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New York, 3:57 AM
Sun Dec 6
14 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of Novaload Novaload
    10/31/09

    In reply to Nobody Loves Weepy VP Joe
    Biden was the most inscrutable choice, ever, for VP. Instead of "change" Obama brought out an old hack, who had trouble with both truth telling, even during the campaign, and with inserting his foot into his mouth. Oh, to know what kind of negotiation that was, to get him on the ticket---except, perhaps to allay terrified old white guys who feared a woman and a (half)black man on the ticket would bring on the apocalypse. #joebiden
     Reply
    Novaload was starred Novaload was unstarred
    Image of Thistledew Thistledew
    10/30/09

    In reply to Nobody Loves Weepy VP Joe
    apparently I am in the minority, but I love Joe Biden! I think he's like the lovable Steve Urkel of the White House. He comes in, says stupid stuff, knocks shit over, and is like "Did I do that?" Oh Joe. #joebiden
     Reply
    applejuice promoted this comment Thistledew was starred Thistledew was unstarred
    Image of ModestProposal ModestProposal
    10/30/09

    In reply to Nobody Loves Weepy VP Joe
    Joe Biden is everything thats wrong and fucked up with congress. This dope won his seat in the Senate when he was 29 and has never had another job until being VP. He has learned about as much about how the country works from his perch in DC as Palin learned about Russia from staring at it. He is walking proof we need term limits.

    And he doesn't drink. I don't trust people who don't drink, unless they've already been alcoholics. #joebiden
     Reply
    ModestProposal was starred ModestProposal was unstarred
    Image of Motoko Kusanagi Motoko Kusanagi
    10/30/09

    In reply to Nobody Loves Weepy VP Joe
    Why is it that I feel compelled to defend Gawker's subject matter against the editors/writers at least once a day lately?

    Either this new crop of staff writers is utterly fucked, or the editorial direction has taken a nosedive, or both.

    Is there some negative correlation between the quality of stories and the quality of AJAX/CSS? #joebiden
     Reply
    Motoko Kusanagi was starred Motoko Kusanagi was unstarred
    Image of romulus romulus
    10/30/09

    @Motoko Kusanagi: From where I'm standing, it would appear to be a positive correlation. It's a good day when I get tripped up by fewer than five unresponsive scripts, infinite waits for comments to load or what have you. #joebiden
     Reply
    Motoko Kusanagi promoted this comment romulus was starred romulus was unstarred
    Image of Motoko Kusanagi Motoko Kusanagi
    10/30/09

    @romulus: The site gets prettier, and the content gets lamer. Just callin it as I see it. #joebiden
     Reply
    Motoko Kusanagi was starred Motoko Kusanagi was unstarred
    Image of romulus romulus
    10/30/09

    @Motoko Kusanagi: Oh yeah, I didn't mean to quibble. I agree that the site gets fancier all the time, but features seem to break often. I should have added before that it could well be my OS and browser causing headaches most readers don't experience. And in all fairness, I haven't been reading long enough to judge contemporary content against the past. #joebiden
     Reply
    romulus was starred romulus was unstarred
    Image of meerkat meerkat
    10/30/09

    In reply to Nobody Loves Weepy VP Joe
    Not sure what point you're trying to make, Amrita... that you think Cheney's worldview makes some sense? That Cheney was initially popular, before everything he did brought his popularity rating to a low of 28%? I love it that Biden is willing to call a moron a moron. This is a ridiculous post. #joebiden
     Reply
    meerkat was starred meerkat was unstarred
    Image of Conchie Birdie Conchie Birdie
    10/30/09

    In reply to Nobody Loves Weepy VP Joe
    Oh, and if you're trying to poke fun at Vice Prez Biden for weeping during the debate when he spoke about his first wife and baby daughter who died, well then, that's just messed up. #joebiden
     Reply
    Conchie Birdie was starred Conchie Birdie was unstarred
    Image of Novaload Novaload
    10/31/09

    @Conchie Birdie: One might argue that it was the worst kind of political hackdom for him to bring them up expressly to show his "empathy" side and try to squeeze a tear out of his plastic-surgeryized eye slots. #joebiden
     Reply
    Novaload was starred Novaload was unstarred
    Image of Conchie Birdie Conchie Birdie
    10/30/09

    In reply to Nobody Loves Weepy VP Joe
    I'm absolutely NOT a supporter of ANYTHING Dick says... but, Good Lawwd, Biden, Bin Laden will always BE a part of the issue. I'm sorry, I guess if you had the prez saying this I could understand... but, uh, Joe? Nope.

