StrangeSox

In states without ID laws, how exactly would you catch and document voting fraud?

in·sight (nst) n. 1. The capacity to discern the true nature of a situation; penetration. 2. The act or outcome of grasping the inward or hidden nature of things or of perceiving in an intuitive manner. in·cite (n-st) tr.v. in·cit·ed, in·cit·ing, in·cites To provoke and urge on: troublemakers who incite riots; inciting workers to strike. See Synonyms at provoke.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 11:52 AM) 55%? Wow. The general markets are down only about 30% ATM on the year, I think. I'm not 100% clear on how those rules work, with 401k vs IRA. It can be done when you change jobs, but I'm not sure if you can just move your 401k to any firm's IRA and use their funds. I'm just not sure. These options are all pretty awful. The only not-ridiculously-high-fee funds are S&P 400/500/600 index funds, which are all down big for the year. I'm guessing, based on the other replies, that there's probably not a way to funnel money from my employer-sponsored plan (which does have an 80% match) to another plan, do this without penalties and still keep matching on future contributions (which I would funnel out at a future date). I guess I'll just keep putting in the maximum match amount, hope for the best and go with an IRA/Roth for any additional money.

I decided to check in on my 401(k) today. That was a mistake. It has dropped about 55% this year. This plan (through Principal, who has a ridiculously awful website) just flat-out sucks. We're given about 20 options. Every single one except for one (a short-term fixed income fund) is down 20%+ year-to-date. The worst part is that there's no cash, money market, CD, etc. options, so I'm forced to stick my money in one crappy fund or another and can't take it out to stash it somewhere. Oh, and as a kicker, most of the funds are high-fee funds. It makes me want to smack our HR director in the head. Is there any way for me to take money out of the 401(k) and stick it into an IRA without penalties?

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 11, 2008 -> 01:04 AM) You may disagree and be disgusted by this political malfeasance, but, it still won't change anyone's mind, come November 4th. I don't know. Their whole campaign at this point is "Obama is scary" and "we're Mavericks!" Abusing the powers of your office isn't very Maverick-y. I think you'll see them lose a point or two from this, and with the way things currently are, it makes a McCain comeback almost impossible.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 07:05 AM) Your first paragraph is true. Your second is ridiculous and hypocritical. Talk about overvaluing a White Sox player..... Have to agree there. Swisher is just not really an MVP/ Cy Young caliber player.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 02:24 PM) Big rally into the last hour. Short covering or bargain hunting? It's like a reverse of yesterday. Too bad I waited until today to transfer more money into my trading account (won't clear until Monday). Oh well, gives me the weekend to research what I'm actually going to buy.

Obama supporters should be happy. It's looking more and more like a landslide at this point, and Ayers/ ACORN won't make a bit of difference. They are suspicious, but they aren't game-changers. If this race were tight, maybe it would push McCain's way, but they aren't going to stem his current free-fall in the polls.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 12:36 PM) I've been thinking about this. There are hedge funds and trading firms out there who have been shorting big naked, and selling naked calls. They are getting burned, or will get burned (and some, too, will make out big on it). If they do fail on their bets, they will have to cover with cash, which will drive many of them out of business. That is bad for the job market, but may be good for the financial markets in the long run, flushing out some of the guys who take too much risk. Darwinian investing. Here is where it gets tricky, though. Look at trading firms, hedge funds, and IB's who are relatively risk-averse and do what they are supposed to. When they short a stock, they ask for a collateral locate, from their own stores or their clearing firm if they don't self-clear. This is the smarter, lower risk move. BUT, it seems obvious now to me, that the major stock holders - the big IB's and CF's - may be allowing multiple locates on the same shares. For example, Big IB has 100k shares it holds. Some is held in house accounts, some held by investors. Trading firms ask for locates. They allow not only 100k locates, but they allow 400k locates, thinking that not all the locates will get called. Usually, that's true. But now, in this market, what if a lot more of them do? Now, big IB has to send straight cash to cover anything over their actual shares. And they don't HAVE that kind of cash right now. And, because of the credit markets, they can't borrow it either. Now what happens??? Even worse, what happens if the holders of that 100k in customer accounts start to liquidate quicker than usual. The problem is now compounded. That is just scaring the s*** out of me right now. Sorry if I ruined your day.

Some articles on buying and selling more shares than actually exist. http://www.euromoney.com/Article/1001047/N...hat-didnt-.html http://www.investortrip.com/sec-to-review-...-selling-rules/ NPR audio story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=92933200 Edit: That euromoney article is from 2005 and warns about the potentially deadly flaw in the US securities market. Oops.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 11:43 AM) Christ. They were naked short on more than the total shares issued for Lehman? WTF? Falcone was naked short multiples, as in 2-10 times as many shares that even exist. That's just one fund. It really is mind-boggling. I think that makes it clear that there needs to be some sort of regulation put in place. The problem is (as that poster pointed out) that those in Congress simply don't understand the systems well enough. I don't trust them to make regulations that won't have unforeseen negative consequences.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 11:42 AM) How does that happen? Can someone explain to me how you can short sell that much stock that doesn't exist and gain real money from it? If it's too complicated that's fine, but it blows my mind. Democrats. Seriously though, I would imagine that there's just no regulation on it. There's no balancing of shares. You have to meet your margin eventually, but you can leverage yourself way, way out there without too much of a problem. I'm sure some others (Northside, southside ck, etc.) understand this in more detail.

