re: SargeK & the start of the Enron Trial:
My response in reference to the return and/or ressurection (vbg)of SargeK ...may surprise some of you.
Interesting coincidence...given today is the start of the Enron trial in Houston (better ticket than the Superbowl ?!?!?) and that I first became accquainted with SargeK on the old Yahoo Cityscape Stock thread back in 1997-98...
Some of you may remember Cityscape -- once the darling of the Fidelity Magellan fund's legendary manager Michael Price and nearly all of Wall Street as well.
The Subprime Lenders were all ramping earnings...growing toplines exponentially and were one of - if not "the" hot-momenteum sector in the market.
The Money Store's TV Commercials with pitchman Baseball Star Jim Palmer were featured each morning on the Today Show... GreenTree Financial's CEO was the highest paid CEO in all of America...and the mortgage lenders and especially the subprimes were smoking-white hot stocks... but, then came the great Russin Ruble Crisis and a Bond Market shake out and down came the gain-on-sale accounting House of Cards...
GreenTree eventually brought down Conseco (albeit it took a few years). First Union Bank was hurt badly by it's acquisition of the Money Store and a series of Bankrupticies hit subprimes like Cityscape Financial -- once the darling of the smartest minds and most successfull funds and managers on all of Wall Street.
...whodathunkit ?
vis a vis SargeK:
What I will always give Sarge credit for -- is his conviction and his passion.
There were times when our "dialogue" reached rather extreme and at times -- rather amusing levels (re: Freide Goldman FGI/FGH)... but, that was then & this is now...
SargeK has certainly hit a note (debt) that should resonate throughout this market...
The Enron "Smartest Guys in the Room" DVD & VHS version of the movie has just hit the rental stores... so given the start of the Enron trial this week -- I'd highly recommend that everyone go out and rent the movie this week (especially those who have not read the book (I had not).
It will really open your eyes -- and is an absolute must see.
I am going to buy the book this week -- after watching the movie.
What we have witnessed in this era of "free markets" and deregulation is anything but, "free markets" and capitalism at it's best... far, far from it.
What we've seen -- is an incredible concentration of economic and political power, as well as a stronger marriage of politic's and money on Wall Street than has ever before existed...along with one of the greatest transferences of wealth in world history.
...but, Bush/Cheney aren't done yet.
The Republican's need a War with Iran to sustain the "Peak Oil" hoax and to misdirect the masses from the reality of the gutting of America, it's manufacturing, wage and job base, the debased US currency and propped up debt & derivative laden markets....and they have a very short-window of opportunity here as the markets are propped up -- to pass off the "bag" of Social Security to the American Public...
Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" crowd has never had it so good...and if you stop and listen -- you'll be able to hear that large sucking sound -- as jobs, purchasing power, wages and savings are sucked out of the middle class and traded for debt as money is transfered into the hands of investment bankers and globalists...
Do yourselves a favor and go rent the Enron movie this week and watch it.
You will never, ever - ever forget the live-recorded trading conversations that supeona's for the audio tapes of the Enron Traders revealed:
You will hear the Enron Traders laughing & mocking the system -- as they taunt "leaving Aunt Millie in the dark" in California -- as they get power plants to shut down - for no other reason than to ramp prices...and then artifically congest "inter-tie's" via mis-directing power to ghost-towns like Silver Peak, Nevada.
Ken Lay (may he eternally burn in hell - after he dies in prison - hopefully of a ruptured anus) had the audacity to try to actually blackmail the State of Califonia into guaranteeing PG&E's payments - or, he threatened that he would "black out" the entire State of California.
...and the bastard did... as California Gov. Gray Davis refused and Lay did "black out" 1/3rd of the entire State of California just days later.
500,000 Californian's were on electric power dependant medical assist and/or life-support at that time by the way...
Enron cost the State of California and it's Tax Payers a staggering - $40 Billion Dollars.
To put this in proper perspective -- the "state" of Califonia alone - is the 7th largest economy in the World.
Enron... just one company; literally took the 7th largest Economy in the World -- and manipulated it with ease and took $40 Billion Dollars from the tax-paying public in the blink of an eye.
