onyx1

You mean the guys who want to roll back government power and restore personal liberty? Frightening!

Trump was in the public spotlight for 5 decades and was never labeled a racist. Then he ran against the Democrats.

You can be sure that there are scores of email exchanges of those involved taking victory laps and giving high-fives to each other for the expected government sweep windfall. WH staffers and TSY officials rarely find themselves in a situation where a little financial engineering alleviates the pain of a financial problem that rises to the Presidential level. It's the holy grail and a once-in-a-career opportunity. The general model to gain standing as a government employee is (1) avoid association any perceived failure, and (2) promote and attach yourself to any perceived success. In the case of the NWS, there will be no shortage of bureaucrats employing #2 all the way up to the oval office. It's what they do. And it will be explosive.

Corker vs. Ackman video here: http://www.aging.senate.gov/ Forward to the 2:00:05 mark

cherzeca: I bought a bunch of preferred in late 2011 in anticipation of the return to profitability and the reversal of the DTA reserve. In my mind it was only a matter of time when the well underwritten loans starting in 2009 would overpower the bad (2007 and prior). I expected the DTA alone to more than cover the value of the preferred and eventually force a release by the conservator. But, I didn’t anticipated the possibility of a nefarious NWS. Oh well. That said, I still hold the preferred, and have added on several occasions since the original purchase. I also added common pre-Lamberth and still hold it. Since 2011, I have seen my preferred shares trade at 4x my cost basis, and at other times 15% of my cost basis. It been a wild ride and I have learned over five years to temper my enthusiasm when things appear like a “lock”. It’s a long, unpredictable, journey and it will likely continue for years. I still follow it closely. I try read every legal filing but it is getting so expansive that it is hard to keep up with details on all the cases. I mostly lurk here now. The investment is a so legally intensive that I don’t have a lot of value to add. Also, the quality of commentary from merkhet and you cherzeca is outstanding and I believe that keeps us all as reasonably informed as can be expected. Appreciated!

I generally try to avoid repeating myself but in this instance it's warranted. Big thanks merkhet and cherzeca for your insightful posts!

We all prefer a clearly a written 10-K or earnings statement with transparency, to a spaghetti mess filled with legalese. Since there are lots of readers on this site, I'm hoping to get some examples of your favorites. I like Fastenal's (ticker:FAST), and would like to know of others you feel are top quality. Thanks in advance.

Christian & Merkhet, thanks for sharing your comments and insight.

Thanks for your thoughts Christian. I understand your point, and reason that is why Steele used 73 pages to make many different agruements so as to give context, rather than just argue on the single narrow point of state law. This thought occurred to me as well. Is there a risk of owning the wrong GSE? A split decision would be a nightmare of the "so close and yet so far" variety. Please help me understand more about what you mean by "coordination", such as how that would work, or any precedents.

From the Application to Delaware and Virginia Supreme Courts: "Were the Net Worth Sweep to be upheld as permissible under Delaware and Virginia law, a very troubling precedent would be set for those states’ corporate laws, for stockholders of corporations of those states, and for the mergers and acquisitions community as a whole, because such precedent would appear to extend equally to corporations not under conservatorship and without the federal government as their senior preferred stockholder, and thereby permit the directors of a Delaware or Virginia corporation unilaterally to contract away all of the net worth and profits of the corporation for all time to a single preferred stockholder." This doesn't appear to be a very strong argument to me. Currently, a corporation can basically contract away almost all a companies net worth and profits by setting a preferred dividend equal to 10,000% x the common dividend. What is so troubling? The difference between all, and all but a few pennies is insignificant to me.

Apple, meet Orange. Is it really though? The quote about history not repeating, but rhyming comes to mind. Apple: 908 refugees, and there was no credible the threat of that boat being infiltrated Jewish agents of war hellbent on mass destruction of innocent lives inside the USA. Orange: 100,000 refugees, and there is a credible threat of the Syrian refugees being infiltrated ISIS Jihadists hellbent on mass destruction of innocent lives inside the USA. People fleeing violence and persecution and being turned away because of fear and prejudice seems like similar fruit to me. If you can't see the basic difference here then I can't help, good luck. Here is a much better comparison than than I was able to construct, maybe this helps: http://www.nationalreview.com/syrian-refugees-arent-1939s-jews

Apple, meet Orange. Is it really though? The quote about history not repeating, but rhyming comes to mind. Apple: 908 refugees, and there was no credible the threat of that boat being infiltrated Jewish agents of war hellbent on mass destruction of innocent lives inside the USA. Orange: 100,000 refugees, and there is a credible threat of the Syrian refugees being infiltrated ISIS Jihadists hellbent on mass destruction of innocent lives inside the USA. People fleeing violence and persecution and being turned away because of fear and prejudice seems like similar fruit to me. If you can't see the basic difference here then I can't help, good luck.

