vox

Thanks for providing your perspective. What is the mortgage derivatives market like today?

Another sign that bitcoin values are driven by speculation: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitcoin-asia-idUSKBN18T0K2

That's quite impressive that you were able to live off of $8,000 in the US in 2014, the poverty threshold for a family of one is around $12,000.

How long ago was this that you were living off $8,000 a year and were you spending <10% of your pre-tax or after-tax income?

I'm not making the case that today's valuations are at or near the highs from the peak of the tech bubble, but this is an unfair comparison. Whereas the m.o. back in the day was to IPO as soon as possible, today's tech companies have access to a wealth of VC funding and have the capacity and desire to stay private for much longer. SNAP is currently trading at 67x ltm sales and a number of private companies have mind boggling valuations: https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/sales-multiples-30-unicorns/

I must have missed something ..... how is callousness related to intelligence? We all know we are above average intelligence but who says intelligent people are less callous? Nobody was posting porn or talking about rape.... what I learned but the last US election is that PC can drive people to the edge....... don't let PC rule this forum..... Intellectual curiosity is not intelligence, it is the desire to learn more about a person, place, or thing. One way we do that is by appreciating different perspectives from people with different backgrounds and experiences. I made no argument about a relationship between intelligence and callousness.

There's a surprising level of callousness on display from a group of people that pride themselves on intellectual curiosity. Yes, for some people the joke was simply an amusing restatement of their personal experience in dating. But is it really so difficult to understand why others might take offense at it? The experience of being sexually assaulted or subject to unwanted sexual advances is a common one for women in modern day society, and certainly one that you wouldn't wish on your mother, wife, or daughter. I am not suggesting that Warren Buffett was condoning such behavior, but the joke reinforces a mentality and creates a permission structure for men to not respect the will of women. Perhaps it encourages frat boys to believe and vocalize that "no means yes, yes means anal." http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2010/10/15/dke-apologizes-for-pledge-chants/ So while you are emotionally well-adjusted and can interpret the difference between someone saying no and someone playing coy, maybe that's not true of everybody, and maybe we shouldn't encourage people to assume consent and encourage guys to harass women.

Some excerpts are available here: http://www.businessinsider.com/bauposts-seth-klarman-investor-letter-on-donald-trump-markets-2017-2

