Does anyone out there have their suits tailor made? I don't. It's Men's Warehouse for yours truly which I don't mind.
But if you are wealthy you get the equivalent of that when it comes to investments.
Because of their wealth, the rich can get portfolio managers to create investment products customized to their own particular needs. One option is structured notes, which are complex securities that use derivatives to give investors exposure to particular investment strategies. Also, rather than invest in a mutual fund like everyone else, the wealthy can ask prominent mutual fund managers to create separately managed accounts designed to reduce their tax bill and fees.
Question: how does one regulate "structured notes?" I don't think there is a way to do it so y'all will have to pardon me when I LMFAO in hearing the lies about the government taking over everything. In fact,. nearly every time I hear someone say that, somewhere a portfolio manager and his clients are having a pretty good laugh, saying, "Mission Accomplished." In essence, this is who the Tea Party is actually working for in a fully funded way. It's entitlements for the wealthy.
In addition, I don't think it's possible to regulate hedge funds. They are far too complex and our government is far too neutered to do anything about it.
The wealthier you are, the easier it is to diversify and hedge—both because you can hire skilled money managers to construct those strategies and because you have the resources to spread among many different assets and products.
I can't understand why it's so difficult for people to understand that when you have this kind of freedom, you have more power. When you have more power, you get to dictate the terms of how our economy works and, thus, consolidate that power through shutting everyone else out. I was recently asked in comments if economics was a zero sum game. In a perfect world, it's not.
We don't live in a perfect world.
We live in a world where the pie is constantly artificially inflated and the wealth in our country is being controlled by fewer and fewer people who are very adept at changing the rules of the game. As President Obama delivers his State of the Union tonight, pay close attention to the GOP response and what the conservative pundits have to say. Nearly all of what they say will have one central theme: more money for less people.
And anything else is communism.
28 comments:
It's become to tedious to bother.
I believe the word you are looking for is "too" not "to." I figured I'd point it out since we had such a snit about correct spellings in the post before this one. I'd chalk it up to just a typo and leave it at that because I'm certainly guilty poor typing. Apparently that's not the case with the adolescent crowd on here.
Tedious, indeed. How much longer until you sad sacks realize you are doing the bidding of the ruling elite in this country?
Unless of course I AM one of the ruling elite.
Or, I may be saying it is TOO tedious for Mark to keep trying to explain the obvious.
The white man is keeping us down.
There I was - stuck! Stuck I tell you. Stuck with having to buy my new automobile off the rack so to speak. I had options, sure, but only those on the list offered by the factory. I couldn't get my Luxor 600rx with purple ostrich leather seats and a in a practical all wheel drive. It's the fault of the rich. The rich board members of the eveel international corporations won't let me have it my way.
Meanwhile, those all powerful and controlling rich people could take advantage of the power of their money and have a completely custom car built to their specification. With leather and fuzzy dice and everything! Oh noes! It's criminal at best and pure unadulterated class warfare leading towards ptÅcho-cide. Yes, a war against the poor, the unwashed masses.
Arise! Rise up you downtrodden! Rebel and overthrow your masters!
Phsaw!
The streets will flow with the blood of the non-believers!!
I can't understand why it's so difficult for people to understand that when you have this kind of freedom, you have more power.
What power do they have M over you? What does the bad hedge fund investor actually do to you?
It wouldn't be difficult for me to understand, if you would simply give an example of a rich person fucking you over for profit or fun. C'mon, you can do it, can't you?
But I don't believe it is true just because you say so - without a shred of evidence to support it.
You really ought to change the tag to Corporate Farce - cause you have never identified what force is used against you to make you do corporate bidding. Well, save how McDonalds controls you through their advertising. Bwahahahahahahaha
What does the bad hedge fund investor actually do to you?
Well, I'll set aside the fact that he/she was responsible for losing 20 trillion dollars. For me personally? CDOs and credit default swaps cost my family quite a bit of money that I'll never see again. You'll have to excuse me if I don't publish my private financial records.
You could just examine "House of Cards" or "Inside Job" for more evidence but I know that it's silly for me to think that you might actually accept my evidence and not stand there with your ears plugged (see: 8 year old boy) shouting, "You're talking but I'm not listening!!!!"
CDOs and credit default swaps cost my family quite a bit of money that I'll never see again.
Really? You're a qualified investor? Or are you just flat out lying about losing money on those because you were never eligible to play in that market?
You do understand what you were saying when you claimed that "the rich fuck you over" - or is that just blowing the dog whistle for lefties?
