Oldtent Archives 2007 - 2008

Thanks for keeping this train ready to roll!

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=234894 

Your post reminded me of a thought I had last week about the rampant corruption at all levels of government.

What if every expenditure down to the last nut, bolt and lockwasher was accessible to anyone on the web. Every T & E, salary, contractor payment, I mean everything had to be listed with all approval levels. Then it could be queried, sliced and dice, summarized any way you wished. There are “off the shelf” systems that can be configured to do this. Just think if all that Fed money could be traced to the recipients. Transparency of all transactions period! I wouldn’t solve all the problems but it would be a start. Of course it will never happen.

Pms, when the time comes you can have the parachuted down in “tools”boxes. But who knows by then you might have to be riding on one yourself chased buy the fed, less you stock up on swiss franks and just send for them, no big deal. But Ill have too much fun staying here and watching a bunch of pizzed off feds walking around with metal dectectors, saying common lady just tell us where they are.

This may backfire. Remember that no democracy in Europe has ever voted for the euro. Denmark and Sweden are the only countries that put the matter to a popular vote. Both issued an emphatic ‘NEJ’. Perhaps Germany would have voted Yes. We will never know. The German people were never asked. That fact alone will have heavy consequences over time.

Creating the euro to force the pace of European integration is a dangerous game. A botched EMU may ultimately lead to such bitterness and rancour that it shatters the union altogether. I put the odds of that at about 30pc.

Yes, the euro has become a world reserve currency. Russia, China, and the Gulf Sheikdoms have invested hundreds of billions in EMU bonds to diversify out of the dollar, pushing the exchange rate to ever more extreme levels. The euro-imperialists have got what they wanted: a reserve currency big enough to challenge dollar hegemony. Now they must live with the heavy consequences.

Yes, EMU is a remarkable achievement of political will, the first stateless currency created by a group of roughly equal sovereign nations, without a hegemon.

Yes, it has shielded Club Med from the storm of the credit crisis, as Brussels officialdom has been telling us all week. But that, precisely, is the problem. Fixed exchange rate systems can mask the rot, allowing countries to persist in folly until it is too late.

As an old friend at the European Commission once told me, EMU is like a pressure boiler where the warning thermostat has been switched off, and the escape valve shut. That is how you get an explosion.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/business/ambrosevanspritchard/may2008/unworkableemu.htm

A few years from now, don’t be surprised if some blogger in his boxer shorts brings down the next Enron.

That may seem far-fetched, but hold off on the laughter.

That’s because individual investors in the U.S. will soon move another step closer to a brave new world of democratized financial information that will put powerful analytical tools on their desktops.

On May 14, the Securities and Exchange Commission will announce the next steps for making all companies report financials using a software programming language called XBRL.

XBRL will eventually put a far superior version of Wall Street’s high-priced tools in the hands of regular investors for free and maybe even help them uncover the next accounting scandal.

XBRL will bring such a revolution to investment analysis that any Sherlock Holmes who X-rays financials for clues on a company’s health needs to learn about it — and push the SEC to make companies adopt it as soon as possible.

The Basics

The idea behind XBRL, short for eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is simple: Instead of treating numbers in financial reports like dumb text on a page, it assigns a “bar code” tag to each number. So no matter what company you are looking at, the same tag will flag the figures for sales or gross margins in a master database at the SEC.

Though the basics of XBRL are simple, the implications are profound — and not only for investors and regulators. Police in Spain are using XBRL to track money laundering, and environmentalists can use it to rank companies based on their impact on climate change.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is the U.S. is woefully behind in making companies report financials coded with XBRL, and Congress needs to goose regulators to make them catch up. China already requires XBRL for companies listed on its exchanges, and XBRL is widely used in Japan, Europe and elsewhere.

The SEC should bring XBRL to all companies within two to three years. That’s way too slow, given how cheap and easy it is to file financials using XBRL and how much it would help investors. Every day that XBRL is not fully implemented is another day in which Wall Street insider sand hedge funds have a big, unnecessary advantage over the little guy.

