Financial topics

[aedens]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -breakdown

10 kings, 1 hour

The seal is set.

[John]

> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -breakdown

> 10 kings, 1 hour
> The seal is set.

The guy who wrote this article is a clueless idiot. To say the least,
he doesn't understand the concept of using easy to measure data as a
proxy for data that's hard to measure. So it's easy to measure the
frequency and size of peaceful demonstrations, and it's quite
reasonable to expect that some parameters in this data might predict
whether violent demonstrations are imminent.

According to the article:

> [The Minerva project] focuses on "large-scale movements involving
> more than 1,000 participants in enduring activity," and will cover
> 58 countries in total. ... The project will determine "the
> critical mass (tipping point)" of social contagians by studying
> their "digital traces" in the cases of "the 2011 Egyptian
> revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian
> fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in
> Turkey.

The problem with this kind of study is that it doesn't take
generational timelines into consideration. If two countries are at a
different point in their generational timelines, then the same
parameters may have different meanings. For example, mass
demonstrations have completely different meanings in Awakening,
Unraveling and Crisis eras, and if you conflate them, then you'll get
different results.

Few researchers have any clue about these differences. America today
is nothing like America in the 1950s, or America in the 1980s. The
same is true for other countries, often more so.

To show how different America was in the 1980s versus today, here's an
example I've written about any number of times, and is in the news.
In the late 1980s, when the Savings and Loan scandal occurred, the
Bush 41 administration prosecuted thousands of people, sending many to
jail.

But in the mid-2000s decade, thousands of bankers knowingly created
thousands of faulty subprime mortgaged backed synthetic security, and
knowingly defrauded thousands of investors with them. This triggered
the financial crisis and caused millions of people to lose their homes
and go bankrupt. And yet, the Obama administration has adamently
refused to prosecute even a single one of these criminals.

If you think about that one difference between the 1980s and today,
then you realize that it's one measure of vast differences in
behaviors and attitudes -- attitudes towards crime, attitudes towards
money, attitudes toward ethics and morality. It would also affect
attitudes toward violence and destroying other people's property,
which is directly relevant to the Minerva study referenced above.

[gerald]

> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -breakdown

> 10 kings, 1 hour
> The seal is set.

The guy who wrote this article is a clueless idiot. To say the least,
he doesn't understand the concept of using easy to measure data as a
proxy for data that's hard to measure. So it's easy to measure the
frequency and size of peaceful demonstrations, and it's quite
reasonable to expect that some parameters in this data might predict
whether violent demonstrations are imminent.

According to the article:

> [The Minerva project] focuses on "large-scale movements involving
> more than 1,000 participants in enduring activity," and will cover
> 58 countries in total. ... The project will determine "the
> critical mass (tipping point)" of social contagians by studying
> their "digital traces" in the cases of "the 2011 Egyptian
> revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian
> fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in
> Turkey.

The problem with this kind of study is that it doesn't take
generational timelines into consideration. If two countries are at a
different point in their generational timelines, then the same
parameters may have different meanings. For example, mass
demonstrations have completely different meanings in Awakening,
Unraveling and Crisis eras, and if you conflate them, then you'll get
different results.

Few researchers have any clue about these differences. America today
is nothing like America in the 1950s, or America in the 1980s. The
same is true for other countries, often more so.

To show how different America was in the 1980s versus today, here's an
example I've written about any number of times, and is in the news.
In the late 1980s, when the Savings and Loan scandal occurred, the
Bush 41 administration prosecuted thousands of people, sending many to
jail.

But in the mid-2000s decade, thousands of bankers knowingly created
thousands of faulty subprime mortgaged backed synthetic security, and
knowingly defrauded thousands of investors with them. This triggered
the financial crisis and caused millions of people to lose their homes
and go bankrupt. And yet, the Obama administration has adamently
refused to prosecute even a single one of these criminals.

If you think about that one difference between the 1980s and today,
then you realize that it's one measure of vast differences in
behaviors and attitudes -- attitudes towards crime, attitudes towards
money, attitudes toward ethics and morality. It would also affect
attitudes toward violence and destroying other people's property,
which is directly relevant to the Minerva study referenced above.

