This will open your eyes

[CountryBoy]

Quantitative Short Squeezing

David Tepper, hedge fund manager of Appaloosa Management, personally profited $4 billion and raked in over $7 billion for his hedge fund in 2009. Tepper bet on a three-legged horse at the derby and won only because the government swooped down in Air Force One and dragged the lame horse across the finish line. When Tepper took away $7 billion, he took $7 billion from small investors who correctly bet on the failing real estate market.


Watch Tepper give an interview on CNBC Squawk Box September 24, 2010. The panel asks him what he saw in 2009, and he answers:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...squeezing.html

We are just small fries that really don't stand a chance in the scheme of things, call Wall Street or Stock investing, and those who think that we do are whistling by the graveyard.

I'm glad that a couple of years ago, we decided to patoff/invest/upgrade all of our tangible assests (things that you can hold in your hands), because the gov't is making up the rules as they go along and since we aren't part of the ruling class, you know where that puts us.

 

[alevin]

John Mauldin has also discovered the book I recommended this morning-thanks to KD calling it to my attention. Here's an excerpt from the book, as quoted by Mauldin.

Glover learned that his colleague's art work wasn't a matter of saving a borrower the hassle of coming in to supply a missed signature. The guy was forging borrowers' signatures on government-required disclosure forms, the ones that were supposed to help consumers understand how much cash they'd be getting out of the loan and how much they'd be paying in interest and fees. Ameriquest's deals were so overpriced and loaded with nasty surprises that getting customers to sign often required an elaborate web of psychological ploys, outright lies, and falsified papers. "Every closing that we had really was a bait and switch," a loan officer who worked for Ameriquest in Tampa, Florida, recalled. " 'Cause you could never get them to the table if you were honest." At companywide gatherings, Ameriquest's managers and sales reps loosened up with free alcohol and swapped tips for fooling borrowers and cooking up phony paperwork. What if a customer insisted he wanted a fixed-rate loan, but you could make more money by selling him an adjustable-rate one? No problem. Many Ameriquest salespeople learned to position a few fixed-rate loan documents at the top of the stack of paperwork to be signed by the borrower. They buried the real documents—the ones indicating the loan had an adjustable rate that would rocket upward in two or three years—near the bottom of the pile. Then, after the borrower had flipped from signature line to signature line, scribbling his consent across the entire stack, and gone home, it was easy enough to peel the fixed-rate documents off the top and throw them in the trash.
At the downtown L.A. branch, some of Glover's coworkers had a flair for creative documentation. They used scissors, tape, Wite-Out, and a photocopier to fabricate W-2s, the tax forms that indicate how much a wage earner makes each year. It was easy: Paste the name of a low-earning borrower onto a W-2 belonging to a higher-earning borrower and, like magic, a bad loan prospect suddenly looked much better. Workers in the branch equipped the office's break room with all the tools they needed to manufacture and manipulate official documents. They dubbed it the "Art Department."
At first, Glover thought the branch might be a rogue office struggling to keep up with the goals set by Ameriquest's headquarters. He discovered that wasn't the case when he transferred to the company's Santa Monica branch. A few of his new colleagues invited him on a field trip to Staples, where everyone chipped in their own money to buy a state-of-the-art scanner-printer, a trusty piece of equipment that would allow them to do a better job of creating phony paperwork and trapping American home owners in a cycle of crushing debt.

http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2010/10/25/how-a-gang-of-predatory-lenders-and-wall-street-bankers-fleeced-america-and-spawned-a-global-crisis.aspx

 

[CountryBoy]

It doesn't suprise me one bit. I've become very cynical SOB about all business's, especially those like banks, stock brokers, and the feds that have any dealings with money. All of them are out to gouge those of us that aren't as educated in the ways these scroundrels do business and game the system to steal our tax dollars.

The older I get and more I read, the more I have realized how I was gouged as a young adult and didn't even realize it. And now I realize the gouging is still going on and I have little to no power to prevent it.

Thanks for the post alevin.

 

[Steadygain]

It doesn't suprise me one bit. I've become very cynical SOB about all business's, especially those like banks, stock brokers, and the feds that have any dealings with money. All of them are out to gouge those of us that aren't as educated in the ways these scroundrels do business and game the system to steal our tax dollars.

The older I get and more I read, the more I have realized how I was gouged as a young adult and didn't even realize it. And now I realize the gouging is still going on and I have little to no power to prevent it.

Thanks for the post alevin.

AMEN - brother!

