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| | Tavakoli Structured
Finance, Inc. |
| | "Of
course, there is still much work to be done. That means honestly confronting
the crisis of Islamic extremism and the Islamists and Islamic terror of all
kinds." -- President Trump in Riyadh
"Where are you headed, Europe? Rise from your knees
and from your lethargy, or you will be crying over your children every
day." -- Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo
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| | The USA's State of Mind and Tesla
Tesla
No, it wasn’t.
Yet the WSJ article made
it sound as if the deal was all set, & Musk got cold feet. He’s been a
serial liar throughout this process: on August 7, Musk tweeted he had “secured
funding,” then he followed that within days with the Saudi fable.
WSJ must have edited out this
sentence: Musk lied about having financing for the deal and then scurried to do
damage control by hiring I-banks and spinning a narrative.
At least WSJ mentioned this key
fact several paragraphs down: “The company has significant debt
obligations coming due over the next year, and some of its suppliers are
nervous about Tesla’s ability to pay.”
I have no idea why WSJ threw itself on Musk’s credibility
funeral pyre. |
| | Influence, Mind Control, and Rhetological Fallacies
In my novel, Archangels, a
targeted PSYOP is used against the protagonist.These techniques are surprisingly
effective in practice.
Today marks the first release of the large print edition of Archangels for the
minority of people who prefer that format. It conforms to N.A.V.H. standards, except
the spine isn’t as flexible. But one can bend it back to lay flat, if desired. |
| | Portfolio Growth in 2018?
No one can time the market, and given the persistent
decline in what the dollar buys, everyone's portfolio needs real growth. Morgan
Stanley is predicting three Fed rate hikes in 2018, but nothing close to where
real rates, much less nominal rates, would be in a fair market. In a
manipulated rising stock market, we all look as if we're investment geniuses,
even though bubblenomics drives the S&P. Where we'll end up is anyone's
guess. Today's investment landscape looks very far away from value investing.
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| | Citi Resurrects Synthetic CDOs, Bane of the Credit Crisis
Sridhar Natarajan, Dakin Campbell and Alastair Marsh of Bloomberg authored an excellent take on Citi's claims (September 26, 2017) "Citi is Bringing Back One of the Most Infamous Bests of the Credit Crisis." The bottom line is that the risk is mispriced. Oh, but Citi claims this structure is safer.
Here's an excerpt:
“There is a whole generation
of people in finance who never knew or forgot what the problems were with synthetic CDOs,” said Janet Tavakoli, a 30-year veteran of the financial markets who runs a consulting firm and has written books on structured credit and CDOs. “Just as derivatives can lever up the upside, they can lever up the downside.” |
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