Well, I'll set aside the fact that he/she was responsible for losing 20 trillion dollars.
Wait a minute.
You've been saying that the rich have advantage over the non-rich because they can do things with their money that the less wealthy can't.
Now you claim they lost some money? Whose money? If it's their own money lost then who cares Mark? If it's your money lost (as you seem to be saying) I have to ask something. If the big bad rich man was able to access 'rich person only' investments - and that is a bad thing - and this bad thing is somehow tied to your loss of money. How could your money be involved in 'rich person only' investment angle in order to lose money?
Your arguments just aren't making any sense.
Tutu funny.
On to the next post!
Hmm, appears M has been caught in a big lie, so now he will just ignore that he ever said that he lost money on investments he couldn't possibly have made (due to federal regulations prohibiting vulnerable middle class investors from taking such big risks). You are lying based on your own links. That is truly brilliant.
And you wonder why your credibility is in the toilet? Why you are called out as a hypocrite and anything but a critical thinker?
Wait, doesn't Mark lie about everything and always run away? That makes your comment redundant, juris. He answered your question and, as usually, you obsessively picked at it for any little kernel of something you could pounce on. I guess now you want him to release his financial records. I agree, anon, too funny. Sad and pathetic funny.
Hold on there Downtown. He answered the question. Yes... he did. But he answered it with a lie.
So does it count as 'answering' JI's question?
"Sad and pathetic" funny is right.
you obsessively picked at it for any little kernel of something you could pounce on
Yeah, I'm funny that way with truth and lies.
Per the links M so gleefully posted, he is either a qualified investor, i.e. rich like those who fuck people over, or he is a liar because he is a nice, middle class teacher who could never invest in such financial instruments (as he claimed cost him and his family considerable money).
Oh, and M hasn't come back to either defend or correct himself. Res ipsa loquitor.
Still no response M? No defense, no denial, no nothing - just like you never said it in the first place.
This is turning into one of those times when I doubt that you are actually a decent person.
Perhaps the reason why he hasn't answered is because you haven't connected the dots yet, juris, and are doing a fine impression of Joe Wilson ("You lie!"). There's a word in the sentence that I just wrote that is a clue for you. Let's see if you can figure out how a nice, middle class teacher with some small investments could be affected by qualified investors' greed. This is, of course, assuming that Mark isn't wealthy. What if he has family money? How do you know what he makes? Even if he doesn't, it shouldn't matter in your analysis.
I know Mark doesn't like to attack people personally so I will. Are you really that stupid?
Let's see if you can figure out how a nice, middle class teacher with some small investments could be affected by qualified investors' greed.
Wrong, by definition. M's whole point in bringing up qualified investors was that they have access to markets/instruments denied to the average investor. This is presumptively (on his part) because these markets/instruments are more profitable - which ironically is utterly undercut by then screaming about how much money was lost.
As to M coming from a monied family, well, that certainly is a possibility but for a couple of things. First, M regularly howls about how the wealthy are always fucking over the average guy (as supposedly in this entire string of posts). That would seem a bit odd coming from someone with even a modest amount of wealth. Second, M has also repeatedly said how he is most ordinary in income and investments. I do give him credit for not whining about how underpaid teachers are.
You may create a narrative there if you wish, but I call it fiction. And I note again, not a word from M to correct or defend himself. This is a signature technique of his - to simply ignore that he ever said it. Once he drops it into his memory hole - it just never happened. Even quoting it back to him is pointless.
Now normally, and contrary to my online persona, I assume that M is a decent (if in my view misguided) person. However, when one has been exposed lying, if he values honesty at all, he should admit his fault. If he is a pathological liar, he would build an even more elaborate lie to cover the first one. Curiously M does neither, and I really don't understand that - but hey, it is what it is, and it is most curious.
There is no such thing as an underpaid teacher. We are all overpaid missionaries and any teacher who thinks otherwise should find a new profession.
The fact is that I do have a fairly wealthy family on both sides but that's beside the point. The point of this post was another illustration of how the wealthy in this country hold on to their power. They are allowed privileges that ordinary Americans are not allowed like these investment tools.
While ordinary people don't have access to these investments, deregulation has allowed the big players in the financial sector to have access to people's capital to use as collateral in completely insane risks. In other words, the relationship works one way. Joe Cassano at AIG can use sound insurance revenue from ordinary citizens to bankroll his risky investments but these same ordinary folks don't have access to these products. It used to not be this way. In the age of tighter regulation, they would have to risk their own collateral and (surprise!), we didn't have any financial crises.
