Recent Comments

• Mykolas on God Bless Our Two-Party System Extremely refreshing! Now if we can just get this across via mass media to the propagandized masses
• Maarten on The costs of 700b failing The market cap drop was based on an estimate of the capitalization of NYSE, not including NASDAQ nor any foreign markets. Note that this is capitalization of the companies listed on one stock exchange--it's not the total capitalization of companies in any of the indices like DJIA or S&P500.
• nicole on Fail Bail Nice one :D!
• Mykolas on The costs of 700b failing That view is for too simple. The bill was flawed in many areas, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/opinion/30tue1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin. It is better they take time and get it correct and consider some other items like ability for legal redress, helping people stay in their homes... A good read on how Sweden handled it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7820460
• Maarten on Government Seizes WaMu and Sells Some Assets *rolls eyes*
• John Sinteur on Government Seizes WaMu and Sells Some Assets "investment bank" has a specific legal definition. An "investment bank" has different rules and obligations, and different oversight, from normal banks. Not having them any more is significant.
• John Sinteur on How an Italian judge made the internet illegal I'm not blaiming the judge here, I'm blaming the law.
• Maarten on How an Italian judge made the internet illegal Ya know, I seem to remember death threats against Italian judges in earlier cases. Maybe this judge decided to play it safe and let a higher court (or parliament) reverse the decision.
• Maarten on CNN Laughs It Up Over Sarah Palin Interview Can you substantiate the headline on this? I heard someone laughing, but it was not Wolf Blitzer, I think--so it was probably one of the other commentators, who I would not label as representing CNN itself. So is CNN laughing it up here?
• Maarten on Government Seizes WaMu and Sells Some Assets Again Roland, you're arguing the semantics of the term investment banking, not responding to the actual content of my argument. The question in the OP is whether there are banks left that can broker deals. Goldman and JP Morgan are not ceasing their investment banking activities just because they're becoming commercial banks. Then it goes on to say "Oh, right, we don’t have any more investment banks". Yes, in some semantic, definition-based way you can say those banks are not "investment banks" but we do still have those very same banks that always have done and still will do investment banking. Hence, all rhetorics, no content. Hence, hooey.
• Roland Hesz on How an Italian judge made the internet illegal It's not good. Although, I think it still beats the "hey, what is a horse..... head... doing on.. my.. pillow..." scenario. But yes, it is not too good, and you expect a lot more like this all over the world as blogs become more and more popular.
• nicole on How an Italian judge made the internet illegal Italians are crazy...! ;)
• Roland Hesz on Government Seizes WaMu and Sells Some Assets that was meant to be "better than you".
• Roland Hesz on Government Seizes WaMu and Sells Some Assets Maarten - is Wal-Mart a grocery shop? Or is a toy shop? Or a bakery? Investment bank means that: investment bank. Not commercial, not public, not whatever else. You can argue that it's "rethoric and play with words" but then you could argue that there is no difference between cancer and cisticis. Except that you die from one of them, but it's purely a play on words. You can take it as a "rhetoric hooey" but unfortunately we are not in a Carrol Lewis world, and I am not Humpty Dumpty.

  'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less...

  Also:

  The last two major bulge bracket firms on Wall Street were Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley until both banks elected to convert to traditional banking institutions on the 22nd of September, 2008, as part of a response to the US financial crisis.[1] Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, and UBS AG are "universal banks" rather than bulge-bracket investment banks, since they also accept deposits (though not all of them have U.S. branches.)

  Source Emphasis by me. As I said, John Mack probably knows better than what kind of institution Morgan Stanley is than you, and that's not a rethoric move, it's simply he sits a bit closer to the truth in this case.
• tonsure wimple on Gives a whole new meaning to “Terror Watch List” Ha! A friend of mine gave AG Mukasey a Casio F91W: http://tongodeon.livejournal.com/718084.html