Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Useless, harmful, politicos, Cuomo and Galvin and auction rate securities

In the tradition of the unequivocally awful Eliot Spitzer, Cuomo of New York and Galvin of Massachusetts are using the auction rate securities issue to political and public relations advantage, both with planned Kennedyesque personas, to catapult their careers at the expense of public utility and shareholder rights. They are repulsive folks, but typical of the reason that the Democrats lost control. The Democratic Party, with Obama hopefully, must dump ultimately cleanse the party of these types. I wish them them the best mistresses, prostitutes, and drugs that they can find to continue a recently revived long standing tradition. I mean, everyone wants to be a Kennedy.

The settlements on the auction rate securities(ars's) are just bizarre, the prosecutors not the vendors should be jailed. Just say, for example, probably not too off the mark, that 50% of the dollar value of arc's are held by institutional investors, 40% by investors with over $10 million in assets, and the rest by smaller investors. Cuomo and Galvin to the rescue, with political ambitions so big that no societal utility exists in their minds. "Just Me" is their only thought.

Included in the settlements so far, with a gun at their head, are agreements to compensate institutional investors. That is so f---ing bizarre that it begs reason. CEO's and senior execs at banks make large, some obscene, salaries, some are stupid, but they are public figures, they support charities and show up at multiple events, and operate utilities that help our society function. Institutional fund managers are for the most part anonymous, take pride in their position above normal society, and make as much or more money than the accountable CEO's. They also can coordinate huge campaign contributions..

Also included of course in the settelement are high net worth folks who hire advisors to drive their investments or who know the markets well enough to be in on the higher yield of auction rate securites for more than 20 years. Compensate them too, you big easy target conduit banks and brokers who ultimately must factor these costs into the thousands of branches and millions of customers that they serve, my mug in politics is all I care about, that's Cuomo and Galvin.

Right, there is no doubt people like my 90 year old father who could have had some of this is in their porfolio. He doesn't, but with his portfolio of 2035 bonds and 2014 CD's, plus lots of mortgage stuff that is down 50% it just shows how companies, in my father's case, Citi, can work to manage their customer's assets without explanation, and by any ethical measure in a criminal way. These folks should be held accountable but that doesn't get headlines. Some good attorney generals across the county are doing that, but not the New York and Massacusetts politicos.

The careers of Cuomo and Galvin are now being driven by a huge waste of financial resources at just the wrong time. They are giving huge amounts of money to their low key rich supporters and taking away from the companies that actually do something. They, Cuomo and Galvin, like Spitzer, are damaging to our society.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You make some good points but you must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. Too strong, not like you.

4:53 PM  

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