We are cooked

Honestly I hope so. Since I'm broke I'd like to bring the rest down. Prices have been rising on everything and unless you deeply in the green you keep losing

Yes the world is ending - even though Italy has no problem servicing its debt.

It is a speculative bond attack; it happens. Do you really think the world has changed that much since yesterday?

Well on the plus side. Imported olive oil prices will come down. And the price of a vacation in Santorini gets 25% cheaper at least.

My clients (I am a lawyer) are extremely high net worth individuals that have personal advisers at Merrill, BOA, and Morgan Stanley. These are advisers that address generation to generation planning, as well as, sales of companies, etc. These guys are all about mitigating risks. My clients have reached out the their advisers over the past few days concerning Merrill's and Morgan's extremely large exposure to sovereign debt. The advisers were not responsive (normally they answer questions within minutes) then they came back today saying "your questions concerning this exposure was forwarded to senior management for a response. We are interested in senior management's response ourselves...."

We are cooked....

Retail brokers call me all the time. They are generally not that bright.

Merrill and MS have given very precise lists of their exposure to EU Sov Debt. They don't need to contact "senior management." They need to contact the junior IR or shareholder relations person in their own company.

Santorini is boring. Mikanos is more fun.

UsUs - my clients are extremely high net worth lawyers (the major international firms) and I can assure you that my business is better than it ever has been: last month was a 20-year record, so much so that I had to turn down huge amounts of work because I couldn't handle it all.

There is unquestionably a problem, and it will take time to fix. Greece is a problem, though it's small. Italy has a huge debt, but no problem paying it.

There is a huge difference between now and 2008 - now we're aware of the problems, and are working to fix them, unlike the regime of George II, when Hank Paulsen said we had the best economy he'd ever seen. They had no clue.

Commodity, stock prices are swinging a lot every day, but there is no volume behind the price swings. Take a look at trading volumes during and after Lehman - we are now at about 1/5 of that level, or less.

This, too, shall pass.

User_Usertofferson - does the handle samadams ring a bell for you???

no it doesnt

" Morgan Stanley said last month that its net exposure in the third quarter to the debt of Spain's government, banks and companies was $499 million. The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, an interagency body that collects data for U.S. bank regulators and disallows some of the netting, said the New York-based firm's exposure in Spain was $25 billion in the second quarter.

The net figure for Italy was $1.8 billion, Morgan Stanley said, compared with $11 billion reported by the federal data- collection body."

So Morgan Stanleys estimation of their own exposure is off by a factor of 50. Its market cap is $31 billion.....

"Bank of America is in the process of moving its derivatives into the FDIC insured side of the house. This means when they blow up (ie Greece defaults) the counterparties get first pick of BofA's assets and the deposit accounts are paid out by the FDIC. Translation: BofA is angling to funnel all its deposits to derivative holders (ie Goldman Sachs) and stick the FDIC with the bill.

See: [www.bloomberg.com]"

No, UsUs: "disallows some of the netting...."

I owe you $10; you owe me $5. Is my exposure to you $5, or $10?

According to MS, it is $5. According to the FFIEC, it is $10.

To say that Morgan Stanley will lose every penny it has invested in Spain - mark to $0 its credit positions and not receive a penny it is owed, is just ridiculous.

Moreover, MS's market capitalization has nothing to do with its balance sheet: it is the price of its stock times the number of outstanding shares.

The world was falling apart in September, then it was grand in October, now there is some (normal - albeit volatile) retrenchment. Do you really think that anything has changed that much since yesterday?

Steve obviously you do not have $40+ million of your own cash being managed by Morgan Stanley. If you did you wouldnt be so casual.

A lot has changed since yesterday. Contagion in the EU is not obvious. Italy's rates are soaring. The mess is know out of the bag

a) if I had $40+ million, it would not all be managed by one firm; and b) client money is segregated from the fiduciary's money, so if Morgan Stanley were to go under - which it won't - clients' money would not be affected.

There has been talk of what would happen in Europe for months; it's nothing that's "out of the bag." One could likewise say that Spain will be next - and it might be. If what you said were true, gold would have soared today, but it didn't. In fact, it fell right in line with everything else.

