[PenultimateManStanding]

It's looking to me like the resource depletion issue is going to matter if/when we come out of this savage financial tailspin we're in. Commodity prices are plunging. It's very possible, imo, that we never will. This is it, the Big One.

[holmes]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'I')t's looking to me like the resource depletion issue is going to matter if/when we come out of this savage financial tailspin we're in. Commodity prices are plunging. It's very possible, imo, that we never will. This is it, the Big One.

[evilgenius]

This is the beginning of the end. Interesting how you bring up the hedge fund world. Hedge funds and other means of stashing off-shore money have played a huge role in preventing inflation via their virtualization of money. They have been just as caught by the crisis as the rest of us. They are going bust in droves. There isn't going to be any hyper-inflation, not across the board. Some asset classes will see no rise in price post deflationary shake out because the competition necessary for such rises will have a hard time materializing.

That isn't what you were asking, though. I think what you are referring to is the activity of the rich getting out of less safe investment instruments and into safer instruments, through what can be properly termed legitimate hedge activity, that is to say fleeing uncertain assets for the security of the US dollar. I guess it depends upon what sort of asset classes are involved (whether a country is losing its future or only a speculative excess) and how the mechanism is going through (whether the rush out is predominantly a certain type of money, m1, m2, m3) as pertains to that country as to what sort of immediate effect it will have.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', ' ')Hedge funds and other means of stashing off-shore money have played a huge role in preventing inflation via their virtualization of money.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n any event, he was clearly a smart thief who enjoyed picking the low hanging fruit. He said so. A personality like that cares no more for his investors than he does for the rubes he cheats on trades.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n any event, he was clearly a smart thief who enjoyed picking the low hanging fruit. He said so. A personality like that cares no more for his investors than he does for the rubes he cheats on trades.

[InToWishin]

Remember when oil hedge fund sellers were taking a bath? Now that we are on the other side of the super-spike how many people are still playing $70 or $90 or whatever for oil because they bought into hedge funds? What will happen when those hedge funds expire and they can purchase oil much cheaper?

[Jotapay]

Like I posted several times a while back, The 2008 Jotapay Investment Strategy was: Guns, Gardens, Food, Ammo and PMs. A scooter and 6 months supply of gasoline in the garage doesn't hurt either.

Article Link $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')uring the final months of 2008, as the financial markets imploded, talk on trading desks turned to food and water stockpiles, generators, guns, and high-speed inflatable boats. “The system really was about six hours from failing,” says Gene Lange, a manager at a midtown hedge fund, referring to the week in September when Lehman went bust and AIG had to be bailed out. “When you think about how close we were to the precipice, I don’t think it necessarily makes a guy crazy to prepare for the potential worst-case scenario.”

Preparations, in Lange’s case, include a storeroom in his basement in New Jersey stacked high with enough food, water, diapers, and other necessities to last his family six months; a biometric safe to hold his guns; and a 1985 ex-military Chevy K5 Blazer that runs on diesel and is currently being retrofitted for off-road travel. He has also entertained the idea of putting an inflatable speedboat in a storage unit on the West Side, so he could get off the island quickly, and is currently considering purchasing a remote farm where he could hunker down. “If there’s a financial-system breakdown, it could take a year to reset the system, and in that time, what’s going to happen?” asks Lange.

[davep]

Shit, have they been reading Po.com?

[cipi604]

We welcome the hedge funds to a hard cold sudden reality ... let them eat cake.

[Tyler_JC]

Mildly arrogant on the part of the investment bankers. "If my hedge fund collapses, so will the ENTIRE WORLD!"

[Syeer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cipi604', 'W')e welcome the hedge funds to a hard cold sudden reality ... let them eat cake.

[Cloud9]

When the serious money people start looking outside the traditional avenues of protection and start looking to their own devices, that is a serious comment on the stability of the system. The irony of it is, if this were a bunch of rednecks they would be listed as nut cases. Now that these ideas are being considered by the money movers, it is seen as an astute hedging of bets.

