DTEJD1997

hey all: I think the primary factor in the egregious CEO pay is the fact that ownership of capital is so dispersed. You've got individual investors, pension funds, hedge funds, sovereign funds, and on and on....The managerial class acted in their own interest and have "captured" the capital and pay themselves well. What needs to happen is that the owners of capital need to RISE UP. They need to become more engaged. Owners of capital need to engage management and demand why is the pay so high when results are so bad?

hey all: One big difference between auto lending & student loans & subprime home lending is that it is EASILY feasible for somebody to "buckle down" & pay off a high interest loan on a car in a year or so. Work extra hours...cut back on spending in other areas. Make an extra $75-$100 a week, and you can put a huge dent in that loan in a year... Try doing that on a 100k student loan OR a 200k house loan. People can get out from vehicle loans...not so much on student loans or house loans.

It depends on just how "subprime" you are.....better risks are at 7-8-9 percent...truly subprime are in the mid teens to low twenties. Another trick that is played is that for TRULY subprime...they will pay inflated price of the vehicle and THEN an interest rate of 19%.

I know a little bit about this space... NOBODY is buying a $350 or $500 or even a $1,000 car on payments....Most of these cars are going to be $5k to maybe up to about $10k. The cars typically will have a lot of miles on them, and they are certainly no beauties, but they typically don't fall apart immediately. Think about it...a dealer DOES NOT want to sell a financed car that is going to fail in 30-45-60 days. The buyer HAS to be able to drive the thing to get to work, to get the money, to make the payments....If the car takes more than a couple of hundred dollars to fix, the buyer can't fix it. Then they can't make the payments, then the dealer doesn't get paid. NICK is also not pushing loans on anybody. They buy them once the loans have already been initiated. As for interest rates being too high...yeah, that isn't a great thing, BUT it is disclosed up front. Unlike education, there is no FRAUD going on. So two parties should be able to make a contract as long as terms are being disclosed, and everything is above board. A loan at 20% interest is better than nothing....

LOL. This is a falsehood pushed by the Trump campaign. It has been thoroughly debunked by Snopes. LOL!!!!! "Snopes" LOL! I saw the original video myself. I have heard it on the radio many times.... I saw/heard what Hillary said. Maybe she had a "short circuit" in her brain. She was most definitely calling for a middle class tax increase. If, as "snopes" suggests, she simply inarticulated "we aren't going to raise taxes on the middle class", that is a pretty big thing. Do we really want someone this scatter brained, and inarticulate to be the commander in chief? One final things as to "snopes"....who are you going to believe? Your lying eyes or me? I'll believe WHAT I SAW AND HEARD.

Truly! http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/?ex_cid=rrpromo I think Trump will get the biggest shellacking of any presidental election in recent memory. I am going to suggest that is pretty much going to be impossible. Wasn't the 1984 election the one in which Reagan beat Mondale in 49/50 states? Surely you are not going to suggest that Trump won't even win ONE state? Heck, even with all the gaffes/Hillary bump, the latest poll puts him at ONE point down...There is still plenty of time left. Just wait till the debates...there is a good chance that Trump will take Hillary apart piece by piece. Hillary has also said some questionable things. At a recent gathering, she was thundering for a middle class tax increase...

Hey guys: I'm based in Michigan now. I sometimes go into and deal with Detroit. Detroit used to have/still has to some degree, a HUGE problem with property tax. Property tax may assess a house a $50k value....that sold for $28k. So the assessed value of the property is WAY too high. Now you can go in and challenge it, and you MIGHT be successful...but you are NOT going to get the assessed value reduced by half. A couple of years ago, when I was looking at property, you could find properties that had 3x or 4x higher tax value than market value. So, if there are problems with the economy as a whole, OR, a local area hits trouble, this is a way for a government to get more tax money. Simply have the assessed value be MUCH higher than market value. In this area, property taxes can be a HUGE deal...

The above characteristics fit Obama & Hillary to a "T"!!!! Obama referenced himself 119 times in the nomination speech for Hillary. Or, going back in time, who can forget the classic "My election is when the planet began to heal and the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow." Trump has his problems, no doubt....but don't for a minute think that Obama, Bill & Hillary don't match or exceed his.