What is happening is that markets are demanding an end to deficit financing of governments, that they deleverage and institute more growth-oriented policies. Markets move quickly, and tend to overreact; politics moves slowly. Today three things happened:

a) Margins were raised on Italian debt, which caused a liquidation;
b) Greece didn't name an interim prime minister as expected;
c) Berlusconi is trying to hold onto power rather than institute an interim government to pass the reforms.

The market might go down a lot from here; it might go up a lot. What is true is that until Berlusconi leaves, Italy will have trouble refinancing its debt.

The market is very volatile, and news driven.

"My clients (I am a lawyer) are extremely high net worth individuals that have personal advisers at Merrill, BOA, and Morgan Stanley. These are advisers that address..."

Fwiw, I believe people are referred to as "who's," not "that's." So it would be "My clients...are extremely high net worth individuals WHO have personal advisers at Merrill, BOA and MS. These are advisers WHO address...."

Oh, and I don't think the world is ending. It tends not to--there are just always some people around who say it is. Been that way since man became aware of his own mortality.

Steve: "b) client money is segregated from the fiduciary's money, so if Morgan Stanley were to go under - which it won't - clients' money would not be affected." isn't that just what MF Global said?

kw - I have to say that I didn't think the world would end after Lehman, and it almost did. It was a panic, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression. I don't think we're anywhere near close to that - though that could change.

And "that have personal advisors" is fine. According to Oxford: "[as pronoun] (plural that) used instead of which, who, when, etc. to introduce a defining clause, especially one essential to identification."

"Which" would be wrong, however.

User_Usertofferson-

Sounds like you are cooked.... but speak for your self.

I am certainly not!

As to client asset segregation, the way it works for a broker-deal (MF was a FCM--follows a different insolvency regime than bd's)is like this:

-when SIPC takes MS over, they first try and move accounts (that is what happened to the LEH broker
dealer. generally most accounts are moved.

-IF accounts cannot be moved, shorts are leveled out and leverage closed out and customers are entitled to a prorata share of the their assets. Payable in cash or like-type securities. May take months, maybe a year, worst case

-BTW Use User, swaps/derivatives customers generally get screwed in liquidation--they are customers of the UK entity or the unregulated us entities. Dodd Frank is forcing the BAML to move the swap book OUT of the bank, not in it.

It's really complicated but generally thats the way it works

Yes, steve. I think I agree. "Which" is used incorrectly more than it is used properly. Here, I'm not so sure the OP used "that" to introduce a defining clause so the construction seemed clunky to me. But you make my point on the substance of the thread: You feared the world would/could end after Lehman etc. But it didn't. The end may always be nigh, but possibility is quite different than probability.

I agree, KW. A lot of this is real, a lot of it is overblown. Heck, Bank of America is down to $6.15 a share again. I first bought BAC back when I worked for them in the 1980's, at $10 a share, sold it 15 years later at $120.

This, too, shall pass - I think sooner rather than later, because unlike in 2008, minds are focused very closely on what's happening.

Mario Batali is cooked too.
----------------------------------

Celebrity chef and restaurant owner Mario Batali apologized for comparing bankers to Hitler and Stalin, while Wall Street executives reacted with angry comments and calls for a boycott.

“So the ways the bankers have kind of toppled the way money is distributed and taken most of it into their hands is as good as Stalin or Hitler and the evil guys,” Batali said. “They’re not heroes, but they are people that had a really huge effect on the way the world is operating.”

Batali made the comment yesterday at a panel sponsored by Time magazine and was quoted in a story posted on Forbes.com. The website said it had taken the comment directly from a transcript provided by Time.

Dozens of users of the Bloomberg terminal’s interactive DINE function, where they can rate and comment on restaurants, posted sharply worded denunciations. Many also called for a boycott of Batali’s approximately 20 establishments, which include the Manhattan power restaurants Babbo and Del Posto.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Batali apologized for the remarks through his spokeswoman, Pamela Lewy.