John --to give an example to help illustrate the above, and to give some questionable credence to the issue of the "black" vs "white" issue that I have presented before, -- the following from personal experience-- for what it is worth.

I employed contractors in the renovation of apartment buildings in Chicago for over a period of 30 years.
One of my subcontractors was a older Black man by the name of lets just say "X" he was well known in the city as an early holder of a plumbing licence issued by the City Of Chicago.
I hired him to do various jobs, we discussed these tasks, agreed upon a price, and we signed a piece of paper so that we both agreed upon a price ( this was not a legal contract just a gentleman's agreement on paper )
He did the work I paid him. No problem. He had an understudy who I then hired, because "X' was getting a bit to old to do the work. Same arrangement as before, a gentleman's agreement.
One day while the "understudy" was installing a steam boiler for heating a 60 unit building he asked me if "white" people have to pay gas bills ( for heating ) I said yes! if we don't they shut us off, he ( the understudy) turned to his son , ( who was working on the job ) and said, see I told you, you the have to pay gas bills! ------ Question where did the son get the idea that white people did not have to pay gas bills? --- from community activists?

We have some serious problems.

[gerald]

I am sure you all know and as I think John would say ,we have problems, and it will affect the markets. And more.

"a study performed by Duke University found that roughly 20% of publicly traded firms manipulate their earnings to make them appear better than they really are. The folks who were surveyed for this study about this practice were the actual CFOs at the firms themselves."

"The reality is that this practice is far more endemic than the 20% discovered in this study (it’s likely over 50%). Given that most C-level compensation packages are based on stock options, the value of which is determined by stock prices… which respond to earnings beats, CFOs have tens of millions of Dollars worth of personal wealth on the line when it comes to massaging earnings.

So… the prices of assets are fraudulent, the value of balance sheets is fraudulent, and earnings are fraudulent. This means that stock market caps, balance sheets, and income statements are all inaccurate representations of reality." http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-1 ... ased-fraud

Oh -- when this S**** hits the fan, it will be interesting. -- get out the pop corn and watch the show, if your not sucked in.

[Higgenbotham]

John --to give an example to help illustrate the above, and to give some questionable credence to the issue of the "black" vs "white" issue that I have presented before, -- the following from personal experience-- for what it is worth.

I employed contractors in the renovation of apartment buildings in Chicago for over a period of 30 years.
One of my subcontractors was a older Black man by the name of lets just say "X" he was well known in the city as an early holder of a plumbing licence issued by the City Of Chicago.
I hired him to do various jobs, we discussed these tasks, agreed upon a price, and we signed a piece of paper so that we both agreed upon a price ( this was not a legal contract just a gentleman's agreement on paper )
He did the work I paid him. No problem. He had an understudy who I then hired, because "X' was getting a bit to old to do the work. Same arrangement as before, a gentleman's agreement.
One day while the "understudy" was installing a steam boiler for heating a 60 unit building he asked me if "white" people have to pay gas bills ( for heating ) I said yes! if we don't they shut us off, he ( the understudy) turned to his son , ( who was working on the job ) and said, see I told you, you the have to pay gas bills! ------ Question where did the son get the idea that white people did not have to pay gas bills? --- from community activists?

We have some serious problems.

https://books.google.com/books?id=w8_ZZ ... 22&f=false

This kind of thinking is a lot more common than most people realize.

The page I linked to in this book talks about the time when Kenya was making the drive for independence. It describes that one of the motivations for the revolution was the natives thought white people could walk into a bank, write down on a piece of paper how much money they wanted, and walk out of the bank with all the money they wanted. The vistor tried to convince the native that the white person had to put money in the bank in order to take money out but he was unable to convince him.

Bernanke really did give free money to rich white people so if some version of this kind of thinking is an incentive for violence, it'll be well deserved anyway.

[Higgenbotham]

"a study performed by Duke University found that roughly 20% of publicly traded firms manipulate their earnings to make them appear better than they really are. The folks who were surveyed for this study about this practice were the actual CFOs at the firms themselves."

