Recent comments

  • When you see your layout of a post going over the column, you can set the width match the blog post width.

    Also, many of you are not formatting the image link correctly.

    See the user guide for the right formatting.

    Also, tables are a bitch and one mistake will hose your entire table. The correct format for tables is also in the user guide.

    Reply to: On Posts   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • and facts, figures, raw data along with a "is this friggin' unbelievable you sacks of corrupt pieces of shit" is always useful! ;)

    Populism with a Σ

    Reply to: "A disaster waiting to happen"   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Tunnel Rat is not as off base as you might think, Robert. He's alluding to terrorism of a different kind, but I believe he has nailed it correctly, and it's similar to what Pat Buchanan has been saying for years now. I know for a fact that within certain departments within Cisco and others the numbers of relatives working there is huge--it's
    fast becoming a closed system.

    Reply to: Obama's CIO Vivek Kundra Previous Close Employees Arrested for Fraud, Bribery   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • all technical with facts, figures, stats and squiggly lines. Now you're just showing off. ;o)

    What timing though, huh?

    It has always been about class warfare.

    Reply to: "A disaster waiting to happen"   15 years 7 months ago
  • Great minds think alike.

    Reply to: Remember when ...   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Is why not just break up AIG?

    Make cross-border CDSs unenforceable under the WTO. Then let AIG America, AIG France, AIG Germany, go their own separate ways.

    I'll bet THAT would begin to solve the issue.

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    Moral hazards would not exist in a system designed to eliminate fraud.

    Reply to: The Incredible Brazen AIG Gives $165 Million dollars in Executive Bonuses   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Hindus are actually the *last wave* of this problem.

    Where were you when the Irish came? Then the Italians? Then the Braceros decimated the agricultural industry? When the Eastern Europeans came? When the second wave of Mexican immigrants moved in on the construction industry? When the textile industry moved offshore to Bangladesh?

    Us IT workers all said, let the unemployed learn our sector, we need help for Y2K. I remember the attitude towards H-1bs back in the late 1990s when we needed the help, completely the opposite since 2001.

    To a large extent, it looks like our current problem is just a continuation of what has been happening in the United States since the 1890s.

    Only when you realize that, can you realize the problem isn't as much Hindu Brahmins, as it is Wall Street Bankers.

    -------------------------------------
    Moral hazards would not exist in a system designed to eliminate fraud.

    Reply to: Obama's CIO Vivek Kundra Previous Close Employees Arrested for Fraud, Bribery   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • IF the only variable you care about is profit for the top of the pyramid.

    Mathematics, without humanity. The question is what are you trying to maximize, and goes right back to "why bother with an economic system to begin with".
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    Moral hazards would not exist in a system designed to eliminate fraud.

    Reply to: The Incredible Brazen AIG Gives $165 Million dollars in Executive Bonuses   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • you need to prove these claims with statistics that can be validated instead of accusations.

    Also, this thread is on Obama's CIO choice and the possibilities of offshore outsourcing, corruption, etc.

    So, these comments are getting way off topic as well.

    Read the rules, adhere to them please.

    Reply to: Obama's CIO Vivek Kundra Previous Close Employees Arrested for Fraud, Bribery   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • Great post, anon.

    Mr. Oaks, we have a reality in I.T. that runs counter to this nation's values -- the displacement and alieanation of American workers at the hands of a nepotistic and insular foreign workforce. How do you explain the cases where 75% or more of an I.T. staff in a department come not only from the same country, but the same region, and belong to the same caste.

    The corruption in India by the upper-caste Hindus is well known, and they now dominate the I.T. consulting industry. And the persecution of Dalits is unconscionable.  The indentured servants being exploited by the bodyshops and the corporate I.T. execs are little more than desperate pawns in a battle to decimate the American programmer.

     One cannot be reasonable at peace with the idea that one ethnic group can monopolize an entire industry at the expense of other immigrants and American citizens.  55k of H-1B visas went to India, out of 85k.  This consolidation is abusive and extreme.  No longer do we hear about a shortage of skilled talent, it is all about the commoditization of hi-tech workers.  The H-1B party line is that Americans are lazy and easily replaced by low-skilled males from a country that is 40% illiterate.  This premise is absurd.  We might as well be importing Somali goat herders or Aboriginals to take our programming jobs -- at least they would be cheaper and more humble.

    And BTW, "Desi" is a term embraced by the Indian diaspora and not a slur.

    Reply to: Obama's CIO Vivek Kundra Previous Close Employees Arrested for Fraud, Bribery   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • sorry but it's like these derivatives traders are controlling the entire world, or people are trying to justify it. The worm should turn and they should have the DOJ breathing down their necks with threats of subpeonas, indictments and most importantly, making sure they never work again in this field.

    Bust 'em for dropping a gum wrapper on the sidewalk if they have to but they need to rein these cats in.

    Ya know the DOJ is busy going after some Sheriff in AZ who is enforcing immigration law? I guess they are too busy to bother investigating AIG for doing "Enron, part II".

    Well, it's clear the threat of global economic collapse is causing many serious mistakes to be made here.

