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To: Smiling Bob who wrote (104089)	2/8/2008 2:29:58 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Anyone else think they drag this pig back to unch'd by close?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (104089)	2/8/2008 4:22:56 PM
From: GraceZ	Respond to of 306849

I believe there's a basic tenet of law that supports the notion of the benefit of the doubt given to the non professional party. Basic tenet of law is that in order for laws to be fair justice should be blind to the person they are applied to, that law should fall equally on individuals regardless of their circumstance. What you are implying here is that smart people (professionals) should be subject to a different standard than ordinary stupid ones. Sort of like when you were kids, you and your brother get caught doing something you were told not to do and your parents would punish you and let your brother off because you should have known better and he's just a kid. We already give people who are judged incompetent a pass, do you think there should be a third class between fully competent and incompetent, competent to sign on the dotted line but too dumb to be expected to understand what you are signing or understand complex financial transactions?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (104089)	2/8/2008 4:55:19 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

"I believe there's a basic tenet of law that supports the notion of the benefit of the doubt given to the non professional party." I believe what you are thinking of is that ambiguities in a contract are construed against the drafter. Of course, the mortgage contracts are not ambiguous, so that's not really applicable. They may be incomprehensible to a lay person, but they are not ambiguous under the law. The other concept you may be thinking about is a contract of adhesion, wherein one party has far greater bargaining power and the services are virtually indispensable, a court can hold that certain terms are invalid because they are so egregious. This applies to things like a contract you have to sign to get admitted to a hospital with a serious injury, or possibly a landlord-tenant where the tenant cannot afford to move. This doesn't really apply to a mortgage though, especially if you have yet to move into a house, and no one is holding a gun to your head to sign the mortgage contract and move in. Nor would it apply to using a credit card. If we give every J6P a pass just because they are not a lawyer, virtually no consumer contract would ever be enforceable.

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (104089)	2/8/2008 5:29:07 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

there's a simple answer for that... if you see something in a contract that you don't like, don't sign it i've backed out of my share of contracts (or had them modified) when there were terms or conditions that i felt needed to be changed or removed i guess if you're in some kind of feeding frenzy mode of thinking where you must buy a house, you'll sign almost anything....

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (104089)	2/9/2008 1:10:30 AM
From: TheStockFairy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

My Liquorful Friday night rant. Tonight it was Captain and Coke, lots. Tomorrow I'm going to the Signature Room (Hancock Building, Chicago) for dinner, if anyone wants to go PM me. Doesn't everyone, including you and I, get ripped off every 10 years or so? I can point to inflation and say we all get robbed every year, but there's some kind of scam, rip off, or bad deal that gets every single one of us, one way or another every 10 years or so. Credit bubbles, internet bubbles, gas prices, housing bubbles, "due date" changes on credit cards, shake outs of stock prices, gold prices, on and on and on. Even if you are a smart guy, you get sucked in somehow, someway. I got sucked in the last few months of the internet bubble and lost a chunk from the previous few years on a shitty shitty stock called UAXS. I had held out for so long before my final fateful implosion (20% of net worth gone). I'm diggin Buffett more and more as I'm digging into investing. Pick your best idea and swing for the fences. Avoid investments you don't understand. I read in a Grenblatt or Buffett book something about interviewing retirees in Florida. Whomever was interviewing went around and asked the retirees what their compound investment rate was. One guy answered "who knows, enough for me to retire in Boca." So there's a greenlight to do something you know (Buffett) or index (Boca). But even with indexing there are pitfalls, as the last 7 years got you crap for a return. I read in the book Hedhogging something to the effet that a stock's price was 50% market, 30% sector and 20% market. I'm not that quick to watch markets to understand where I need to be. Who is going to be that sharp all of the time to get that right? Do you go to UBS and say, here, manage this? I've met a few wealth managers and hedge fund managers through my business. The ones that I met didn't have an angle. Monish Pabrai was the only guy that seemed like he could do OK with small caps, aside form that, I can index my own money, as that was basically what was being recommend to me. So either Index or invest in things you can understand. Oh, and Kylie Minogue makes my pants tight. Seriously, I'm going to use all of my powers to meet her at some point. My wife will understand, or at least understand that she will have nothing to do with me. youtube.com /end rant, hope some if it made sense.