspected this quarter we saw the banks have lopsided trading quarters since they have no more shorts to squeeze, no more retail to thieve or mutual funds to scalp and have resorted to cannibalization in an effort to gran whatever trading gains they could buy in such a closed system one big banks gain is smothers loss.
So the easy part came and went and the easy money was made. So now banks are going on 2 years of welfare, America is pissed, Mark to Leprachaun allows them to feign solvency and they are levergaed to the hilt to squeeze any profits from the few shorts remaining.
There is less yield from the Tbills and the markets and their livelihood are even more entwined with the Fed.
Jobs are being lost. Unemployment for the 99ers is off the cliff. Record low mortgages are not moving home prices. The Euro has been defended at all costs to save the markets. Democrats are about to be routed stirring up more populism to even attempt to get the Pres. Elected.
Gold is at near record highs.
Here is the bottom line:
Wall streets model died the day they started serving themselves and not their clients. Who entrusts money to thieves? No need for you.
The lucrative commisions are gone because of Etrade. Information is readily available to everyone. The Internet information access is preventing back room politics and we are left with and economy that is Services of the extravagnt only but now that model is dying. If were lot producing and exporting than we are not saving and only spending. Easy stuff here. Wall street has taken it profits in advance and their fictional profits and bonuses for the past few years ended up being losses so the cannot be recreated.
If the big banks sell stock they rock te markets since the trading is at never before seen levels. So they hold and Hedge funds eat their lunch. It happened in 2008 and wil happen again. So goes the game of attempted fraud. Be short because it is the yield of all yields.
+ a million moral hazards...well stated.
+ a billion ben bubbles...agreed
+ a trillion Timmy treasons?
So now banks are going on 2 years of welfare, America is pissed, Mark to Leprachaun allows them to feign solvency and they are levergaed to the hilt to squeeze any profits from the few shorts remaining.
Makes one wonder if the huge short positions in Gold and Silver might become targets.
I'm worried about them assimilating into society though. We need to find a way to mark these people like brad pitt was marking the nazis....perhaps we cut "FRN" into them?
They'll be easy to spot.
Super elastic bubble plastic people are only comfortable among themselves. Where they can compliment each without meaning it or caring if everyone knows they are lying.
As a rule you can engage them in a one minute conversation and watch them nod affirmative as you speak. Then ask them to repeat what you said on the topic...they won't have a clue...LOL.
That's not a trait exclusive to those assholes. I got the same thing from my doctor as I explained the ways that his staff and the insurance company had casually behaved condescendingly toward me. I might as well have been speaking farsi or sanskrit. Doctors seem to slide quite casually into a godlike self image as well.
True.
But I have found it a reliable indicator of narcissism. Lawyers are worse than doctors in my opinion. Instead of the fundamentals of the issue it's straight to negotiating an outcome. To hell with right and wrong.
If one wants arbitration why hire an overpriced advocate...most wives are lethal regarding arb, just put in the A-Team...LOL.
I agree with you on most points, but will have to say that I have found doctors more obnoxious than lawyers. They have the population trained to accept their arrogance. Really pretty amazing how they have pulled this off. Just for fun, try calling a doctor by his first name. Even in social settings they want to be called "Doctor".
LOL.
I'll have to go with your wisdom on this one.
I was once in a dentist chair and the dentist was apparently trying to impart some sort of special knowledge onto me.
She asked if I drank alcohol or smoked...I said, well, yes I do. She said "you know, statistics show most people who smoke or drink have a higher risk of gum disease."
I said, statistics show most people who commit felonies smoke or drink.
Believe it or not it took her awhile to get it ;-)
We should start a movement. When you go to the doctor,
1) Call him by his first name.
2) Ask how much it is going to cost.
3) Ask why it costs so much.
4) Ask if they offer any discounts, or have coupons.
5) Ask if the work is covered by a money back guarantee.
6) Bill him at your billable rate for any time you spend waiting on him after the designated appointment.
7) Inform receptionist that he is in fact a mortal.
8) Ask if he gets any kickbacks, perks, or points for the prescription he is giving you.
9) Ask him if tests are medically necessary, or being done for CYA.
10) When possible, park in his reserved spot.
Sign me up.
Number 9...there is one of the problems.
Number 10, I do just to screw with people for five minutes...LOL.
It's the little things in life.
SeeYa
i screw with doctors all the time.
Regarding #6, several months back, I had an appointment to see my dentist. I got a call the day before, from his secretary, asking me to reschedule to a Saturday. I sighed but said okay. When Saturday rolled around, I was there 15 minutes before the time of the appointment but sat there in the waiting room for about 1.5 hours and still hadn't been called in to see him.
I got up and the secretary apologized saying "He's going to be a while longer." I wasn't interested in finding out how long a "while" would be. They had asked *me* to reschedule to that day. It wasn't my choice. I was polite but I told her this was more inconsiderate toward me than I could accept.