Juris erroneously tried to connect the two in (yet another) sad attempt to win the argument with word smithing and weasel questions. There is a connection just not in the way that he is describing. The fallout left the entire nation with losses and it was doubly hard to swallow because ordinary folks had no control over this. Well, at least they would have if the government had done their job.
I've explained this to you many times, juris, but you have categorically refused to accept any of my sources of information or even bother to review them. Instead, you spend your energy trying to trip me up and prove me wrong. Honestly, it would be better spent looking at these connections (the word that downtown was trying to get you to see) and think critically about these facts.
So, are you saying EXPRESSLY that you did indeed personally lose money on CDO's and credit default swaps?
Your chance to come clean or double down.
They are allowed privileges that ordinary Americans are not allowed like these investment tools.
Such as suffering monstrous losses in the credit hedge market. Yeah baby, I sure wants me some of that.
Juris erroneously tried to connect the two in (yet another) sad attempt to win the argument with word smithing and weasel questions.
How pathetic that you still insist on "winning". Is winning the only thing you care about? Is that why you lie - all in an attempt to "win"? What the fuck do you get for "winning" an argument on the Internet?
Are you completely unhinged? You lied, directly and unequivocally and you attempt to finesse your way around it. No dice.
The really astonishing part to me is that you apparently do, at least partially realize this, yet you leave your indiscretions up for one and all to see. You really seem to think that since you are so sincere in your belief, that it isn't really a lie, it's just a shaded truth that says something worthwhile. It's like the people that would go on Springer et al - no matter how fucked up they were, they believed that being on TV validated them.
Truly astonishing.
Lying has no place in critical thinking, and you should be ashamed for suggesting such.
Geez, both of you are dense. Pay attention to the word connection. We all lost money and our entire country suffered personally because of CDOs and credit default swaps. Mark, that study was accurate. Their brains aren't wired to accept any new information. They simply can't conceive that our society is made up of a group of people that rely on each other. In their bizarre fantasy, we are all rugged individualists. Now that you are a "liar" I guess the school yard bullies can hope that no one will listen to you.
I guess I don't understand how he is a liar. Since you don't have access to his personal financial records and I hope to Christ he doesn't offer them up, there is no way you can conclusively prove this. His point is pretty obvious if you set aside your ridiculous bias.
Perhaps I should start representing the left/liberal view here as badly as all of you howler monkeys understand my own positions. I will only post caricatures of leftie thought and never actually pay attention to what you say. I will not answer questions with anything but slogans or hand-waving.
That might amuse me for a while, a short while, but I don't imagine that I could do it as a normal mode of operation.
That would be tough, juris. No one in the Democratic Party takes Dennis Kuncinich seriously when he sues the mess hall at Congress. Clearly, he's an outlier. But Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck are hardly outliers. They are each a major force in the GOP. They live to be the caricatures because that's what makes them the big bucks.
"So, are you saying EXPRESSLY that you did indeed personally lose money on CDO's and credit default swaps?"
Well, we all did...personally. Take some time and research how the interconnectivity of all of this played out. As I have stated previously, I lost 40K and it was directly related to Wall Street shenanigans. We ALL did. Our whole economy and everyone in it has suffered personally and that includes wealthy people as well.
Don't worry, torch. My personal financial records will not be forthcoming.
They are each a major force in the GOP.
So? What the fuck does that have to do with me or what I have to say? Am I locked into them just because I don't agree with you? I may just as well throw Kucinich and Maxine Waters at you every time you throw those assholes up as related or meaningful to me. That's the whole fucking point that continues to elude you. I don't give a fuck about them, and you keep insisting on referring to them as though they had some relevance.
Hell-looooo? McFly?!?
"Well, we all did...personally."
No... you wrote that CDO's and credit swaps cost your family money. We aren't talking theoretically, or philosophically, or any other _ally.
Did you lie when you said that you and your family lost money on CDO's and credit swaps?
You said it. It's right above these words. Retreat or double down, your choice.
Seriously, dude, get a grip on reality. Yes, they lost my family money. Yes, they lost everyone of us money...in a very real way. If you don't think that is true, then it's clear that you don't know what a CDO or a credit default swap is and how they were bundled. Either that or you don't understand the English language. I've presented you with several sources as to exactly how this happened. Each source is filled with verifiable facts. If you choose to disregard them, that's on you, not me.
Anonymous=Unix Jedi. I nearly certain of it.
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