Norm Corrects the News
If this works well - I am going to make it more of a regular feature. I read a lot of news (hence where a lot of the BoN comes from). At the same time, a lot of the news pisses me off, because it gets things wrong.
Norm does not like.
So, here we go:
1) The Aptera is not a car. They are getting a lot of press recently because they went under the radar for most of the last year. They are now back, and a lot of the press loves to talk about Aptera, I have seen it popping up all over the place.
The thing is - this is not a car. It is actually classified as a motorcycle. Because it has three wheels, Aptera is gaming the system and claiming it needs to meet only motorcycle safety standards. Which, as far as I can tell, pretty much only means it does not come packed with explosives, and it has headlights.
2) The X-37B Spaceplane
The headline:
"Move over NASA. The U.S. Air Force has spent decades on the concept: an unmanned space plane that can be used to spy, reposition satellites, possibly even bomb targets, then return to base. A successful launch next week could turn that vision into a reality." - Nope. The X-37B was a NASA program until 2004 and then was taken over by the Air Force when NASA did not have the funding. The Air Force also paid a lot for the Space Shuttle - and that vehicle's payload capacity and bay size were largely dictated by the need to launch the Keyhole (Hubble's 12 identical twins that face Earth instead of space) satellites. So this is a) not really an Air Force program until recently and b) not at all, in any way, new. It is just a smaller automated shuttle which rides an Atlas V. Which is cool - but not nearly as interesting as the headline sounds.
"If all goes well, the X-37B will be the first unmanned space plane to complete an orbital mission." - wrong. The Russian copy of the Space Shuttle - called the Buran - did this very successfully back in 1988.
3) Goldman Sachs committed "fraud"
I can't stand Goldman Sachs. They really fucking piss me off. They are arrogant manipulative sons of bitches who use and abuse every opportunity they can to screw people over. They are well connected to many branches of the US govt (though it seems the Obama administration is now after them), and they constantly abuse their connections in order to cheat the US taxpayer and others. They are the worst of the worst when it comes to Wall Street, exemplifying a culture of greed that even I cannot agree with, as it is often based on manipulations of the system.
All of that said - they did not really commit fraud in the case being brought against them and Paulson. It was a shitty and shady deal, something which is pretty much standard for Goldman, but it should not be regarded as illegal. The thing was, investors should have known that the CDO's they were buying had more shit in them than a Wisconsin farm stream. Even if they didn't, and yeah the prospectives for CDOs were pretty much unintelligible, then they should have stayed the hell away. If you dont know what you are investing in, DON'T INVEST IN IT. Fergoddsake, that's some pretty basic advice.
Was it unbelievably shitty and immoral to have a hedge fund that is shorting the CDO's select securities for the CDO? Hell yeah. Most of Goldman is going to be rotting in the 4th-7th rings of hell for all eternity anyway. But is it illegal? No. Caveat Emptor.
Norm does not like.
So, here we go:
1) The Aptera is not a car. They are getting a lot of press recently because they went under the radar for most of the last year. They are now back, and a lot of the press loves to talk about Aptera, I have seen it popping up all over the place.
The thing is - this is not a car. It is actually classified as a motorcycle. Because it has three wheels, Aptera is gaming the system and claiming it needs to meet only motorcycle safety standards. Which, as far as I can tell, pretty much only means it does not come packed with explosives, and it has headlights.
2) The X-37B Spaceplane
The headline:
"Move over NASA. The U.S. Air Force has spent decades on the concept: an unmanned space plane that can be used to spy, reposition satellites, possibly even bomb targets, then return to base. A successful launch next week could turn that vision into a reality." - Nope. The X-37B was a NASA program until 2004 and then was taken over by the Air Force when NASA did not have the funding. The Air Force also paid a lot for the Space Shuttle - and that vehicle's payload capacity and bay size were largely dictated by the need to launch the Keyhole (Hubble's 12 identical twins that face Earth instead of space) satellites. So this is a) not really an Air Force program until recently and b) not at all, in any way, new. It is just a smaller automated shuttle which rides an Atlas V. Which is cool - but not nearly as interesting as the headline sounds.
"If all goes well, the X-37B will be the first unmanned space plane to complete an orbital mission." - wrong. The Russian copy of the Space Shuttle - called the Buran - did this very successfully back in 1988.
3) Goldman Sachs committed "fraud"
I can't stand Goldman Sachs. They really fucking piss me off. They are arrogant manipulative sons of bitches who use and abuse every opportunity they can to screw people over. They are well connected to many branches of the US govt (though it seems the Obama administration is now after them), and they constantly abuse their connections in order to cheat the US taxpayer and others. They are the worst of the worst when it comes to Wall Street, exemplifying a culture of greed that even I cannot agree with, as it is often based on manipulations of the system.
All of that said - they did not really commit fraud in the case being brought against them and Paulson. It was a shitty and shady deal, something which is pretty much standard for Goldman, but it should not be regarded as illegal. The thing was, investors should have known that the CDO's they were buying had more shit in them than a Wisconsin farm stream. Even if they didn't, and yeah the prospectives for CDOs were pretty much unintelligible, then they should have stayed the hell away. If you dont know what you are investing in, DON'T INVEST IN IT. Fergoddsake, that's some pretty basic advice.
Was it unbelievably shitty and immoral to have a hedge fund that is shorting the CDO's select securities for the CDO? Hell yeah. Most of Goldman is going to be rotting in the 4th-7th rings of hell for all eternity anyway. But is it illegal? No. Caveat Emptor.
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