Maggie's Farm

As a former Merrill Lynch broker I can say without hesitation that it was the poorest company I ever worked for in my career(s).
By poorest I mean in leadership, in business ethics ( which BTW has now overtaken military intelligence as the greatest oxymoron ever devised), institutional integrity, and a dozen other salient business metrics.

If I came close to mentioning all the semi and full dressed cleaving of the financial "profession" your jaw would drop to the floor and your money would go under your mattress.

Merrill took advantage of the tendency of markets becoming more risky as they become seemingly more stable. The longer the markets seem to be stable, or appear more secure, the more risky and unstable they become. The false hope of security leads investors to extrapolate stability into the distant future.

Merrill made the speculative phase a step further on the risk side. In this phase, cash flows cover only interest payments, but not enough to amortize the principal. Obviously, this is less stabilizing since borrowers (or in this case on its way to be speculators) are betting on interest rates not going up and the value of the collateral not declining. The longer an economy is stable, the more incentive to speculate, and the more speculative borrowers become.

In securitizing piggyback mortgages ML speculated (always with others money) that the market would continue to rise..it did not and it took Sovereignty Funds and the FED to bail them out..it was too late for other firms.

Run far, run fast from ML..they were poison when they aided in the downfall of World Com and they are poison today....business ethics ..huh.

here's a nice shot of Tom Harkin 9 in the middle) doing a follow up kiss ass to Daniel Ortega after signing the Dear Commandante letter during the 1994 election. basically what Nancy Pelosi is attempting today in Iraq.."Work with us , we'll be in power soon so screw (Reagan) now Bush.

Yep, gen u ine American heros ..Order of Lenin label pins too.

Leaving the office one day during my CIA days I was talking with another operative who was driving a Ford Pinto. Parked out in the parking lot was The One I Let Get Away Again this was closley after I had purchased my Lotus. I convinced my comrade to buy this pristine 1965 XK-E for only $5,000. It had been kept up by a Lockheed space engineer and was perfect....I messed up.