And, on the way out, I noticed the sign saying that if you missed an appointment, his office would charge you $50. So, as soon as I got home, I wrote him a letter which said that he should consider it to be my invoice for $50. Seeing as both parties bear the same responsibility to show up for an appointment, penalties for not doing so should also fall on both parties. I regreted to inform him that I didn't not accept any particular insurance or credit cards but he could send a check to my home address.
I had one more appointment scheduled with him about a month after that. I didn't hear anything from him in the interim. I was a bit anxious going in but he took it in exactly the right spirit and apologized and laughed and gave me $100 off the bill for that day.
I suspect this would work much better with a dentist because they're not into a whole god complex about themselves as are many doctors. And the lack of any sort of free market in the work done by doctors has left most of them quite comfortable treating patients as imbeciles or just widgets passing by on an assembly line. The idea of a two way street of respect is utterly foreign to them. It's quite sad really.
"The idea of a two way street of respect is utterly foreign to them."
quite foreign to most people in my experience actually. bumper sticker observed on the highway last week:
"it's all about ME"
ain't that the fuckin truth
Stop thinking about yourself. That meant the Middle East! It's all about the oil.
Make sure he does not give you the enema while he's knocked you out cold !! haha that was funny..
I've been forcefully corrected for my faux pas of calling a Dr. a Mr. on more than one occasion.
Richard Heads, all (most) of them.
How bout we convert them, paint their backs Green
Doom, despair and agony on me
A deep dark depression .... excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all
Doom despair and agony on me!
Man I miss Hee Haw
This is best news of the past 20 yrs. Finally, its time for the Wall Street crooks to be out of work on the unemployment line for a change. Hopefully, this is just the start. If people stop doing business with these crooks and get their money out of this fake scam market completely, then they will have to change to rules. If you have 401k or other retirement funds, get it out of stocks, put it in a fixed account at your local credit union or local community bank, and let it sit there forever, until they fix the scams in equities. The ones trading are the ones letting the scum keep their jobs. Stop trading, stop putting money in stocks. Its that simple.
Productivity improvements hitting brokers. Machines taking over.
The Luddites were Right! Even rises to the Intellectual Property level. Amazing Economic Epiphany!
moveyourmoney.info <-- if you hate tbtf banks
Moved my money last year to local credit union. Then, after getting raped by Geico for 14 yrs, I just got my auto insurance through credit union for $800 a year less than what I was paying. Get your money into local banks or credit unions. You won't regret your move.
I have a friend who is president of the local, small, privately held bank. He said things are very tough right now . . . not because of business/consumer issues, but because of regulations. He said that the regulations put in place for big banks roll down to small banks and create a situation where the cost of conforming to the requirements and regulations gets so large, you can barely manage the business.
amen...they create so many regulations that small business is starved of credit and burdened with paperwork
T'was meant to be that way. The large TBTF institutions wrote the rules, part of which is to smother the smaller entities with regulatory burden so the authors may increase market share later introducing oligopolistic pricing strategies.
The man on the street is fucked again by the marriage of politics and money.
Yes, and it is not just the banks. Big companies like big regulation, as they can hire people to handle the paperwork. They enjoy this cost of doing business, as it limits competition from innovative start ups, who can not afford the overhead.
and if all else fails, file a lawsuit against them & smother them with legal bills.
God Bless Americo.
Funny but american companies can do it in china !!!!!!!!!!! lol
"not because of business/consumer issues, but because of regulations."
From what I understand this is true.
The rate they pay into the insurance fund went up last year. Ask your friend about this.
Yes, that was one of the specific issues he brought up. The bank is rock solid in that it is careful before making loans, and businesses in the area still consider payment of debt an "honor" issue. Loan defaults are almost non-existent. However, it is unclear if small banks will be able to survive the paperwork.
So, I mean this is good news and all, but in perspective: they hired 4,000 since last June (is that '09?) and now they're canning 400. They only overshot by 10%...it doesn't seem earth-shattering.
However, like the non-QE announced today, maybe it's just a baby step. How many people at Barclay's are starting to sweat right about now.
Dylan Ratigan will be on Colbert tonight. Lets hope Dylan can get some centrism across to the superlibs.
Let's hope he can buffalo a straightforward message through all that vaudeville bullshit.
Using farce and a fictional charachter to present serious issues and serious subjects to America is a fucking disgrace.
Yeah! it's like pretending you're a Roman god or something. God I hate that shit.
Looks good on you though.
Bravo sir! Well done... Well done!
Uh, no it's not like that at all.
We're all (most of us anyway) expressing our own selves through pseudonyms here. Pseudonyms with little graphic icons in this case because it's visually more appealing in layout, facilitates recognition and is kind of fun (or that's my take anyway). If you actually want to be Frankenstein this might be the wrong corner of the Internet for you.
Colbert is a full-fledged fictional character. Using that in the service of making fools of politicians and celebrities is one thing, trying to do the same to those who have serious work to bring to public attention just compounds stupidity in my opinion.
+100
-100
There is more truth exposed on the Comedy Channel in an hour than in the MSM in a year.
C'mon man, he's on Comedy Central for cryin' out loud. Do you have a problem with "Reno 911" too?