What if California had been Minnesota in midst of a -40 degree Winter Blizzard ? -- would Ken Lay have turned into a black-mailing "Mr Freeze" and turned Minneapolis into a massive frozen morgue ?
The Natural Gas Markets were heading to just such a scenario... if we would have had a severe Winter in the natural gas dependant mid-west this year... we very well could have seen a massive human tragedy.
The entire Peak Oil & Iraq War Crisis is a well planned and orchestrated Enronesque manipulation and transfer of wealth -- nothing more -- nothing less.
Enron was a test that ended badly -- but, showed just how easily the Enery Markets could be maniupulated and just how profitable it would be - when they were.
The Council on Foreign Relations frontman and talking points pitchman Matt Simmons just replaced the "deregulation" pitchmen. The Bush Family-Jim Baker-Saudi/Exxon & Cheney-Halliburton connection just replaced Enron...
>>> The players and the names are different.
>>> The (energy market manipulation) Game is the same.
>>> And now the Profits are even bigger.
Natural Gas supplies and inventory levels -- even with a once in 200 year multiple direct hurricaine hit -- remain at levels above 5 year averages and indicative of supply:demand prices a fraction of present levels.
Crude Oil inventory and supply levels -- also into the face of the refilling the US Strategic Petroleum Reserves and the direct hit of Hurricaines Rita & Katrina remain at levels supporting prices exponentially lower than today's Peak-Oil Charade & Speculator Induced levels.
In retrospect, it should be no mystery as to why Cheney fought so hard to keep the contents of his secret meeting with the "Big Oil" CEO's prior to the invasion of Iraq... a "secret" and cloaked behind the curtain of "national security".
Jim Baker (and his firm) is the Attorney for the Bush Family - as well as that of Exxon and the Saudi Royal Family... Ken Lay of Enron was nearly appointed Energy Secretary... his nickname within the Bush family was - "Kenny-boy" - George W. Bush... merely had to "do nothing" to let Enron suck the public and the State of California - nearly dry... then there's Cheney's -- Halliburton, which has been the recipient of no-bid contracts in Iraq, has been the repeated target of price-gouging allegations and has obviously been the primary recipient of the Iraq War windfall...
Goldman Sach's stopped the fundamentally led retracment of Oil in the mid-$40's a year ago...and Natural Gas's recent push to near $20 - amidst near record supply:inventory levels -- is confirmation of a complete disconnect between deregulation and free markets...
The $200 Billion Dollars spent on the War in Iraq... which has led to a $10 Billion Dollar per quarter windfall profit for Exxon alone... has assured US energy dependance on the Saudi's and Big Oil (a blind man can now follow the money trail of the Bush Family & Jim Baker to Exxon, the Saudi's and Cheney/Halliburton and the Investment Banks et al...) sadly -- that same $200 Billion could have been invested in the Canadian Oil Sands and completely paid for the entire infrastructure build out and delivery system to the US and made North America - forever energy independant of Mid-East & Big Oil...instead of dependant on it via -- another "Enron-esque" manipulation, blackmail and wealth transference from the hands & pockets of America's working middle-class and poor -- into the greedy, manipulating-theiving hands of Global Investment Bankers like Goldman & the Bush-Baker-Saudi-Exxon,Cheney-Halliburton Big Oil connection...
Get the Enron Movie...and watch it ... you really need to listen to the actual, real, tape-recorded conversations of the Enron Traders while they manipulate the energy market of the 7th largest economy in the world...and you'll also learn how the likes of Chase, GE Capital, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Citi Bank, Deutsche Bank, CFSB, First Union, Morgan Stanley, AON etc were all willing partners in Enron's rape of California and it's investors...
Read the Book and watch the Movie...and you'll perhaps you'll begin to understand the complete and total sham that the entire "Peak Oil" scam is...as it is merely an extension of what Enron had shown could be done to the 7th largest economy in the world and is now being done to the entire World Economy by the Bush/Cheney Big Oil & Investment Bank connection that is nothing more than a bigger & better "Enron" than Enron ever was.... |
