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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7010)	2/25/2002 9:32:24 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206108

Hi KB, As I recall, and I haven't revisited this case in a long time, the plaintiff was suing for the $15 Million, your hypothetical choice #3. Now, I suppose that any lawyer worth his salt is going to sue for an outrageously ridiculous amount like that, hoping to negotiate down to a fair settlement. That's the way this horse trading works. As far as whether the fellow ought to be out of pocket the $5.8 MM for making a dumb business decision, I don't have enough of the fact case to make a judgement, or even hazard a guess. My reading on this is limited to what little made it into the press. And we both know how useful a source that is. My gut tells me that anyone spending $5.8 MM didn't just fall off the turnip truck and isn't to be construed as an innocent. He went into the deal with some notion of the fact that there are risks in life. For instance, if I were to place a stock market bet on a loser, and have $5.8 MM vanish, I'd be sorely tempted to hire Bill Lerach to try to argue a case that I wuz robbed. The brokers and stock swindlers would say I couldn't sue because I'd signed an arbitration clause in my brokerage account and because life is uncertain. They'd have a strong leg to stand on in our biased courts of law. Life is not fair, as you well know. Why should this land speculator not have to suffer the same risks of loss that I do as a stock market speculator? I know, it just wouldn't be fair. Funny how sometimes folks have these crazy notions about what deserves to be compensated for and what doesn't in this weird world of warped capitalism we've created. From what I read about this particular developer, the last thing I need to do is feel his pain... Finally, re: But in late 1999 the County declares the 100 acres to be valuable open seashore, excellent habitat for seagulls and some species of turtles, and determines that no building can take place in accordance with its plan. I am certain that you are misreprenting the county's position on this matter. But I'm not interested enough to dig back through the record on this one. We'll just agree to disagree on how aggrieved a party this shorn lame duck* actually is. [[*Interesting etymological aside: Lame Duck, a term we usually associate today with a politician who can't be re-elected, was originally coined in London's Exchange Alley, where after the South Seas Bubble burst, dejected speculators were seen leaving the alley with the appearance of having had their tail feathers shorn off. De-walletized, as it were. Sir Isaac Newton, among them, to the tune of 20,000 pounds sterling. After having made a tidy profit on the way up, he doubled down and greed got 'im. ]] As Jim Grant says, knowledge is cumulative in physics and math, but cyclical in finance. Cheerio!