Do you believe stock markets offer "Honest Price Discovery"?

Dann757 wrote:Larry, you seem to know so much, I bet you're a millionaire yourself. It's none of my business.

Contact the SEC if you think it'll do any good.

Not a millionaire by a long shot. I would have to believe that the SEC is already fully aware of these vulture corporations. Remember when the DOW Industrials Index fell over a thousand points and then fully recovered, all within about 10-15 minutes? Do you think a bunch of honest individuals buying and holding modest levels of stocks did that? No, it was far more likely to be one or more of the super computer market skimmers (scammers) algorithms running amok. And if the Government hasn't figured out who did it and how, then how are they ever going to regulate front running?

Hey man I hear ya. One of the regulars here PM'ed me and pointed out that I'm a little too quick to become arguementative. I told him he is spot on. No offense, just crazy old Dan barking like a chihuahua again.

I heard the SEC ignored their own whistleblower when the guy pointed out that Madoff's profit curve was a perfect 45 degree straight line, big red flag

I get your point.

Dann 757, When would have been your timeframe of buying and selling citigroup, are you saying buy in 2008 and sell in 2012?

Salemcoal--- My portfolio is doing great- I'm only down 40% Something like early '09 to early '11.

Dann757 wrote:Salemcoal--- My portfolio is doing great- I'm only down 40% Something like early '09 to early '11.

Lots of people piled into GM stock right before it went to zero hoping for a similar outcome. Events like the one you just described above can only be seen for what they might have been retrospectively. If Citibank was not ultimately declared to be too big to fail, its stock would have (and should have) gone to zero and ceased to exist as well.

lsayre wrote:Events like the one you just described above can only be seen for what they might have been retrospectively.

Uhhh duhhh you mean hindsight is always 20/20

Dann757 wrote:One of the regulars here PM'ed me and pointed out that I'm a little too quick to become argumentative.

Hey, don't worry about being argumentative, that's the way we get different points of view. Though it's kind of disconcerting to see you rooting for the predators.

Dann, I've had stock in a small bank ( First Federal now First Commonwealth ) since it first went public, if you want to make a decent profit unless you have insider information don't buy into a bank. It just started to get better but for awhile I would have been ashamed to even send out what they called a dividend. I think the check, envelope & processing cost them more than the amount.

samhill wrote:Dann, I've had stock in a small bank

My Dad was a reasonably savvy investor, but one of his bad choices was stock in a small bank that was largely family-owned. Later the family bought out enough stock to completely control the bank. The family then elected their own (family) board and hired plenty of (family) officers. The officers were well paid (surprise!), to the extent that there was no profit left over and no dividends paid. So effectively, stock owned by outsiders was worthless and there was no market for it, except the family was willing to buy it back for a couple pennies on the dollar, just to avoid the potential of a stockholder suit. I guess you would say the family were entrepreneurs and fine upstanding businessmen of the Mitt Romney model.

Dann757 wrote:

lsayre wrote:As I see it these companies add no value to humanity at all.

So a lot of people get rich from this, buy land (seller makes profit), build mansions on it, ( dozens of contractor's support their businesses and families), decorate them, ( more employment for people like HANDYMEN), furnish them, ( more employment), go out to eat at restaurants every day, ( support local businesses), buy fancy cars, ( local dealer survives), pay property taxes, ( infrastructure is funded), ETC. No value, huh?

The likes of Bernie Madoff and on down to common thieves, counterfitters, swindlers, shell game and 3 card Monte scammers, etc... also make money and buy land, build mansions on it, etc... Are they similarly adding value to society?

Dann757 wrote:So a lot of people get rich from this, buy land (seller makes profit), build mansions on it, ( dozens of contractor's support their businesses and families), decorate them, ( more employment for people like HANDYMEN), furnish them, ( more employment), go out to eat at restaurants every day, ( support local businesses), buy fancy cars, ( local dealer survives), pay property taxes, ( infrastructure is funded), ETC. No value, huh?

Best argument I've heard for this week for what I would call "intermittent socialism". The rich employ all these people indirectly, but then they also have multi-million-dollar birthday parties, buy $18,000-a-bottle wine, sock their money away in offshore accounts, and do a lot of other stuff that does not employ people to any meaningful degree. Let's say that only one year out of every five, at random, we took ALL the income of ALL the people in the country and distributed it equally among ALL the people. Lot's of peoples' income would double, triple, or more. Imagine how many people then would buy land, build houses, decorate them, furnish them, go out to eat, buy cars (not necessarily fancy), and so on. Now imagine how THAT would boost the economy -- trickle-up economics! -- the rich would get richer, the poor would get richer, the middle-class would get richer.

Shame on you Dan, you socialist! (But I'm perfectly serious about "intermittent socialism"!)

Doesn't normally take dozens of contractors to build a mansion & these days it isn't all that long, then there's the imported Italian marble, the imported furniture in style & country of choice, lease an imported car or two, go to a restaurant or country club to eat if their illegal cook is off & get all kinds of write offs & breaks on property & income taxes. Even in an area with many in the high tax brackets the dealers & everyone else better have a lower priced car or two that they also sell along with all the others, how often do they build that mansion?
Maybe this is why Fred's soon to be new neighbor didn't mind over paying for the farm. http://jonathanturley.org/2011/04/17/we ... roperties/

rberq wrote:Best argument I've heard for this week for what I would call "intermittent socialism". The rich employ all these people indirectly, but then they also have multi-million-dollar birthday parties, buy $18,000-a-bottle wine, sock their money away in offshore accounts, and do a lot of other stuff that does not employ people to any meaningful degree. Let's say that only one year out of every five, at random, we took ALL the income of ALL the people in the country and distributed it equally among ALL the people. Lot's of peoples' income would double, triple, or more. Imagine how many people then would buy land, build houses, decorate them, furnish them, go out to eat, buy cars (not necessarily fancy), and so on. Now imagine how THAT would boost the economy -- trickle-up economics! -- the rich would get richer, the poor would get richer, the middle-class would get richer.

Take a questionable assumption and use that to build another questionable assumption followed by another until you arrive at a structure of economic theory that is shaky in all of its parts. Supply answers without knowing the questions. The Obamanistas have their rich just as Hitler had his Jews. The same appeal to mindless bigotry.

rberq wrote:Let's say that only one year out of every five, at random, we took ALL the income of ALL the people in the country and distributed it equally among ALL the people.

Obama wants to do that five out of one - runaway debt to advance his hatred of the USA , go see 2016 and post in the morning.
By the way, that would be fascist communism, not The American Way.

rberq wrote: Lot's of peoples' income would double, triple, or more. Imagine how many people then would buy land, build houses, decorate them, furnish them, go out to eat, buy cars (not necessarily fancy), and so on.

You assume all those people are intelligent and responsible like you are. Most of them would buy crack, smack, and wreck their new Cadillac, placing even more burden on the infrastructure. That's not income be honest, it's redistribution of wealth in a manner that even further disempowers people, the democrat way.

Dope dealers have to work as well & they contribute to the economy, hire pushers to hang on the corners, but lots of guns & ammo, hire someone to pimp out their ride & they go out to eat as well, the stove is for cooking down more dope only.