Here’s how XBRL will revolutionize the world for investors.

Lord of the Numbers

Free XBRL data streamed in real time to computer desktops — or “interactive data,” as the SEC calls it — will let investors slice and dice numbers, create analytical ratios and perform cross-company comparisons like never before.

“For the first time, instantly, you’ll be able to compare any item of financial information from thousands of companies around the world,” SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a prepared statement to MSN Money. “The light that this will shed on stocks, bonds, and mutual funds will make investing choices far more understandable for every American. Interactive data is to financial reporting what Gutenberg’s moveable type was to printing.”

Suppose you wanted to know which airline is the most vulnerable to rising fuel costs because it is spending the highest amount on fuel per dollar earned in ticket sales. Using XBRL tags, you could create an analysis that looks across the airline industry in an instant.

That’s how at least one client uses XBRL feeds provided by Edgar Online, a company that already offers a private XBRL database for a fee of a few thousand dollars a year.

“It saves them the time of going to all the filings of all the airlines, so they can do those comparisons quickly,” says Sue Childs, who heads up marketing for Edgar Online.

In another example, you could quickly compare inventory levels at a company against its competitors to see whether it looks vulnerable because goods are stacking up in warehouses — even if sales growth appears rosy because of some accounting gimmickry.

“You can slice and dice numbers, move things around and do comparisons on a detailed level across industries or any group of companies that you set up,” says Charles Hoffman, an accountant who also plays with software and who thought up the idea of XBRL a decade ago. “This is something that has been closed to individual investors because it cost so much money. But they will have the same access that any analyst has. Basically, XBRL levels the playing field,” says Hoffman, who now works for UBmatrix, which helps companies implement XBRL.

“This is content that has been stuck on the page like a clay mark on tablet,” agrees David Blaszkowsky, the SEC’s head of interactive disclosure. “The idea is to liberate it from the page and make it usable in a way that you cannot today.”

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Much thanks to you and all the admins  for being vigilant in keeping this great site in proper working order.

Hope all is well with you..   Cheers

it is difficult to understand what kind of person it is that would maliciously attack a website. Trying to get caught up with the recent threats and measures to offset those.

 I believe the site to be clear of spyware/viruses…and now we are trying to keep it that way.

Thank god we run on Linux and not on a windows server box!

User Name and password simply need to be re-entered. Old goldtent cookies are no longer valid. Everyone will have to sign in at least once to realize the new cookie names from goldtent.

Bizarre stuff happening..I had to re-sign in, a box came up saying that password was wrong and asked if did I wanted to sign in with what windows had on file or something..Entered no a couple times then it signed me into my profile..I thought it prudent to change password for goldtent e-mail but it came up with an odd message also so I didn’t proceed…

This is the message:

Javascript Order Error. You cannot call password_strength_validator_init before passkey_handler has been loaded

Have you tried to or do you think is a good idea/necessary to change your goldtent e-mail password?

JBI

You guys do a great job. No place near as good as GoldTent.

Took your advice and just has a couple of Harp’s.  Very good, but I still like the Guinness Extra Stout/Miller High Life 50/50 mix.

You should try a couple.. let me know what you think.

Andy

Just was told yesterday that the FHA is still issuing mortgages up to $750,000 with as little as 3% down. Is this true? All the noise from the political a**holes and they still loan our money out like this? If so, typical hypocritical action from the morons in congress and our wonderful choices for Fearless Leader. Or, does one bunch of idiots not know what another bunch of idiots are doing? Also business as usual.

Two AM

ring..ring……..ring..ring

Yea, what?

Is dis Mr JBI?

Who?

Mr JBI?

No…this is Dusty

But I wanted Mr JBI

He’s not here

Where can I find dis Mr JBI?

At the Tent

Where is dis tent?

On the juggernet

I don’t understand

HA……you think YOU don’t understand

silence

Who is dis Dusty?

He’s Dust with a Y

Will you be talking to Mr JBI ?

Probaly (it is two AM ya know)

Will you tel him I luv him?

Sure

Thank you Mr Dusty—-I luv you too!!

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