    Reply to: The Incredible Brazen AIG Gives $165 Million dollars in Executive Bonuses   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • Robert's post also applies to healthcare. See: http://www.nihcm.org/pdf/CapacityBrief-FINAL.pdf (specifically Page 8).

    Reply to: Fed Report on Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization - Capacity Lowest on Record   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • I just came across an intriguing post by Gregg Levine at Oxdown Gazette.

    Many more expert than I believe these “smartest guys in the room (AIG edition)” cooked the books—I’d say that’s more than possible--but even if they didn't, Libby likely fears that without these guys, it might be impossible to sort out what the hell they did.

    Libby also worries that they will take this "expertise" somewhere else, and that Somewhere Else, inc., will then have a competitive advantage over AIG, since they will know not only the game last played, and how to play it better, they will know where AIG is on solid ground, and where it is not.

    And, worst fear of all: the disgruntled AIG employees will not land a new job, and to make a little cash, or in order to boost their personal stock, or simply out of sheer vindictiveness they will start talking to friends, regulators, and/or the press.

    AIG is paying to prevent this from happening. Retention = protection, pure and simple.

    Tim Geithner, who as President of the NY FRB last September, designed and is ultimately responsible for the AIG bailout. We are all growing tired of the ongoing sham of AIG. Tim Geithner needs to resign as Treasury Secy and the DOJ needs to get involved in the ongoing fleecing of the American taxpayer.

    Reply to: The Incredible Brazen AIG Gives $165 Million dollars in Executive Bonuses   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • I wouldn't be surprised if the N.Y. State Atty. Gen. steps in to block bonuses. During investigations they have the power to request a stay of pay-out.

    Reply to: An "immoral" or possibly unconstitutional proposal of sorts   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • we're all workin' fer free!

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - Stewart vs. Cramer plus the Wobblies Edition   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • And that is all I read. Call me cynical but I can't remember the last time I watched network or cable news outlets, except for 60 minutes and Bill Moyers Journal. I long ago lost confidence in "mainstream" journalism. The best reporters (read: honest, unbiased) out there, whether it be finance, politics, economics, energy, socio-economics, agriculture, alternative living, psychology, law,... whatever, are bloggers. And the most successful non-fiction writers are also bloggers. Propaganda is hard to get away with on the internet.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - Stewart vs. Cramer plus the Wobblies Edition   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • He has some reality check observations and notes that if people had just read the bloggers, who were pointing to this in screaming bloody HTML, the investors would have been just fine....and that is the truth and why we're all here...

    There are a host of incredible analysts, voices out here where corporate media will not even touch them, speaking truth....so check out some of these blogs in the middle column to stay aware.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - Stewart vs. Cramer plus the Wobblies Edition   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • Although it clearly needs to be investigated. It's Congress, they passed legislation to make all of this legal.

    I think Barney Frank called for a hearing and my immediate thought was ....is he going to call himself up in the hearing and grill himself for selling the U.S. down the river? He is part of the problem, along with Republicans...

    it should not be legal. One cannot simply write up a bunch of funky math formulas and say it's a "financial product" and sell it. This is absurd.

    Reply to: An "immoral" or possibly unconstitutional proposal of sorts   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • Here's another one, JPMorgan Must Let Investors Vote on Executive Bonus Proposals :

    JPMorgan Chase & Co. must let shareholders vote on a proposal that would tie bonus pay to the bank’s long-term performance after investors said financial companies take excessive risk to meet annual earnings targets.

    The Securities and Exchange Commission rejected JPMorgan’s request to exclude a proposal from its proxy statement that would require bonuses to be paid over three years rather than as a lump sum, according to a March 9 SEC letter to the New York-based bank. If performance slumps in the period, the proposal requires the bank to cut a portion of an executive’s incentive pay.

    U.S. banks including JPMorgan that have received $750 billion in aid face legislative and shareholder efforts to limit pay. In filing a proxy proposal with JPMorgan, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said the financial crisis shows what can happen when companies reward “short-term financial performance without any effort to ensure that the performance is sustainable.”

    So it looks like executive compensation to line one's own pockets and especially the incentives to just hit those quarterly numbers....in order to line one's own pockets is coming under scrutiny in a variety of proposals.

    It's really true and one of the worst to me is mergers and acquisitions where the executives can pocket huge bonuses for them.....even when they fire 40k workers and it doesn't make that much sense in terms of profitability going forward.

    You can see it, some companies are oblivious on day to day operations and are "acquisition happy"...well, look to the bonuses and compensation per acquisition to smell that puppy out.

    Reply to: An "immoral" or possibly unconstitutional proposal of sorts   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • On the one hand a CDS is a commodity future inasmuch as it's
    fundamentally an unfunded bet. No reserve requirements. It is also a form of insurance leveraged on 99% margin. The problem has been...who should regulate and have oversight?
    AIG had no business in this. I think there's criminal liability here.

    Reply to: An "immoral" or possibly unconstitutional proposal of sorts   15 years 8 months ago
    EPer:

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