Linda Thomsen, the head of the unit responsible for ferreting out securities fraud at the SEC, failed miserably in her multi-year quest to maintain what little confidence the public once had in the financial markets. Of course she cannot be blamed for the credit crisis, but she is at the center of the confidence crisis. By ignoring numerous credible tips about Madoff and other scam artists over the past several years, she enabled these opportunistic parasites to take control of our financial system, and determine the fate of our confidence in its future.We understand that along with $50B comes hardcore politics such as, perhaps, the Russian mob, threats to personal safety, cash and prostitution bribery, inside plea bargains, etc. One can only imagine the intricate web of politics connected to a $50B scandal. Whatever the reason Thomsen chose to not do her job, we are left to deal with the consequences. The good news, and the reason for this post, is that a replacement is currently being sought for Thomsen.
It's amazing to think that during the years of one of our country's greatest economic expansions, CEO's, regulators and lawmakers were asleep at the wheel. From 2001 to 2006, the U.S. was on autopilot, relying heavily on the working class to pick up the slack. The guys banging the nails were on the job from 6am to 6pm every day, while the CEO's were out playing golf and drinking beers with folks like Linda Thomsen. And now they're asking for our tax dollars to bail them out!
We liked Obama's move to cap CEO's salaries at $500k for any company receiving Federal bailout money. That just makes sense. He makes sense. Another few years of good moves like that may just reverse some of the damage Bush has done. We have a lot of hope for Obama, because he did not grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Our country is long overdue for leadership that is grounded by the reality of hardship.
24 comments:
I have a new found respect for you Snotwheel. This is your best post to date!
Excellent post!
Whether its 50 billion taken by Madoff, or $59 billion missing from HUD, or 2 trillion "lost" by the pentagon, the actual money is insignificant compared to the hideous architecture of back doors and compromised individuals that these schemes help to create. Madoff proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that this system of back doors does indeed exist. For it simply must, because the scheme could not have run without them. It must be big, and it must be pervasive, permeating many if not all public and private systems. What's being constructed is literally what was shown in the 2nd Matrix movie. By creating this network of back doors and compromised individuals, anyone with enough wealth and power can gain access and undermine any or all of our systems. Not just financial, military, political. We're talking about human systems. Be wary of the foundation that is being built. The greed and the fraud are merely the decor.
a song comes to mind:
"Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their sties with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon."
88888s
Snotwheel,
I too give you much respect for the post. I read your blog regularly and recall the days you condemned Obama for wanting to raise taxes. Despite that difference, you're able to give credits when credit is due.
So, I'm very much curious your non-bias opinion about the stimulus package. Do you side democrat's or republican's argument? I think it is ironic that republicans care so much about debt and spending now but not during Bush's years.
bw
snot, you have come full circle
what about the market though snot, you got so into politics now that you forgot about the market. However, I do appreciate your emasculation of Thomsen and who is really behind the 50 billion. amazing how really important people with resources could be so easily conned. new york is full of mafia that is close to wall street.
Again Icon shows his true colors. He is a complete nutjob.
And Icon's not fooling anyone by posting under "Anon" again (Feb 10 3:54 AM)...or "rl"...just a few other names used by Icon.
Same to you Me-No-Speakee, using "88888s" or "bw"...we all know it's you again.
To 88888s
I am incredibly relieved to learn that I'm not the only person who thought of pigs when I looked at the photo of this fallen leader. Wow, this lady should NEVER allow a photo from beneath her face!! lol That nose........and that expression....
Agr8gem57
Thanks to all for appreciating the post. We haven't been commenting on the market because it's been so monotonous lately. Someone on CNBC said yesterday that everyone is waiting for the "big puke". We feel the same way. We realize that revisiting 7500 and/or breaking it may never happen, but we aren't committing any more capital unless it does. So there's no need for us to follow the market closely unless/until our alarms go off. Buying into a bear market bounce can be fatal. If we really have hit bottom and are in the dawn of a new bull, there's plenty of time to find the leaders. As far as we know, there are no sectors powerful/innovative enough to start a new bull just yet, and even if there were, it would be too early to choose its leaders. Here in Snotville, we're just watching and waiting. More interested in raw land than equities right now!
