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.... into bankruptcy and could have survived In an appearance marking his return to the public eye, Richard Fuld Jr. insisted he doesn’t want to play “woulda, coulda, shoulda” about the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. But the former chief executive, speaking Thursday to a crowd of more than 1,500 people at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Midtown Manhattan, was unrepentant about his late firm’s culture and its role in the financial crisis, largely placing the blame instead on misguided government and central-bank policy and irresponsible borrowers. At times jocular and reflective, the 69-year-old also flashed his combative side. When asked why he didn’t simply ride off into the sunset after Lehman’s collapse, Mr. Fuld responded, “Why don’t you just bite me?” He quickly followed up by saying he couldn’t give up and felt he had “no choice” but to start his new firm, Matrix Advisors LLC. As the keynote lunch speaker at the 2015 Marcum MicroCap Conference in New York, Mr. Fuld spoke before a sympathetic crowd. His remarks, keenly awaited on Wall Street, were broadcast live for several minutes on CNBC. Mr. Fuld, who joined Lehman Brothers after college and spent 38 years there, has kept a low profile since the firm’s bankruptcy in 2008. In speaking of his return to the public eye, he joked that he doesn’t count his “wonderful time with Congress” as a public appearance and called the conference catering to small and midsize businesses the right venue for re-entering public life. Mr. Fuld’s comments about Lehman were broadly consistent with his testimony before Congress in October of 2008, when he was dubbed a “villain” by one U.S. representative and another said, “You don’t acknowledge that you did anything wrong, and that is troubling to me.” Mr. Fuld on Thursday reiterated that he had “no regrets.” He outlined what he called the “perfect storm” of events that led to the financial crisis, saying “it all started with the government” and policies that subsidized cheap loans for people to buy homes in order to help them chase the American dream. The ex-bank executive later added lax regulators, homeowners who used equity on their houses “as ATM accounts” and the explosive growth of hedge funds as other contributors to the economic meltdown. Mr. Fuld said he is comfortable he did everything possible to save the 158-year-old firm, which employed 25,000 people when it collapsed. Speaking less than 12 blocks from Lehman’s former headquarters, Mr. Fuld argued the firm was “mandated into bankruptcy” and could have survived the credit crunch that swept the country in late 2008. He defended the bank’s capital structure at the time and listed several metrics as evidence, such as its Tier 1 capital ratio of 11%, which is well above the level currently required for big banks. He said more information would come out that showing Lehman was “not a bankrupt company in 2008.” It wasn’t clear what Mr. Fuld was referring to, and he didn’t take questions after the event. In a scathing report in 2010, bankruptcy-court examiner Anton Valukas concluded that Lehman officials chose to “disregard or overrule the firm’s risk controls on a regular basis,” even as the credit and real-estate markets were showing signs of strain. Mr. Valukas declined to comment on Mr. Fuld’s remarks. Mr. Fuld’s supporters said it was important for him to defend his old firm and his own conduct. “It does really irk him a great deal” to be called a villain, said William Uchimoto, a securities lawyer who has traveled twice to China with Mr. Fuld on business trips. Mr. Uchimoto called Mr. Fuld “a victim of circumstance” who still has a lot of energy for his business ventures. “He doesn’t need redemption. He looks in the mirror every day … and sees someone that did an honest effort to try to do the right things, and he will still continue to do the right things,” Mr. Uchimoto said. Former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a frequent critic of Wall Street and co-author of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, said Mr. Fuld’s logic didn’t add up. “Yes there was a failure in regulation,” said Mr. Frank, who retired in 2013. But he added, “I can’t think of any law that applied to Lehman that made them buy” bad loans. On several occasions Thursday, Mr. Fuld nodded to his unpopular standing among many Americans. At one point, he noted that his 96-year-old mother still loved him and another time said it is “time for me to raise my ugly head” David Karlin, a managing director at Mr. Fuld’s new firm, Matrix, said the company has 11 full-time employees and about a dozen active clients in an “eclectic” range of industries. The companies it advises typically are valued at less than $250 million, he said. Mr. Fuld started his remarks with a brief discussion of what he described as Lehman’s client-first culture and its compensation practices, which he said fostered a sense of teamwork. “Regardless of what you heard about Lehman’s risk management, I had 27,000 risk managers, because they all owned a piece of the firm,” he said. The bank’s employees collectively held more than 30% of Lehman’s stock, he said. Mr. Fuld ended his talk on a reflective note, encouraging members of the audience to “balance between life and death all the time,” “create your own luck,” and “be able to open your heart, love and be loved.” He counseled the audience to, like him, live life with no regrets but admitted that “not a day goes by” where he doesn’t think about Lehman Brothers.

