quote:Originally posted by T e x: trust me, I'm not trying to be mean...but you sound like a teen-ager at a swimming-pool party.
You may have a point, but it's hard to hear amid the splish-splash.
Can you clarify?
No worries, Tex, by the way, how are you coming along?
As to the question, here it is in Reader's Digest form...
Do you believe in fate?
If yes, then some are born to succeed and other to fail. Success and failure are predestined. No amount of effort will change things.
Otherwise, each bears responsiblity for the direction their lifes takes (within reason). Some things being out of their control obviously, they can choose how they react to these events\challenges.
Either way, if you believe in it for yourself, do you extend it to others and their lives?
well, actually, I'm doing pretty well. On the other hand, I do have plenty of worries--perhaps "concerns" is a better word: I don't tend to worry, much.
Anyway, thanks so much for asking. I trust all is well with you.
As far as "fate" vs "don't worry" goes...???
Gee...I dunno.
Really.
Even after the fire at my house, I just can't say.
I know I didn't set it; on the other hand, I did a gillion nice things for others in my neighborhood. Do I think they tried to kill me?
No, I don't.
Read some Hillerman and get up to speed on his concept of what the Navajo called "walking with beauty."
btw, I don't pretend to understand what real-life Navajos think/feel, etc. However, the beauty way has a life of its own...
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
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quote:Originally posted by The Bigfoot: Bait your own hook SF. What is your answer?
No bait. No hook, Big. There really isn't a 'right' answer here. It's a reflection of one's perspective.
As for my answer, here you go:
In all societies there are rules, it is in the learning of said rules and pursuing success (as one defines it) through the use of these rules that one becomes more than what one was\is.
Societies are ruled by those that know how to use these rules. If one doesn't, then one is usually subject to those that do\did.
Wealth is simply one means of 'rewarding' those that strive and achieve. Other means are awards, titles, fame, etc. Whatever the award, it is usually in response to something they DID. Even if it is as simple as buying a lottery ticket, some action was required to obtain the reward.
Summed up: Those that ACT with regards to the rules that exist achieve success (however it is measured). Those that do not accept what is given.
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: Societies are ruled by those that know how to use these rules. If one doesn't, then one is usually subject to those that do\did.
you are very deluded...
those who rule are not limited by the rules that others accept.
+ 10
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Behind Biggest Insurer’s Crisis, a Blind Eye to a Web of Risk
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Article Tools Sponsored By By GRETCHEN MORGENSON Published: September 27, 2008
“It is hard for us, without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing one dollar in any of those transactions.” Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Keith Waldgrave/Solo Syndication/Zuma Press
Joseph J. Cassano ran an office in London that lost billions of dollars for its company. The Reckoning A Spreading Virus Multimedia An Insurance Giant, Brought DownGraphic An Insurance Giant, Brought Down Three Weeks of Financial TurmoilInteractive Feature Three Weeks of Financial Turmoil Related Times Topics: Credit Crisis Times Topics: American International Group Inc. Add to Portfolio
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Go to your Portfolio » Enlarge This Image Peter Morgan/Reuters
A.I.G.’S EX-LEADER Maurice Greenberg, right, with President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea at the New York Stock Exchange in 2003.
— Joseph J. Cassano, a former A.I.G. executive, August 2007
Two weeks ago, the nation’s most powerful regulators and bankers huddled in the Lower Manhattan fortress that is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, desperately trying to stave off disaster.
As the group, led by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., pondered the collapse of one of America’s oldest investment banks, Lehman Brothers, a more dangerous threat emerged: American International Group, the world’s largest insurer, was teetering. A.I.G. needed billions of dollars to right itself and had suddenly begged for help.
The only Wall Street chief executive participating in the meeting was Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Mr. Paulson’s former firm. Mr. Blankfein had particular reason for concern.
Although it was not widely known, Goldman, a Wall Street stalwart that had seemed immune to its rivals’ woes, was A.I.G.’s largest trading partner, according to six people close to the insurer who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. A collapse of the insurer threatened to leave a hole of as much as $20 billion in Goldman’s side, several of these people said.
Days later, federal officials, who had let Lehman die and initially balked at tossing a lifeline to A.I.G., ended up bailing out the insurer for $85 billion.
Their message was simple: Lehman was expendable. But if A.I.G. unspooled, so could some of the mightiest enterprises in the world.
