The ongoing financial turmoil and financial discussion thread

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by fotze

Claeren predicted it too.

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...1&postcount=41

What's funny is that those posts were made right around the absolute peak of the Calgary housing market too.

[Winsor_Pilates]

So, who is gonna sponsor Dragon's Den now?

[Shazam]

Platinum Equities?

I shuddered when I heard a commercial for them spoken by Henry Burris.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

So, who is gonna sponsor Dragon's Den now?

I wonder if Kevin invested in them? Does his credibility go out the door if he did? I wonder if he'll talk about them on robTV or whatever the channel is called now, or if that'll be a conflict of interest going against an advertisor. Interesting stuff.

[DementedReality]

Originally Posted by fleury

I wonder if Kevin invested in them? Does his credibility go out the door if he did? I wonder if he'll talk about them on robTV or whatever the channel is called now, or if that'll be a conflict of interest going against an advertisor. Interesting stuff.

it begs the question how much "due diligence" the media puts into who they let pay for advertising.

i hate when QR does spots for these types of investments. shouldnt a station like QR be an advocate for its listeners, considering their format?

its one thing to let them advertise, but its another thing to be a shill for them. like someone else said, if these guys are advertising for joe public, it shouldnt be hard to figure out that institutional investors have told them no thanks. really, not many businesses outside of retail would prefer dealing with the public over commercial options.

i think if i am a radio personality, i wouldnt be so quick to "speak" on behalf of companies like this. wasnt David Jones a guest on "speak with the experts"?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by DementedReality

it begs the question how much "due diligence" the media puts into who they let pay for advertising.

i hate when QR does spots for these types of investments. shouldnt a station like QR be an advocate for its listeners, considering their format?

its one thing to let them advertise, but its another thing to be a shill for them. like someone else said, if these guys are advertising for joe public, it shouldnt be hard to figure out that institutional investors have told them no thanks. really, not many businesses outside of retail would prefer dealing with the public over commercial options.

i think if i am a radio personality, i wouldnt be so quick to "speak" on behalf of companies like this. wasnt David Jones a guest on "speak with the experts"?

Talk with the experts is an infomercial. The title implies that these people are experts, but in reality they are paying for a spot to sell their products. I'm not getting started with Dave Jones. When someone publicly states "I've never seen a mutual fund that I like" and on the other hand sells segregated funds I have some real concerns with their credibility.

I think that the sad thing with the demise of CE is all of the investors who were under the impression that the glory days would last forever. These real estate investments always pop up when the market tightens and generally end the same way....badly.

"Everything that can't last forever will stop"

[DementedReality]

Originally Posted by Slava

Talk with the experts is an infomercial. The title implies that these people are experts, but in reality they are paying for a spot to sell their products. I'm not getting started with Dave Jones. When someone publicly states "I've never seen a mutual fund that I like" and on the other hand sells segregated funds I have some real concerns with their credibility.

I think that the sad thing with the demise of CE is all of the investors who were under the impression that the glory days would last forever. These real estate investments always pop up when the market tightens and generally end the same way....badly.

"Everything that can't last forever will stop"

yup, i understand they are infomercial, but they use on air personalities to lend credibility. i think it taints the station and its integrity. sorry for the off topic.

i am reading the thread on CE from the link provided earlier at Canadian Business. Interesting read and I do feel sorry for those who invested, but I dont know how they could have gotten involved to begin with.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by DementedReality

yup, i understand they are infomercial, but they use on air personalities to lend credibility. i think it taints the station and its integrity. sorry for the off topic.

i am reading the thread on CE from the link provided earlier at Canadian Business. Interesting read and I do feel sorry for those who invested, but I dont know how they could have gotten involved to begin with.

- Its because real estate never loses money.
- If you get too far behind you just sell the property.
- Its not like that horrible stock market where you pay too much in fees or get swindled for one reason or another!
- Also 90% of the worlds millionaires got their money through real estate.
- Its not a golden opportunity its Platinum!

