2008 Financial Thread

[Kiwon]

FINALLY..........

Like the merger or hate the merger of XMSR and SIRI, there is no way that it should have taken 16 MONTHS for this deal to be approved or rejected by the Justice Department and the FCC. It's a crystal clear example that there is way too much special interest lobbying and political interference going on inside government circles. That sound clichéd but it's accurate.

M and A business deals should be decided on the merits alone. Either it benefits the consumer or it doesn't. This one had some legal complexities given their unique industry and charters but still......16 months to make a decision!

I'm no big fan of Howard Stern but I admire his business savvy and have to almost agree with his opinion on this one.

"Sirius Satellite Radio host Howard Stern supports the merger of his network with XM Satelitte Radio and is fuming at Democratic opposition on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) panel.

After FCC commissioners announced they have reached a deal to approve the merger of Sirius (NASDAQ:SIRI) and XM (NASDAQ:XMSR), Stern ranted about Democrats’ ‘gangsterism’ and ‘communism’ and the obstacles to the merger.

Stern described a phone conversation he had with his agent, who he described as a “liberal Democrat kind of guy.”

“I go, ‘That’s it!’” Stern said. “[I] go, ‘You know what Don, I’ve voted Republican and I’ve voted Democrat. I have vowed I will never vote for a Democrat again. I don’t give a [expletive] – no matter who they are. I don’t care if God becomes a Democrat.’ I said, ‘I backed Hillary Clinton, I backed Al Gore, I backed John Kerry. I am done with them.’”

Stern took it a step even further and called Democrats on the FCC “communists” and referred to their tactics as “gangsterism.”

“The fact that these Democrats on the FCC are communists,” Stern said. “They’re for communism. They don’t want to see companies – this is gangsterism. I said, ‘This is crazy.’”

.................................................. ........................

Feds OK satellite radio merger

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators have formally approved the merger of the nation's only two satellite radio operators, ending a 16-month-long drama closely watched by Washington and Wall Street.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s $3.6 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. will mean 18 million-plus subscribers will be able to receive programming from both services. Executives say it will mean huge cost savings that will lead to a first-ever profit for the relatively nascent industry.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to approve the buyout with the tie-breaking vote coming when the companies agreed to pay $19.7 million to the U.S. Treasury to settle FCC rule violations.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/...approval_N.htm

[Kiwon]

Just another peachy day on Wall Street. Another 9% knocked off the portfolio.

Thank you Washington cowards for more housing mortage bailouts.

Rule Number #1 in Washington, pay back the special interests and lobbyists before you do the right thing for the average American taxpayer.

[Freak Out]

Just another peachy day on Wall Street. Another 9% knocked off the portfolio.

Thank you Washington cowards for more housing mortage bailouts.

Rule Number #1 in Washington, pay back the special interests and lobbyists before you do the right thing for the average American taxpayer.

SOP for those suckers.

[Kiwon]

Just another peachy day on Wall Street. Another 9% knocked off the portfolio.

Thank you Washington cowards for more housing mortage bailouts.

Rule Number #1 in Washington, pay back the special interests and lobbyists before you do the right thing for the average American taxpayer.

SOP for those suckers.

Yeah, Standard Operating Procedure. Whatever happened to all this "change" and "reform" supposedly coming to DC?

Insanity.

Taxpayers may be on the hook for up to $1 Trillion because 95% of people can pay their mortages and 5% can't. And the foxes running the hen house just put themselves in a private suite with A/C and all the trappings of power, including (GULP), even MORE gov't authority to meddle.

Representative democracy, yeah, right.

[Freak Out]

Classic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

The Extreme Reality Makeover Show

By Hank Stuever
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 29, 2008; C01

Symbolic to our era like a sledgehammer to drywall, the biggest house that ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" ever made over -- a sprawling, four-bedroom starter castle, a three-car garage with a turret and all -- has gone into foreclosure, in the 'burbs south of Atlanta.

In that particular episode of the hyper-benevolent reality show, which first aired in February 2005, it took 1,800 volunteers a week to demolish the house with the overflowing septic tank that belonged to Milton and Patricia Harper of Lake City, Ga., and then entirely rebuild a new, larger house, while the Harpers and their three children went away to Disneyland. When they returned, they had the biggest house on Ahyoka Drive, with all the appliances and furnishings, plus enough money to pay taxes on it for decades, plus a fund to send their children to college.

The house will be auctioned off, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, next Tuesday on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse.

