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LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#287751: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:21:13 PM

You want to fight a war with Russia, fight a war Russia. It will doom us both, but at least the rest of world would be safe from our endless, self-serving imperialism.

Now I could go into cold war era bodycounts and how differently America and Russia treats it's proxies but I won't.

But what do we do about the Russian attacks on us and our allies? They've only escalated and will continue to do so as Russia regains more strength and further stabilizes itself.

Or are you going to try and feed us all a line about how Russia should be allowed to annex parts of Ukraine and how Assad isn't that bad?

Edited by LeGarcon on Aug 15th 2019 at 5:22:39 AM

Oh really when?
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#287752: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:22:21 PM

Alright, are we seriously, unironically arguing for military conflict with Russia now?

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
LordYAM Since: Jan, 2015
#287753: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:22:30 PM

Depends. It's from someone who grew up there; at least one of them is jewish (Stanley Cohen). I wouldn't dismiss them completely out of hand.

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#287754: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:23:52 PM

Figured I'd cross-post this from the economics thread:

Bernie Madoff whistleblower is also blowing the whistle on General Electric saying their fraud is bigger than Enron and WorldCom combined.

    Article 
General Electric shares saw their biggest drop in more than a decade Thursday after Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos targeted the conglomerate in a new report, accusing it of issuing fraudulent financial statements to hide the extent of its problems.

A website has been set up to disseminate the report, www.G Efraud.com, where Markopolos calls it “a bigger fraud than Enron.” The financial investigator, who was probing GE for an unidentified hedge fund, writes that after more than a year of research he has discovered “an Enronesque business approach that has left GE on the verge of insolvency.”

“My team has spent the past 7 months analyzing GE’s accounting and we believe the $38 Billion in fraud we’ve come across is merely the tip of the iceberg,” Markopolos said in the 175-page report. Markopolos alleges that GE has a “long history” of accounting fraud, dating to as early as 1995, when it was run by Jack Welch.

“It’s going to make this company probably file for bankruptcy,” Markopolos told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street. ” “World Com and Enron lasted about four months. ... We’ll see how GE does.”

The stock closed 11% lower in its biggest drop since April 2008, ending the day at $8.01 per share.

GE’s CEO issued a statement calling the allegations false, and driven by market manipulation.

“GE will always take any allegation of financial misconduct seriously. But this is market manipulation – pure and simple,” Lawrence Culp, chairman and CEO of GE said in a statement. “Mr. Markopolos’s report contains false statements of fact and these claims could have been corrected if he had checked them with GE before publishing the report.”

Culp said the fact that Markopolos never talked to company officials before publishing the report “goes to show that he is not interested in accurate financial analysis, but solely in generating downward volatility in GE stock so that he and his undisclosed hedge fund partner can personally profit.”

Enron, which had more than $63 billion in assets at the time, declared bankruptcy on December 2001 in what was then the largest corporate collapse in U.S. history. Roughly 4,000 Enron employees lost their jobs following its collapse. The energy company’s downfall began with the discovery of accounting irregularities. Twenty-one people, including former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, were convicted in the scandal, and accounting firm Arthur Andersen was forced out of business after it was found guilty of obstruction of justice.

A year after the Enron scandal broke, long-distance phone company World Com, filed for bankruptcy after revelations of an accounting fraud. It had $107 billion in assets at the time.

One area of Markopolos’ case focuses on GE’s long-term care insurance unit, for which the company had to boost reserves by $15 billion last year. By examining the filings of GE’s counterparties in this business, he alleges that GE is hiding massive losses that will only increase as policyholders grow older. He claims that GE has filed false statements to regulators on the unit. Separately, he goes on to find issues with GE’s accounting on its oil and gas business Baker Hughes.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Markopolos’ findings.

Markopolos is a Boston-based accounting expert who gained attention after pointing out irregularities with Bernie Madoff’s investment strategy, and how it was impossible to generate the returns the fraudster claimed years before the Ponzi scheme was exposed. He was largely ignored at the time. More recently, Markopolos helped uncover a foreign currency trading scandal at a group of banks.

The Markopolos group looking into GE includes forensic accounting veteran John Mc Pherson, co-founder of MMS Advisors, which specializes in the insurance industry.

“GE has been running a decades long accounting fraud by only providing top line revenue and bottom line profits for its business units and getting away with leaving out cost of goods sold, SG&A, R&D and corporate overhead allocations,” the report said.

GE’s market value as of Wednesday’s close was $78.8 billion. With Thursday morning’s skid, the market cap was down to $69.9 billion. Markopolos told the paper the insurance unit would need to raise reserves by more than $18.5 billion. He estimates GE’s already hefty debt-to-equity ratio of 3:1 would skyrocket all the way to 17:1 if the company restates its actual results.

