Mephistopheles

"it would still have happened with different means, maybe a different target and possibly could have been even more lethal. " So now the fact that he had access to an assault weapon prevented it from being more lethal? I'm willing to bet anything that he would have liked to see it as lethal as possible, regardless of the guns. He could have set off a bomb in Disney World for instance. But no, he chose the "less lethal" option - and that's entirely because it's much easier to legally buy an assault weapon than it is to illegally make a bomb (or buy an assault rifle). So yes I think if we made it harder for these people to have access to legal firearms, it would make it that much harder for them to do damage.

Oh absolutely. I was just responding to Cardboard's comment that if you include suicides, France and the U.S. have almost the same rate of purposeful deaths. I just think it's important to distinguish suicide and homicide and was pointing out that when it comes to the latter, we still take the cake. Having said that, I happen to work in healthcare, and I can confirm that firearm access is certainly a risk for completed suicide in people who have depression. So I don't know why Japan or France have a higher or equal rate. Maybe they have a higher rates of depression? I really don't know. I believe nobody should have guns, just like in Europe. But to start with, we can ban assault weapons, or prevent those on the terror watch list from buying guns. The latter bill which Congress Republicans blocked recently. It's amazing that the party that is supposedly the toughest on terror is willing to let suspected terrorists buy guns.

For the record, I am not a Democrat. I'd say I'm Libertarian. I also am: pro-life, anti-death penalty, a non-interventionalist, anti-gun, and a borderline vegan. Where are you getting the per 100,000 numbers from? I'm not so sure about suicide, but if we talk about homicide from all causes, the U.S. is much worse than France and Denmark. 4.9/100k in the U.S. 1.2 in France. 1.0 in Denmark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate Edit: Just looked it up. Including suicide, 16.8 U.S., 16.1 France, 12.2 Denmark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_death_rate Someone said that suicidal people will find a way to kill themselves with or without guns. I'm certainly more inclined to believe this than the argument that homicidal people will find a way to kill others with or without guns, or will find guns regardless of their legality. Also, when I step out the door, or anyone from my family does, homicide is a bigger concern for me than is suicide.

Agreed. Numbers never matter with most issues with the populace. But I think the country over the long term becomes more and more liberal, and we'll eventually get there, slowly but surely. I'm surprised though that these numbers also don't seem to matter to some "value investors"; people who are supposed to be rational.

Does anyone follow Josh Rosner on Twitter? Apparently his account was banned and it had something to do with the GSEs? @joshrosner

Suicide rates with firearms have a fatality rate of 85% (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/), far in excess of fatality rates by other means. The total suicide fatality rate of all methods is 9%. Let's say that in total, banning firearm would conservatively save 33% of the firearm deaths in the US, so 10,000 people each year. For comparison purposes, the number of Americans that died in the Vietnam war was 58,000. One would have to assign a huge likelihood of mass murder by the US government in order to come close to offsetting the lives saved. For example, it would take a 5% chance each year that 200,000 are killed in some statist dystopia to get an expected lives saved that would offset the deaths prevented by eliminating firearms. Great post!

Have you looked into Michael Bloomberg's "Every Town For Gun Safety" organization? I'm sure it has all the funding it needs but I am considering getting involved. I saw it mentioned among others. I will look into it next time I do a donation. Thanks. Of course, even pro-gun-control groups in USA treat 2nd amendment as a third rail. (yeah pun intended). So none of them stand up for a gun ban. Pity. Yes that's unfortunate. But the only way to ever get to a repeal of the 2nd amendment would be through compromises over time, not all in one shot.

Is there chatter that Mel Watt is thinking about acting unilaterally? Maybe they were referring to his comments from a few months ago? It's amazing. The head of the FHFA, which technically has full control of the conservatorship according to the Government, has made it clear that the he wants the cship to end. And yet it's obvious there is no chance of that happening outside of the Courts. Shouldn't this make it clear that FHFA is not acting independently??

Have you looked into Michael Bloomberg's "Every Town For Gun Safety" organization? I'm sure it has all the funding it needs but I am considering getting involved.

+1 million It's an absurd argument and I don't think anyone in their right mind truly believes it. Allowing your citizens to be armed against a tyrannical government may have worked in the 1700s (when the 2nd amendment was introduced), but do people REALLY think that their assault weapons can fight off an F-14, or a nuclear submarine?

You might be right, given it was a Radical Islamist shooter. On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, people might wake up to the fact that the bigger problem was that there was an assault rifle used which made it so much more worse than if it had been a regular gun. Or heaven forbid, had there been no gun at all. There are many things I hate about Hillary Clinton but I have great respect for her stance on gun control. As someone who hates both candidates, this attack made me lean a bit more towards her. Really? Really? The biggest problem is the type of gun used? Not the fact that Obama has been terrorising the world for the past 8 years and Bush for the 8 years previous? Not the fact that Madeleine Albright said that the 500,000 men women and children Clinton murdered in Iraq was "worth it"? There's an elephant in the room that no one is talking about and it isn't an AR-15. The western world has been messing around in the middle east since the end of WWI, one hundred years of killing and other shenanigans isn't going to go away anytime soon. Orlando, Paris, Boston Marathon, London subways, etc, these things are not going to stop. And neither building walls nor passing gun control is going to do anything to stop them. But please continue with what you want to believe. 1,000% agree with you that our foreign policy is what makes Islamic extremism worse. Having said that, guns are absolutely a big problem. There is a reason why the U.S. has more mass shootings, and more gun deaths per capita than the rest of the world by FAR. And not every mass shooter is a terrorist; so to look at this mass shooting as only a terrorism problem doesn't get us very far. Edit: And I also think that banning 1.8 billion Muslims, if that's even possible, will further radicalize people and make the problem worse.