    That being said, why are we posting crap from Fox News anyway - I thought we weren't supposed to take this stuff seriously?
    #joebiden
     Reply
    Conchie Birdie was starred Conchie Birdie was unstarred
    Image of meechybee meechybee
    10/27/09

    In reply to AIG Only Wanted to Give Goldman Sachs 40 60 Cents on the Dollar, Then Geithner Stepped In
    The only good that can come out of this mess is the death of the "kill Social Security and let Wall Street run it" movement. Then again, (collective) we have very short memories. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    Cynical Media Bitch promoted this comment meechybee was starred meechybee was unstarred
    Image of nowimpissed nowimpissed
    10/27/09

    In reply to AIG Only Wanted to Give Goldman Sachs 40 60 Cents on the Dollar, Then Geithner Stepped In
    I don't understand the proposed solution that the government could have given Goldman Sachs a haircut on their insurance without giving the troubled banks one as well. Goldman had legally binding contracts with AIG for the full amount. Goldman owes their shareholders a fiduciary duty to get as much as possible for those contracts. Once the government stepped in to prevent AIG's bankruptcy, the government did not have a legal leg to stand on to pay some contracts but not others, so Goldman could not have taken less than the full contract amount without their shareholders (e.g. your 401K) rightly being up in arms over it. Yes, everyone was willing to negotiate for less when they thought AIG might go bankrupt, but once AIG was not in danger of bankruptcy, the negotiations effectively ended. Cook seems to accept that the failing banks would not have been able to take a substantial loss on the contracts and thus would have forced AIG into bankruptcy (or gone bankrupt themselves), which means the AIG bailout was necessary. Once that happens, why negotiate for less than your contract when the counter-party (now the government) can afford to pay 100% and has no legally valid reason not to? I don't know where the idea comes from that Geithner could have just unilaterally decided to not pay Goldman on its contracts while at the same time paying other banks. It's not a matter of Geithner favoring Goldman, it's just basic contract law and the reality of having a deep pocket behind AIG's legal obligations. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    nowimpissed was starred nowimpissed was unstarred
    Image of Novaload Novaload
    10/27/09

    In reply to AIG Only Wanted to Give Goldman Sachs 40 60 Cents on the Dollar, Then Geithner Stepped In
    Geithner (and Summers) will go down as two huge Obama mistakes. The favoritism, the secrecy, the cozy Wall St. relationship---just disgusting. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    Novaload was starred Novaload was unstarred
    Image of lackadaisical lackadaisical
    10/27/09

    In reply to AIG Only Wanted to Give Goldman Sachs 40 60 Cents on the Dollar, Then Geithner Stepped In
    Have we all forgotten the fact that Goldman has already repaid the gov't money - that they never wanted - plus interest?

    If Goldman were losing money like every other bank, would we like them better? #goldmansachs
     Reply
    registered promoted this comment lackadaisical was starred lackadaisical was unstarred
    Image of registered registered
    10/27/09

    @lackadaisical: The AIG payment to GS is a separate matter from the TARP money that GS returned to the government.

    "If Goldman were losing money like every other bank, would we like them better?" I’d hope not, but you have a point. I think the problem is not that GS is minting money this year, it’s the fact that it is proposing astronomical bonuses this year. Lloyd B could have been a bit more sensitive to how this would be perceived. It’s not written in stone that compensation has to be 50% of revenues. It would have been more prudent to add $10 billion to reserves to cushion the blow should another 2008 happen. Believe me, everyone at GS would still be more than adequately compensated. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    registered was starred registered was unstarred
    Image of charliebabbles charliebabbles
    10/28/09