Here are the main points Markopolos makes in the report which are now available to read online:

  • “This is my accounting fraud team’s ninth insurance fraud case in the past nine years and it’s the biggest, bigger than Enron and World Com combined. In fact, GE’s $38 Billion in accounting fraud amounts to over 40% of GE’s market capitalization, making it far more serious than either the Enron or World Com accounting frauds.”
  • “GE utilizes many of the same accounting tricks as Enron did, so much so that we’ve taken to calling this the G Enron case.”
  • “Of the $29 Billion in new LTC reserves that GE needs, $18.5 Billion requires cash immediately while the remaining $10.5 Billion is a non-cash GAAP charge which accounting rules require to be taken no later than 1QTR 2021. These impending losses will destroy GE’s balance sheet, debt ratios and likely also violate debt covenants.”
  • “When you benchmark GE to a responsible insurance carrier using going concern accounting such as Prudential (PRU), GE needs $18.5 Billion in additional reserves in order to be able to pay claims. We compare GE’s LTC policies to Prudential and Unum, two insurers with similar pre-mid-2000′s vintage LTC policies, but whose policies have much lower risk characteristics than GE’s. Prudential’s 2018 loss ratio on similar policies was 185% and they’re reserving $113,455 per policy while GE’s loss ratios are several times higher and they’re only reserving $79,000 per policy. Just to match Prudential’s level of reserves would require an immediate $9.5 Billion increase in reserves.”
  • “GE would change its reporting formats every 2-4 years to prevent analysts from being able to make comparisons across time horizons! In other words, GE went out of its way to make it impossible to analyze the performance of their business units.
  • “Why would a company do that? We could only think of two reasons: 1) to conceal accounting fraud or 2) because they’re so incompetent they’re not capable of keeping proper books and records. I’m not sure which reason is worse because both are bad and each is a path to bankruptcy.”

GE is already under investigation by the Justice Department and SEC for potential accounting practices. That includes a $22 billion charge the company took in the third quarter related to acquisitions made in its power business.

The struggling industrial conglomerate abruptly removed its former CEO and chairman John Flannery last year after only a year on the job and installed Culp, former Danaher CEO, as his successor.

Flannery had been appointed in August 2017, taking the reins from Jeff Immelt as GE’s stock steadily eroded. The company’s value had continued set new lows as investors remain unconvinced by Flannery’s turnaround vision. Last summer, GE was kicked out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It had been the longest-serving component of the blue chip index at 111 years.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#287755: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:24:32 PM

[up][up][up]Directly no, that'd be stupid.

But Russia is interested in playing geopolitics like the Cold War is still on so we have to do something.

It only takes one party to turn something into a zero sum game, Russia will escalate things regardless of our response or lack thereof.

[down]Thank you

Edited by LeGarcon on Aug 15th 2019 at 5:26:24 AM

Oh really when?
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#287756: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:25:03 PM

No, Garcon is being strawmanned, he wants a more confrontational approach to Russia, not WW3.

And considering that Russia is blatantly undermining Western democracies, propping up radical parties in the EU, supporting that butcher Assad, trying to break up the EU, and used a fucking WMD on a nuclear power/member of NATO, yeah we need to get confrontational.

But that doesn't mean war.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Ludlow Since: Apr, 2013
#287757: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:26:25 PM

@Le Garcon

Severe economic ties with Russia completely. Russia makes a pretty dime with the collaboration of American companies, if we sever that relationship the Russian economy will tank and they'll vote Putin out of office.

We don't need to shell cities and end lives in poor countries just to stick it to Russia.

Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#287758: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:27:33 PM

[up] Exactly. Fighting Proxy Wars never, ever hurts anybody but the civilians in the crossfire.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
nombretomado (Season 1) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#287759: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:28:35 PM

I am seeing a few offhand comments that are edging into personal/incivility territory, folks.

Cool it before these offhands turn into thumps.

Also, I'm not sure why we are even discussing posters and thread behavior of yonder, besides seemingly justifying grudges.

All in all, please take it down some notches.

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#287760: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:29:35 PM

We're already in armed conflict with Russian proxies and mercenaries in Ukraine and the middle east. They started those fights.

Russian proxies are already shelling cities and murdering civilians, shouldn't we be doing something?

Edited by LeGarcon on Aug 15th 2019 at 5:30:15 AM

Oh really when?
Ludlow Since: Apr, 2013
#287761: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:31:17 PM

[up] Thats right, the best way to stop governments from shelling their own cities is to do it for them.

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#287762: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:31:38 PM

Russia does not own Ukraine or Syria and there are good people fighting and dying to make sure that fact is remembered.