"The reality is that this practice is far more endemic than the 20% discovered in this study (it’s likely over 50%). Given that most C-level compensation packages are based on stock options, the value of which is determined by stock prices… which respond to earnings beats, CFOs have tens of millions of Dollars worth of personal wealth on the line when it comes to massaging earnings.

So… the prices of assets are fraudulent, the value of balance sheets is fraudulent, and earnings are fraudulent. This means that stock market caps, balance sheets, and income statements are all inaccurate representations of reality." http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-1 ... ased-fraud

Oh -- when this S**** hits the fan, it will be interesting. -- get out the pop corn and watch the show, if your not sucked in.

100% of large companies manipulate their earnings.

The reason I say it is let's say there is a large company with 10 divisions and 10 reporting units within each division. There are hundreds of Gen X-ers involved in reporting these numbers and probably well north of 70% of the Gen X-ers at the company are reporting fraudulent numbers.

That doesn't even account for the errors in the reports because another Gen X-er made the reporting instructions deliberately vague hoping that the reported numbers would be skewed in favor of higher profits. It would be stuff like "record your energy input into the cost of manufacturing" and "oh, gosh I didn't know you wanted us to include the energy used in packaging and shipping; I just thought you wanted energy used in production."

[gerald]

Higgenbotham -- it is even more complicated --- Look at MBA's -- they take over a successful company, use theories and bean counting, pay little attention or have little understanding of the core business and are concerned about their "pay" --- the business goes under -- look at what is going on at Sears. --- MBA's are a deadly plague.

[John]

Higgenbotham -- it is even more complicated --- Look at MBA's -- they take over a successful company, use theories and bean counting, pay little attention or have little understanding of the core business and are concerned about their "pay" --- the business goes under -- look at what is going on at Sears. --- MBA's are a deadly plague.

And let's not forget the Gen-X "fraud is ok" culture which I've written about
many times, but won't repeat now.

[John]

A few weeks ago, I heard from someone who used to criticize me
mercilessly for my statements about Gen-Xers, and that the fault was
exclusively with Boomers. Now he told he that he'd been defrauded and
lost all his money. He's a fairly wealthy man, and has lots of
resources, so I wasn't worried about him, but still, this was a very
big deal. I told him that this is what I've been writing about for
ten years, and that I've seen the same thing in the computer industry,
and that I've personally been screwed several times, though not to the
extent he has. In the 90s, I used to trust pretty much everyone, but
today I trust almost no one. I also told him that things will not get
better, will get much worse, that he should protect every dollar he
has, and assume everyone is a crook, because they probably are.
That's what the world has become.

[gerald]

A few weeks ago, I heard from someone who used to criticize me
mercilessly for my statements about Gen-Xers, and that the fault was
exclusively with Boomers. Now he told he that he'd been defrauded and
lost all his money. He's a fairly wealthy man, and has lots of
resources, so I wasn't worried about him, but still, this was a very
big deal. I told him that this is what I've been writing about for
ten years, and that I've seen the same thing in the computer industry,
and that I've personally been screwed several times, though not to the
extent he has. In the 90s, I used to trust pretty much everyone, but
today I trust almost no one. I also told him that things will not get
better, will get much worse, that he should protect every dollar he
has, and assume everyone is a crook, because they probably are.
That's what the world has become.

Interesting
--------------------
On another site I read a comment about the more well off being defrauded by investing in "investment funds". The comment being - the "well to do" just want things easy and let others do the investment work, so they give them money. -- Then the "well to do" get mad when they are defrauded. The comment ended with " a sucker is born ever minute", do your own research.
-------------------
My wife an I were born in "44" and "45", and when we ran our businesses we were ridiculed for being micro managers and spending to much time on detail work. We should have hired others to do that work, like accountants, book keepers, etc. But I guess we are just to stupid and being of Eastern European decent and knowing of people who lived behind the "Iron Curtain" paranoid.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_p ... y_disorder )-

----------------------
Consequently, unlike others we know, we did not have the pleasure of being defrauded or embezzled --- but we are still stupid and paranoid.