“To remove any ambiguity about my appearance at yesterday’s Time Person of the Year panel, I want to apologize for my remarks. It was never my intention to equate our banking industry with Hitler and Stalin, two of the most evil, brutal dictators in modern history.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/mario-batali-apologizes-for-comments-comparing-bankers-to-hitler-stalin.html

That was a helpful post, RS.

But I think Babbo is owned by Lidia's son.

Steve - you are saying "minds are focused" meaning the banks know how f'd they are so they must know how to fix it. There is a massive disconnect there. Just because they know how f'd they are doesn't mean they know how or even can fix it.

This time the shit storm the bankers got us into is probably so bad there is no way out without a massive amount of pain. This time the government wont be able to save them. We are toast.

My clients (I am a lawyer) are extremely high net worth individuals that have personal advisers at Merrill, BOA, and Morgan Stanley. These are advisers that address generation to generation planning, as well as, sales of companies, etc.These guys are all about mitigating risks

--
2008 Was only 3 years ago. MF Global run by a Goldman ex-CEO happened a little over a week ago. These guys can't mitigate or anticipate their own risks, so why would anyone look to them to mitigate their own risks?

No - I mean the minds in Europe are focused, because that is where the problem presently is. The bankers didn't get us into that problem; it was European governments, specifically Greece, which shouldn't have borrowed so much, and the euro itself, which shouldn't have been allowed to expand so quickly, and which doesn't have the mechanisms we have to prevent problems from occurring.

Governments can and most definitely will save the banks, because what they saw in Lehman was that there was no choice. 2008 is not yet over in the sense that lots of problems still remain to be fixed, but we are no longer blindsided by the whole "efficient market" nonsense. We are also more than aware of the mistakes that Japan made after its market collapsed, and we're not making the same ones.

We may be making different ones - who knows - but these problems happen all the time, and they always get fixed. Europe has to learn that to have a single currency it needs to have different financial institutions. They're not going to like it, but if they don't build them, they will lose the very thing that they cherish. It's that simple, and that hard.

Markets are cyclical, today, violently so.

Just a matter of time, sooner probably rather than later for SHTF. SDS at 20.92 in AH. I can be as patient as Michael Burry. Things are going to blow up.
Pulaski, yes.

No - I mean the minds in Europe are focused, because that is where the problem presently is. The bankers didn't get us into that problem; it was European governments, specifically Greece, which shouldn't have borrowed so much, and the euro itself, which shouldn't have been allowed to expand so quickly, and which doesn't have the mechanisms we have to prevent problems from occurring.

---
Come on anyone who didn't know Greece could default has not studied history..
From a recent Bloomberg interview with Steve Hanke of John Hopkins.....

HANKE: Well, I think you've got obviously the lack of
leadership in the sense that they can't execute anything. But
I think you have a problem with ignorance, Ken, and the sense
of history.

Let's just take Greece, for example. If you look at
Greece, they were recognized as a state first in 1832, and
they promptly went bankrupt in 1832 and spent the rest of the
century in various degrees of foreign creditor control.

First, the French administration took over tax
collections and finances. And then they got a loan in 1887,
after their disastrous defeat to the Turks, and that one,
they actually set up a private company that was obliged to
collect the taxes in Greece to pay off the debt. So Greece,
most people - they say Europe, but Greece is in the Balkans.

PREWITT: Well, we've brought this up before. It is one
thing for the Greek government to impose austerity measures.
It is another thing for them to pull it off, to get people to
cooperate and pay their taxes.

HANKE: It is totally impossible. Now, they are in a
total collapse and implosion. Broad measures of money are
contracting by over ten percent per annum, massive
deflationary pressure on Greece. There is absolutely no way
they can grow. I mean it was only a few months ago the IMF
was forecasting they would be growing at 1.1 percent this
year. And all these calculations and sharp pencil work they
were doing were based on a little bit of growth.

In fact, they are going down the tubes, and the money
supply - numbers tell a story, and it is getting worse every
day because you are having essentially a slow bank run has
been going on now for over a year.

