Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Wednesday, February 25. 2009Weds. afternoon linksThe pretty, well-endowed girl in the photo led to Obama's Presidency. Pols now want to ban primates as house pets. Aren't children primate house pets? Why your kids are less well-educated than Belgian kids Cause of cancer finally found. It's the Jews. Trying to keep Obama honest: His lies about regulations. His lies about medical bankruptcies. I know lying is their job, but I don't have to like it. Quote at Patterico:
How rich bastards like me rip off the taxpayers Am Thinker: I will defend to the death their right to silence you 15 Dos and Don'ts of The New Progressive order Is the excellent Bobby Jindal too dorky for prime time? Obama can make anybody seem dorky by comparison. A new approach to the global warming scare: Maybe even a teensy change will be catstrophic. They are getting desperate to salvage this thing. Beijing's Olympic center. Empty and abandoned. Kill "mark to market." I agree. Investment is future-oriented, not present-oriented. Greenies beginning to come around to nuclear Memo to Eric Holder from Am Thinker:
Funny how little we hear about Iraq these days. Quoted at Lib Leanings:
Politics in the guise of science. Tierney in the NYT Jihadist recruitment tactics are changing. The UK seems to be their fertile soil now. Bipartisanship debunked. We are in a phase of polarized parties. The ten things you need to know about the Employee Free Choice Act Don't you want to help this foreclosure "victim"? And these "victims"? Annie Liebovitz is a victim too! Housing prices in 2009. Supply and Demand Related: History of home values:
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NJ... give me a break. I do have a life, you know. Work, sleep, eat, those basic things. I can't spend my entire day on this computer... unlike some of those well heeled sheep shepherding body-art painters or stiletto wearing voluptuous and entrancing Queens.
Great job. Well, I'll have you know, my female body painting business is doing just fine. I started practicing on the sheep. I wanted to practice on the wife ,but she just growled at me.
I don't know if that is a good sign ,or not. The sheep look great. I even put little stiletto's on their feet. The wolves will be out tonite!!! Not bad work with my 2"and 3" sash brush's, and my 4" house brush. When I move up to the hot babes, I'll be finger painting like I did in Kindergarten. : ) Re getting rid of mark to market, then how do you value the assets? Has there yet been invented a way of valuing assets that is superior to the free market? Perhaps we can have some technocrat central planner price the assets, or maybe we can get a quant to come up with a sophisticated formula no one really understands - we know how well those things always work out. There is a reason no one wants to buy those toxic assets! If it was true that they were being unfairly valued far below their intrinsic value, there would be plenty of hedge funds and well capitalized smaller banks scooping them at fire sale prices.
Finance 101 - You take the present value of the cash flows...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_value Constantly restating the value of assets a company has no intention of selling is insane. They lose all control over their Balance Sheets. Now financial institutions can collapse simply because nobody feels like buying mortgage paper. Of course it won't get fixed because the Democrats seem to enjoy throwing around my money. Concerning valuation, I mostly agree with NJSoldier, and some are pushing the idea of "economic value" as the replacement. Example: I hold a bond secured by 100 home mortgages. 10 are in default, 5 are 90 days delinquent, and 8 are with weak credits. The remaining 77 are current.
Right now, nobody is buying home mortgage bonds, so the genius CPAs who created this system say that the market value of my bond is zero, and the politicians call it a "toxic asset". Yet I can expect still to receive 77 cents on the dollar or maybe more. Does a valuation of zero reflect economic reality? Prior to 2007, I would carry the bond on my books at face value less known loss reserves (the 10% and maybe the 5% of over-90-day loans), or 85 cents. Economic value, as NJSoldier says, would mean the amount that someone would pay to obtain the known cash flows, which would be in the area of 77 cents, less a present value discount. IF THOSE 77 CENTS WERE RESTORED TO BANK BALANCE SHEETS, THERE WOULD NO LONGER BE A CREDIT CRISIS! (Sorry for shouting - we just get a little excited on this utterly unnecessary crisis). From my perspective it was the pretty girl's freaky husband and some crafty lawyers that lead to the presidency.
Of course, I'm a biased Trekky. How do you price an asset when there is no market? How much is your house worth if no one is buying? If you have it rented out and generating cash flow we can figure it's value, in terms of real cash flow, kind of like this cmo MTM nonsense.
7 of 9. Don't neglect the dirty Illinois machine that brought the divorce records out.
Nasty stuff, but there's a reason it was made so public. Better yet, it was the LA Times that carried the water. They went to court and fought tooth and nail to get sealed documents opened that led to Jack Ryan dropping his candidacy. Why was the LA Times so interested in an Illinois election? Then a few years later they fought just as tirelessly to not reveal details about Obama's appearance and speech at a banquet for a radical Muslim leader.
There is a very good reason why Miles Davis didn't choose Art Tatum over Bill Evans in 1959. Art Tatum died in 1956.
If Gringo is correct, that would seem to be a strong reason for selecting someone else...unless we're talking about Chicago voters.
I'm not sure it was a lie, but Obama's assertion about medical bankruptcies was clearly unsupported and likely wrong.
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