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Friday, March 20, 2009

Paying Peter For Having Robbed Paul

I'm watching the NYT video of Gordon Edward Liddy as he talks about cutting back the huge bonuses to the members of the Credit Default Swap section of AIG and all I can think is where the money is going to go instead.

AIG need it to pay their debts to others, not their salaries and bonuses, right? It's a ironic pity for them because now the tax-payer's cash is going off-radar, in fact heading to OTHER dodgy credit companies, like banks. Now they can pay huge salaries and bonuses to the robbers in THEIR Credit Default Swap sections without oversight. Those guys otherwise would have to be satisfied with the the truckloads money they had made in the last 5 years of bubble explosion... So there must be this sense of frustration in the AIG ranks, knowing that some other geek in exactly the same job is going to get the money that was initially headed for them...

Because, hey, this is the money market. There is actually nothing in it. Except money and trust. It's a castle of cards. It's ALL bonuses and commissions and bonuses ON the commissions and earning commissions for negotiating sales of bonuses, etc , etc, until you ascend up your own fiscal fundament.

It's not like these people are actually WORKING for a living. It's not like they're making real things. It's not like they are at the shake-out machine whacking the sand-mould off engine cam-shafts with a sledgehammer, as I used to do. It's not like they're heart surgeons saving lives, or nurses cleaning bedpans (what exactly DO nurses do? I mean, they never come when I press their button [old marriage on the rocks joke]). They're just gamblers, playing with other people's money, and people get suckered in, time and time again...

But not

E@L

p.s. Why the vitriol? Did E@L not tell you that the company building the Townsville apartment he had put a deposit on (in order to flip just before it was built) has gone into the hands of an administrator, obviously unable to get the fucking banks to lend them the money to continue. Fuck. There are none so charred as the recently burned.

p.p.s. Nudge nudge to investors. Gossip in the pub is that Marina Bay Sands will quite soon be cashing their chips in over their Singapore Integrated Resort gamble. An upcoming change of management (how do I KNOW these things?) will see them steering into less upbeat waters. Look for a GIC takeover in a few months say by July/August, to keep the Marina Bay 'casino' alive. You heard it here first. Unless it's illegal or seditious, in which case, I got from the Far Eastern Economic Review. Sue them. Again.

7 comments:

Momentary Madness said...

On a different note same tune.

Mr. Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, owns a stake of roughly 20 percent in the Moody’s Corporation a rating agency that grades debt, (and anything you like for the right price) putting their seals of approval on (as you said yourself ExPat super-crime) sub-prime mortgage-related securities, now known as toxic-debt.

When you inquire (again for the right price) at Moody’s or other agencies about the state of a certain company before you invest you imagine they are making their money from the likes of you for sound professional advice, which is you think fair enough, but no, they are making along what the likes of you pay them plus billions of dollars from the very agencies they are rating.
This is much cleverer than the (cowboy) Madoff scam. There is no way you can make this financial service out to be fraudulent. You get Moody’s rating in good faith. It was just bad luck the bank went belly up and had to be bailed out.

Conflict of interest? Eh, no comment. Can anybody say anything, eh, no comment.

Moody’s rated Lehman Bros. debt A2, putting it squarely in the investment-grade range, days before the company filed for bankruptcy.
Moody’s gave the senior unsecured debt of AIG an Aa3 rating — which is even stronger than A2 — the week before the government had to step in and take over.

Moody’s have rated Berkshire Hathaway: another big insurer giving it Aaa (funny it was downgraded by another agency Fitch) Maybe it has something to do with Warren Buffet being the company's chairman and CEO.

”the tax-payer's cash is going off-radar, in fact heading to OTHER dodgy” circles, around and around, and ….
Who gives a shit.
The agencies - ”mistakes” - bad forecasts have no effect on their income, The banks get bailed out along with the inner circle investors but the likes of me/you (not in all cases) lose their deposit, pension etcetera.

Hope I didn’t bore you with this long winded comment, in fact I may not have explained it thoroughly enough- I got tired half ay through, but I’m sure you’ll get the gist of it.

expat@large said...

MM: no, man, no problem, rant away! Love it! Sometime I feel out here in Shadeypore, one of the world's biggest money laundering centers, that I am a lone voice of insanity (to be different is to be insane, by definition), bristling against these bastards by myself. Let's cheer each otehr on, keep the energy flowing - 'maintain the rage', as we used to say in Australia when our government was ousted in a CIA backed coup (remember Falcon and Snowman?) - and obviously I am not shy at posting long rants myself!

Dick Headley said...

And what comes after the rage E@L? Blood in the streets? A guillotine on Wall Street? I think not. We will just suck it up like good law-abiding citizens.

Old Knudsen said...

The bonus' were in their contracts is what they said at first so tough titties, they would all be fired with no contracts without the bailouts so don't take the piss with the bonus'.
Being a layman I certainly trust those who tell you what they are making with no evidence in sight, maybe the odd bit of paper they typed up.

I trusted Maddoff with my millions when the rest said he was a crook ........... shit!

I trusted Trump with my 500,000 deposit to build that hotel in beautiful peaceful Mexico I mean he is a money genius right?......

Why can I not reach my accountant?

The common people want some rich heads on a plate.

Scapegoats to help them heal.

Creepy said...

What exactly do nurses do? They wear sexy outfits and have intercourse with male patients. At least in the movies I've seen.

expat@large said...

DH: absolutely! Lynch mob - front and centre! OK maybe not... Let's just reform these theiving institutions, get away from this libertarian/objectivist attitude that getting away with it = legal.

Knuds: I think your accountant was going out the window with some files last I saw.

Creepy: they certainly don't have intercourse with their husbands in my memory of things. And thanks be to Dog for that.

Oh yes, I was in a clinic yesterday watching them drain fluid from a cancerous lung - the nurse was squirting syringe after syringe of frothy brown fluid into a glass jar until it was full... THAT's what nurses do. Uniform was surgical scrubs - too androgynous for me.

Now The Joker in a nurses uniform - THAT was sexy!

dibabear said...

ROFLMFAO...a good solid 11 years ago my main customer was an investment bank here on the continent. We had a problem where our kit went tits up and brought the trading floor to its knees. Several times. Oops. During a tour our incident manager looked at all of those traders arbitraging and swapping and whatever and remarked "all of that money and they don't make one fucking thing. It's obscene is what it is."

Even before that, in 1992 I was at a party with some local bank types where the hostess worked for an investment bank in the derivatives and swaps unit. I, being not of the financial fold, asked what exactly a derivative and swap was. The straight faced answer I got was "it's difficult to explain unless you've worked in finance." To which I replied "if it's too difficult to explain to an outsider then perhaps it should be outlawed." Yeah, I'm a hoot at parties I am. Wonder why I don't get invited more often?

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