Steve yes the governments took out the debt BUT the problem now is the same thing that happened in 2008, the banks levered up on Euro Debt 50X then they created all sorts of other products on top of that debt. The banks have magnified the Euro Problem greater than the actual Euro Problem.

"We could have an AIG moment in Europe," said Peter Tchir, founder of TF Market Advisors, a New York-based research firm that focuses on European credit markets. "Let's say Greece defaults, causing runs on other periphery debt that would trigger collateral requirements from the sellers of CDS, and one or more cannot meet the margin calls. There might be AIGs hiding out there."

You're right, UsUs, there could be an AIG moment in Europe, and just two weeks ago we were all marveling at how the stock market had reversed course from 10,400 to 11,400 in just one month.

But Greece is tiny and its debt is manageable, even if written off 100%. Italy has a huge debt but it is serviceable.

The reason this is happening is political, not economic. Europe never fessed up after 2008, and now it is paying the piper. But everything has a solution.

Read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/business/how-a-financial-pro-lost-his-house.html?pagewanted=1&ref=realestate

from the depths of the financial crisis (that is not going to be repeated). It's sad, but inspirational.

Except for Europe, the world is doing pretty much okay.

Let's say Greece defaults, causing runs on other periphery debt that would trigger collateral requirements from the sellers of CDS

Then shame on the sovereign nations and the regulators for allowing CDS to continue. If as you say, there's a real risk here, then clearly it doesn't mitigate risk but quite the opposite, magnifies the risk by allowing participants to create several times the initial risk on a notional basis through counter-party contracts.

of course we all know Greece did not default, it was all voluntary. NO CDS pay out.

Riversider - so the issue in Greece is resolved? No more possible default? I guess Italy is fixed now too?

I can't argue with you on CDS's - toxic, toxic, toxic- but a Greek default would not trigger CDS's on the debt of other countries, and I don't know what, if any, the collateral requirements are.

And these are CDS's on sovereign debt, aka if you're Moody's and say that Greece defaulted, triggering a credit event, Germany is not going to be very happy and Moody's isn't going to be very happy, either. It didn't take too long for the chairman of S&P to lose his job over the US downgrade: a week was it?

I'm not arguing that things can't get a lot worse in the short-term, or a lot better. Quite possible that Berlusconi steps down and the whole thing goes right back up again.

I don't know. I do know that banks are in a much better financial position than they were in 2008, that companies are in a much better financial position than they were in 2008, and that I personally am in a much better financial position than I was in 2008, and my business is booming.

I don't think that we're anywhere near where we were in 2008, and I don't think we're powerless to do anything about it, as we were in 2008. Europe needs to shape up - it's happening, and a lot faster than they thought it would.

Politicians usually don't do anything until the day after it needed to be done. Why should now be any different?

No, situation in Europe is worse than ever. Greek economy probably cannot meet its remaining obligations and grow at the same time. Eventually they must leave the Euro. The only true out is fiscal union with German and French citizens subsidizing Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, etc, which I just can't imagine occurring. Germans and the French will come up with a smaller Euro zone but maintain a larger zone for trading purposes. It's just so weird, only a few people were smart enough back when to know the Euro would not work. The Brits must be smiling for not joining.

The germans and french are toast. Its their banks that hold a lot of the Greek and Italian debt. The rest is held by US Banks.

Then they all swapped CDS between each other. It is a shit show. Thanks to the smartest of the smart!

That's not the only solution, RS, but it's also not inconceivable: Germany makes a fortune on the eurozone, which is why they want to keep it. They're an export-driven economy.

Greece is an issue, granted. Italy can pay its bills. Spain was running a budget surplus before 2008.

The Brits are not smiling for not joining; they're no better off than the rest of Europe, and their austerity plan is not working.

The euro won't survive as it currently is, that much is obvious. Europe can either get closer together, or move further apart. I believe they will move closer together, because that is the historical trend: like gay marriage, once you let the cat out of the closet, it's hard to get it back in again.

In the US, the Blue States for the most part subsidize the Red States. In Manhattan, we subsidize the outer boroughs, the state, the region, and the country. Rich places always subsidize poor places, because rich places need poor places, for their markets, and for their labor.