That about cover it? I feel bad for people who couldn't have known better and lost a pile of money here. Its intellectually dishonest promotion.

[photon]

Originally Posted by DementedReality

yup, i understand they are infomercial, but they use on air personalities to lend credibility. i think it taints the station and its integrity. sorry for the off topic.

I totally agree. Though it is QR77 so I don't really expect anything else

[Phanuthier]

for anyone that wants a brief overview of tech

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/s...leID=217700881

[Bobblehead]

I find it interesting how many people are predicting really high inflation after the recession.

The reasoning being that the governments of the world have printed lots of money in the last year (and this means the money supply grows people will spend, a dollar today won't go as far as a dollar tomorrow, yada yada).

And in isolation, that is sound reasoning.

But what that doesn't take into account was that the world money supply shrank by historic amounts when the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis hit. Suddenly, in the space of a few months, it was discovered that all these financial instruments that had increased wealth exponentially over the past decade, a decade with historically low inflation, these financial instruments were largely worthless. Trillions of dollars of wealth - gone.

So I think of it like this:
(Total pre-crash wealth - amount of wealth that evaporated + amount of money printed + amount of wealth created by recovery)

The total pre-crash amount is a fixed, historic amount. Governments may print more money, but it won't be anything like they have done up to this point, so you may almost be able to count that value as fixed. Wealth is still evaporating (as companies go bankrupt) and some wealth is being created (as equity markets rebound).
When that equation becomes greater than zero you will get inflation. The greater than zero it is, the more inflation you get (and note: you ALWAYS want some inflation. Deflation is very, very bad).

I seem to believe that much of the wealth from swaps (CDS) are gone and won't be back in the short term, and that is going to limit the amount of inflation.

Could there be massive inflation again? Of course, but world banks and governments are much more cognizant of it than they were in past years. If people in the general public already recognize and are voicing their fear of inflation, you can be sure professional economists are hyper-aware.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

for anyone that wants a brief overview of tech

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/s...leID=217700881

Semiconductor is starting to turn around. We supply the industry and for the past 4-5 weeks 2009 orders that were pushed out or cancelled at the end of '08 have been brought back to original ship dates (or sooner) and cancelled orders have been re-placed (in many cases for more product). For sure many companies will go under or be bought out but in general things do seem to be picking up some.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by DementedReality

Interesting read and I do feel sorry for those who invested, but I dont know how they could have gotten involved to begin with.

Greed.

And never feel sorry for them.

Cowperson

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I seem to believe that much of the wealth from swaps (CDS) are gone and won't be back in the short term, and that is going to limit the amount of inflation.

Could there be massive inflation again? Of course, but world banks and governments are much more cognizant of it than they were in past years. If people in the general public already recognize and are voicing their fear of inflation, you can be sure professional economists are hyper-aware.

I think that's kinda the why governements and central banks are essentially expanding the money supply. Those arguing in favor of inflation are not arguing that "Quantitative easing" itself will cause the inflation, but rather that once the economy starts growing again it will be difficult to know when to stop running the taps so to speak (In other words, there could be a reconition lag in knowing when the increased money supply has reached the real GDP-adjusted money supply amount that the crash took away). If central banks and government get too worried about inflation too quickly then we're in for another recession after a brief recovery because they will have started to restrict the money supply too soon. If they wait too late then inflation will be a problem (Albiet a less negative problem than a crippling recession). It really comes down to a reconition error and the experts so to speak do not have faith in central banks to correct the money supply without going too far.

Also as an add on, a large portion of the plans for recoevery are government stimulus dollars. The amounts pledged and to whom will not be withdrawn once the economy has recovered to decent positive growth due to political reasons. Can you imagine Obama going up to the podium and announcing the goring the the ox of many people who were in line to recieve government funds? He's got another term to get re-elected to. So even if the central banks of the world guess bang on as to when to stop printing money, the government stimulus will drive prices up anyway ie "The crowding out effect."

