Balta1701

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 12:56 PM) I'd say that can't be serious, but I've seen similar things before. "Well after I pay my two $800/month luxury car payments, the mortgage on my $1m home, save for our $10k luxury vacation, I only have $2-3k (around what the average person brings home total) left over each month in discretionary income!" One thing that's been discussed is that this type of statement is the type of statement you expect in a country where the income distribution keeps becoming more and more top-heavy. Yeah, he's taking home $400k a year. But all the guys who walk into his office to lobby him are making $5 million a year. His investment guy makes $8 million a year. He occasionally hangs out with guys worth billions. And when they're buying multi-million dollar private jets and yachts, and spending nights in hotel rooms that cost $25k a night, and plating their NYC apartments with gold and Picassos, he just doesn't feel wealthy.

QUOTE (VictoryMC98 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:30 AM) I have only seen the I hate Ozzie camp, not the Kenny is the problem camp here. Have fun. Link Link Link

QUOTE (VictoryMC98 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:23 AM) Then sir/maam, I will state you are wrong. I was one of the largest BA fans.. but, he was more hype than actually anything. BTW.. I own a BA White Sox Jersey.. # 44. That is buried in my closet, and only bring it out when I move now! EDIT: I take that back.. I alternate, I wear that and My signed Jose Canceso jersey and my New York Yankee Darryl Strawberry Jersey's... To my Fantasy Baseball Drafts! The one thing Anderson could do was field. He was having a Franklin Gutierrez worthy season with the glove in 2006 despite playing only 1/2 the time. By the time the 2nd half of the season rolled around, "Anderson would have had it" was code for "a lazy fly ball to CF". Every damn time Mack was in CF, it was 1-3 runs given up. Every bloody time. And usually the ball he'd misplay would turn into extra bases, and a longer inning for the starter, and a couple earned runs for the starter since OF's never get charged for errors when they simply don't get to a ball that they ought to. I'll go to my grave saying that deciding Mackowiak was a platoon CF by day 2 of the regular season and keeping it that way the whole year cost the Sox that division. I know UZR/win shares don't show it, but that's just how incredibly bad Mackowiak was out there. There might have been a game that season where he didn't cost them a run, but that's it.

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QUOTE (VictoryMC98 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:17 AM) Anderson couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat... that's your other option. And I was a Anderson fan, btw. And I'll go to my grave saying that this team wins the 2006 AL Central if Anderson was treated as the everyday starter and not benched for Mackowiak starting in game 2 of the season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:59 AM) I don't think you understand the terminology here. There is no sale of securities needed if they are up a sizable amount. They don't have the need to make up illegal trades to "hedge" something that is a massive winner. That's doesn't really make sense. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:00 AM) Very clearly what I am trying to say is that you don't need "unauthorized" trades against winning positions. You cover losing trades because there is the risk of losing money. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:16 AM) Because from a regulatory standpoint, they would have been just as in trouble as if they lost billions. It still would have been front page news, and it would have created more rules because of it. I'm still lost here, since to me, post 3 in this list sounds like it completely contradicts posts 1 and 2.