This is just a market event, and judging by low volumes, not a severe one. Things have gotten far worse than this, and we've made it through.

Austerity, however, is not the proper - or the only - way to go. Privatization will go a long way toward fixing the problems; labor market reforms, as well. Financial market reforms, and reforms of the ECB: eurobonds, lender of last resort. The euro needs a Fed, which can create money on demand: Europe is the only region that has not done that, and now they are seeing why it's needed.

And why the gold standard doesn't work.

This too shall pass
Greece is the flavor of the week
Next week Italy
Week after that...Spain maybe Portugal?

Meaningless drivel keeping you distracted as the smart money cleans house.
Smart money stopped out every dingleberry and short seller.
Only to rebuy in just a short skip.
Pay attention to the steak!
Too much talk about the sizzle.

What did good?
The company where you make your own soda!
Give me a break!
Green Mountain?
The coffee company that single handedly is destroying the Eco system....one cup at a time.
Give me a break!

Ah - poetry!

not lookin so bad right now

Einhorn is looking very smart on Green Mountain. Unlike most of his competition he really does his homework. The Hedge Fund manager who most comes to mind as doing similar due dilligence is Bronte Capital's John Hempton.

Haiku of the day:

Yesterday the sky
was falling, today there is
a silver lining.

Babbo's is sort of awful. Almost every dish has pork. I am a semi-vegetarian -- but I do eat fish. I thought going to a traditional Italian joint I could put together a nice meal with no red meat or pork, but it was nearly impossible with their menu.

Re: comparisons to Lehman, the banks are much better capitalized now than they were in 08. They should be able to weather the storm better.

However, there must be undisclosed exposures out there to some sovereign debt -- Greece, Italy, Spain. There could be a shake out in which some institution or other goes down, but the shockwaves should not be as dire as in 2008.

What we ought to be worried about is the IAEA's statement yesterday that if we don't start to cut back on fossil-fuel emissions by 2017 (2017!!!), we are not going to be able to hold the temperature rise to just 2 degrees centrigrade.

Anything above 2 degrees, you will recall, equals catastrophic land loss, agricultural decline, mass extinctions for both plants and animals (including medicinal plants )...... and so on.

The climate crisis is here.

I'm not sure the banks are really better capitalized. What has changed is that Goldman and Morgan Stanley became banks andnow fund themselves in ways that leave them less exposed to lines of credit, commercial paper and short term market funding. The Fed is not the best judge of credit risk having granted primary dealer status to MF Global only a short while ago.

Bank America for one trades at 30% of book and has huge mortgage exposure.

Italian food is packed with pork - no way around it. Even meatballs are pork and lamb, no boeuf, if you use my grandma's traditional recipe.

Banks are much better capitalized than they were - BAC and C could do better, but the biggest banks are certainly better off than they were. BAC does have huge mortgage exposure, but that does not necessarily translate into losses.

My point is that the Denial phase is over, and we're in the Mourning phase.

Re my comment on sovereign debt:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-rise-as-sp-reaffirms-french-rating-2011-11-10

I don't think the agencies are going to try to push around the Bigger Boys; they might get burned.

Banks safer?
-----------------
We study the effect of government assistance on bank risk taking. Using hand-collected data on bank applications for
government capital, we control for the selection of fund recipients and investigate the effect of both application approvals and
denials. To distinguish banks’ risk taking behavior from changes in economic conditions, we also control for the volume and
quality of credit demand based on micro-level data on home mortgages and corporate loans. Our difference-in-difference
analysis indicates that after the bailout, bailed banks approve riskier loans and shift investment portfolios toward riskier
securities. However, this shift in risk occurs mostly within the same asset class and, therefore, has little effect on the closelymonitored
capitalization levels. Consequently, bailed banks appear safer according to the capitalization requirements, but show
a significant increase in market-based measures of risk. Overall, our evidence suggests that banks’ response to capital
requirements may erode their efficacy in risk regulation

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1925710

here we go! Today will be a shoe dropping....the first of many coming...

eUnuch, we finally have the counter-balance to Steve F on the board. Can't we banish you to the land of imbicilia where all the imbiciles live?

you never did answer my question on your focus? perhaps you are cerfitied to practice in imbicilia?

