F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:13:03 -0800, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:
snip
Or both.
The best fiction is plausible and so has it's roots in fact. snip

The "bait-n-switch" scam is alive and well. Anyone want to buy a
solid gold bar?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=arFjbsBO7BS8

Amazing that the CDO underwriters such as Merrilll-Lynch and
Goldman-Sachs [aka the vampire squid] could get a AAA rating for
their creations, and the CDO administrators could then switch the
collateral.

If I borrow money from the bank to buy a new car, and then sell
the new car and replace it with a junker, I stand a good chance
of going to jail. If I am a CDO administrator and replace the
good collateral, which earned the AAA ratings and possibly sold
the investors, with junk and the CDO stops paying interest and
the return of the principal is highly questionable -- its tough
darts investors [and bond insurers like AIG].

You can't make this stuff up....

Even more off the wall - CDS's are still the rage.
I was talking to a guy last weekend about how difficult it would be to
really put a value on anyone in the financial services busines these days
because of all of the CDS's, CDO's and SIV's lurking off balance sheet ant
he said, and I swear to God he actually did, "Well, at least they aren't
doing those anymore." You should have seen the look on his face as we had a
look at a ten day old prospectus.....


--
John R. Carroll