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Greed.

And never feel sorry for them.

Cowperson

Greed? Isn't that the idea of investing?

I do feel sorry for them. I'm sure most people invested with them not out of greed, but out of ignorance. I would consider myself of average investment intelligence, which means I know next to nothing like most people out there. And this is the first I've heard of CE's dubious nature. I mean their ads are on the radio and TV before and after ads for big banks and other investment firms. It's tough for the average person to distinguish between credible and crap regarding investments. But if you don't feel sorry for them because they didn't research their investment then I can see where you are coming from.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Greed? Isn't that the idea of investing?

Wrong. The idea of investing SHOULD be slow and steady growth by putting money into companies with a solid business model and profits. People offering outrageous returns are basically get rich quick schemes. The problem is getting rich usually requires years of hard work and financial responsibility and frankly, a lot of self control. Very few people "get rich quick" so little that I would argue it's a statistical anomoly.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

lots of good stuff

Oh, I agree. I think there will be inflation, if they are going to make a mistake then that is the side it will be on - a bit too much inflation. But I still think that will be far cry from the rampant inflation of the late 70s.

Of course, if everything rebounds to pre-recession levels in the next year then all bets are off. It is the shocks that create the turmoil.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Wrong. The idea of investing SHOULD be slow and steady growth by putting money into companies with a solid business model and profits. People offering outrageous returns are basically get rich quick schemes. The problem is getting rich usually requires years of hard work and financial responsibility and frankly, a lot of self control. Very few people "get rich quick" so little that I would argue it's a statistical anomoly.

Self control - exactly what those who seek out "Get Rich Quick" schemes usually lack.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Greed? Isn't that the idea of investing?

I do feel sorry for them. I'm sure most people invested with them not out of greed, but out of ignorance. I would consider myself of average investment intelligence, which means I know next to nothing like most people out there. And this is the first I've heard of CE's dubious nature. I mean their ads are on the radio and TV before and after ads for big banks and other investment firms. It's tough for the average person to distinguish between credible and crap regarding investments. But if you don't feel sorry for them because they didn't research their investment then I can see where you are coming from.

I don't feel sorry for them because the average person must instinctively know that if a bank is willing to lend to people at 5% to 7% and someone else is saying they'll pay 12% to 18% . . . . . . then why aren't the people paying 12% to 18% borrowing at 5% to 7% and keeping the difference themselves?

The answer is the bank has already done it's due diligence and concluded those paying 12% to 18% are likely dangerously leveraged risks.

If it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Also, pigs get slaughtered.

This requires no specialized knowledge at all. It doesn't even require you to be able to read a newspaper. You might be capable of only signing your name with a scrawled "X" for all I know.

You only need to be able to walk upright and be able to scratch behind your ear to figure it out.

So, why do they do it? Greed overpowers common sense. This is nothing new.

Just ask yourself: "Why does this guy HAVE to pay me 12%?"

It's probably not because he has a generous heart.

Cowperson

[Bobblehead]

I haven't dug into the Concrete Equities thing too much, but from what I did hear, didn't they sell limitied partnerships in real estate ventures and now 4 or 5 of those ventures have declared bankruptcy? So it isn't Concrete Equities that went bankrupt, just a bunch of the buildings they controlled.

Not that this is "better" more to make people aware that Concrete Equities is still around.

Concrete Equities buys commercial real estate then sells limited partnership interests as investments and manages the properties as general partner.

The trouble started in March when Concrete Equites, as general partner, asked the limited partners to sell all of their real estate to a new company in exchange for company shares.

The limited partners didn't bite and they say they then ousted concrete as general partner in 3 of the 5 partnerships but Concrete did not cede control and instead filed papers in bankruptcy court asking that a receiver be appointed.

Now investors can only watch as this drama plays out in court.

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/loc...ub=CalgaryHome