Edited by LeGarcon on Aug 15th 2019 at 5:32:59 AM

Oh really when?
KazuyaProta Shin Megami Tensei IV from A Industrial Farm Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Shin Megami Tensei IV
#287763: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:32:06 PM

[up][up]And then, when the dust settles, the criticism would be "Why USA didn't act then?"

Put the Other Cheek works when you're a individual, states should try to defend themselves and their allies. Russia' aproach to Ukraine is outright colonialism.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 15th 2019 at 4:33:21 AM

Watch me destroying my country
Ludlow Since: Apr, 2013
#287764: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:35:14 PM

Nor is it at war with them. I support funding Ukraine and Syrian opposition to take care of terrorist problems themselves. We don't not need to send our own army in and start slaughtering everyone while civilians die and lose their homes in the crossfire.

The US is not the world's father, its not our job nor our right to tell smaller, poorer countries what to do.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#287765: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:35:25 PM

Thats right, the best way to stop governments from shelling their own cities is to do it for them.

Yes, doing nothing and allowing their forces free reign absolutely is the worst possible response.

She has some accomplishments but fourthspartan is delusional if he thinks there's nothing to criticize her about.

I never said that there was nothing to criticize her about, merely that I consider her to have a quite good record over all.

I entirely reject ridiculousness like the idea that she wasn't a progressive.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 15th 2019 at 2:36:38 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#287766: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:37:19 PM

[up][up]They aren't "terrorist problems" they're being invaded by proxies and in some places under occupation.

And yes it is our job to fight for them, that's what being an ally means.

Edited by LeGarcon on Aug 15th 2019 at 5:37:57 AM

Oh really when?
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#287767: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:42:14 PM

(Not meant to be confrontional, just my general assesment to this stance)

Acting as if the USA is the worlds policeman is one of the main reasons why the country has the reputation of a bully in foreign policies today. It was a terrible idea back then and continuing this stance will only make things worse.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#287768: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:46:31 PM

It's perfectly reasonable for the US to intervene against Russian proxies, that's just business as usual and has been for a long time. Letting Russian proxies run amok is not in our interests, or the interests of our allies.

Also, it totally is the US's business what happens in other countries. We aren't an island. Our prosperity is built on our global influence. Plus, you have to keep in mind that if we don't meet the Russian Proxies first, they'll come here eventually.

Leviticus 19:34
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#287769: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:46:57 PM

Honestly, the idea that Sanders is somehow more "progressive" than most other Democrats is just wrong. He is in one field: economics, and not even by that much. In every single other field, Bernie is sorely behind the times, and wholly unworthy of the term "progressive".

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#287770: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:48:42 PM

[up][up][up]On the contrary, we have to see it through.

Bluntly, the democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan are as good as gone now that we're pulling out.

The Afgan Army is already on the defensive entirely and will be overwhelmed if we leave by their own admission.

That means no more voting, no more walking freely down the street, and no more children getting to go to school.

Is it imperialism if the people there are begging us to stay and help them?

Edited by LeGarcon on Aug 15th 2019 at 5:53:28 AM

Oh really when?
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#287771: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:49:52 PM

Acting as if the USA is the worlds policeman is one of the main reasons why the country has the reputation of a bully in foreign policies today. It was a terrible idea back then and continuing this stance will only make things worse.

Hardly, we have power and thus we should use that power to make the world a better place. Not to mention that the world is interconnected and ignoring problems is just myopic, it's bad for our interests and bad for everyone else's too.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#287773: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:52:57 PM

Casual (furious) reminder that almost all of the mass shootings in recent years were not committed by anyone with any history of mental health issues, unless you consider being an evil racist white supremacist a mental illness.

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#287774: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:53:59 PM

With the US being seen as a bully, you also have to keep in mind that it's impossible to do the right thing without making a lot of enemies.

Leviticus 19:34
AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#287775: Aug 15th 2019 at 2:55:22 PM

>Clinton

IIRC, she said that to win the center-left should support such policies like making immigrants learn English, and other such concessions on immigration policy.

And from the last page...on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, it really wasn't a step forward. Gay Rights groups at the time were livid, especially because Bill Clinton had courted them as voters, only to compromise their rights away the moment it became of political expedience. He then went on to sign the Defense of Marriage Act (essentially stalling the push for Gay Marriage until court cases toppled it in 2011).

DADT wasn't a step forward. It barely did anything, designed to make heterosexual lawmakers feel better with themselves while doing nothing to fight against harassment, or even prevent servicemembers getting thrown out (remember, the military still threw you out if they discovered it, nothing changed on that front).

>Trump, on mental health

I feel like this is telegraphing something nasty, especially with his comments on them a couple days ago. He seems to be moving towards attacking people with mental illnesses with the arm of the law. All while using them as a scapegoat for violence in this country, especially trying to use it as a distraction from white supremacy.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Aug 15th 2019 at 5:59:30 AM

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer

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