Why isn't the media reporting on which firms hold most of this debt that we're to swallow?

[MichiganVote]

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Do you expect...

NBC to report the financial problems of GE Finance?

[annabanana]

2. I think we deserve to know... There must be a list in a filing SOMEwhere..

Will it leak?

[MichiganVote]

4. I keep checking with the BBC since our own media are such whores.

[MichiganVote]

3. Expect? No. Hope for? Maybe. Doesn't anyone wonder why they say nothing?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Who's gonna report it?

Look at the interconnected relationships between companies, with company finance departments, managing investments, more important than the company's core business. I can tell you that after Ted Waitt left Gateway, it is exactly that sort of thing, done by clueless refugees from Pepsico, that took Gateway down and almost took them out. When Waitt came back, he found, and I quote "nothing but a mountain of funny paper and the company in ruins". Straight from a Gateway executive. There are tons more companies like that out there. Dell is surely one. Any company struggling right now likely started playing in markets and leaving their core competancies behind.

Look at the incestuousness of corporate boards. The interconnectedness is staggering.

No, the MSM is not gonna suddenly catch a case of The Murrows. Those days are gone.

[MichiganVote]

9. Tis' true. But I happen to like poking for the truth anyway.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Largest banks with derivatives exposure...700 billion cash

market value. Interesting number, is it related to the bailout number being floated???


http://contraryinvestor.com/2008archives/momar08.htm

"...Trajectory, growth, rhythm and magnitude of global credit derivatives expansion is quite like the character we observed above for the US banking system proper. In three short years, global CDS exposure has increased roughly nine-fold. We're talking about close to $45 trillion of credit derivatives on a notional basis. The BIS kindly estimates a gross cash market value for this exposure at $700 billion. But we all know how those initial estimates of potential loss in the mortgage and mortgage product markets made in 2007 have worked out as of late - they haven't...


"...Very quickly, who are the major players among the US banking system elite? The usual suspects, who else? Here's how it shakes out at present:

Banking System Exposure To Credit Derivatives

Bank
Total Notional Credit Derivatives Exposure ($billions)

JPM
$7,778.3

BofA
1,575.3

Citi
3,037.1

Wachovia
401.3

HSBC
1,139.5


TOTAL
$13,931.5


As you might have guessed, the "usual suspects" listed above account for 99.6% of total US banking system credit derivatives exposure. Concentrated? How about massively as perhaps a stab at a characterization. It’s no wonder the big banks have one huge vested interest to make sure MBIA and Ambac don’t fall off the face of the map, no? As you already probably know, US banking system notional exposure to credit derivatives now stands at 85%+ of US GDP. At year-end 2003, that number was 9%. Of course what you see above is so-called notional value exposure...

A few more quick facts investors need to keep in mind as we move ahead. First, what we saw above was US banking system exposure. And we only received a glimpse of the big-daddy US commercial banking players. How about a broader view of life? For in the Fitch credit derivatives report, a few other names are thrown around as being concentrated players - Goldman, Duetsche Bank and Morgan Stanley...

[MichiganVote]

8. Interesting comments...I understood about half of it. :)

[slipslidingaway]

10. Then you have surpassed me :)) ...

I make myself read the monthly commentary and take whatever information I can get.

:D

[MichiganVote]

11. Well its only b/c I've been reading all kinds of this stuff for days.

I just don't get it. Its clear to me that I could never be the investors these guys have been. I just don't think like they do. I've found my conservative bones in recent days. Thank God I never did the things some of these people or investors have done. But then...once they take all our money I guess it won't matter anyway. Thieving bastards.

Unbelievable.

[slipslidingaway]

14. Yes unbelievable and now the amount is not being questioned...

and a five person oversight committee led by the Fed chair.

:(

[MichiganVote]

15. Tony Soprano would love these cheats.

[slipslidingaway]

7. Some additional information....

this is from 12/07.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article2972.html

"...Even certain money funds, thought to be safe from the turmoil, have felt repercussions.
Bloomberg's David Evans puts it this way:

"Unbeknownst to most investors, some of the largest money market funds today are putting part of their cash into one of the riskiest debt instruments in the world: collaterized debt obligations (CDOs) backed by subprime mortgage loans ...

"U.S. money market funds run by Bank of America Corp., Credit Suisse Group, Fidelity Investments and Morgan Stanley held more than $6 billion of CDOs with subprime debt in June, according to fund managers and filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Money market funds with total assets of $300 billion have invested in subprime debt this year."

Some examples cited by Bloomberg:

The Credit Suisse Group Institutional Money Market Fund Prime Portfolio held 8% of its $22.8 billion of assets in commercial paper secured by subprime home loans as of June 30.

Two AIM money market funds owned $2.64 billion of CDO commercial paper that was invested in subprime debt, also in June.

Fidelity Investments , the world's biggest mutual fund company, owned $2.3 billion in CDO-issued commercial paper in two money market funds as of May 31.

Fidelity Cash Reserves Fund , the biggest money market fund in the U.S., had 1.5% of its $98.2 billion of assets invested in CDO commercial paper backed by subprime debt.

The Fidelity Institutional Money Market Portfolio had 2.3% of its $32.3 billion in assets such as commercial paper...



...To their credit, some of these funds have since trimmed their riskier holdings. But the above list barely scratches the surface. Looking ahead, money funds like these will either ... "

[bemildred]

12. That would be "finger pointing".

For ordinary people its "accountability", but if you are Republican then its "finger pointing".

[MichiganVote]

13. :) So true....