RangersFan - again - I will be happy to answer your question after you answer the one I asked you first.

Also nice try on the handle but honestly. That other handle is not me.

OOOPS! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gingrich-said-to-be-paid--1-6m-by-freddie-mac.html

How are you guys going to blame this on Barney Frank???

"Newt Gingrich made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in consulting fees from two contracts with mortgage company Freddie Mac, according to two people familiar with the arrangement......

During that period, Gingrich consulted with Freddie Mac executives on a program to expand home ownership, an idea Delk said he pitched to President George W. Bush’s White House."

okay, the answer is still(again for the reading impaired) Gramm-Leach Bliley obviously a sponsored bill. BUT, the eradication of the wall between commercial and investment banking began two years BEFORE this bill, you ninny. Under Clinton and the Treasury who allowed banks to begin engaging in securities activities under an "exemption" under the bank holding company act. Nevermind, logic and facts have no place in the land of imbicilia.

NOW, your turn.

And who cares about Gingrich, does this boob actually scare you? Pathetic.

*a republican sponsored bill*

besides him being a eUnuch, I think petrfitz has unfortunately returned. Or WideStance as he was known for awhile. Funny, the multiple handles kinda catches up with you after awhile.....

Please answer the question who write the act? You haven't answered the question

Are you really that dumb, petr?

I don't know who Peter is but I know that you cannot answer the question asked.

answer for the 4th tiem: Gramm-Leach-Bliley (Financial Modernization Act) Republican sponsored legislation. In 1989, I believe.

Treasury and Federal Reserve initiative to allow banks to engage in securities activities (circa 1987/88 under Clinton. BEFORE this Act.

Shall I get an interpretive dance troupe to act this out for you? Petr?

You are about as schooled in law as the guy who just took my lunch order......

the question was not who sponsored the act but who wrote the act. Do you have a reading problem?

forget it, dumb as a rock.

Ah I see your partisanship and embarrassment over the results of your party's policies will not allow you to answer a very simple question. Your true colors are showing - more concerned about party than country.

I think rangersfan may have a breakthrough ... we'll see.

I'm still waiting for Brooks to confirm his identity, and midtowner to verify his identity.

By break through do you mean that he cannot say "Republicans wrote the Act" and he can only change the word to "sponsored" to give him some sort of wiggle room to make it sound like his party didnt actually pen the act that led to the financial collapse under the Bush Administration.

It is pathetic.

hb, think its fairly obvious. total goofball and trying now to come back as a "lawyer". hillarious.

another post where he cant type the words "Republicans wrote..."

DuguayFan - your head must be exploding with partisan factual dissonance.....

republicans sponsored/wrote and therefore can be attributed to this piece of legislation. you are so far gone you are seeing conspericies where none exist, you boob.

AND it doesnt negate the fact that the Clinton administration had already begun the dismantling of the wall between commercial and investment banking a full TWO years before the Act was signed by him. and his former treasury secretary was out in the lead on those efforts.

btw, i am not a republican, but i will call bs when its blatantly obvious. and you still havent disclosed your expertixe in law - PETR.

can you now school us on how dumb we all are for paying taxes? or buying at the peak in las vegas? shrill, shrill, shrill.....

I am not Peter. I am not sure what you mean by people are dumb for paying taxes. I believe in paying my fair share of taxes.

My expertise is in multi-generational estate planning.

Multi-generational estate planning, sounds like support for the top 10% of the top 1%.

It can be considered that.

we know who you are - unfortunately, its painfully obvious. given your pov, i suspect your "advice" is to bury hard commodities in holes in the ground and constructing bunkers in the hinterlands. good luck with all that and don't forget that there is a warehouse sale at costco this weekend on all canned goods.

people actually pay you for this tripe?

I guess in the top 0.1% that taxes don't matter because you already inherited the wealth you need, and your income is shielded in municipal securities, long term capital gains, and charitable contributions to museums and opera houses.