The Harpers had used their home as collateral on a $450,000 loan from JPMorgan Chase and fell in arrears, the newspaper reported. He ran a home security business; she mommed at home. Happy to be on television back then, they declined to be interviewed last week, when a news crew showed up from local station WSB, wanting to know what happened.

The mayor of Lake City, Willie Oswalt, who said he'd helped lift a beam into place in the Harpers living room, told the press that "it's aggravating. It just makes you mad. You do that much work, and they just squander it."

You could (and will) say the Harpers had it coming, but really, we all had this coming. One thing we'll always remember about this decade was the constant home do-over fetish, in real life and in the reality of reality TV -- the constant warping of the consumer's sense of entitlement, the fairy-dust economics, the MasterCard reminder that the experience is priceless. We'll look back and think of all the time we spent watching shows where people flipped houses for easy profit, or traded spaces, or designed it to sell, or were led into rooms blindfolded to experience the paroxysms that came with new paint, new furniture, new life.

All the crying people did for the camera: They cried when television's magic wand touched them, and the hosts always cried, too, while telling the camera how good they felt making the dreams of the sick and wretched owners of substandard tract houses come true. Think of the many tears that were shed on American television over organized closets and new kitchen countertops.

Now comes a long period of tsk-tsk, and tut-tut. The schadenfreude potential is everywhere now in these newly sobered times, and it would be something if the Harpers would make themselves available for an entirely other kind of documented extreme makeover, penny by penny.

Every day, we are greeted with fresh evidence of the great American fire sale. If it was wrong to think the economy could go on forever subsisting on money that no one actually had, then it was wrong to think there was something wonderful about watching shows where people got houses for nothing, and then expect them to live happily ever after. Last week, the new numbers came out: Foreclosures were filed against some 740,000 U.S. homes between March and June alone.

There should be shows on every cable channel about that, hosted by people who don't cry, and who don't have megaphones and plastered-on smiles.

These shows should air only on analog television, after Feb. 17, 2009. A certain kind of television viewer wouldn't mind watching some more of this, please, if certain kinds of television producers are listening.

It's hard to explain, comeuppance. But surely it's as fascinating as installing laminate-wood floors.

Bring on Extreme Failure.

[Bretsky]

Bank stocks seem to be beaten down to the point where they are near a bottom

Anybody got some favorites to throw out for some research ? I'd like to identify a couple to add to the long term portfolio

[mraynrand]

Just another peachy day on Wall Street. Another 9% knocked off the portfolio.

Thank you Washington cowards for more housing mortage bailouts.

Rule Number #1 in Washington, pay back the special interests and lobbyists before you do the right thing for the average American taxpayer.

SOP for those suckers.

Yeah, Standard Operating Procedure. Whatever happened to all this "change" and "reform" supposedly coming to DC?

Insanity.

Taxpayers may be on the hook for up to $1 Trillion because 95% of people can pay their mortages and 5% can't. And the foxes running the hen house just put themselves in a private suite with A/C and all the trappings of power, including (GULP), even MORE gov't authority to meddle.

Representative democracy, yeah, right.

How about 48 Bil for African AIDS errr....pharmaceutical companies...

[Freak Out]

I bet yahoo shareholders are happy that they didn't take MSs offer now!

DOW just getting hammered again.

[LL2]

I'd be pissed if I was a Yahoo shareholder. I call for Mr ying Yang to be fired!

[Kiwon]

Yep, my stock values hit their all-time lows today.

Very ugly.

[mraynrand]

Yep, my stock values hit their all-time lows today.

Very ugly.

Time to sell.

[Freak Out]

Shit piss fuck. This is going to hurt someone.

United Shares Fall on False Bankruptcy Report
By MICHELINE MAYNARD

Shares of United Airlines lost nearly all their value Monday morning when a false rumor swept financial markets that the struggling carrier had filed for bankruptcy protection.

United shares traded at one cent in late morning on the New York Stock Exchange, down 99.92 percent, or $12.29. Its volume was more than 29 million shares. Trading in United shares was halted at 11:08 a.m., pending news from the company. Trading resumed at 12:30 p.m., and by early afternoon, shares had nearly recovered, down 70 cents, to $11.60.

A United spokeswoman, Jean Medina, denied the bankruptcy rumor.

The circumstances surrounding the rumor were still being sorted out Monday afternoon.

In a statement, United said the rumor occurred when the Web site of The Sun-Sentinel, a Florida newspaper, posted a six-year-old story from The Chicago Tribune archives about United’s previous bankruptcy filing. The airline operated under bankruptcy protection from 2002 through 2006.