My sentiments exactly

The thing I've found the hardest - is that the more I read is all the more I have to deal with the fact that so much of what I believed was good and true -- was largely a front -- and a lot of times it's kind of heart breaking and makes me mad - that I was duped.

Would be kind of cool - if they sold lottery tickets - for us to serve a little justice before they're sentenced to some real prison - like a dungen.

 

[alevin]

Birch really truly wants to believe it was just a few employees doing bad or careless documentation and issuance of fraudulent mortgages and securities. It was systemic-and consequences to national economy and market are not over yet. far from over. just tossing nonpayers out is not going to fix the much bigger problems.

A sampling of 6,533 loans in 12 securitizations by Countrywide found 97 percent failed to conform to underwriting guidelines, according to a lawsuit filed Sept. 29 by Ambac Assurance Corp. in New York state Supreme Court.
Richard M. Bowen, former chief underwriter for Citigroup’s consumer-lending group, said he warned his superiors of concerns that some types of loans in securities didn’t conform with representations and warranties in 2006 and 2007.

“In mid-2006, I discovered that over 60 percent of these mortgages purchased and sold were defective,” Bowen testified on April 7 before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission created by Congress. “Defective mortgages increased during 2007 to over 80 percent of production.”

“It appears the banks have contractually promised the mortgages met specific requirements, and also it certainly appears not all of them did,” Miller said. “In all likelihood a great many of them [the mortgages] didn’t.”

The other front in the battle is the potential cost to banks of improper documentation used in foreclosures. Attorneys general in all 50 states are jointly investigating foreclosure procedures.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...awed-mortgages-with-investors-homeowners.html

 

[CountryBoy]

AMEN - brother!

I believed was good and true -- was largely a front -- and a lot of times it's kind of heart breaking and makes me mad - that I was duped.

Steady,

I couldn't have said it better, I guess with age comes some wisdom and an education thru the school of hard knocks. But it sure doesn't make it go down any easier.

CB

 

[Birchtree]

I also didn't believe that there were enough minority at risk subprimers to bring down the economy and it cost me $1M in stock market give back. The bottom line is these people still are not making their mortgage payments - get them out of these houses. This is no way to run a country and Obama can't save their skinny butts. They simply are not deserving of free housing unless they go back to public housing.

 

[nnuut]

Plenty of Crooks out there but no regulators, evidently?:nuts:

 

[alevin]

Did you read the story this morning about how one bank foreclosed on a house, changed the locks, boarded up the windows, turned off the utilities, posted foreclosure notice on the front door, house sits empty. A few months later a rep from another big bank comes along, starts to post that banks foreclosure notice-sees the first banks notice, goes to change the locks but cant because first bank already changed the locks. 2d foreclosure employee doesn't know who already foreclosed, asks the neighbor-who tells him the other bank already foreclosed.

2d bank's employee shrugs, walks away, mutters-oh well, not the first time its happened. wonder how many times it HAS already happened-or will? ie, who really owns the place-who really did have the legal right to foreclose? One, not both, maybe neither, maybe even a third party. does clear title matter? heck yeah. does this place have clear title? heck no.

Person who lives next door, told the story this morning on KDs forum.

 

[Steadygain]

Birch really truly wants to believe it was just a few employees ...

Well if that what he wants to believe ... let's not burst his bubble

He's also the one that said all the years under Bush were wonderful and he wouldn't have changed anything :nuts:

Steady,

I couldn't have said it better, I guess with age comes some wisdom and an education thru the school of hard knocks. But it sure doesn't make it go down any easier.

CB

Thanks man

The thing that honestly 'sickens' me the most -- is knowing what you and I (and Birch and Lady ... and so many others) had to believe about this wonderful Country - maybe coming to an end.

I don't know how much could have been avoided - but it seems like with the values and morals and integrity most of us knew and were grounded in that - promoting endless spending, increasingly finding ways to rob the government as a lifestyle, having little to no motivation to earn a living and establish a solid sense of 'self respect', and the Country itself increasingly needing a 'line of credit' (with a communist country none the less) for their survival ....

who would have ever thought we would evolve to that??

It's probably 'unavoidable' - a recurring thrend throughout the centruies where the few in power and control distroy for everyone else.

But then I look at the 'Good Side'. We have always had and known nothing but the very best and the greatest 'abundance' and by far the greatest freedom ever.

Most of us have no clue how good - we have had it - and all the more continue to have it compared to over 2/3rds of the population. So I'm very grateful for what I do have and can still enjoy.