Nice thought... not gonna happen. I think that marijuana will eventually be legalized. That would probably lead to a lower incarceration rate (good). But there's no hope for legalization of the harder stuff in today's society. That would require a major shift in values and beliefs. Even if that happens I don't share your cartels will be out of business in 6 months view. Look at today's pharma state. What prescription can you get filled for $25? Even if you do get legalization, the cartels will probably be by far the low cost provider with the pharmas gaining only minor market share and the troubles will continue. I have to disagree with you 10000% What R&D is going to be needed by any major company to make cocaine? Two dudes in a lab...no legions of scientists & researchers & clinical trials needed. Cocaine can be produced just like any other generic, over the counter drug. Heck, $25 might even be too much....Bring it in by the metric ton, process it, distribute it, keep it all above board, and the price collapses. Junkies might even be able to keep some sort of normal life and not have to turn to crime & violence to support their habit. The prisons would start emptying out. Probably 75%+ of crime in America is drug related somehow. The only reason the Mexican cartels have their power is the IMMENSE profit in smuggling drugs. Do you think otherwise? If illegal drugs were like any other over the counter generic, there would be little profit. Enough profit to make it profitable selling over the counter, not in an illegal fashion. Not the kind of profit that bribes politicians, pays hit men, and all the other crime. I don't think it will happen, but it is an interesting thought exercise.

The main job of these dudes is not really managing money....Their main job is gathering up investors to give them $$$$ and then getting their cut of fees. I wonder if these guys manage pension money?

Regarding the homicides of the police officers and young black men (mentioned in that link you posted)... Probably what's driving that is the legal code that we have, more than the guns. The legal code says that you can bring a contract dispute to a courtroom if the underlying activity is legal. So in other words, if you are a black market businessman the courts will not help you resolve a contract dispute. So you rely on enforcing the contract yourself. The problem is that we have a huge underground economy -- therefore, a lot of "do it yourself" contract enforcement. Legalizing the underground activity would probably resolve the violence -- the businessmen could instead properly bring their disputes into a court of law. I presume you are speaking of illegal drugs. If marijuana, cocaine, heroine, speed, etc. were legalized, 98% of the dealers today would be out of business in six months. If you could get a prescription for cocaine filled at most pharmacies for $25 who is going to buy it from a "do it yourself" dealer? The power of the Mexican cartels would collapse almost instantly. The Taliban would be hurt also. Certain communities in America would have to adjust, as one of their prime economic engines would be destroyed... It certainly would be a different world!

I like & own CCNI. I am looking to get a significantly larger position below $.40/share. I know this one is WAY off the radar scopes. They recently did an acquisition that will expand their sales volume by about 10%. This is pretty significant, but no one seems to notice or care. If oil can continue to strengthen and the economy just gets a bit better, these guys can make a lot of $. They have a great balance sheet, good management, good company in my opinion.

Interesting video! HOWEVER, I think that some parts of that area look downright bustling & prosperous compared to some areas of Detroit not far from me... If you could magically pull someone from 1942 or 1943 and drive them down Gratiot (from Eastern Market down towards 8 mile) they would assume that we LOST WWII to the Nazis or Imperial Japan. There are MANY vacant fields (where buildings once stood). There are TONS of burned out/bombed buildings...Maybe 1/4 of them. There are maybe 1/4 that are derelict. Then there are maybe 1/4 that are semi-functioning or still functional. This goes on for about 5 miles....till you get to 8 mile and cross over the frontier into Eastpointe. OR perhaps drive someone from 42 or 42 down Van Dyke N. Of I-94 going towards 7 mile and they will think we lost to the MARTIANS! I've never seen anything like it. It literally looks a huge nuke bomb went off. Most buildings are burned down. HUGE fields of empty space. Huge slag/trash piles....some graveyards. Vacancy of heavy industry (and everything else) is at least 90%. I've seen some bad stuff....but I've never seen anything remotely approaching this. I should take some pictures and post them. Absolutely shocking. So that video from "grimy NYC" ain't got nothing on Detroit! haha

I don't mean to be rude, but you must not be digging enough.... There are so many opportunities out there, I've got a list 3 pages long. Organization has never been my strong point, and I am sure I've left some names off the list. Natural resources are interesting right now. Gold, silver, copper, zinc miners all offer some opportunities. There are some great yields out there. There are also some tremendous discounts to book value. Many people have given up on this sector, but some companies are still profitable... Retailers are interesting right now, especially some department stores. Some discounts to book value, some good yields. BDC's still offer some opportunity, but a lot of names have run up in value. Great yields here of course... MLP's offer some value. I suspect there is some value & opportunity in refiners. Got to be careful, as pricing structure for crude in USA has changed...discount between WTI & Brent Crude have narrowed... There are some restaurant stocks that offer opportunity, some even have great dividends! Then of course, you've got all the grey market ADR's. I don't even know where to begin here. I suspect I know about 1% of the stuff out there. This is literally a gold mine. How could I forget shipping? What about the automobile sector? There some names in the parts suppliers that are selling for a P/E of 2 or 3. Lots of risk, but could be a lot of reward. I am sure I'm leaving stuff out.... No doubt some of them are value traps...some of them MOST DEFINITELY are not. One example is NICK. These guys have almost always had double digit returns on equity, year after year after year. Yet, it trades for well below conservative book value. Or what about an auto parts supplier that is rapidly de-leveraging and trading for a P/E of 2.5? Or what about a department store that has a conservative balance sheet, strong history of earnings, good dividend, and massive insider buying? Call me crazy, but those don't really sound like value traps....There is certainly value out there, I've bet almost all my net worth on it...

