User 86999

92 Comments

    • Don’t Blame Wall Street - At Least Not Completely [view article]
      Stop the propaganda. The Level 3 assets with opaque books unable to explain the true value of assets and a whole lot of junk used to bloat the books to make the hefty incomes and bonuses does not fall in line with legitimate reasonable business practices. You cannot convince anyone who understands the accounting books, but good luck with some simpletons who may buy illogical random thoughts. Ron Paul has it right, once you are able to grasp the knowledge! Sep 29 05:34 PM
    • Being the Change: Baidu Report Raises Important Ethical Questions [view article]
      Good timing on the article - BIDU went up 20% today! Sep 18 04:37 PM
    • Roubini Attacks Bailout, But Misses Boat on Regulation [view article]
      While I agree with the MS thesis that Fed itself and all FNM/FRE style entities were a problem to begin with, I will interpret Dr. Roubini's complaint about lack of regulation when applied to cooked books at those institutions. When the top forensic accountants are still struggling to correctly figure out what exactly is where in assets/liabilities, we have a problem. And of course FNM/FRE are just the tip of the iceberg; wait till an army of others start getting exposed with all their Level III assets. When the regulation allows you to hide your deeds with creative financial engineering and rewards the fat cats at the top of the institutions with millions of dollars in compensation and severance packages, you need to bring the regulation in line! Sep 10 06:53 PM
    • The Two-Ton Wall Street Conflict of Interest Few Dare To Talk About [view article]
      Matt, your article on sformag is well written, but your thesis starts breaking down once you start using the numbers, such as $362B, $600B, $510B, which do not fit well together. Regardless, the profits sitting overseas waiting for a money-laundry opportunity like the 5.25% tax is a taxation loophole anyway. The Code needs be tightened, so that a corporation cannot keep the profits stashed away waiting for such an opportunity and instead pays the dues every year.

      The following is a quote from your conclusion:

      ''Punish corporations for engaging in business overseas while raising the taxes they pay to the highest in the industrialized world, and they will do one of two things: either do less global business (which then will go to non-U.S. competitors) and become less profitable in the process (which means they will be able to hire fewer Americans); or these companies will simply move away, with a similar impact on U.S. workers.''

      Well ... in the first case, the higher domestic hiring is a distorted myth, so it is very unlikely to happen because the corporate greed will prevail, and in the second case, we can live without those patriots and they are free to move out of this country - just make sure to surrender the passport when deciding to move elsewhere. Bon Voyage!

