Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (29411)	2/14/2008 12:19:51 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217737

It seems that Warren Buffett was right and all that financial engineering and derivatives stuff wasn't worth the paper it was written on [if it was even on paper]. So now he swoops in with a huge stack of cash and picks the best parts. He has spent a decade stacking it up and is now ready to take action. I have no idea what financial engineering they do either. I can imagine a bunch of ideas, but don't know what they actually do. It did annoy me when the other directors of Globalstar Australia wanted to [and did] buy currency insurance which I didn't think we needed. By self-insuring, we'd save the costs of the insurance which obviously exceeded the risk or the insurance wouldn't have been available. So I'm aware of some of the financial manoeuvres going on. Suppose the currency had gone against the insurer, who was to say that they would be a robust counter-party who would pay out instead of collecting the premiums, paying themselves big bonuses, then defaulting when the crunch arrives. In which case Globalstar would pay the premiums and then suffer the currency loss too. [I quit over a year ago and recently sold my GSAT shares so now, for the first time since 1995, I have no financial interest in Globalstar [other than through QCOM which owns some of it] Mqurice