jfager

40 ms·

421.
by jfager 16y ago
I just don't understand why the fact that ACA and the longs are pathetic and should have known they were getting screwed materially influences the question of whether or not Goldman committed fraud. If they did (and it seems pretty clear t
422.
by jfager 16y ago
Okay, fine, ACA sucks. But Goldman still knowingly lied about who was involved in selecting the reference portfolio.
423.
by jfager 16y ago
So he gets to pick the first 55 and sign off on the last 37, and you don't think that constitutes significant influence?
424.
by jfager 16y ago
A synthetic CDO can not even exist unless some party believes the securities it is comprised of will go bad. Not true at all, you don't necessarily have to think it will go bad, you just have to be afraid enough that it might to pay a
425.
by jfager 16y ago
Do you have any evidence that in collaborating on the portfolio, Paulson ever said or represented that he was on the long side? Or that ACA that ever asked? Maybe the SEC doesn't, either, but they do have Goldman's emails on the matter.
426.
by jfager 16y ago
Not true. ACA was being paid by Goldman to put this thing together, who in turn was being paid by Paulson. As long as Paulson wasn't satisfied with the portfolio, Abacus wasn't going anywhere. The fact that they didn't accept his first l
427.
by jfager 16y ago
The identity of the short wasn't relevant because it was "the famous John Paulson", it was relevant because it was the person in the room negotiating the reference portfolio with them. They want to put together the best possible portfolio,
428.
by jfager 16y ago
The 'effing case' is that Goldman told the long side investors that ACA independently assembled the reference portfolio when Paulson actually played a significant role in putting it together. How does that not constitute fraud?
429.
by jfager 16y ago
What percent of all trades in anything don't fall under the umbrellas of hedging or speculating? I assume Paulson's not being charged because it wasn't Paulson who told ACA he was long, it was Goldman. As for why ACA couldn't figure out he
430.
by jfager 16y ago
The existence of the short is always clear. Who that short is , and why they're short, is not. In this case, ACA worked with Paulson to pick the reference portfolio of RMBS under the belief that we was long the equity tranche.
431.
by jfager 16y ago
Goldman stepped into the middle of the transaction because that's what they were paid (I think it was 15m?) to do. You're right that the buyer should have taken a closer look at the underlying mortgages themselves, but that's the other part
432.
by jfager 16y ago
In these kinds of instruments, though, the short isn't always clear. Paulson himself was never short on the instrument directly - it's not like a stock where you can borrow shares. To be short, he had to go and buy a CDS on it (and one of
433.
by jfager 16y ago
At what point in that story did the bank lie about who specifically had assembled the reference portfolio? In other words, where's the parallel with Goldman using ACA as a marketing tool and shield?
434.
by jfager 16y ago
Your incredulity aside, they absolutely did say that, or at least they convinced the ratings agencies to say that. That wasn't the lie, though - according to the (horribly broken) models, they were AAA (or whatever rating is in question).
435.
by jfager 17y ago
Any change that exposes more of your personal information should be opt-in, period. This should be a mantra for these kinds of services. This move by FB makes whatever mistakes Google made with Buzz look relatively innocent. They need to
436.
by jfager 17y ago
That only works for Social Plugins, though, not Instant Personalization-approved sites. The issue isn't that there aren't ways to protect yourself (there were for Buzz, as well). The issue is that you have to be aware this is happening at
437.
by jfager 17y ago
That's not the case. With Instant Personalization, "partner sites" do, in fact, get access to your information just from you visiting them while logged into Facebook. With Social Plugins, any site can embed a widget that works like you de
438.
by jfager 17y ago
This "Instant Personalization" feature - isn't this far worse than what Google did with Buzz? Without notifying or consulting me, Facebook has decided it is now in their best interest to tell every website I visit who I am, who my friends a
439.
by jfager 17y ago
Because I have friends and family who ask me all kinds of crazy questions about how things work, and I'm guessing the experience I had on FB this morning won't be enough to let me dodge those questions. It's a personal opinion, but one I t
440.
by jfager 17y ago
Barely. The explanation of what you're opting into is terse and vague enough that most people won't really understand what's going on, and if you decide not to opt in, FB wipes out almost your entire profile.
441.
by jfager 17y ago
You're misunderstanding the issue. Today's change takes previously private or limited exposure profile information and uses it to create ad-hoc groups that people never explicitly acted to join. It's very similar to the Google Buzz fiasco
442.
by jfager 17y ago
HN is good at containing spam, but only because it constantly polices for it. I shouldn't have been so rude about it in my opening comment on the thread, and I know that's why I'm being downvoted to oblivion, but I really do think this w
443.
by jfager 17y ago
I need a decent news site that's not treated as a spam dump by enterprise software companies. Give me a free one of those, and maybe I'll swing round for an interview.
444.
by jfager 17y ago
Ok, gotcha: it's not that you actually want to hire people who are bored, unhappy, lazy, and gadget-coveting, it's that you want to say you want to hire those people in a cynical attempt to game the media, so that the people who you real
445.
by jfager 17y ago
It's not like it's seriously difficult to get something on the HN frontpage, and if it's at the cost of alienating the kind of developers you'd actually want to hire, so what?
446.
by jfager 17y ago
I'm not saying anything about the usefulness of a CV in the hiring process, I'm saying that it's pretty uninspiring to suggest that the need to put one together is a great hurdle for the kind of developers you're hoping to hire. It just hit
447.
by jfager 17y ago
I know I sure can't wait to work with a bunch of people who were bored and unhappy at their previous job but couldn't manage pull their shit together enough to write up a CV or cover letter, and had to be spurred by the offer of a $500 gadg
448.
by jfager 17y ago
Goldman was in a similar role to UBS, Merrill, Citi, etc., and Magnetar was in a similar role to Paulson & Co. I think that's probably what you meant, but just wanted to clarify.
449.
by jfager 17y ago
I don't think that makes much sense. Consider a music analogy: samplers and sequencers didn't kill demand for new music. If anything, they spawned a whole new sub-industry dedicated to simply finding and selling new interesting snippets
450.
by jfager 17y ago
Because what we all really want from our politicians is a focus on short-term bullshit that they can run the next campaign on.

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