[bratticus]

Hedge funds

http://www.peakoil.com/post847870.html#847870

[bratticus]

http://hf-implode.com/ailing.html

http://hf-implode.com/

[Revi]

It's interesting that those guys who are so concerned about risk are coming around to the doomer philosophy.

Scary.

[Specop_007]

Shiiiit....And if that 6 hours had passed what would they have done? Really? I'd bet MY stockpile that THEIR stockpile involves half a tank in the Beemer and a fridge full of caviar. Right. I dont think anyone seriously thinks hedge fund managers have guns, months of food and water and inflatable high speed boats......

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Investors in a Sarasota-based hedge fund could be out $350 million, and the man behind it has vanished.
Managers of the fund are telling clients that their money is gone, and they do not know if any will be recovered.
Fund principal Arthur G. Nadel, a prominent player in Sarasota social and philanthropic circles, disappeared this week. His wife, Peg, filed a missing person report with law enforcement after finding a suicide note.

Investors — from individuals to the Sarasota YMCA Foundation — in the funds branded Viking, Valhalla and Scoop were stunned this week to learn they may be victims in what could become the largest investment swindle in Southwest Florida history. Despite the carnage on Wall Street last year, investors had been told their investments earned more than 8 percent as of November.

Some are already calling it a “mini-Madoff,” after accused investment scammer Bernard Madoff of New York, who has been accused of creating an alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme that yielded similarly large percentage returns. “I feel abused. I feel beaten. I don’t know who to believe,” said Dr. Brad Lerner, who expects to lose nearly $730,000 in an IRA fund with Nadel and Moody.

Neil V. Moody, the president of Viking Management, declined to respond to interview requests. In a statement issued Thursday to investors, Moody confirmed the funds appear depleted. “Unfortunately, just yesterday afternoon we became aware of an extremely serious situation suggesting that the funds may have virtually no remaining value,” Moody wrote.

Moody, who lives part time in Evergreen, Colo., has told several investors interviewed by the Herald-Tribune the funds value totaled $350 million. He said he has contacted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and “all appropriate authorities” to report the situation.

Moody is telling clients that Nadel did all the fund trading, and that Moody had no idea anything was wrong until this week. Nadel, 75, and Moody, 70, operated under the name Scoop Management Inc. in a double storefront at 1816 Main St., across from the Bank of America building. Management appeared in a state of turmoil. Peg Nadel and son Geoff Quisenberry said they could not comment on the size of the company’s assets under management, the number of clients, how much has been lost, or even whether it is accurate to call them a hedge fund operator.

“The way I want to be represented is we are totally open and cooperative with all our clients and the authorities, and that includes the SEC,” Peg Nadel said. “We have nothing to hide. But until our counsel has a statement prepared for us to make public, we cannot comment on what is happening here.” She and Quisenberry both denied reports that employees were emptying out the office.

[smallpoxgirl]

Florida Fund Manager Missing; Clients Say Money Gone

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')rthur Nadel, a hedge-fund manager in Sarasota, Florida, has disappeared and clients are concerned they may have lost hundreds of millions of dollars, according to law enforcement officials.

Nadel, 76, is president of Scoop Management Inc., which oversees funds including Valhalla Investment Partners LP. He was reported missing three days ago after he called his stepson, Geoff Quisenberry, and told him to go to his house where he had left a note, Lieutenant Chuck Lesaltato of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said yesterday in a telephone interview.

[Sixstrings]

I beat you to this one, SPG. If you could, merge mine with yours. My thread was called something like "Another hedge fund ponzi scheme uncovered."

As for the issue at hand.. I find the parallels very interesting. This fellow is even older than Madoff, this one's downright elderly -- and we're supposed to believed he single-handedly ran a $350 million ponzi. Right.

Unlike Madoff, this latest elderly schemer has absconded. What happened with Madoff had to have an impact on him.. I wonder if he saw the writing on the wall, and just left the country with a big chunk of that $350 mil.

UPDATE EDIT:
They found his car at the airport. Surprise surprise!
Link