A Goldman spokesman said in an interview that the firm was never imperiled by A.I.G.’s troubles and that Mr. Blankfein participated in the Fed discussions to safeguard the entire financial system, not his firm’s own interests.
Yet an exploration of A.I.G.’s demise and its relationships with firms like Goldman offers important insights into the mystifying, virally connected — and astonishingly fragile — financial world that began to implode in recent weeks.
Although America’s housing collapse is often cited as having caused the crisis, the system was vulnerable because of intricate financial contracts known as credit derivatives, which insure debt holders against default. They are fashioned privately and beyond the ken of regulators — sometimes even beyond the understanding of executives peddling them.
Originally intended to diminish risk and spread prosperity, these inventions instead magnified the impact of bad mortgages like the ones that felled Bear Stearns and Lehman and now threaten the entire economy.
In the case of A.I.G., the virus exploded from a freewheeling little 377-person unit in London, and flourished in a climate of opulent pay, lax oversight and blind faith in financial risk models. It nearly decimated one of the world’s most admired companies, a seemingly sturdy insurer with a trillion-dollar balance sheet, 116,000 employees and operations in 130 countries.
“It is beyond shocking that this small operation could blow up the holding company,” said Robert Arvanitis, chief executive of Risk Finance Advisors in Westport, Conn. “They found a quick way to make a fast buck on derivatives based on A.I.G.’s solid credit rating and strong balance sheet. But it all got out of control.”
The London Office
The insurance giant’s London unit was known as A.I.G. Financial Products, or A.I.G.F.P. It was run with almost complete autonomy, and with an iron hand, by Joseph J. Cassano, according to current and former A.I.G. employees.
A onetime executive with Drexel Burnham Lambert — the investment bank made famous in the 1980s by the junk bond king Michael R. Milken, who later pleaded guilty to six felony charges — Mr. Cassano helped start the London unit in 1987.
The unit became profitable enough that analysts considered Mr. Cassano a dark horse candidate to succeed Maurice R. Greenberg, the longtime chief executive who shaped A.I.G. in his own image until he was ousted amid an accounting scandal three years ago.
But last February, Mr. Cassano resigned after the London unit began bleeding money and auditors raised questions about how the unit valued its holdings. By Sept. 15, the unit’s troubles forced a major downgrade in A.I.G.’s debt rating, requiring the company to post roughly $15 billion in additional collateral — which then prompted the federal rescue.
Mr. Cassano, 53, lives in a handsome, three-story town house in the Knightsbridge neighborhood of London, just around the corner from Harrods department store on a quiet square with a private garden.
He did not respond to interview requests left at his home and with his lawyer. An A.I.G. spokesman also declined to comment.
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Next Page » More Articles in Business » A version of this article appeared in print on September 28, 2008, on page A1 of the New York edition. Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Times for less than $1 a day Ads by Google what's this? The $700 Billion Bailout What went wrong? Get the full story at Heritage.org www.Heritage.org Stock Broker Ratings Is Your Stock Broker Doomed To Fail The Banks and Brokers X List. Free! www.MoneyAndMarkets.com US Economy Crisis Over? When will the Economy crisis end? Free report for economy indicators www.MoneyMorning.com/econ_crisis Past Coverage
* HIGH & LOW FINANCE; A Pledge to Help That Hurts (September 26, 2008) * Companies Under Pressure (September 26, 2008) * ECONOMIC MEMO; Credit Enters a Lockdown (September 26, 2008)
quote:Although it was not widely known, Goldman, a Wall Street stalwart that had seemed immune to its rivals’ woes, was A.I.G.’s largest trading partner, according to six people close to the insurer who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. A collapse of the insurer threatened to leave a hole of as much as $20 billion in Goldman’s side, several of these people said.
posted
Wealth is simply one means of 'rewarding' those that strive and achieve. Other means are awards, titles, fame, etc. Whatever the award, it is usually in response to something they DID. Even if it is as simple as buying a lottery ticket, some action was required to obtain the reward. Summed up: Those that ACT with regards to the rules that exist achieve success (however it is measured). Those that do not accept what is given.
holy crap man... i'll say the same thing to you as i did to PM...
heroin is extremely profitable and meth increases productivity.. in your myopic view we should legalise both..
as for your "grand question" about why society stratifies? you're kidding me right?
you expected an answer in a web log? LOL...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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quote:Originally posted by SeekingFreedom: Bdgee, before you make blanket statements, you could avoid alot of misunderstanding by asking questions before talking.