You might be right, given it was a Radical Islamist shooter. On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, people might wake up to the fact that the bigger problem was that there was an assault rifle used which made it so much more worse than if it had been a regular gun. Or heaven forbid, had there been no gun at all. There are many things I hate about Hillary Clinton but I have great respect for her stance on gun control. As someone who hates both candidates, this attack made me lean a bit more towards her.

just a quick and dirty calculation, that ignores that treasury reaped huge dividends early on in the investment. $245MM divided by 188MM=131% total return, divided by 7.5 years= 17.5% simple annual return. the 7.5% annual return cited by treasury is impossible to justify. why would you assume that the principal is worthless where fnma generate $11B per annum available for future dividends. You can't justify it because it's a straight up lie. Also, the government the whole time has been arguing that the NWS are dividends on the $187.5 principle. In fact Ugoletti had the nerve to say in his deposition that the companies have made no payments towards the principal. So then how can they calculate a rate of return that assumes it's been paid back?

Without the NWS you have 10% + whatever the 80% stake is, which would certainly be higher than the current stock price. Or even with the NWS in which case the Junior Prefs are zero and assuming they can raise guarantee fees and hold little capital, that number is significantly more than 7.5%. I'd argue it would be better than market returns because imo they are above average businesses. But that's a separate topic. I just find it awful that they can blatantly mislead Federal judges and get away with it.

It seems to me that they aren't including any future returns and simply counting the $187.5 invested vs the $245.6 dividends to date. What a bunch of garbage. Are plaintiffs allowed to file another brief in order to reply to this nonsense? It's easy for us to notice the obvious error but I fear that non-finance people (the judges) will only see this at face value!

I know it's unhealthy to be speculating, but given he's so eager and ready to rule, I think it means that he must feel strongly about the issue one way or another. So the question is, is it possible to feel strongly in favor of the Govt? I suppose so - John Carney does. Lamberth did, but then Lamberth didn't have the benefit of the unsealed documents from Sweeney which obviously favor the plaintiffs. And like you said, cherzeca, Lamberth refused to have oral arguments whereas Thapur is willing to. Again just speculation but it seems to me that he's leaning towards us.

I'm sure most intelligent lawyers that are paying attention have made up their mind on this issue: Richard Epstein, merkhet, cherzeca :D. It's hard not to when the facts are this obvious. I can see Thapur keenly reading the arguments from the other courts and shaking his head at the madness that the Govt is presenting. I was also confused by Thapur's words. He said within 30 days of MDL ruling, but then also allowed for oral arguments. So does that mean it'll be within 30 days of the oral arguments?

Just had this thought yesterday. Trump wants Icahn as his Treasury secretary. Icahn doesn't want the job apparently but I'm sure he'd have the former's attention for financial matters. Icahn also owns shares in the GSEs. This could be good I think if Trump wins. Edit: but I'm biased and if Corker gets VP then perhaps not so good lol

Yep, and given he's ready to give a ruling so quickly, I suspect it must mean he feels strongly about this issue one way or another. Does anybody have a guess on what his views are on such matters based on past rulings?

Woo! So what this means is, if the DC Appeals Court rules to remand for further fact finding, then the Government's main argument that HERA bars judicial review is crumbled in like 10 cases spread across the country, while simultaneously we are likely to see more documents to enforce the plaintiff's arguments in all these courts. Am I reading this right?

https://twitter.com/carney/status/737666479882133505 What a clown. "No news", are you fucking kidding me?

How was his compensation similar? My understanding is that it wasn't very similar. They charge on AUM/committed capital, Buffett didn't. Buffett had a true return hurdle (vast majority of PE doesn't, they get catchup or no hurdle; not sure about HF). I thought Buffett's issue with most structures is the pay for non-performance. He only got paid after his LPs made money. +1 Also the net returns (after fees) for his partners were > the benchmark.

Generally, what I've noticed is that mediocre or shitty businesses (SHLD being the latter) do worse than I expect at the time of purchase. Great businesses do better than expected. This is because I let low p/e values or great collection of assets on the balance sheet fool me into believing the return will be great going forward. I underestimate the headwind that a mediocre or shitty business can provide.

What is the risk, if any, of a ruling in favor of shareholders, but applicable to only those who purchased prior to the NWS? I'm sure it's a small risk if any but just curious if it's zero or non-zero.

David Boies comments