What beggars belief is that there are STILL people who cannot see that this matter is not a simple one.
What beggars belief is that there are STILL people who refuse to see that there is enough smoke to cause people to need to go to a court to see where the fire actually started and have a high level court work out what actually happened and whether it was/is legal or not.
What beggars belief is that the bullying and carrying on that we see on this forum is worse than any school yard carry on. Just like in the school yard, it goes in cycles. It has been relatively quiet of late and now it is ramping up again. It is worse because at least in a school yard the students concerned are not adults and are full of raging hormones that make their brains behave in an irrational fashion. Honestly, sometimes you remind me of the scene in Harry Potter 5 where Dudley and his pack attempt to verbally attack Harry in the playground. You are all theoretically adults ... theoretically sensible, intelligent adults. Please behave like sensible, intelligent adults.
This is in court. It is not simple. People have been harmed. It actually has nothing to do with many of you. A number of the people who participate in this particular thread of the ASF have no personal involvement at all and have very little factual knowledge (although they have LOTS of opinion) about what happened. Perhaps it might be wise for you to stop attacking (either overtly or covertly) people who have different views to you at least until a decision has been made by people who are far more qualified than most of the people on this forum.
Thank you
Maccka
And for the record, before you jump on me, Julia, I am aware that I have not quoted strictly correctly. I have done so deliberately as I was trying to distance my comments from the person from whom I was 'borrowing' their written turn of phrase. I did not want to appear to be attacking that poster as that is not my intention. I was simply trying to use their turn of phrase as a lead to my own post.
Macca
You have a history of being very one-sided in your views about who is bullying whom.
If you go through Franks posts, both recent and not so recent, you’ll see that on many occasions he’s resorted to name-calling, ridicule, derogatory comments, sarcastic remarks, personal abuse, and open hostility towards various people who have disagreed with his views.
In the last week or so, for example, he stated that people were ‘up themselves’ if they thought they could have seen the pitfalls in the Storm strategy.
If you’re so concerned about bullying, you would have rebuked Frank for the many times he’s resorted to behavior that’s disrespectful of other forum members and is clearly in breach of forum rules.
Furthermore, you seem to hold the rather queer view that people are being bullies by responding to allegations which are not supported by any reasonable argument or logic. The same tired old statements are repeated over and over again by Storm victims, and the recurring theme is ‘I’m not responsible for my decisions and actions – it’s all someone else’s fault’.
And yet you seem to think that people are unreasonable and are resorting to bullying by voicing their disagreement with those statements.
On a different note, I’m perplexed by your statement
‘What beggars belief is that there are STILL people who cannot see that this matter is not a simple one.’
I’d like to know who you’re referring to in making that statement? Nobody that I’m aware of has stated that the Storm matter overall is a simple one. Perhaps you’ve misunderstood what we’ve been saying in relation to simplicity.
We’ve stated quite correctly that the Storm strategy was very simple.....mortgage homes, borrow to the hilt to buy index funds, use double gearing to raise further loans to invest in index funds. Further down the track as assets increase in value, use this additional value as collateral to raise even more loans to invest further in index funds. Never sell out, never reduce debt, hang in there for the long haul.
There is NOTHING complex in this strategy – it’s just about as simple as it gets.
What we’ve also said is that it was a simple matter to do some basic research to uncover the huge risk in the strategy.......a small amount of time spent looking into past stock market slumps, and a bit more time spent investigating the pros and cons of margin loans, would have provided investors with all the info needed to spot the danger is Storm’s proposal.
However, the Storm strategy itself, and the research that would have uncovered the risk, are just two aspects (albeit very simple ones) of the overall Storm matter. Obviously that are many other aspects to the Storm business, some of which are clearly quite complex and need to be sorted out in a court of law. I don’t claim to know what these other aspects are. But I do know with absolute certainty that Storm had a simple strategy, and finding the risk in the strategy was a simple matter for anyone who put a small amount of effort into looking for it.
Macca, I understand that you are not a Storm victim, but your family is. You’re in a unique position to help future investors avoid what happened to Storm investors, by explaining the traps that ensnared your family, and how those traps can, with the benefit of hindsight, be avoided from here on. And yet we hear nothing at all from you in this regard. Not only do you seem to have little interest in helping people to avoid the next Storm that comes along, but you appear intent on rebuking those of us who do.
I think you need a change in attitude – your actions would be far more commendable if you tried to help people instead of selectively accusing a small number of people of being bullies because they express their views and challenge some peoples’ attitudes and beliefs.