    @registered: Well, that's only part of the problem. The real problem is two-fold: number one, Goldman most certainly DID need the TARP money. Technically they may not have actually needed the dollar amount, but they needed the gov guarantee which it represented. And number two, the main reason they're minting money now is because the gov has tilted the field in their favor. The gov stood by and allowed Lehman to fail, one of Goldman's major competitors, so Goldman is now eating Lehman's lunch. Additionally, the favorable funding rates which the gov is providing to GS (and others) makes it nearly impossible to not make money. So yeah, they're taking advantage of the opportunities presented to them (and good for them), but those opportunities exist due to gov largesse, not due to GS creating them. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    charliebabbles was starred charliebabbles was unstarred
    Image of registered registered
    10/28/09

    @charliebabbles: I don't disagree that every financial institution probably needed some sort of guarantee during the worst days of the crisis. Did I say they didn't?

    I also agree with you that GS benefitted from Lehman's collapse, and the subsequent capital raising efforts of other financial institutions. Did I say they didn't? I just said they were minting money (w/o saying what was helping) and had no need to pay 50% of their windfall revenues to employees.

    Please re-read my comment. I don't think we disagree. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    registered was starred registered was unstarred
    Image of Crucifictorius Crucifictorius
    10/27/09

    In reply to AIG Only Wanted to Give Goldman Sachs 40 60 Cents on the Dollar, Then Geithner Stepped In
    Dark pools are a bit overhyped thanks to a terrible name. The only real problem with them is that they run counter to the ECMH. If you can trade against a dark pool, then you can buy and sell shares based on your knowledge of the firm without that knowledge becoming built into the exchange price that everyone else sees. That's the whole thing about executing at the right price. Without the pool, major buyers and sellers end up front running themselves as they can't get all the shares they want at the same price. Supply tightens and the price goes up as a result of illiquidity. If enough people use dark pools, the ECMH is unequivocally false in practice regardless of whether it is true in theory. If you trade against the pool, no one sees your trade and you avoid the short term liquidity crunch but you also get away with making the transaction without 'showing your cards' to the broader market. So the issue of dark pools really comes down to whether you think that ma and pa shareholder are entitled to rely on a stock's price as a reflection of everyone's valuations, or if you are ok with saying that share prices are just a function of what people on the exchange are willing to pay today - if you want a valuation go do it yourself. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    John Cook promoted this comment Crucifictorius was starred Crucifictorius was unstarred
    Image of friend_of_a_friend friend_of_a_friend
    10/27/09

    In reply to AIG Only Wanted to Give Goldman Sachs 40 60 Cents on the Dollar, Then Geithner Stepped In
    One of his goals was to persuade the banks to accept discounts of as much as 40 cents on the dollar...

    That means they wanted to pay 60 cents on the dollar. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    friend_of_a_friend was starred friend_of_a_friend was unstarred
    Image of John Cook John Cook
    10/27/09

    @friend_of_a_friend: You are correct. It's fixed. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    John Cook was starred John Cook was unstarred
    Image of Unsolicited Advice Unsolicited Advice
    10/27/09

    In reply to AIG Only Wanted to Give Goldman Sachs 40 60 Cents on the Dollar, Then Geithner Stepped In
    Dark pools were established so institutional and UHNW clients could set market orders to transact extremely large amounts of shares without disclosing them to day-traders and other entities that would bid those positions up or down. Do you know what actually happened when Blue Horseshoe loved Anacott Steel, John? Dark pools were established strictly because of scenarios like that scene in Gekko's office where the foreign banker implores him to stop screwing up his acquisition of a controlling stake by convincing other buyers to jump into an otherwise-moribund investment. This only benefits Goldman insofar as it makes them able to service their clients better. The real victim in a world without dark pools would be institutional buyers and sellers. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    Unsolicited Advice was starred Unsolicited Advice was unstarred
    Image of DahlELama DahlELama
    10/27/09

    In reply to AIG Only Wanted to Give Goldman Sachs 40 60 Cents on the Dollar, Then Geithner Stepped In
    Sorry, can't help you--the only guy I know at Goldman is currently on a beautiful cross-country trip in the Middle East... Oh, wait. #goldmansachs
     Reply
    DahlELama was starred DahlELama was unstarred
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