Matt Levine's latest missive is worth reading: "I think sometimes about how Anthony Scaramucci compared the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule to Dred Scott, the 1857 U.S. Supreme Court decision protecting slavery and ruling that African-Americans can't be citizens. "The left-leaning Department of Labor has made a decision to discriminate against a class of people who they deem to be adding no value,” said Scaramucci, a fund-of-funds marketer who was also an adviser and spokesman for Donald Trump's campaign. And he said that, if Trump were elected, he'd repeal the fiduciary rule. Trump, meanwhile, never said that. Instead he promised to ban Muslims from traveling to the United States. Scaramucci tried not to think about this: "I’ll make a prediction right now that he will not put a ban on Muslims coming into America," he once told Gawker. Did he believe that? Or did he think that the Department of Labor rule requiring financial advisers to put their customers' interests ahead of their own is the great moral evil of our time, comparable to slavery, and that a ban on Muslim immigration was an acceptable trade-off to end that evil? Now Trump has his Muslim ban, sort of. On Friday -- Holocaust Remembrance Day -- Trump issued an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the U.S. The ban covered U.S. lawful permanent residents who have spent years following the law and building lives here, interpreters who heroically helped the U.S. military, children of U.S. citizens, dissidents who fought hostile regimes, scientific researchers, Syrian Christians, British Olympians, and endangered refugee children who were carefully vetted to be allowed into the U.S. But you know what Trump hasn't done yet? Repeal the fiduciary rule! Or even talk about it. Its future remains uncertain, and while there is a good chance that it will eventually be repealed, big brokerages are moving to implement its changes now anyway. This is a widespread pattern. Many people in the business and financial and technology communities listened to what Trump said, and cheerily assumed he'd do something completely different. Sure he talked about restricting trade and banning Muslim immigrants, but what they heard was that he'd enact "sensible immigration policy" and pro-growth trade agreements, reduce taxes, cut back regulation and generally improve conditions for business. As I said in November: Peter Thiel and others said that Trump should be taken "seriously but not literally." Taking Trump literally means believing that he'll do what he says. Taking him seriously means believing that he'll do what you want. And what has happened so far? Immigration bans (with more to come), abandoned trade agreements, "alternative facts," unprompted promises to bring back torture. And what has not happened so far? Tax policy is a complete mystery, with an unclear and walked-back promise to impose a border tax. Health-care policy is even more mysterious. Trump has made vague promises to cut regulations by 75 percent, but his specific regulatory focus seems to be on increasing penalties on companies that move operations abroad. Everything Trump literally said is coming literally true; everything the serious people heard remains an unserious hope. Businesses may eventually get the tax and regulatory reform they wanted, but it's not a priority. The technology industry, and some others, are beginning to figure this out: Trump has "had this extraordinary honeymoon where Wall Street has kind of discounted all the negative aspects," Richard Fenning, the CEO of consultancy Control Risks, told Bloomberg Television. As companies react to the migrant ban, "perhaps that honeymoon is starting to be over," he said. More than that, though. One upshot of Trump's executive order is that United States lawful permanent residents, who have jumped through years of hoops to comply with the intricate immigration rules enshrined in U.S. law, are no longer protected by that law. They can be deported at the whim of the President, or his advisers, or a Border Patrol agent. (The order originally barred lawful permanent residents, though after some confusion, now it will not, unless the Secretary of Homeland Security wants it to. On the other hand, soon it may apply to citizens.) The nation of laws that they immigrated to is gone, replaced by a nation of arbitrary rule. If the president can, without consulting the courts or Congress, banish U.S. lawful permanent residents, then he can do anything. If there is no rule of law for some people, there is no rule of law for anyone. The reason the U.S. is a good place to do business is that, for the last 228 years, it has built a firm foundation on the rule of law. It almost undid that in a weekend. That's bad for business." https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-30/immigration-orders-and-odd-tenders

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/

Here's the list of FINRA regulated companies: https://www.finra.org/about/firms-we-regulate You should look for a position where you get a chance to talk to customers or clients beyond a secretarial or administrative role.

Unless there was a way for those already wealthy and in power to institute policies that restrict economic mobility... ::)

Do you have a count for the total number of ballots cast in the OH & PA districts that you claim went 99.9% or 100% for Clinton? Do you honestly believe that the Democratic party is organized enough to charter vans or buses, get drivers to load them up with hundreds or thousands of volunteers or paid actors and travel from polling site to polling site without being detected or arousing suspicion? That people are surreptitiously let off a block away and trickle in a few people at a time to hoodwink election officials (including Republicans) with false voter registration information for every new location? That they are so good at this that despite happening en masse, no one has ever caught a picture or video of this or interacted with those fraudulent voters or organizers in an age where everyone has a smartphone in their pocket? Is this really easier for you to believe than large scale voter fraud not existing in the US?

I think that this is an idea that is fine in theory, but has to be implemented properly, something that's often not the case. Just as how voter education laws make sense (making sure that people have a clear understanding of who and what they are voting for), but have historically been used to discriminate against certain groups. See: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html The voter ID laws crafted by Republican state legislatures disproportionately affect poor and minority voters. https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsin-is-systematically-failing-to-provide-the-photo-ids-required-to-vote-in-november/ In Canada, it is not complicated, you show a driver licence or something and they check your name on the list, that's it. Is it bulletproof? No, but is way better than nothing IMO. In my state, you are assigned a polling location. When you arrive, you give the election official your name and address and that is matched to your voter registration information. If you were to impersonate someone that has already voted or is not registered for that location, presumably you would get caught and not be allowed to cast a ballot. Not all citizens have passports. My friend did not get one until last year when she was 30 years old. If you want to waive passport fees and give them at birth or age 18, that's fine. Why do you think that social policy should be set exclusively by the rich? Are they just more enlightened than everybody else? As Alexis de Tocqueville correctly observed "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money". That would be less likely to happen if the taxpayers voted and the tax receivers didn't. I'd also prohibit anyone currently holding political office or working for any level of government from voting (along with their immediate family members). Also the 100k ownership in a business is not valid if that business gets any subsidies from any level of government or makes any sales to any government department or agency. The moment you take a direct payment of even one cent from government you should lose your right to vote. Government does more than reallocate taxes and fees. Why should a public school teacher have no say on civil rights issues?