BrendlFan - do you even bother to find out what people think? Or do you just assume you know everything about what people think before they say a word? None of your comments about my positions have been even remotely correct.

huntersburg - I also work with many clients who are the ones who earned the wealth themselves and are concerned about passing it down. Actually a good portion of the 0.1% earned the money themselves and didnt inherit it.

What did they earn it doing?

Tech, Health Care, Real Estate, one guy in Shipping, etc etc....

Petr, i just did a search on previous postings under your name (petrfitz) and they are strikingly similar to your postings as eUnuch - i mean user. as a matter of fact, even beyond strikingly similar, exact to the words and expressions and dogma. i knew i had this same back and forth with you a long time ago but you are so stupid you didnt even try to mask your prose. same with your recent comments on clinton and his bj to lucille.

petr/widestance/uu - you are a fraud. who is the one hiding? who is afraid to stand up to what he has said previously? you have been outed, sir. and hysterically, you did it to yourself. halfwit.

wrong again! In your mind is it that anyone who disagrees with you must be the same person. Are you experiencing paranoid psychosis?

The only one who has been outed is you - a partisan hack who cares more about party than country. Congratulations.

So the real estate guy made money on an inflating market they has made home ownership more difficult for the average American.
Health care, well there is a disaster for Americans, costs continuing to spiral, his top 0.1%er skimmed his share.
Shipping, that person has profited while jobs were exported and our trade deficit has devalued our dollar and our economy.
What is the tech focus?
Amazing though, no people on banking, except for you?

Excuse the auto correct's wrong choices

again, one word for you petr, pathetic. and you are now too boring and irrelevant given your lame attempts at reincarnation. goodbye and watch out for those sparkly things in lake las vegas, they tend to attract those who cannot distinguish between substance and superficial....

Rangersfan - you need help. You are name calling like a tourettes patient and trying to loop me in with other users that I am not. Good luck. Up your meds.

rangersfan, good call there - User_U, you're either petrfitz' long-lost twin or are the long-lost petr himself. Right down to the cries of "partisan hack" and pumping up education technology (in another thread). When are we due for a rant on "unbuilt capacity" in Williamsburg?

yep, unfortunately he's back. i still say this place is upside down as he runs free and others still remain in purgatory. which is why........OCCUPY STREETEASY!!!!

he is free to crap up these boards with his skewed view of the world and the shameless promotion of his failed business ventures.

OCCUPY STREETEASY!!!

What is education technology? Sounds like more spending for no better results.

Occupy cyberspace.
Great idea.

I think its time has come...

Shoot the puck...

petrfitz is playing goalie.

On the Eze team.

is Truth actually a....

liar?

petrfitz has a hard time unless he is adorning big floppy shoes, a squeeky nose and an exploding necktie.

Columbiacounty, mMster of Truth.

was that Monster or Master?

The next step downward....

and today the next step down....

Former Obama Fund-Raiser Gets Over 10 Years in Fraud and Bribery Case

By STEVEN YACCINO

Published: November 22, 2011

¶ CHICAGO — More than three years after his conviction on fraud and bribery charges, Antoin Rezko, a former real estate mogul and a once-powerful fund-raiser with ties to President Obama’s early political career, was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 and a half years in prison.

¶ “Enough is enough,” Judge Amy J. St. Eve of Federal District Court said before she passed sentence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/us/antoin-rezko-is-sentenced-to-over-10-years.html

Fundraiser for Comptroller John Liu Arrested

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - 02:19 PM

By WNYC Newsroom

A New Jersey man has been indicted for allegedly helping to funnel large donations to New York City comptroller John Liu, law enforcement sources told WNYC.

Federal prosecutors said Xing Wu Pan was given $16,000 by an undercover FBI agent — far more than the $4,950 individual contribution limit.

U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara said the donations broke campaign finance law and also defrauded the government because the New York City provided funds to match the allegedly illegal donations.
http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2011/nov/16/comptroller-john-liu-fundraiser-arrested/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/nyregion/liu-fund-raiser-is-arrested.html

How have things gone in the 18 months since User_Usertofferson / petrfitz called for the end of the world?

SE, why?