Absolutely not. "Reno 911" is pure comedy gold and also provides deep insight into the human condition.
Just watched Ratigan on Colbert. He did a very nice job. Worth a watch. Colbert only got in Ratigan's way with his crap a little bit. It has taken me years to acquire a taste for Colbert, but it has been worth it.
For the longest time it was consensus thought that only Wall Street could fuck Main Street. The ride is now turning.
Make no mistake (as The President loves to say) Washington is fucking Main St. There is nothing Wall St. would love more than to make money helping Main St. make money. Right now making Washington happy is all that matters to Wall St. and this is the kind of shit we get as a result.
Plenty of blame for this entire shitshow lies with Wall St. but total Main St. aversion to the capital markets is no recipe for a prosperous America.
This administration is the worst thing that could ever happen in this whole area at exactly the worst time...and it's only going to get worse.
Not buying it.
Investment needs to be investment instead of crooked casino games rigged for the house. Regulators need to be regulators instead of co-conspirators and bribed flunkies.
Sure the politicians are a problem and that is because they were bought and paid for by Wall Street and are paid to do Wall Street's bidding and look the other way when Wall Street steals a couple trillion dollars or so.
Cut Wall Street compensation to the level of the rest of America, free up the markets to be free markets and then come back crying if you still think there is a problem.
Strucure incentives properly (and simply) and all that will take care of itself. The government's job should be to define the starting line and the rules of the game...not the finish line.
The residential mortgage market has had a labyrinth of regulations, programs, laws and political fine-tuning for decades. How'd that work out?
Let's us a sports metaphor. The rules are very defined, the competition intense, and the number of fixed games relatively small. Now how many officials/refs manage the game?
Is it 5%, 20% of the players on the field? Well so should government be.
Explicit clear rules, with just enough oversight.
You can't do those two things at the same time. I'll let you figure out which one to do that will help cause the other one to follow.
Tell me Barry don't sound like this guy when he pronounces the letter S...LOL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7KXgt5zOFM&feature=player_embedded
wrong replier
Washington?
I can think of 787 billion reasons of bullshit that didn't come from Washington.
I can think of another 1.2 trillion reasons that are sitting in the dark on some obscure private/public balance sheet that has bubkiss to do with Washington.
Yet again, I can't think of one fag on fraud street that didn't take all the bonus they could get while the world burns (literally).
Don't fall for the oldest trick in the book of divide and conquer.
This is collusion of epic proportions dripping with moral hazard.
You're only fooling yourself.
Maybe some of them can pre-emptively quit, like this person:
http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/
hot piece of ass
H P O A
you seem so square. or primate.
I might be.
more like HPOB
hot piece o' brain
edit. Double post
Oh fiesty little spitfire.
I hire her anytime to do work. Not to be a HOPA. Whatever that is.
What people dont understand is the power of a Female in the right position to totally blow them away.
H O L D that t h o u g h t ‡
oh, glass seaballs.
Ouch ouch ouch UK consumer confidence way,way below estimates, 56 versus 60 expected, 63 last month. Not a good market to get fired into.
Sell GBP, austerity-induced stagflation coming to a major economy in 3,2,1....
Anyway, regarding BARC, Barcap's US operations were pretty lean when they got LEH after multiple rounds of firings before judgment day arrived. And there wasnt much overlap with barcaps own guys, who basically got completely fucked very quickly. So this is probably an unwind on the hiring done in 09-10, I'd expect mostly in London.
the 160 party ended fast.
On the other hand, the Barcap people that got into Nomura has already left due to their strange/eccentric corporate culture.
Not sure what you mean, Nomura bought up Lehman people not Barcap, but Nomura is fucked anyway. They are rated BBB and nobody outside Japan knows or trusts them. In this environment, they can't grow on a base like that. Their corporate culture is actually not too odd for a Japanese firm, but the problems are more fundamental than that.
Sorry, mistaken between Barcap and Lehman.
In terms of corporate culture, Nomura is notorious for their extreme strictness and overworking here in Japan.
Of course, there are ones who go there for the pay, but at Keio Univ. where I graduated and many Nomura workers come from, most of the people who I talked to who were afraid of working for Nomura.
I guess you know more about the overseas subsidiaries but that is how it's like out here.
By the way, many investors in Japan don't trust Nomura since the Joyinvest incident either.
Joinvest incident (2008)?
Nomura's online borker, Joinvest has shown?”Lost effect” on the screen for proportional allocation at Oct.14th,
but then, made that order for proportional allocation effective again 2days later, and the investors had to purchase the stocks at the price on Oct 14 at Oct.16. By the way, the Nikkei has tanked about 1000 Yen during those few days.
It's hardly known in the US, but its one of the most blatant fraud toward investors I have ever seen.
Good story, thankyou. Sounds horrible, but Nomura owns so many parts of the puzzle in Japan that I guess they can do what they want there.
No worry, they will quickly move to Dept of Treasure.
+ 10000000000000000000000000000000000
Dept. of Treasure.
Epic.