I think that this is an idea that is fine in theory, but has to be implemented properly, something that's often not the case. Just as how voter education laws make sense (making sure that people have a clear understanding of who and what they are voting for), but have historically been used to discriminate against certain groups. See: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html The voter ID laws crafted by Republican state legislatures disproportionately affect poor and minority voters. https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsin-is-systematically-failing-to-provide-the-photo-ids-required-to-vote-in-november/

I watched the video, here's where I see camera cuts: 0:08, 0:26, 0:58, 1:13, 1:23, 1:38, 1:57, 2:39, 2:50, 3:01, 3:09, 3:37. They should release the full video in addition to this edited version. That said, most of his comments are opinion or conjecture, not an admission or fact. The context of busing voters seems to very clearly relate to NYS assembly primary candidates. The full fraud quote is "You can see a lot of fraud. Not just voter fraud, all kinds of fraud" and the response was "what a waste of taxpayer money," his comment is not specific to state issued IDs. Given O'Keefe's track record, I see no reason to give him any benefit of the doubt that this conclusively proves vast voter fraud. I will concede that it might not be VAST voter fraud, BUT that is certainly evidence that things are going on in NYC. If buses of people are being moved around in local elections, might that not be going on in national elections? This coming from one of the guys in charge of voting! What he is saying could be termed "an admission against interest"... If you don't think that video is alarming, I guess we just see things differently. It seems pretty clear that the difference between local elections and state/national elections are that a few people can make a difference in the prior, whereas it takes tens or hundreds of thousands to make a difference in the latter. The Trump campaign asked its supporters to be poll watchers on election day, how come none of them were able to spot massive irregularities - like the busing of thousands of people across different polling places?

Not all citizens have passports. My friend did not get one until last year when she was 30 years old. If you want to waive passport fees and give them at birth or age 18, that's fine. Why do you think that social policy should be set exclusively by the rich? Are they just more enlightened than everybody else?

I watched the video, here's where I see camera cuts: 0:08, 0:26, 0:58, 1:13, 1:23, 1:38, 1:57, 2:39, 2:50, 3:01, 3:09, 3:37. They should release the full video in addition to this edited version. That said, most of his comments are opinion or conjecture, not an admission or fact. The context of busing voters seems to very clearly relate to NYS assembly primary candidates. The full fraud quote is "You can see a lot of fraud. Not just voter fraud, all kinds of fraud" and the response was "what a waste of taxpayer money," his comment is not specific to state issued IDs. Given O'Keefe's track record, I see no reason to give him any benefit of the doubt that this conclusively proves vast voter fraud.