More on hedge funds. FerrariChat has three private rooms for paid members. One general forum, Business & investments, and politics and religion. This is from the business forum (I'm not a member, but I got this from someone who is). There is a very interesting discussion going on.

They've reported. I've decided that they're idiots. And extraordinarily shallow.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 07:45 PM) Secretary Paulson hasn't even figured out how he's going to use the funds yet. Today instead of buying up the troubled assets like they were talking about last week, they're talking about using the money to buy shares of the banks and use that as a way of recapitalizing them (like some people thought was a better idea anyway). Part of the problem is the government has no idea what to pay for these mortgage-backed securities. Pay too much and the tax payers are screwed. Pay too little and you haven't really helped. No sh*t. That's the whole problem in the first place. They still don't have a plan on how to actual value these things.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 03:49 PM) We need to slap the people that are panic selling their stuff and taking a bath, when in most cases they should just sit tight and ride it out. They are helping to cause this by their own behavior. Alcoa went down $3 per share today. Is Alcoa really worth $3 less this afternoon that it was this morning? If you have bank stocks, maybe. Hedge funds deleveraging is what I've heard.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 05:27 PM) Well, because they didn't ask Palin about the market and the economy. How dare they not expose her as if it's her (and the GOP, by default) fault. And therefore, RSO will then fix it because he's "better" then McCain and Palin (but that goes without saying). Who's trying to blame her or say that Obama has the magic answer? The post/ link was about an interview with Sarah Palin in which no economic questions were asked.

There are only two premises, which are tenable as to the future. Either we are going to have chaos or else recovery. The former theory is foolish. If chaos ensues nothing will maintain value, neither bonds nor stocks nor bank deposits nor gold will remain valuable. Real estate will be a worthless asset because titles will be insecure. No policy can be based upon this impossible contingency. Policy must therefore be predicated upon the theory of recovery. The present is not the first depression; it may be the worst, but just as surely as conditions have righted themselves in the past and have gradually been readjusted to normal so this will again occur. The only uncertainty is when it will occur. Dean Witter, May 6, 1932

The DOW has lost almost 25% of its value from September 9th.

Here's a positive anecdote I read this morning. He is a high-end financial planner. "Here's some good news credit wise... I called my lifelong best friend who's the CFO for a fortune 500 company on Monday to bust his chops about some bonds they issued two years ago (10 years, 7.75% coupon) that were trading at 70 with a current yield of 11% and a yield to maturity of a little over 15%. Yeah, in finance we find that funny (not the ha ha kind). Anyway the discussion led to his situation in not being able to move some inventory even at a loss to raise money for product that they can sell and make money on rapid turnover. Anyway, he was genuinely concerned at the lack of capital out there from the sources he typically taps into. He was even alluding to asking me to arrange some private financing through my clients/sources, thats how desperate he was. Fast forward to yesterday morning he calls me and tells me that the credit lines opened up and was able to get his hands on a chunk of cash. I was surprised at how quckly things transpired since the bill being signed last week and the fed buying some commercial paper on Monday apparantly made the difference for him, so far.... As it relates to the stock market, credit markets tend to bottom out just prior to equities. If this is indeed a sign the credit markets have turned the equity markets should follow. The returns on short term coporate paper are so equity like right it is frightening. I'm finding 30% (annualized) returns on three month A+ rated paper. The spreads are gigantic. Same thing on A rated munis. The spread case is too hard to ignore even in the face of whats going on. If the markets continue to collapse nothing will have value, not gold, not RE, nothing... Recovery is the only thing fathomable."

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 11:38 AM) So, there is some backstory here...the guy instituting this policy will still perform evictions, but only if the bank provides documentary proof that the people he's evicting actually have been notified and given 120 day warnings. The idea is to avoid the mess where a person goes in to foreclosure and either isn't told at all before they're evicted or even worse when a property owner goes in to foreclosure and the people he's renting to wind up being evicted despite having paid their rent in full and no warning given to them whatsoever. Don't see how it's inappropriate for a bank performing an eviction to follow the laws even if that makes it a little more expensive for them. From the quotes on the radio, he was doing it mainly because of renters. The landlords get the eviction notice, but never bother to tell their tenants. Then, 120 days later, the police show up at the rental property and kick the tenants out. genius, Please tell me how that is fair. I support what is being done here until the rules can be fixed/ followed.

His other shot to the CF concession stands might have beaten it, but I'd imagine it would have to be one of those two.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 12:00 PM) That's were some tie back to league average needs to be made. Does consistent .3 runs below the league average top inconsistent .3 runs above the league average? Someone call Nate Silver and tell him to get on this.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 10:50 AM) There are a few tools that would allow you to check that. One of the researchers around here would have a better handle on the stats. A couple things you might want to compute is the standard deviation around each teams average runs per game. That would give you a number that shows how consistent a team scored around their average but not tell you much about their scoring compared to the league average. It might also be useful to compare teams consistency with runs allowed as well. I'm not a statistician, but I would think you could normalize the std. dev. based on the average, and use that to compare across the league.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 10:45 AM) Explain the Twins to me then. They scored more runs, they lead the league in hitting on the road. Statistical anomaly. I did say tends to, not always is.