vlod

87 ms·

751.
by vlod 17y ago
Is it GS fault that AIG was doing securities that it couldn't collateralize? No.. why does GS care. Yes the government could have forced them to eat their losses, but the point of the bailout was to stabilize the market. The government did
752.
by vlod 17y ago
Looking back at the original article it suggests that GS was making collateral calls regularly: "Goldman checked the market prices daily and made numerous collateral calls on AIG beginning in mid-2007. By September 2008, Goldman had $7.5
753.
by vlod 17y ago
Yeah okay.. sure, maybe they didn't HAVE to and so decided to increase their exposure becz AIG was AAA, but that doesn't mean that line is going to go on forever. I think after $13B (I presume its around that figure as they got that money
754.
by vlod 17y ago
Agreed. People still seem to have enough money to fill up and drive their huge SUV. When they trade them for Camrys is when I pull my money from the banks.
755.
by vlod 17y ago
Maybe you have more faith in your elected politicians than I do! :) I however don't trust anyone who needs to lobby everyone all the time to raise enough money to get elected. Right.. my bad. Ben's great and seems to be great for the job.
756.
by vlod 17y ago
CDS are used as hedges. With insurance you have to suffer a loss. e.g I'm not allowed (AFAIK) to take out a life insurance on other people. I can take out a CDS that you will fail to pay your loans. If it was insurance it would be regulated
757.
by vlod 17y ago
So what your saying is that the CEO who used to run the most successful bank on Wall St and probably knows more about financial markets than the majority of people shouldn't be used to run the FED? Who would you want to run the FED? An elec
758.
by vlod 17y ago
Firstly these are not loans or insurance policies. Credit Default Swaps (as well as other financial instruments) are used to hedge your position. Maybe CDS do need regulation, but that's another discussion. To reduce this risk, trades are c
759.
by vlod 17y ago
Although technically he said he 'DIDN'T know', then why did he think it was worth while saying it? He wanted to use the word 'treason' in his argument for affect, without taking responsibility for it's use. Too bad. I'm calling on it. It's
760.
by vlod 17y ago
"For good reason: many large financial institutions were based on fraud." Where's the fraud in these investment banks? Maybe your referring to the brokers (in the high street) who actually sold the subprimes to people buying houses? Maybe..
761.
by vlod 17y ago
Huh? you lost me. Care to explain how you got from mortgage slicing to treason?
762.
by vlod 17y ago
"Goldman vigorously disputes that it could not have survived if the government hadn't paid it in full" Maybe you missed the part in the article where they said they could have survived without the money. Also the TARP money was pretty much
763.
by vlod 17y ago
No everything would NOT have been fine. There was a real fear in the market. By 100% backing any bank that failed, the FEDs allowed the flow of money to continue through the economy and it said a very clear message that everyones money is s
764.
by vlod 17y ago
The FED believed that if AIG was not saved then the whole system would have collapsed and the flow of money would have seized up. e.g Small companies that call to banks for short term loans (to pay payroll for example) would not have any mo
765.
by vlod 17y ago
I don't undersand why google bought them only to open-source it. I get suspicious when companies are nice. Any ideas?
766.
by vlod 17y ago
"Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications" is worth checking out in Borders to get a sense if it's gobbledegook amazon link: http://bit.ly/5JlRz7
767.
by vlod 17y ago
Pricing derivatives and calculating risk realtime (i.e exposure) are really where the banks make their money. The big banks (Wall St) I've worked for had better systems that their competitors and therefore have a slight advantage of when to
768.
by vlod 17y ago
Agreed.. they've blogged about it: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/about-voicemail-...
769.
by vlod 17y ago
Looks cool and will try it at my local apple store. I'm glad it doesn't have a ball like the previous mighty mouse, which kept getting clogged up. The only thing that would unclog that sucker was some 'decent' vodka on a cloth from my stor
770.
by vlod 17y ago
How would they restructure their assets so quickly (over the weekend) and solve their liquidity problem without the Fed? (with the banks not lending to each other) Even if a bank wanted to lend another bank money, it takes time to do a reev
771.
by vlod 17y ago
As wikipedia says, with insurance there has to be a debt obligation. With CDS there is none. i.e I can't buy life insurance on you, but I could (potentially) buy a CDS that covers me if you declare bankruptcy. Maybe CDS 'should' be regulate
772.
by vlod 17y ago
No credit defaults swaps are NOT insurance they are a swap. They can be used to hedge 'bets' as options can be used to hedge positions. Heres a link: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/07/04/why-insuran...
773.
by vlod 17y ago
What structure existed at the end of last year that allowed banks to be reborn with the depositors not being scared? You don't think there would have been a run on the banks if more had failed and gone Chapter-11?
774.
by vlod 17y ago
It's not insurance. It's a credit default swap which is a financial instrument and AFAIK not regulated as much as insurance. Insurance is really the wrong word, even though the article uses it. I'm not sure how nobody is going after the cre
775.
by vlod 17y ago
I think the general thought is that a few banks would fail, nobody would really care (because they are sleaze anyway) and everything would continue as normal. errh.. no. They let a few banks die and look at the global effect. Imagine if the
776.
by vlod 17y ago
Yep.. nothing wrong with canned tomatoes. They are usually picked when they are ripe. I use them and they're great. However I'm partial to fresh food as well, salad/sandwichs/salsa.
777.
by vlod 17y ago
Thats why I tried to stay clear of the whole organic verses non-organic debate. I would agree that it's probably next to impossible to tell the difference between an organic tomato and one thats been sprayed with chemicals, but thats not qu
778.
by vlod 17y ago
your probably aware that clicking on the 'test' activity seems to cause some sort of exception? MultipleObjectsReturned at /ev/startup-school/test/ get() returned more than one Activity -- it returned 2! Lookup parameters were {'urlname': u
779.
by vlod 17y ago
Coming from the other side of the pond (I'm a Brit) and growing up where my folks grew their own vegetables, I've really been turned off by a lot of the stuff churned out by corporations and labelled 'food'. In regard to taste, it's simply
780.
by vlod 17y ago
I think we'll see high level abstractions of a wave. My bet is google will introduce it to the generally population with most of the features turned off, so they don't even notice. For example: - In Gmail, when you hit reply it will be in a

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