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Sounds reasonable enough, but there is one MASSIVE flaw in this approach…
Which enterprises are “viable”? How do you know?
This is the essential failure of Greenspan’s banking system post SandL crisis… It created a banking system where one could not distinguish a “viable” bank from a failed bank by looking at the balance sheet…
All were massively [...]

Buy low, sell high, recession/depression create buying opportunities.
I think this opportunity is different because it is the long-term that is in jeopardy because of the wasteful spending of Washington and lack of oversight and frankly the level of corruption that is allowed to exist.
Here is what I know to be typically true of the [...]

1. You talk about enterprise value- which is market cap + preferred shares + debt - cash (http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/financialratio/a/aa052405.htm)= in essence the take over value of the company
2. You talk about market cap which is : # of shares outstanding x share price
3. so they differ in calculation by preferred shares + debt - cash
4. AMD [...]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate by
three quarters of one percent to 0.25% but added that it will let the rate float
down to zero. By setting the new target range, the Fed signaled it has exhausted
the funds rate as a tool for monetary policy. The target range will also be
useful [...]

By Scott Lanman
Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve expanded its purchases of commercial paper to $295.1 billion and its loans to securities firms increased as the central bank uses its balance sheet to combat the worst financial crisis in seven decades.
Cash borrowing by Wall Street bond dealers from the Fed totaled $55.9 billion on [...]

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Lehman Brothers built up a huge balance sheet exposure to Asian property in the
form of loans and investments worth billions of dollars, the Financial Times
reported Wednesday, citing liquidators of the Hong Kong subsidiaries of the
collapsed bank.
The book value of Lehman’s property exposure in Thailand alone is $1 billion,
while the bank’s Hong Kong units [...]

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Citigroup (C) survived last week’s stock plunge with its
earnings power intact and, with the governments move last weekend to boost the
giant banks capital levels and insure billions of dollars in assets, is able to
absorb future losses without further help, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said
Tuesday in an interview with Charlie Rose.
The intervention over [...]

“As an engineer in the oil and gas industry, I work on risk management issues all the time. We look at the worst case potential loss for investments we make in upgrading equipment like a platform or refinery. If there is a big risk of loss, we would put in the safety system to reduce [...]

By Ed Welsch
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Citigroup Inc. (C) said losses in its consumer loans could
rise between $1 billion and $2 billion each quarter from now through the first
half of next year, according to Chief Executive Vikram Pandit’s speech notes
released on the company’s Web site.
The notes reveal [...]

Congress was told that a financial collapse and martial law were a “fait a compli” if they did not pass TARP immediately. We are now 5 weeks out and Treasury only has $60 Billion left of the $350 Billion initial tranche, they will now need to go back to Congress for the second tranche. The [...]

“FED PROVIDING FINANCIAL SYSTEM UNLIMITED LIQUIDITY”
Why can’t Fed provide unlimited liquidity for some big programs of investment in infrastructur. Things will get much easier and better in this way. Why Fed still keep funding banks, banks are just nothing but empty suit. Don’t make banks to do the jobs for you, Fed, do it yourself. [...]

“With dying subprime and jumbo markets and tightening mortgage credit, something that for decades was believed impossible, suddenly became inevitable — real estate prices began to fall. As a result, the tentacles of the credit crisis snatched another victim — Home Equity Loans and Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs). These loans, commonly referred to [...]

It seems to me that Citi has more problems on their own balance sheet.
They should save the funds the governement pumped in to clean up their business and resume lending rather than expanding their bank and increasing taxpayer risk.
The Treasury and the FED should re-visit the issue of bank mergers and consider whether it [...]

Don’t even be concerned by their BS (balance sheet).
The real problem is the OBS (off balance sheet), they still try to pretend represents assets and not liabilities. They, together with almost ALL the rest of the banks, are awaiting the crush that will come when they are eventually forced to bring their OBS greed [...]

So while Greenspan was portraying to the WORLD he was the “SMARTEST MAN on EARTH” he privately did not KNOW MUCH AT ALL!
Testimony from Greenspan, Cox, and Snow includes to following:
1. We were not smart Enough
2. If we knew it would get this bad we would have written Mortgage Regulations
3. Our Math Models [...]