“United has demanded a retraction from The Sun Sentinel and is launching an investigation,” the airline said in a statement.

On its Web site, however, The Chicago Tribune reported a different set of events. The Tribune said a reporter for Income Securities Advisors, an investment research firm based in Miami, found a Tribune article in the Sun-Sentinel archives during a search for information about bankruptcy situations. The reporter at Income Securities posted the article to Bloomberg News, and the rumor then spread rapidly, The Tribune said.

The article did not appear on the Web site of The Chicago Tribune or The Sun-Sentinel, people with knowledge of the situation said. The Tribune said it had removed the article from its archives.

The rumor moved rapidly through airline, market and legal circles. Despite United’s denial, it may have had credence because United has struggled in the wake of record fuel costs, posting losses in the first and second quarters.

The airline, which cut jobs and eliminated its pension plans while under bankruptcy protection, has accelerated its cost-cutting this year. Like other airlines, United has announced plans to cut flights and ground aging planes. It will also eliminate 7,000 more positions.

Although some analysts have raised questions about United’s long-term outlook, another bankruptcy filing has not appeared to be imminent. United is in a battle with its pilots’ union, which has called for the resignation of its chief executive, Glenn F. Tilton. In turn, United sued pilots this summer, after they staged a slowdown that caused the airline to cancel hundreds of flights in late July.

[mraynrand]

Shit piss fuck. This is going to hurt someone.

Hopefully the assholes who spread the false rumors. Maybe they could just kill Giuliani to make up for it.

[Freak Out]

Shit piss fuck. This is going to hurt someone.

Hopefully the assholes who spread the false rumors. Maybe they could just kill Giuliani to make up for it.

Are you a lover of his? Family member? Rudy is a scumbag as far as I'm concerned..do I wish him dead? No...if he was hit by a truck would I shed a tear? No.

[mraynrand]

Shit piss fuck. This is going to hurt someone.

Hopefully the assholes who spread the false rumors. Maybe they could just kill Giuliani to make up for it.

Are you a lover of his? Family member? Rudy is a scumbag as far as I'm concerned..do I wish him dead? No...if he was hit by a truck would I shed a tear? No.

You already are on record as wishing him dead in the WTC collapse. Sorry, not letting you off the hook. Giuliani = effective politician and leader with flaws.

[Freak Out]

Shit piss fuck. This is going to hurt someone.

Hopefully the assholes who spread the false rumors. Maybe they could just kill Giuliani to make up for it.

Are you a lover of his? Family member? Rudy is a scumbag as far as I'm concerned..do I wish him dead? No...if he was hit by a truck would I shed a tear? No.

You already are on record as wishing him dead in the WTC collapse. Sorry, not letting you off the hook. Giuliani = effective politician and leader with flaws.

Flaws? You sure America's Mayor has flaws?

[bobblehead]

Bank stocks seem to be beaten down to the point where they are near a bottom

Anybody got some favorites to throw out for some research ? I'd like to identify a couple to add to the long term portfolio

For the love of god, don't buy anything financial sector.

[Kiwon]

CEO: Fannie/Freddie Bailout Makes America 'More Communist than China'

http://businessandmedia.org/articles...908171808.aspx

Jim Rodgers is definitely someone who is often swimming upstream. He's not afraid of stating his position whether popular or not. I respect him for it even though I may not agree.

In this case, though, I hate what the government is doing and I can't disregard his opinion.

The last few months have been a nightmare: The Farm Bill, Banking bailout, Mortgage bailout, now the Fannie, Freddie bailout with the auto manufacturers also looking for help from Uncle Sam.

Whatever happened to "the free market" with its corrections, risks and rewards?

[mraynrand]

“Bank stocks around the world are going through the roof, that’s because they’ve all been bailed out. You don’t see the homeowners in Kansas going through the roof because they’re not being bailed out.”

----

Bobble says no bank stocks. This guy says bank stocks are great. Don't homeowners in Kansas and elsewhere also own banckstocks?

I'm confused. What is going to happen with Fanny and Freddie with this bailout. Are we (US govt.) just going to back them up, no matter what, forever?

[HowardRoark]

Wells Fargo wrote down around $500 million of Fannie/Freddy Preferred stocks on their balnce sheets yesterday....more banks will have to follow.

The Pfds. were down big yesterday trading around $3 down from $15 or more.