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OT: buy at the end of the day. Anything lol. We are at Oct. 16' bottom.

Someone must have watched the whole 5 hours, spotted those 15 seconds where the back of the page shows and related that to our concern. Eyes like a hawk!

Emily, why did you remove your last post? It was intriguing. It was truly there on the back of the page.

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Thank you for a better perspective to both.

Chris, so you do not think a market slump or a recession may influence events? What if it leads to the companies losing money and needing real bailouts?

I bought it too haha. In my kindle now. Thanks.

A market that tanks in the next 3 to 6 months may overwhelm everyone and both Mnuchin and Watt may decide or be forced to recapitalize the companies to prevent any new bailout. We have all witnessed in the past the power of the market. I have not and will not sell any of my preferreds. Narrow money measures have been flashing red for months. They are now confirming a sharp global slowdown coming. We should see slowing economic momentum in China by the end of March. Luke, great advice. Yes, emily: own homework and own conclusions. Then, you can stick to your position when it moves against you.

Thank you. In my view, these words are meant to say something while saying nothing. If another market shoe drops in March I can see Watt raising alarms and the "exigent circumstances" card, while Mnuchin raises his eyebrows before he nods. Fully nodding may require a 3rd shoe dropping by the summer. We are headed south. Negative surprises from China March/April, easing by PBOC to add stimulus, commodities skyrocketing leading to more inflation pressures creating a bad US storm. Not perfect. But very bad. The natural order of things: If scotus steps aside, it is all Congress. But if/when Market speaks, Congress listens.

Almost all of the above has been known for years. How long have you been on this investment? December 2010, here.

Guys... read my lips: EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES nuff said.

Specially now that housing has been taking a real beating in the stock market. Len, NVR, tol, phm, etc. I also agree that by the summer this will look a *lot* different. Chris, you are right, non-cash. But the accounting gimmick will still get transferred.

Going back to our concern... These 2 companies are going to be throwing a ton of cash from hedges as interest rates rise faster than expected. Rate of change matters. The disgust I will feel to see that being taken away by Treasury is equal in size to the love Mnuchin will feel. Which -the danger- will perpetuate the sweep.

Exactly. This is like stalking the guy. Wrong approach.

Good. It was removed.

I think you are being naively optimistic. That said, as chances of an administrative solution grow while the chances of Congress succeeding diminish a blowout from a scotus rejection may be less dramatic. Remember, all courts have found agreement on this: Why would the Supreme Court be any different? If scotus closes the door on us Congress will become the sole player. Still, a disappointing outcome from scotus will only make Congress failure a much larger victory for us. It will then be all Trump. And given his obstinacy to go against Obama I will be shocked to ever find out that the NWS is the only thing that Trump readily embraces from the Obama era.

low odds of the warrants included in the funding. quite low. it would be shocking, actually. On another front, from the latest AB article... . couple of weeks... from the horse's mouth.

Cohn (Bloomberg) just said Trump will announce a detailed infrast. plan during the month of February. Apparently, they worked with Mulvaney on how to fund it.

They sold 22M shares of FMCKM. Those multiple 1M share blocks over the last few months must have been Fairholme. it appears he did cut around 40pct of his shares. part of this went to raising the fund's cash levels, and part to other positions (and maybe for redemptions?). but remember this is 2 months stale data (nov30), whereas his letter is fresh as of this week. lots of preferreds have traded lately, he could be much bigger or smaller at the moment. Maybe he felt the need to show something to his shareholders after so many years of holding this. He said before he was trading a chunk of it. The big run up in December may have led to lightening up.

Would have to ask the legal guys but wouldnt it be documented somewhere if he or pershing square was party to a lawsuit? I certainly was fooled by Corkers comments during the hearing to then read a draft of his bill a couple of hours late. My probably biased interpretation of watching it over is that Corker knows legislation has little chance of going though by asking Mnuchin what adminstrative options the treasury has and bouncing recievership off of him. Its back to in Mnuchin we trust. We are either going to live or die by him. I know its healthy to have a leery approach and trust no one but I have not seen to date any action or comment by Mnuchin that would lead me to believe shareholders cant trust him. That remains to be seen of course. Corker is not your friend. Neither is Senator Warren. She was outspoken about greedy hedge funds in the past. So far, the only thing we have is common sense (Dec. letter of agreement). If Corker can be neutralized perhaps common sense may prevail?

You can admit you don't know just fine. But humility will not make you rich if it keeps you away from taking a risk. At some point knowing, not knowing or not knowing you don't know makes no difference. You position-size and either take the risk or not. Not just on this play but in any play. You can never know enough and black swans are just around the corner. I got hit by corrupted ceo's playing the backdating option game, fda approved drugs that killed people as soon as they hit the market -drugs retrieved, companies out of business-. Any play can come with a little unexpected, unforeseen black eye. This particular play has a myriad as history has shown. In the end, it is how much risk one can take. Different answers for different people under continuously changing circumstances. Luckily for us, some common sense from actors that matter (December letter of agreement Watt-Mnuchin) may give some reprieve to this investment.

As he said, Corker may have strong suspicions this effort will still go nowhere. Again. That doesn't make Corker less dangerous. I don't like his digging into possible receivership by administrative action. This tells me he hasn't given up into zeroing us and he may try a new form of jumpstart to fuck us up after he is gone. I do not see adding jumpstart -tying Treasury's hands- to this bill as a negotiating mechanism but as something simply dangerous to this investment. If he doesn't get what he wants out of a negotiation, what will his next step be? Corker has been and appears to continue to be bad news.

Yes, that is what it would take. The existence of the lawsuits is proving to be rather important, I think. There are many forms the bribe could take: Shares in the post-receivership FnF (if they even exist) Payouts to all shareholders, common and junior pref Payouts to only junior pref holders Payouts to only series of junior prefs owned by plaintiffs Payouts to only shares owned by plaintiffs I guess the second to last is the only scenario where it matters what series you own. I've highlighted this before and was called crazy. I'm very worried about a private check being written (settlement) to litigating shareholders. I understand the counter argument that such a check would be a material proportion to paying out total shareholders, but that gives me little comfort. Ackman isn't in litigation right? So they can also say that private settlements didn't take care of all hedge funds. Would surprise me that Mnuchin would stab paulson in the back when not doing so would be easy, but we do not have full details into their relationship or mnuchins mindset. Maybe Mnuchin helps make the PR debt whole for paulson instead. In the past, I could not see your somewhat pessimistic (you would say realistic) point of view as clearly as today. Honestly, I don't know what side is up or down anymore and I question the reality I see. Are we being fooled by Corker and C.Philips into thinking things might be ok for us while the stern reality is that there is a bill out there that may zero us? And that -behind the scenes- there maybe some maneuvering to appease democrats and big shareholders to make this bill get to Trump's desk? I do not trust my own reading of things anymore. The fact that Jumpstart is in this bill does not look good from the perspective of a friendly resolution like getting shares in any new company or even a few bones to keep famous names investors smiling. Jumpstart is very aggressive. Its goal is to keep the lid on Jrs. I can't understand why preferreds went up today.

And its own mini-Jumpstart in section 802(b)(1). Section 802(b)(2) ties Watt's hands: So receivership plus seniors in place equals zero for all commons and junior prefs. This is what Corker calls fair? Yes, this bill is nothing but friendly. With this one, we are looking at zero. InvestorG's concern could be real. And I agree Corker's view of what is fair may be different than ours. So far, the only thing we can rely upon is the rumored fact that not one democrat will vote for receivership. Midas, that was really funny. It has a built-in jumpstart! I was fooled by Corker.

Yes, his comments today were shareholder friendly.