As for Obama, we're basing our opinion of him on his time in office, not on his campaign. And so far, he's a man of action and we have a renewed hope for our country's future, but it will take time. Time, patience, and hard work.
Iconoclast421 I think you're giving way too much importance and credit to Madoff. He was a criminal in a unique position who had inside information on how the system worked and knew exactly where the cracks were. Nothing is ever designed with cracks but they are a fact of life. But claiming that what Madoff exploited is some sort of pre designed hideous architecture of back doors is going a wee bit too far. As far as a network of compromised individuals, i.e.; greedy bastards with no souls, Madoff did indeed put one together, but how many people total do you think were actively participating? 30? 50? Hardly a new "human system" being built. And it was only done for money, nothing as "noble" as politically or militarily motivated, the guy just wanted other people's money. There are always going to be criminals out there looking for the cracks and trying to exploit those cracks for personal gain. That story is as old as humanity, no? Just as the Ponzi scheme is. All Madoff did was find the cracks and then exploited them, along with his relationships, his reputation, his underlings, his gullable "investors" and his knowledge of a weak SEC so he could steal money. He wasn't trying to manipulate the gene pool or manipulate world order, and he certainly wasn't trying to create some fantasy "human system". When it comes down to it all Madoff was found out to be is an unoriginal copycat thief who's only claim to fame is that so far he's the biggest one ever caught. Until a bigger thief finds a bigger crack and does him one better.
Anyone else getting the feeling that the government has about half a plan put together so far?
"He is a complete nutjob." ... "not fooling anyone by posting under "Anon" again (Feb 10 3:54 AM)...
Nutjob? My, my, that's the pot calling the kettle black. But while Mr. Pot is delusionally ascribing anonymous comments to Mr. Kettle, Mr. Kettle is busy quietly raking in the profits from yet another nutjob trading strategy he posted here last week! Check out FAZ today!
Hey Steve I dont give any credit to Madoff. He is the front man or the fall guy. They make him rich, lives it up fopr a while, sets up his family, then he takes the fall. "They" get their secret doors into and out of our military industrial complex, and they get the ponzi scheme big enough to cover their tracks.
What are those tendrils creeping up that woman's neck? Is her sweater threadbare? Does she have Vericose veins of the neck? Does she have a secret Spidey identity?
Snot
We may be seeing some of that 'big puke'. At least today doesn't seem monotonous. I sold DDM earlier today for a loss, because I think now that the Steet has had a look at the machinations of the bailout package, they are voting with their feet. We may have more downside to this. Like I said earlier, I think everyone (figuratively) has thrown their eggs into the government's bailout basket hoping beyond hope that they will fix our economic boo boo. That is our hope. Who is going to lead us out of this morass? Certainly not the captains of industry. They've been effectively cowed into submission. We have our eyes focused on the Steet because that is where our money is invested. But lately the Street has their eyes focused on Washington because that is where they have their future mortgaged.
Lastly, whenever you accept money from the government, they own a piece of you. The auto's are paying the price for accepting aid, and as you know, today GM is following through on a mandated structural change in order to receive more funds. I send my kids to a parochial school because there is absolutely no BS compliance from the gov. They run an incredibly lean operation, and produce fantastic results.
Happy investing, all.
How do you "emasculate" a woman?
steve --
as i'm sure you've noticed there is this insidious tendency towards the polarity between the Reptilian Illuminati Conspiracy Theorists vs. the "You're a nutjob and i believe everything i read in usaToday" crowd..... and so i really appreciated the light-handedness of your comments -- i felt like the world you're describing has a feel of "realness" ... that it closely resembles the world of my actual life and concerns. but there was something in there that caught my eye, which i wanted to fish out and extrapolate.
on the one hand i don't doubt that in the associations of a bernie madoff one could find ties to a dark cabal (or two). but at the same time, i agree that often such things are just the result of simple american ingenuity (if you will), applied over a long time with concentration -- that perhaps madoff simply knew his scam really well. the willful misattention of the law enforcement -- e.g., our favorite vericose reptile-pig, linda thomsen -- cretainly doesn't hurt. and perhaps that's where you would find the real juicy conspiracy. and maybe thomsen's just a hapless idiot too.