      I was going to comment on the article on its relevant site, but I didn't find a place where I could comment, so sorry about ranting on this forum, but I just wanted to provide my feedback from a different perspective. I'm sure you mean well, but I think we need to weigh our priorities a little more closely. The economy is way out of control because of the corporate/bourgeois greed already - a few more mistakes and we're doomed. We need to spread the wealth not concentrate it in the upper echelons.       Sep 07 03:24 PM
    • The Two-Ton Wall Street Conflict of Interest Few Dare To Talk About [view article]
      This is so strange that our wages have not moved up since 2000, incidentally matching the dubya years, and prices have sky rocketed in this period; life has been sucked out of the middle and aspiring middle class, but we still fail to see that the republican policies are not in the interest of the common citizen - unless of course you are one of those making more than a million bucks a year, which is not quite rich but not exactly middle class either. I cannot see how a middle class person will consider more taxes on the corporate to be anti-corporate, if those taxes can be used to pay for your health and education, which in fact returns those benefits back to the corporate, while making sure that the employees get paid enough instead of that big fat cat sitting at the top. Sep 07 12:09 PM
    • Google: Chrome, Android and The Cloud [view article]
      Any browser that is not based on open source and cannot be compiled from open source cannot be trusted for its shenanigans. There is no way to control the privileges of an autonomous application (such as a browser) on Windows (the platform used by most). Now, of course, one could dream about forcing everyone to start using other platforms, but one will be better off living reality. Hence, Firefox will remain a healthy choice for the masses. Sep 03 05:59 PM
    • More on 'Buffett Pie' and Paying For Tax Cuts [view article]
      The baby boomer generation has been paying enough in social security and medicare to the war hero generation while expecting no such cushion in return when our time arrives to give our tired bones a little rest. Sep 03 09:39 AM
    • Google: Chrome, Android and The Cloud [view article]
      The biggest threat is loss of privacy. Gmail never deletes any piece of email you've ever received or sent out - it just obscures it from your sight. By using their browser now you're handing off your browsing history to the endless data collection centers. Microsoft and Firefox provide the checks necessary to preserve our civil rights. Sep 02 11:04 AM
    • Yes, Virginia, There are High Dividend ETNs [view article]
      Unfortunately, there are tedious taxation issues (think K-1) involved in owning currencies or commodities with "partnership"... and "grantor trust" types, that these vehicles are not suitable for individual investors. Various fund issuers sometimes don't even have the prospectus available on their site (I remember having trouble with Barclays), and if you find one, you cannot clearly gain proper taxation information. You are advised to consult some tax advisers to "explain" the prospectus to you. If the fund issuers themselves are unable to clearly explain the basic taxation (no individual special cases), implying that the taxation is too complicated under all the novel "schemes", you can imagine the nightmare for a back street individual. Even your tax adviser may not be a specialist in such cases, you need to find someone who is actually familiar with these issues. Yahoo boards have more information on K-1 issues. Aug 27 09:41 AM
    • Opportunities to Profit from the New Cold War [view article]
      I wonder if there is an ETF that contains BAESY.PK and EADSY.PK, instead of using the pinks directly. Aug 15 10:24 AM
    • Obama's Tax Plan - And Basic Honesty [view article]
      I like the graphical comparison. How about someone tried to fix the graphic by removing the ''distortion''. It will be a great service to really make the point. These tons of words are a good effort to challenge the honesty of the original, but kind of falls short in driving the point home. Aug 14 11:25 AM
    • Just How Correlated Are Oil and Equities? [view article]
      The stats can be deceptive because of the market inefficiencies. When the oil goes up, your local gas stations are raising the prices immediately, but are they reducing it as fast and proportionately when oil goes down? No. So, the net effect is that the future holder speculators are making the money, but the broader economy is not highly correlated to the benefits. So, the stats will be skewed in one direction. Aug 14 11:15 AM
    • Correction: Beware of Taxes with Currency, Precious Metal ETFs [view article]
      It will be worth mentioning the nightmare taxation associated with "partnership"... status of some of the funds such as DBC, the currency basket and whole lot more inside or outside of currency asset class that generate K-1 forms. Those forms contain some phantom incomes that you've never seen but are required by IRS to pay taxes on, because the "partnership"... made that money. Bizarre. Yahoo forums contain numerous threads on that aspect. It is sad that there is no authoritative article on SA to address that issue. Aug 14 09:25 AM
    • The USA Hits the BRICs [view article]
      Richard, you have made many, many excellent contributions and I look forward to reading your posts, but please know that as authors/writers we do need to exercise some judgment as to what makes a <i>good</i>... contribution. If you judge this post by putting yourself in someone else's shoes, you will see what the comments are trying to say. The quality of jimmy's comments is rather scary, but I hope he will be more cautious next time, and express himself in a more adult manner. Look forward to your usual insightful articles. Aug 11 10:52 AM
    • GRN and DBV: Indicative, But of What? [view article]
      Whenever I see DBV or DBC or any of those grantor trusts, partnerships, a chilling creepy feeling runs through my spine. Why? Because of the taxing nightmare associated with these funds/etns. They generate K-1, which can actually show humongous income, which is completely unrelated to your actual gains/loss from the buying/selling of the fund; hence causing you to lose money at tax time even if you did make some from the purchase/sale of that fund. I have not seen any good treatment of the taxation issue related to these types of funds. I wonder if someone else has seen any. Aug 05 09:28 AM
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