On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 4:54 PM, Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> > > Now, you have these fund managers. All of them are worried. They've just > seen several things happen that they've never seen before. They know that > there are still securities on a lot of balance sheets that have probably not > yet been marked down fully. But they don't know where they are. > Furthermore, these financial instruments are so technically complex that > _no one_, not the people who owned them, not the people who originated them, > can properly value them under current market conditions. Thus not only do > they not know the financial status of companies in which they might invest, > those companies themselves probably no longer know what their financial > status is. Gautam to the rescue! There was a lot to like in your post, but may I say that this is my favorite -- the insanity of billions of dollars in financial instruments that nobody can really value them as a whole.... and as a practical matter, not even individually in a comprehensive manner. That's a failure of valuation, which is rather deeply fundamental to an economy. In short... yipes! Valuation can be tricky (I've raised or helped raise tens of millions in venture money, so boy do I know) but this is, as you said, scary. Nick (Sitting in my negative equity home) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