I don't think there is any question that voter fraud is occurring. The question is HOW MUCH of it is going on. How is that? A). A "bigwig" (Alan Schulkin, Commissioner of Board of Elections NYC) is caught on tape discussing how they bus people into certain districts to vote, he also goes on to discuss other types of fraud and that massive fraud is going on: http://www.dailywire.com/news/9876/watch-nyc-dem-election-official-caught-video-there-amanda-prestigiacomo Why did this not get more attention? Absolutely shocking.... B). Here in Michigan almost half of the voting districts in Detroit did not have their votes recounted as there were problems with the ballot box (being unlocked), the number of people showing up to vote didn't match the number of ballots cast, and on & on. Mind you, not all of this is due to voter fraud. Sometimes there was 1 more ballot cast than recorded, so that is more likely a clerical error than a scam going on....but there certainly were goofy things going on. Simply the fact that there is so much sloppiness & error is a scandal in of itself. C). Many, many states are embroiled in litigation in regards to voter ID. I have to show ID to enter federal buildings, courts, libraries, casinos, etc. How do so many people go through life without any ID? Are poor minority people of such destitution that they can't afford the $5 to get a state ID? How do they drive? They can't figure this out? Just pondering this out loud. Q: Why would you NOT want ID's to be checked when voting? A: In order to enable wide scale voter fraud. D). When I was living in Houston Texas, there were millions of illegal immigrants. Most of them were hard working, decent people. HOWEVER, you can't tell me that some of them aren't voting. Is it 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, more? Nobody really knows. E). In the last election, there were districts in OH & PA where Mitt Romney (and others) received 0,1,2 votes. These were almost all in minority districts. No doubt, Obama was going to win these districts and win them heavily....but the Republican wouldn't get 1% of the vote? The Green party wouldn't get 1%? Obama got 100% or 99.9%? This wasn't 1 or 2 districts...this went on in many districts. If that happened in more than 1 or 2 districts, I would think alone would be evidence of fraud going on... This is just what I can think of off the top of my head. I am sure that there are other things going on. So yes, there is voter fraud going on, just a question of how much, and how much an effect it has on the outcome. There seems to be an incredible disconnect among those blasting a 'biased media' while at the same time advocating sources like James O'Keefe's Project Veritas to be factual. He's been criticized extensively for deceptive editing and framing by the Columbia Journalism Review and the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting organization. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/james-okeefe-accidentally-stings-himself Part of the problem with the voter ID laws is that states have restricted them such that only certain forms of ID are acceptable. For example, in North Carolina government issued public assistance cards (with photos) were not permissible as valid forms of ID. It's not a coincidence that those with the public assistance cards were disproportionately minorities.

ADP and other payroll processors have enormous floats.

Coufounding how? They had a residual-like (high multiple) revenue model based on Ocwen's portfolio, which was growing like crazy at the time as they bought the MSRs from all the banks post-2009. I can see how it became valuable over time if you assumed (as most did) that Ocwen/Erby were just good, salt-of-the-earth, capitalists. Confounding in the way that any stock is that returns in excess of 1,000% in the year after its IPO. The company's market cap almost doubled in Q4 with no news or discernible change in the forecast. If you have a spreadsheet or valuation write-up that justified a price in excess of $500 per share, I'd love to see it. There used to be a write up here: https://glennchan.wordpress.com/ but i think the site is down. otherwise i would go back to the ocwen thread as i think it was discussed quite a bit back then, if my memory serves My comment was on AAMC, not ASPS.

Coufounding how? They had a residual-like (high multiple) revenue model based on Ocwen's portfolio, which was growing like crazy at the time as they bought the MSRs from all the banks post-2009. I can see how it became valuable over time if you assumed (as most did) that Ocwen/Erby were just good, salt-of-the-earth, capitalists. Confounding in the way that any stock is that returns in excess of 1,000% in the year after its IPO. The company's market cap almost doubled in Q4 with no news or discernible change in the forecast. If you have a spreadsheet or valuation write-up that justified a price in excess of $500 per share, I'd love to see it.

The 2013 run-up in Altisource Asset Management Corp (AAMC) is confounding to me.

Spoiled food has no value, other than as fertilizer. There are stores that will sell 'misfit' food that have cosmetic defects for a discount. Regarding Daryl Morey and the Houston Rockets, is there any evidence that they have drafted more efficiently than other NBA teams given their draft slots? Or that NBA teams are overall better at drafting players than they were a decade ago? The Morey era Rockets don't immediately come to mind among teams that have the best recent draft records (Jazz, Warriors, Thunder, Spurs, Bucks), they are more known for their statistically optimal offensive game plan.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/12/14/from-senator-warren-apology/VyK2UF8ytm9aVMj1PAV8iJ/story.html She took down the post saying, "I think I took it too far... There are many things I agree with Whitney on, and I wish my tone had been less heated."