[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'D')oes anyone have a clue here? It's not the Dems. It's not America. It's not the f#cking speculators, arabs, oil companies or Chinese. It's peak oil. You morons.

[PrestonSturges]

Eric Cantor was shorting treasury bonds this week. What about other Republicans? Let's not just automatically go into Soros bashing mode shall we?

[careinke]

Darn, I was hoping the Koch Brothers did it.

[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('timmac', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'D')oes anyone have a clue here? It's not the Dems. It's not America. It's not the f#cking speculators, arabs, oil companies or Chinese. It's peak oil. You morons.

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his isn't chump change. Where does that nine billion come from? Who ultimately pays out on these bets? You and me and a few hundred million other schmucks.

[basil_hayden]

Well it wasn't Cerberus, they're too F-ing stupid, except the gun company investments.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kiwichick', 't')he us should have been downgraded years ago

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ho 'made $10bn on 10/1 bet that U.S. credit rating would be downgraded'?

A mystery investor or hedge fund reportedly made a bet of almost $1billion at odds of 10/1 last month that the U.S. would lose its AAA credit rating. Now questions are being asked of whether the trader had inside information before placing the $850million bet in the futures market, or if the bet happened at all.

There were mounting rumours that investor George Soros, 80, famously known as ‘the man who broke the Bank of England’, could be involved. The latest bet was made on July 21 on trades of 5,370 ten-year Treasury futures and 3,100 Treasury bond futures, reported ETF Daily News.

Now the investor's gamble seems to have paid off after Standard and Poor’s issued a credit rating downgrade from AAA to AA+ last Friday.
Whoever it is stands to earn a 1,000 per cent return on their money, with the expectation that interest rates will be going up after the downgrade.

The link has been made to Mr Soros in part because he has been tied to President Obama’s administration since 2008, reported The Examiner. He also recently stopped managing money for outside investors, meaning he is under less scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commision

But the mystery bet could easily have been made by another trader with similar resources, despite Mr Soros’s links with the Obama administration. The bet also raises questions of whether President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner knew that a downgrade was on the cards.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023809/Did-George-Soros-win-10-1-return-S-Ps-US-credit-rating-downgrade.html

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'I') highly doubt that the average American has money invested in hedge funds that bet against Soros.

It's one thing to sell shares of AT&T short, it's quite another to bet on complex CDS derivatives like the one Soros purchases. Trust me, you didn't lose a dime because Soros shorted the dollar.

[basil_hayden]

Now that all the fish in the ocean have been eaten, it's good to see the sharks munch on each other.

[Cloud9]

Soros took the Brits down a notch and made a killing. Smart guy that one. I suspect everything he does is calculated for effect. Might be why he backed the Dems.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'C')hrist almighty man. Are you going to argue with me about PO? You will lose.

[Smudger]

Pstarr my friend persepctive chap perspective.

Yes of course PO and energy costs will have a long-term and indeed now medium term absolute effect but the reality is the vague excitement of the last few days has been about the debt levels which yes may be linked to PO but its direct effect is about over indebted western economies and the low growth rates which result. nothing more nothing less.

[Sixstrings]

Just to clarify, I didn't mean this as an attack on Soros. You can't blame him, if it's legal to loot ten billion dollars then why not?

My point is this:

Before 1970, it didn't used to be this way. People saved money in banks. There was no quantitative easing, or offshoring where some guy in India takes your Wendy's hamburger order through VOIP.

Nobody traded forex at home in their underwear.

The stock market grew very very slowly, but steadily.

To find anything comparable to what we have now you have to go back to the 1920s when everybody was obsessed with the stock market, shoe shine boys trading stock tips. It's not a healthy foundation for an economy, it crashed then and it crashed again in '08 and never honestly recovered -- the more financial games everyone plays, the more the central bank prints money to plug up the holes.

It just gets worse every year, more bizarre financial derivative products created. I don't claim to understand it all, but the more I learn the worse it looks. It's like a ponzi economy, an economy based on graft and scam. Shorting, for example, no longer serves a market function if government won't ever let the market fall.

Maybe I'm just jealous I don't know how to do this. Is it as easy as AmericanDream says, "just read the charts" and you too can be a billionaire?

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')But Tyler it's a $9 billion dollar profit out of thin air. That's a lot of money, it has to come from somewhere. In the case of shorting stocks, like Bank of America, you and me do end up paying for that because Uncle Ben will come to the rescue and replace the money looted out of the stock market.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'Y')es. The game hasn't changed. The wealthy still own most of the pie. It's just getting smaller.

[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Smudger', 'P')starr my friend persepctive chap perspective.

Yes of course PO and energy costs will have a long-term and indeed now medium term absolute effect but the reality is the vague excitement of the last few days has been about the debt levels which yes may be linked to PO but its direct effect is about over indebted western economies and the low growth rates which result. nothing more nothing less.