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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Jozu
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Yea your right.
And Khane you are an idiot. Of all the things to bitch about in this show you are really going to bring up Chuck and Wendy? lol Maggie Siff might be the best actor on the show and Lewis and Giamatti have been pretty goddamn good so thats saying something. Some of the characters are a little unconvincing and the pacing was kind of all over the place this episode but its still a great show.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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If you say so. The characters in this show are terribly written and completely unrelatable in any way at all. Which would be fine if they were compelling as characters, but they aren't. Giamatti's low droning voice and crooked expression in EVERY goddamn scene is wearing thin. Pretty sure I'll finish this season just to see if it ramps up and if not I'll probably stop watching.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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Everyone would already know that story about how Axe capital was formed, the only detail that'd be missing was how the partners were firing him at the time, which doesn't matter in the slightest. They are all dead. He became the legal owner. There is absolutely no bombshell there. I don't get it.
Foggy
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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The fact he made $750+ million on 9/11 due to the towers getting hit appeared to be new information to the public. That is a pretty big bombshell.
Jozu
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Yea I was like wtf is he talking about.
Outside Capital is largely based on trust and reputation. If that story is true and the public believes it a lot of his outside capital especially the police fund ones etc will instantly pull out.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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What I mean is that would all already be known. Shorts aren't some kind of secret position.
Brand
Molten Core Raider
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Foggy
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Yea, but evidently it wasn't really known. I guess the explanation would be it was lost in all the chaos in the days that followed. Plus he only did it because his partners told him about the first tower being hit before the second tower was hit (when they all died).
Cad
scientia potentia est
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Okay? I just think the outrage would be minimal. Axe would hardly have been the only guy to short airline stocks after 9/11. As an investor I'd hope a guy who I pay to make money on stock picks would actually make money off of a huge event that greatly affected the markets. As long as it's not illegal (which would affect my returns) I don't give a fuck how he does it. This type of thing gets played up on shows, but I don't think it reflects reality.
Goldman was actually shorting securities on their corporate accounts that they were pimping to investors for fees on the sell side. That sure hurt Goldman's business... oh wait.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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Soros?
I also know John Paulson but thats because his business has intersected with our mortgage cases in a lot of interesting ways.
Jozu
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Umm Hedge Fund guys are kind of in the public conscious. Steve Cohen was who Axe is based upon, and there are others with well known practices such as Bill Ackerman who just lost 4 billion on Valeant and then you have the biggest of them all Warren Buffet. Axe is like a conglomeration of Cohen, Buffet, and that other hedge fund guy with the headquarters in Conn. I forget his name but his firm has more outside capital than any in the world.
edit: Dudes name is Ray Dalio, he has a odd corporate atmosphere where every employee follows strict ethics and does weird zen shit with meditation and yoga etc.
edit: Dudes name is Ray Dalio, he has a odd corporate atmosphere where every employee follows strict ethics and does weird zen shit with meditation and yoga etc.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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I know what you're getting at but Berkshire is not a hedge fund it is a holding company. If we want to just say "investment companies" then I'm on board with you on Buffet.
Jozu
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Yea your right my bad. Is that the reason he is worth so much more than Dalio and Soros etc? He has like 75 billion while the top hedge guys are all worth like 6 - 15 billion.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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Well I'd say there's a lot of reasons Buffet does better than others but company-structure wise, hedge fund managers typically make money on management and performance fees, they get 2% of the fund each year in management fee and then a 20% performance fee of what they make for their investors. So if you have say, 100 billion invested in your fund, and you make 10% that year (10 billion) for your investors, you'd get 200 million in management fees and ~2 billion in performance fee. They have to pay their employees out of that too so it's not all gravy, but a lot of it is. Hedge funds "typically" buy quite liquid assets like stocks, futures, options, and other exchange-based items.
Berkshire, by contrast, is a company that buys other companies, and holds them, typically for long periods. They make money by buying companies who become more successful later. Buffet made his money by investing in Berkshire and having the value of Berkshire's holdings go up. It's just a really different model.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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They are in the public eye for the top ~5% of the country that actually has money to invest. The rest of the country doesn't give a flying fuck.
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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I was absolutely enthralled by this show during the first 4 or 5 episodes, but omnipotent Axelrod is just getting fucking stupid. Him having these superhero-esque powers where he can recall details of a person he punched days ago, in a fit of rage, with pinpoint detail are just retarded. Now, we get another episode where he uses his superpower of precognition to know that the US Attorney is going to try and use somebody as an informant, but he gets to him first and knows exactly who they'll use! So crafty!
If they don't right the ship by the end of the season, I think I'm done.
If they don't right the ship by the end of the season, I think I'm done.