I speak both english and portuguese. I have read the King James version of the Bible cover to cover in both languages. I understand all too well that the english terms are simply those used that were closest to the original greek. Most of the languages that are closer to the latin base (spanish, portuguese, etc) allow a far greater opportunity to grasp the original concepts as they still have a wider variety of many terms we simplify into one like Love.
So, yes, I actually DO understand some issues involved with translations.
As for the Master not choosing those words in particular, you are absolutely right. They are actually the words Paul chose in a letter to Timothy. But I'm sure you knew that, right?
As for the esteem I have for the rich? It is the same esteem I have for great song writers. It is the same esteem I have for truly great athletes. Other than those who inherited their money (and some of them who made more with their birthright) have accomplished something with their life. They have something that they have dedicated their time to and have acheived their desired goal.
That is worthy of some measure of respect in my opinion.
I find the ever constant vilification of them with no more basis than any other prejudice annoying in the least and disgusting at it's extreme.
Just exactly what questions would you have me ask?
And what "blanket statements have I made? Indeed, what do you mean by a blanket statement?
"They are actually the words Paul chose in a letter to Timothy. But I'm sure you knew that, right?"
Hogwash. Paul didn't speak English either, so those English words were not his, at anytime and in no letter to anyone.
And the bible was not written in any language you are familiar with, so get off that absurd and arrogant notion that you have some hold on a greater claim to knowledge of the bible that anyone else, because of being able to more "correctly" understand what it says.
"As for the esteem I have for the rich? It is the same esteem I have for great song writers. It is the same esteem I have for truly great athletes. Other than those who inherited their money (and some of them who made more with their birthright) have accomplished something with their life. They have something that they have dedicated their time to and have acheived their desired goal."
If that is all you understand of your worship of rich people, you have once again provided evidence of your inability to recognize your own hero worship of rich people you make in your various utterances. It's there, blunt and over riding, whether or not you can see it.
Personally, I don't see any "constant vilification of" rich people but do see your blanket statement that there is such a thing to be another blanket expression you make in the worship of them.
You needn't preach to us, as most of us have had a great deal more of that before you ever came here than you seem to be able to imagine and most of us don't don't particularly like being preached at. It's more than just a tad arrogant and rude, you know.
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posted
I find the ever constant vilification of them with no more basis than any other prejudice annoying in the least and disgusting at it's extreme.
OK, SF, you really need to hear this, and you're not going to like it.
you have been totally indoctrinated into a patriarchal fundamentalist organisation. You have been told "this is right" and "this is wrong" and you have been taught not to question authority.
The so-called vilificataion that bothers you so much here is actually a democratic debate about what is right and wrong.
it is a crying shame that the GOP has spent the last 20 years pandering to people that want to be told how to think. that's the "allure"of Fox "News" and Limbugger... they have the "ANSWER" and they are willing to share it with you as long as they have sponsors... but don't question their pronouncements ever or you're an idiot.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation, acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street’s largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down.
Also Friday, the S.E.C.’s inspector general released a report strongly criticizing the agency’s performance in monitoring Bear Stearns before it collapsed in March. Christopher Cox, the commission chairman, said he agreed that the oversight program was “fundamentally flawed from the beginning.”
“The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work,” he said in a statement. The program “was fundamentally flawed from the beginning, because investment banks could opt in or out of supervision voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding companies could withdraw from this voluntary supervision at their discretion diminished the perceived mandate” of the program, and “weakened its effectiveness,” he added.
The program Mr. Cox abolished was unanimously approved in 2004 by the commission under his predecessor, William H. Donaldson. Known by the clumsy title of “consolidated supervised entities,” the program allowed the S.E.C. to monitor the parent companies of major Wall Street firms, even though technically the agency had authority over only the firms’ brokerage firm components.
The commission created the program after heavy lobbying for the plan from all five big investment banks. At the time, Mr. Paulson was the head of Goldman Sachs. He left two years later to become the Treasury secretary and has been the architect of the administration’s bailout plan.
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: You needn't preach to us, as most of us have had a great deal more of that before you ever came here than you seem to be able to imagine and most of us don't don't particularly like being preached at. It's more than just a tad arrogant and rude, you know.
+10
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
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