I don't mean to be rude, but you must not be digging enough.... There are so many opportunities out there, I've got a list 3 pages long. Organization has never been my strong point, and I am sure I've left some names off the list. Natural resources are interesting right now. Gold, silver, copper, zinc miners all offer some opportunities. There are some great yields out there. There are also some tremendous discounts to book value. Many people have given up on this sector, but some companies are still profitable... Retailers are interesting right now, especially some department stores. Some discounts to book value, some good yields. BDC's still offer some opportunity, but a lot of names have run up in value. Great yields here of course... MLP's offer some value. I suspect there is some value & opportunity in refiners. Got to be careful, as pricing structure for crude in USA has changed...discount between WTI & Brent Crude have narrowed... There are some restaurant stocks that offer opportunity, some even have great dividends! Then of course, you've got all the grey market ADR's. I don't even know where to begin here. I suspect I know about 1% of the stuff out there. This is literally a gold mine. How could I forget shipping? What about the automobile sector? There some names in the parts suppliers that are selling for a P/E of 2 or 3. Lots of risk, but could be a lot of reward. I am sure I'm leaving stuff out....

You are PROBABLY OK, Don't leave anything visible inside the passenger compartment, lock it, park it under or very close to a light. Pine Knob is a different area than where this happened. I would not go into Flint though...

Well, all those people wanting to cut back on the 2nd Amendment rights & gun control probably have not had the experience of a home invasion, thefts of vehicles, etc. They probably also have not had to deal with AGGRESSIVELY incompetent police too! I wonder what the response of gun control people would be if they knew the police won't do anything? When they learn they aren't even INTERESTED in doing anything! I guess in their fantasy "la-la land" people don't have the right to protect themselves & their property when society & police start falling apart. I just hope things don't get worse. I & my father lived in Detroit in the 70's & 80's. I've seen REALLY bad times, I hope they don't come back...

It is hard to say... I wish the central banks would FIRE up the printing presses. A lot of people have tons of debt. Vast inflation would help them out. Vast inflation would also help out real estate owners and natural resource companies. If you at the price of education & health care, the prices have gone up tremendously. Of course, these sectors have TONS of money available to them. The amount spent on education is simply mind bending... I would prefer inflation, but I'm afraid we are looking at more deflation...

I bought some NICK today. I've owned it many times in the past. They currently have depressed earnings due to HUGE provisions for credit losses. However, even with that, they are trading for about 6.4X P/E and .76 of book. Of course ROE is also down, it is currently only 12.5%. The "street" just doesn't understand NICK, the company has been mis-priced for years & years & years. I made a lot of money off them in the past...

Well, I've got an episode here....This was a "home invasion" and theft of a $70k vehicle. Part of the crime is captured on video tape! They can't even be bothered to look at it! Offered, and they refused!

Hey all: Not sure if this belongs in "business strategies" section.... I'll post it here for now. I, and my father, live near Detroit. Not in it anymore, but in a very close suburb. Recently, my father survived a bout with cancer. He is very thankful to be alive and is also a car enthusiast. He likes Corvettes. So one day about 6 weeks he went out and bought a new black convertible. A very nice car. The other morning. He gets up to go to work and comes into the garage, which is built into his house. The garage door is open and the Corvette is missing! All his other cars are there, but the door is open, vette is missing. He immediately calls the "police" and then goes to talk to his neighbor. His neighbor has an elaborate video surveillance system. This system looks onto my Dad's property, and views the garage area and parts of the driveway. Dad explains what happened and neighbor immediately goes to view the footage from the night before. Police come out and want to know if Dad "tied one on" the night before....WTF? He very rarely even has a beer. So he & the police start "discussing" what exactly happened. Neighbor hears the ruckus and comes out. Turns out, he has video footage of criminals pushing the car down the driveway to the street and showing a Cadillac Escalade coming up and pushing the Vette down the street. Presumably, there was a flatbed truck to haul the car away on the next block. This happened at about 2:30 AM. Do the police want to view the video or get a copy of it? NO The police finally do write up a theft report so that Dad can report it to the insurance company. OnStar can't locate the car...So the signal is either being blocked or the transmitter is disabled. Does a "detective" come out to follow up? NO Do the "police" do anything other than write a report? NO This is a home invasion and a theft of a $70k car!!!! The reaction of the police is almost as bad as the theft! What are we paying them to do? Write plenty of traffic tickets? If they aren't going to investigate this, what will they investigate? Murders? Rapes (Michigan has a terrible problem with the police & rape kits)? What are we paying the police to do? They come out, imply that father is a drunk and or idiot. Won't investigate, don't want to see the surveillance...won't do nothing...don't want to write out report. Giving an honest citizen difficulty... Are they in league with the criminals? Heck, if you are criminal mastermind, you could come to the Detroit area. Unless you are caught red handed, the authorities aren't going to do anything about it. No investigation. No follow up. The police are only keeping the barest of order. If you keep your criminality quiet and at night, and don't shoot anything up, you are home free! Maybe the police don't want to file the report in order to keep crime statistics down? If you want to steal and engage in fraud, Michigan is the place for you!