QUOTE (VictoryMC98 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:12 AM) 2006: Zero Bullpen, and zero help at the deadline... OOO and lack of CF which is a theme for a while..You give Ozzie some Bullpen help and a starting CF.. Different story. 2007: Erstad was the fa-king opening day CF.. Sorry this is one of many Sox teams that was lacking talent. so many holes, so little talent Ozzie Guillen was the one who put Rob ****ing Mackowiak and Darin Erstad in as his CF starters!!!!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:10 AM) If the losses get to the point where they affect capital reserves and legal status? It has happened before. And it worked so well when it happened to Lehman Brothers. Come on man. I have a right to be skeptical on this one.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:07 AM) Because the entire company can go under, aka Bearings Bank or Refco? I know I said I give...but come on man...I'm really supposed to expect that the governments out there will allow UBS to "go under"?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:00 AM) The hedges came after the losses. Otherwise there was no point to making the trades. Ok, either I'm totally lost in the the language or there's some time travel involved here. I give.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 11:00 AM) I disagree with that particular statement he made. But what I think he may have been trying to say is, if they guy stretched naked and started making money, he probably wouldn't have even tried to book the false trades anyway - just took the money and ran. Think of it as an O'Hare option without the trip on the Blue Line That's getting closer to what I've been pushing at.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:59 AM) I don't think you understand the terminology here. There is no sale of securities needed if they are up a sizable amount. They don't have the need to make up illegal trades to "hedge" something that is a massive winner. That's doesn't really make sense. But how do you know something is going to be a massive winner when you make the initial trade?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:56 AM) No I can't, because your paranoia defies logic in this case. Why on earth with UBS, at an institutional level, want to do something that stupid? Yes they take risks in their prop trading business, of course they do... calculated ones. But on what planet would it make sense for UBS to tell a trading desk, hey, go out and put yourself naked for potential losses in the billions, don't hedge or anything, just roll the dice. Seriously, there is no logic in that - and no motivation. UBS does not want to do that. I can give 2 motivations that strike me as plausible. If they think they're going to win the trades, then the margins are much higher if they don't hedge against the losses...this is how the financial industry in Europe got leveraged 40-1 in the first place. And second...if they think they're going to just get bailed out if they take huge losses.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:54 AM) The bolded would be per se against UBS rules, guaranteed... and if the supposed hedge was reporting of transactions that did not actually occur, it is also per se illegal, whether in the UK, Switzerland or the US. But 2k5 just said "if he is making money, no illegal covers ever take place." Can the 2 of you square these statements?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:53 AM) The latter is just not the case. Has to be some version of one of the former, combined probably with intentional manipulation of some kind. I know you guys don't buy a lot of my opinions on the financial industry, but can you see how I'd be incredibly, extremely skeptical of your dismissal in this case?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:50 AM) Your assumption is wrong. If they are winning trades, they don't need to make up stuff to cover them, and an illegal act is never committed. So...if the guy makes highly risky trades, logs somewhere in the system that he's hedged against possible losses from those trades, doesn't actually hedge against those losses, but then reaps big wins on the highly risky trades, it's no problem?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:49 AM) The most realistic scenario is that this guy and a few people in the right places broke a bunch of laws, while the company put too much trust in the fact that these few people wouldn't get together to manipulate the system. Of course, my personal reaction to that statement would be..."that tells me that either the regulations aren't strong enough to prevent that from happening, the regulations are strong enough but they're systematically not enforced, or they are enforced but the bank as a whole deliberately turns a blind eye to systematic violations."

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:47 AM) That was the entire point of my post. Thank you for re-typing it. I'm not sure that calling it Bull**** is tantamount to what I wrote.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:47 AM) The guy just took a Two Billion Dollar Loss. The idea is to prevent just that. If the guy was winning, the controls wouldn't matter. That's my point...if there are guys conducting trades that should be illegal, but they wind up making a profit and the bank turns a blind eye...

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:45 AM) Because it would be institutionally stupid. Deliberate by the trader, and possibly some cohorts, sure - like a gambling addict. Deliberate by UBS at an institutional level? That makes zero sense. Nowadays, the last thing IB's want to do is multi-billion dollar, naked directional bets and hope it works. The risk is too high, and they know there is a high risk it either falls apart and/or they get caught. So the 2 possibilities here are that one of the world's biggest banks is "Institutionally stupid"/"Severely lacking", or sadistic/gambling addicted in a way that you find hard to believe.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:36 AM) so since the sox were supposed* to win this year and sucked because ozzie, since it will be almost the same team next year, i should fully be expecting a winning season next year with a new manager? There's no way this will be "Almost the same team" next year.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:38 AM) Either way, the internal checks and balances at UBS must have been severely lacking for this to occur. Anyone want to step up to the plate and tell me why this isn't deliberate?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:38 AM) Yeah, this every score is reviewed thing is kinda bulls*** since it's not happening. However, they would have wound up scoring anyway and the Bears just would have had less time to run Jay out there to get killed. I don't mind that every score gets reviewed...that actually kinda makes sense...but that makes at least 2 that should have gone under the booth where the signal didn't come down fast enough or didn't come down at all.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 10:34 AM) Well to be fair Forte was the target of close to 50% of the passes, since dumping it off to the HB over the middle for 5-10 yards was the only thing open or quick enough before Jay got killed. There's a big difference in how the O and D lines perform between a run call and a pass call though. If everything is passes, then the O Line is always moving backwards and the D line never has to think about anything other than getting after the QB as quick as possible. On a run, the O-line is moving forwards or side to side, and the D Line can't just go after the QB, they have to keep gaps from opening between them. That's why something of a mix is so important, especially for an O-line with 2/5 of its starters out and a blitzing defense opposite it.