Apple, meet Orange. Is it really though? The quote about history not repeating, but rhyming comes to mind. Apple: 908 refugees, and there was no credible the threat of that boat being infiltrated Jewish agents of war hellbent on mass destruction of innocent lives inside the USA. Orange: 100,000 refugees, and there is a credible threat of the Syrian refugees being infiltrated ISIS Jihadists hellbent on mass destruction of innocent lives inside the USA.

Apple, meet Orange.

And if a mere 1/1000 of those 100,000 turn out to be an ISIS jihadist, that would be enough for 30 teams. In Paris, it only took 3 teams to kill 130 and seriously injure 350 innocents.

Good god, no one is talking about shutting our doors and hiding. This is not an immigration issue, it is a national security issue. ISIS is at war with us and they have already admitted their desire to infiltrate the US via incoming Syrian refugees. Our own National Intelligence Director says he is "very concerned" about the risk, yet we feel compelled to demonstrate our compassion to the world and put our citizens at risk buy admitting 100,000 Syrian refugees? I have zero confidence that government bureaucrats have enough reliable information to complete any background checks.

And where do we go to get reliable information for a proper background check? The Syrian government, 1-800-TERROR, or maybe we just call ISIS HR department and ask if they know the single, 25 year-old male who demands to be admitted? That should cover it for sure, really, what could possibly go wrong?

This will probably help answer a lot of questions. I just started reading it yesterday. Although they live in the midwest like WEB, that is where the similarity ends. They are hands-on operators laser focused on customer value, who impose their discipline on newly acquired companies. So far it has worked remarkably well. Building on a $21mm business they inherited from their father in the early sixties, the Koch brothers have grown it to the second largest privately owned business in the USA worth appx. $100 billion in 2014. Very impressive individuals. http://www.amazon.com/Good-Profit-Creating-Successful-Companies/dp/1101904135/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447279133&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3ACharles+G.+Koch&pebp=1447279127847&perid=11D7PA3M7FMEN5R84MZR

Here comes the protection money... http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2015-10-29/clinton-foundation-donations-rise-as-hillary-seeks-white-house

Only lawyers and politicians could believe this nonsense. The real disruption comes from the inability of financial institutions to raise capital at reasonable rates, which would result if the government wins its argument that they have the power to seize all assets at anytime without any judicial review.

True. And you need not look any farther than the new economic policies in the last 25 years that lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty in India. Or when similar wealth generating policies were put in place in China, a million people a month have risen out of poverty. One might think that would be enough to arouse the curiosity of those who claim to be on the side of the poor. The reality is that social crusaders have little interest in anything that doesn't put them on a moral high ground against the forces of "evil" (as defined by themselves of course). So instead of considering policies that have actually worked to relieve poverty, they create and then rail against a boogie man like the 1%, evil corporations, or low minimum wages. This way elites can look upon themselves as a defender of the downtrodden and get the special status they believe they deserve.

Eric, I feel your pain. For the expressing the desire to pass on the money you have worked your lifetime to accumulate as you see fit, you get called a whiner, a dummy, a jerk, insensitive to the poor, greedy, and in need of being put in your "place". According to the moralizers, you have enough acumen to accumulate wealth but lack the capacity to distribute it in the "right" way. Of course what is "right" can only be defined by self-anointed intellectuals who want to compel their will on the masses in order to save the world from injustices. What saints! That these people believe that they know more about how much wealth your children should have than you do, can only be explained by arrogance. To me, the greedy people are not those trying to control their hard earned wealth, but rather those who seek self-satisfaction by smugly demanding that your money be spent in a way that makes them feel good.

Great material. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to sense what is behind the redacted portions of these Plaintiff motions to unseal. The government's case appears full of contradictions.

I just went through the Washington Federal complaint again, and it looks like the boards consented to the conservatorship, but the claimants allege that the consent was coerced. This paper does help reveal the breathtaking degree of government overreach and may assist in motivating the politicians into settlement discussions in the future. I don't want my investment, however, to hinge on the whether the conservator was needed or not. I believe the case against the 3rd amendment is stronger and easier to prove, and for that reason I mostly own the preferred.

It will be a refreshing surprise to have a journalist trumpet this massive fraud. Journalists are largely motivated by peer acceptance, and revealing a fraud that damages a culturally unpopular class (investors), and impairs the agenda of both political parties won't make any journalist the toast of the next cocktail party. However, at some point, this story will become too big to ignore and an honest, prominent, journalist will appear.