i believe it happens both ways, and every which way in between. and i think it's often very difficult to ever know exactly how something like this actually went down. even in our own lives we participate in events that have multiple and contradictory significances from differnt points of view. and we're actually there in person!
anyway, what caught my eye in your post steve, was that you say that madoff and his cronies "hardly built a new human system". your implicit point in this phrase is "it's not a conspiracy". and it got me thinking about conspiracy. what is "conspiracy"? what's a "conspiracy theory"? it seems that the common reading of "conspiracy theory" has something to do with conspiracy being theoretical. to be honest, i have some doubts about the veracity of reptilian overlords speculations. but i don't think there's anything theoretical AT ALL about conspiracy; i think it's our baseline. the word has a far-fetched conotation, but when i actually thought about it, that didn't seem accurate. (as a side note, it's not surprising that a word like this would end up as contested linguistic territory -- language is only & exactly as divergent and contested as we are!). think of the etymology: conspiracy, con-spire, literally meaning "to breathe together". the implication here is that it is universal to human assocation -- as long as people associate they will consort & polarize on the basis of common wants, needs & imperatives -- and the only difference between conspiracy and something "more above-board" is whether you know about it, whether you're on the inside or outside....
so, steve, i agree with you that madoff's scheme ( & the gang that held it up) is no sort of "new human system". i would argue, however, that (however cabalistic or hapless they might have ultimatley been) they were IN ESSENCE conspiratorial. not a "new system" -- just another conspiracy. when there's fifty billion dollars in the game, how can we imagine a world without conspiracy of the (occasionally) most sinister and calculating sort? And there is always fifty billion in the game.
ultimately, i think this whole realm is so full of false polarities. democrat vs republican. illuminati ufoism vs credulous egoism. bulls vs bears. what i see in this tendency is humans trying to make life simpler than it is, so we can better wrap our puny intelligences around it. but in truth, life is terrifically, terrifyingly complex. and the world is a predatory place in continuous transition.
we live in interesting times.
(ps - anon: glad someone else caught that. i think anon meant 'unmask' not 'emasculate')
jf: i like your post, especially the part about "the difference" being whether you are on the inside or outside.
rl
ps - to the basher who said i am just another identity of icons, i assure you i am not...but i doubt you will believe me because you apparently have your own conspiracy theories going on in your head!
Hey, I appreciate dialogue just as much as the rest, but what I really want to know is what are you guys buying and selling, and why.
Yawn.
Real research - RARE - about SEC, media's role, counterfeiting shares/ US Treasury notes etc
Best business blog of 2008
Must read
www.deepcapture.com
what happen to this blog?
no one posting what they are buying or shorting anymore?
Is everyone losing their shirt?
sbbuilder: i am currently only long gold via gdx & dgp. gdx was not strong today, but i believe it sold off with the rest of the market and should rebound considering gold went back over 900/ounce and closed above 910. as i mentioned previously, the chart of gdx has been in a uptrend channel since approx 10/08. even with todays drop, it did not break through the channel, although it is pretty much at the lower trendline.
i am short via dxd & qid. admittedly I bought both too early, but todays market action was obviously good for both.
i've been watching oil. it seems to have found a floor around the 40/barrel mark, but it's been so up & down i'm not convinced it won't come down some more. at some point i will probably go long oil for a bit. just hard for me to imagine it will stay this low as spring/summer approach.
rl
I posted my trades. Bought FXP last week, sold it, bought more when it dropped again, then got steamrolled out of it. Then I jumped into URE, made most of my money back, then bought FAZ and ERY when XLF hit 9.60. Kept right on buying up to $10. Was underwater yesterday to the point where I didnt even log into my account. I had already set up my trade triggers to sell chunks when XLF hit 9.30, 9.00, and 8.75 so there was no reason to log into it. Needless to say yesterday was a real test of resolve...
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