merkhet

I mentioned the same thing to Professor Goetzmann (who I believe spearheaded the campaign to pick up the bond in the first place) and he mentioned that he sees it more like art and/or history and/or preservation than an investment.

I think your broader point is that if the plaintiffs lose their cases, then the government can do whatever they want to do with the GSEs, and that's 100% true. The lynchpin is, as you said, how to handicap the odds that all the plaintiffs lose their cases.

I'd be curious to hear one. We had this discussion in the past. I am not going to repeat. Listen to the event. There were at least couple ideas mentioned there in between Ackman propaganda. Edit: since you asked 8) : Courts find that what govt did was all legal. Govt sets up new GSE where they put the money from the old GSEs and wind them down. New GSE is well capped and does great things for taxpayers. It might even go public. The end. I will attempt not to answer any posts that claim that this is not realistic, that it's soviet, or any other Ackman argumentation. ;) Take care. Ah, yes. We may have to agree to disagree that transferring assets from the old GSE to the new GSE would still be a Takings Clause violation. Edit: On a re-read, I suspect that if the courts find that what the government did was illegal, there would be no need to transfer the assets aside from Raines' point about naming issues. Thanks for providing your thoughts on this.

I'd be curious to hear one.

I don't understand the question.

I wouldn't spend too much time on the forensic accounting discussing whether Fannie & Freddie needed the bailout in 2008 -- as a legal matter, it's irrelevant because the board consented to the conservatorship.

I think Nick is just re-iterating that Sherrod Brown has a hold on the bill. Your first question would take too long to answer. Senator Brown sits on a committee that governs bills having to do with banking and housing, and therefore, he has the ability to put an indefinite hold on a bill that prevents it from coming up for a vote. It has nothing to do with voting power.

The point of the bill is to prevent Treasury from taking action to reform and release the GSEs w/o action from Congress. This bill was introduced months ago and stalled. Now, all of a sudden, we have the GOP trying to fast track the bill in an effort to get it passed. The implication here is... why the sudden rush?

This is probably important http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-11/senator-seeks-to-speed-bill-barring-fannie-freddie-stake-sales?cmpid=yhoo

Received a new e-mail from Fairholme today.

^ link http://nypost.com/2015/09/10/obama-official-hid-fannie-and-freddies-profit-mojo-suit/

The only part of this memo that bothered me slightly is Marks' seeming inability to reconcile the first page of his memo w/ the rest of his memo on second-level thinking. He spends the first page talking about how markets will whittle away opportunities through pricing transparency without discussing the possibility of overshooting and undershooting, which, by its nature, will increase opportunities. The increased of availability of pricing to the masses actually reinforces the non-rational actions of investors and creates more opportunities not less. (Although, it's possible that it compresses opportunities within certain timeframes by increasing the number of companies on which there are overreactions rather than the prior era of having opportunities more spread out over time.) In any case, still a good memo.

There was a good article on him in this month's Fortune as well. http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/paul-tudor-jones-income-inequality/

Thanks for posting!

Both

I doubt the Ron Kirk thing is anything.

Obama rumors?

What complicates matters is that it seems like the plaintiffs already have the evidence necessary to prove jurisdiction in the Court of Federal Appeals. (See attachment.) So, again, why the extension for discovery?

Fairholme's the ones that wanted the extension. I know that. I just can't figure out why. And Luke, you can't assume that on the motions to unseal. If it's premature, she doesn't even have to consider the legal arguments, so it wouldn't be incongruous to say later that the legal reasoning doesn't fly. Even if I think that's unlikely.

It's a setback because the pressure is off for a few more months. Earlier is better.

Well, that's a setback. Also, why would plaintiffs extend discovery so much?

Sounds like a good idea. If you're looking for alternatives, I have a friend who was from old money in Ohio who said that the parents were willing to pay for (1) schooling, (2) a wedding and (3) the down payment (or the entire amount, not sure) for their first house. Everything else was up to them.

Macey also wrote an amicus brief for the appellate case in DC

I did.

Is it the article or is it his actions?