This observation supports the idea that the stockmarket is not efficient to me. The stockmarket is where people invest their wealth. And alot of wealthy professional people go there by doing their jobs well but they are not necessarily objective analytical people. And these people directly make decisions that affect the market, even if they hire someone else to invest their money. For example if a person invests in a mutual fund, that person is implicitly pushing the mutual fund manager to get short term results. If the mutual fund manager does not get the short term result he investor will walk. Or in a market crash these people will bail creating opportunities. So if the market is not efficient who will make money off them? It cannot just be the superwealthy investors because those people are often money managers who are getting their strings pulled by the investors. So I think it is possible for average Joes who can think analytically and objectively to beat the market. Hey all: The other thing I've noticed is that the quality of education is collapsing...Last year I worked with a LOT of different younger attorneys on some large litigation...a very good chunk of them were in their very late 20's & early 30's. They certainly were not dull witted or mentally deficient...but admission standards in a lot of American law schools has collapsed. I saw the CV's of most of the people working on the project...In my day (mid 90's) they NEVER would have even been admitted to any law school. There were MANY attorneys with "art history" degrees & such with GPA's of UNDER 3.0 from their undergraduate studies. Certainly not all of them were like this, but maybe 40%? We also had some very impressive credentialed people too.... I think in the vast cash grab, "schools" are letting in & passing almost anybody. There is no money in not admitting people. There is no money in flunking people out or giving them "D's". Also, I've had the pleasure to get to know some graduates of somewhat "elite" liberal art colleges in the mid-west & east coast. These places are names you would recognize! These "liberal artists" don't have any understanding at all of economics, classical history, current history, politics....They do know "identity politics" & what is happening with the Kardashians & other goofs. When you work with people 5-6 days a week, 10 hours a day, months at a time, you get to know them. Who knows, maybe I'm just working with the wrong people, but I'm shocked at what I see & hear...

Hey all: A couple of "odd" science things I've noticed lately: A). There is a very small, but growing group of people who believe that the earth is really flat. Tila Tequila and the rapper B.O.B are but two. Of course, Boko Haram also thinks the earth is flat. They think the "round earth" is simply a scam by the "man" to keep poor people down.... B). I got into a "discussion" about school funding last week with another attorney and family member. Both of these fellows are extremely liberal & left wingers. Even when confronted with several articles & websites showing Detroit Public Schools spend MORE per student than some wealthy suburbs, they simply didn't believe it. One of the websites was published by DPS itself! Both of these people are allegedly educated people, one supposedly by University of Michigan! When pressed, they said they didn't believe anything written (even by DPS) because "we don't know how those figures are calculated) and they know what is what! The country is getting more stupider....

Here's a business failure to fixate on: Whitewater Development Corp., Hillary's bankruptcy that sent 15 people to jail. There is some argument to be made that Bill & Hillary are MUCH better businesspeople than Mr. Trump. Look at how much money they've made since leaving the Whitehouse. Remember, they claimed that they were "dead broke" when they left. Now look at them! They are worth billions. Further, how much capital did they need to get that money? Almost nothing! No buildings, no factories, no huge amounts of inventory or R&D. All they've needed are a few handlers/secretaries, private jets, servers, cell phones and private jets. An absolute incredible return on assets... At this point in time, Mr. Trump is likely richer than the Clinton's...but the Clintons should easily surpass Mr./ Trump's wealth, ESPECIALLY if Hillary is elected and stays out of jail.

I will second this about Mrs. Clinton, and also add that she is likely a criminal to boot!