Guys, stop hurting your wife with your stick [laugh]

[hur]

do you think our country is NOThing but $ and now lacks a heart? Foster family in tug of love over boy repatriated from Singapore The boy was handed over to Malaysian welfare authorities when his Malaysian mother finished her jail term in Changi Prison. Tan Ju Eng Sun, Feb 19, 2012 The Star/Asia News Network PETALING JAYA - "Please let us see him one more time so that he knows we have not abandoned him." This is the plea by the Singaporean foster family of four-year-old Zack who was repatriated from the island republic when his Malaysian mother was released from Changi Prison after serving her jail term. The boy, who was born in Singapore and remains stateless, was sent to Malaysia last June after Singapore's Community Development, Youth and Sports Ministry (MCYS) requested Malaysian citizenship for him to return with his mother. However, his mother has since gone missing and Zack, who was initially placed in a children's welfare home, was transferred to another foster home in Johor. His father, a Singaporean, is still in jail. When Zack was handed over to the Malaysian welfare authorities across the causeway, it was the first time he stepped into the country and also the last he saw of his foster family. He was briefly reunited with his biological mother who was a stranger to him. On the day his mother was sent to prison, Zack, who was then only nine months old, was placed under the care of his foster mother Asmah Hassan and her family in Singapore. Asmah, 54, who said she last saw Zack eight months ago, appealed to the authorities for his return or to allow the family to meet him one more time. The homemaker with three grown-up children said neither she nor her family had seen Zack since he was "whisked away" from their HDB flat. MCYS, which had come under fire from Netizens over Zack's repatriation, had clarified in a statement that the child was born out of wedlock to a Malaysian mother and hence was not a Singapore citizen by birth. His citizenship status followed that of his mother's, it said.

http://sg.entertainment.yahoo.com/blogs/si...-083659735.html Actor Tay Ping Hui is embroiled in a petty online tiff with a Twitter user. On 23 December, the star who is also a young PAP member, posted a tweet on his account, calling for SMRT to implement a "Free Transport Day" to make up for the massive train breakdowns. A user, who goes by the Twitter username of smrtsg responded to his tweet, with a snide "@taypinghui is a cheapskate". He also described Tay's attempt to make his 'Free Transport Day' idea viral as "pathetic" and said to the actor, "What we do know is you don't take the train." Tay then replied in a series of harsh-sounding tweets. He questioned "the authenticity" of the the twitter user, and described the user's "attempt at humour" pathetic. SMRT's official Twitter account is SMRT_Singapore. He continued with "I should just let you embarrass yourself, but I feel obliged to open your tiny mind. One does not need to be in war to know its atrocities." "And since I'm in a giving mood, this is my feedback to you: you need to get a life and stop pretending to be something you are obviously not." Meanwhile, netizens seem amused by the exchange. Said ZC Hoong, 31, an engineer, "Tay Ping Hui's original post had good intentions but I think that as a public figure, he should act more professionally and react in a more polite manner. "He shouldn't be rude, just because the other Twitter user is."

I have been impacted greatly by this great man's life. Any other band of brothers fans here? So sad to hear of his death this year...

Link January 11, 2011 Dick Winters, the man whose heroics in the Army's 101st Airborne Division during World War II were chronicled in the HBO series Band of Brothers, has died. He was 92. Up until the fall of 2001, Winters was a little-known retired major living in rural Pennsylvania. That's when the HBO series aired, and 10 million people watched the first night. The series, based on a book by historian Stephen Ambrose, tells the story of Winters and the soldiers he led

hahaha plus many more...

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http://www.mojoflix.com/Video/Ass-likes-ass.html