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Just 4 states you say... but they represent about half of the housing wealth in the US. Martin

Absolutely. What's yours? Your analogy with Chile implies direct US interference. Chile was saved in spite of Pinochet, not because of him. Martin

OK, everything that ever goes bad is our fault. I get it now. What is this, third grade? Read the damn book. So what's your suggestion for the venezuela/colombia situation? Um, how about we let them sort it out? I don't see any reason for direct US involvement unless Venezuela...

Worst possible solution, one that certainly would not nip the problem in the bud. Do you think American influence, democracy and free market economics would blossom once we step in and take out Chavez? If anything, doing so would confirm all the worst that he says about us. We would prove him...

You think that the Ayatollah, Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Chavez, and the Taliban are the result of American NON-involvement? It must be nice in your bubble. Read the damn book. Learn something. Martin

<i>First there is no such a thing as peak oil advocate, just like there is no gravitation advocate. Peak oil is a fact, get use to it.</i> I am a peak oil advocate. You claim they do not exist, I exist, hence you are wrong. Peak oil at some point in the future is a fact. Peak oil in the...

The problem is that it seems so easy to understand. Hence ignorant cowboys like you and our President really think that geopolitics is no harder to deal with than their own hygiene problems. I suggest you read Stephen Kinzer's book "Overthrow". It's a very good treatment of America's track...

The minimum age is not a statutory requirement, the company can choose any minimum age (no greater than 21 years old) when they set up the plan. I think it's shitty that they chose 21 not 18. Morreo, if I were you, I would complain. They probably can't amend the plan but it's worth pointing out...

You might just foreclose though, get out of your underwater investment. Then the bank has to get the property off its books in an auction or forced sale. Housing might not be just like stocks, but it's still a market and behaves like a market, where prices can go down as well as up. Um...

That's precisely my point: companies only derive value from the probability that they will deliver future cash flows to investors. You can make an argument for a company postponing dividends or share buybacks, but the fact that all companies will eventually pay dividends or buy back shares is...

Stocks are claims on the cash flows generated by a corporation. The market value of a company is the present value of all expected future cash flows that company will provide to its shareholders. If a corporation never returns cash to its shareholders, through dividends, share repurchases, or...

Or maybe, just maybe, those with the most to gain from the extreme polarization of American politics have realized that the sensible center is exerting new influence and threatening to put them out of business? That an America willing to come together and seek out common values rather than...

How so?

I can't believe this. You idiots nominated George W. Bush in 2000, when if you had any goddamn sense we could have had President McCain for the last 8 years. Now you've got a chance to mend fences and instead you're all whining about how McCain isn't quite conservative enough for you. If...

Tell that to the Japanese. Martin

The flight to safety you're observing is a short term phenomenon. Only a trader would make that correlation. A short term stock market rally on the back of a Fed cut has no long term impact on the yield curve. Martin

I don't mind waiting a few years. The last example I can think of was COMS/PALM and that arbitrage took at most two years to be wildly profitable. For a while COMS share of PALM was worth more than the entire market cap of COMS. Martin

What do y'all think about VMW versus EMC? Each EMC share controls 0.157 shares of VMW. That means, at today's closing prices, $12.65 of every EMC share is their ownership stake in VMWare, whereas only $4.07 is the rest of EMC. Do you think EMC's core business is worth only $4.07 a share? Is...

All I can say is it's a great question & I'd also love to hear if anyone has relevant experience.

It's not so bad here, at least not yet. Most people were buying houses with option ARMs and 5 to 7 year resets, they're still paying teaser rates. The mythology around here is that housing prices never drop significantly in the Bay Area, until those teaser rates start resetting it may just hold...