10/29/2008
For the worth of $500 million!
How much did all the financial institutions made after peddling $500 mil of toxic notes to the consumers? (Heard that High Notes are practically worthless. Let me guess). At 5% commission, this will work out to be $25 mil. At 3% it will be $15 mil. Good money huh? For a profit of $15 - $25 mil, this was deemed good enough a business proposition to go out there and sell. And the loss from the consumers was a staggering $475 to $485 million.
I would presume they know what they were selling, and thought that the risk was not high enough to become a reality. What if they truly understood the risk and decided, well, it was somebody else’s money to lose while they have to earn their bonuses? It is very patronizing to assume that these super talents being paid super talent salaries to match did not know what they were doing.
Could it be a case of penny wise pound foolish, or penny for me, pound for you to lose? I got this scary feeling that in the financial system we have this same selfish attitude in many organizations that as long as they made their penny, others can lose their pants or go and die. Not their problems. They can sell any products or designed any flawed system is ok. Caveat emptor.
How many organizations out there are making miniscule commissions while their customers are losing millions and billions, and they happily patting each other on the back for a job well done? Anyone got any sense of guilt, got a little conscience, that they have betrayed the people who faithfully believed in their leadership and in what they were doing?
Or is the commission, translated into fat bonuses, really worth it?
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8 comments:
Hehe, ask those who are paid a few million dollars and had to raise GST to help the poor whether it was worth it!
> Anyone got any sense of guilt, got a little conscience, <
Are you sleeping? Guilt and conscience is never present in a market, It is SELF INTEREST.
Now the self interest is to protect your backside as much as possible by asking government to bail you out.
One thing you can notice about these big-time fuckers — they all go to the govt for "guarantees" and bailouts, and every single senior exec from these companies has INCREASED his already fabulously lavish lifestyle.
The term here is known as Corporate Welfare. Aust, US and UK have done it. These are supposed to be "free" western democracies. Bullshit.
I don't praise the state often, but in this instance, LHL has said it all, and warned people about a "welfare mentality" of always asking for help when things don't happen as expected.
It always surprises me how many people there are out there with wild "expectations", and they get pissed and scream "victim!" when their expectation get a cold reality check.
Don't play in the market if you cannot handle wanton greed, fear, uncompassionate, dispassionate rude, vulgar, outrageous, dishonest behaviour. Stay the fuck away from the market, and seek out a govt job, where you can be nice and safe, and eventually a brain-dead zombie. The problem is many people believe the market "should be" a certain way. Then they get taught a lesson.
playing in the market one must accept all kinds of risk. but risk because of flawed products or flawed systems are unacceptable.
even the casinos have regulated risk which can be quite fair. at least the gamblers know the odds.
Therein lies the problem of compensation for the ministers. When Minister of finance allows for sale of this product - how much of it was calculated into the GDP of the nation. When MAS allows for retail buyers to buy these toxic product, how much of it went to GDP calculations, how much went to bonuses of these ministers and top directors of MAS / ministers of finance cos GDP was jacked up.
That is the problem when our top civil servant pay are tied to GDP - there is no sense of taking care of the people - minibombs, social issue about overcrowding of foreign workers, IR building (when Sands is now facing possible bankruptcy) etc
When a country is rich and its, people are not happy, worse unhappy and even worst angry and sad, the System fails.
When the System fails, the People leading the System and all living in it fail because of COMPLACENCY.
Am I wrong to say we are rightly served?
patriot
matilah will say we deserve the govt we got.
Actually I don't get it.
The investors are not asking for full compensation. And a few hundred million shud not be big deal to DBS, no?
Why are they not paying? Er, dun give me the crap about the principles. Singapore got no principles one.
Either they also kenna siong siong and in bad cash flow problems.
Bu gahmen sure dun tell the truth lah.
IR delayed because of stupid sea wall ... haha good one.
Then now, got to ask money from IMF.
I think there is more to it.
I'll say this: that whether I believe S'pore deserves it or not is a personal feeling and opinion and has no bearing on the facts.
FACT: A Causal Reality
FACT: Choices made on imperfect knowledge — which turned out to be "wrong" choices— or plain old unmitigated greed, and an evasion of reality — wilful or otherwise. Result? Calamity.
FACT: Getting hammered even though you've done all the "right" things — but are now unfortunate to be caught in the wake of other people's mistakes. (see "Choices made on imperfect knowledge")
Therefore, my feelings are unimportant. What is a fact derived from the FACTS, is that one can learn form ones mistakes, and also learn something about the nature of reality.
People tend to neglect he causality part. They believe that "reality" is some mystical system... or that one cannot know reality at all.
Since everyone acts in what they think is their self-interest all of the time, and these actions are governed by THINKING — evaluating perceptions and both abstract and concrete ideas, one is bound to get it WRONG occasionally. And that's how we learn — by experience.
Well, I hope the class is paying attention.
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