Storm Financial Group

cutz said:

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again,

Why should the taxpayer bail out storm clients who where more than happy to claim huge interest cost deductions on double geared portfolios during the good times. As far as I’m concerned this type of aggressive strategy is a burden to our tax system, why should the taxpayer now cough up bailout?

There are more important things to worry about like hospitals, welfare , public transport ect. These are the areas that need cash injections.

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Of course CUTZ your so right.... Of course we should forget the individuals...

After all the banking system has not burdoned the tax system in anyway, SUBPRIME MORTGAGES have nothing to do at all with the situation the world economy is in, and the hugely obscene salaries that CBA and MACQUARIE heads took on the back of these type of investments are ethically and morally correct... Its fine for them to have done what they have and have taxpayer dollar secure them, not to mention that they will after this help continue to take these obscene salaries and bonuses....

Your absolutley rite to feel that tax money should be spent only to help the corporations, why should it be spent on the indviduals who tried to be self funded retirees and not burdone the system, just because they have been self sufficient for the last ten years does not entitle them to not have to pay tax..

I also agree Whole heartedly with companies like RIO/BHP recieving 500mill a year in taxpayer funded fuel subsidies for onsite machinery, and also feel that its fine for them to continue to recieve it even after they sacked 7000 Australian employees over the last 12 months..

Hmmmm... Now that I have read that not sure if I do agree...:

Appears to me that with majority of people thinking like this it may not be long before the world is controlled soley by corporations, and not government...


I also agree with the 10bill spent to stimulate the economy, I mean of course the people who got it deserved it, and in no way would it have been better spent on infrustructure, And I am sure that 10bill spent on renewable resource projects would have created ZERO jobs for people who are losing them daily to move into... And would also have had no effect on the Carbon scheme we are trying to get off the ground...

I mean that 10bill that was poured in, in no way helped prop up the massive corporations that are ailing, and cutting jobs, and are the bulk of the reason the economy is stuffed.... The only reason the economy is up to SH*T is because of these greedy self funded retirees who have lost everything..(everything been on average 2mill, which encompasses there house, retirement fund, and investment)
And it has nothng to do with what banks around the country and world have done...

I feel the best course of action would be that these people lose everything incuding their homes, then rely soley on govenrment handouts over the next 15-25years of their remaining days on this earth...

Monario said:

Of course CUTZ your so right.... Of course we should forget the individuals...

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"We" haven't forgotten the individual at all, those close to or in retirement will be entitled to a pension, paid for by the tax payer for as long as they live. That's quite the healthy bail out (or largess) from the tax payer IMO. Of course, that might not give them the lifestyle they had planned on, though reading these stories, lots of them seemed to want money for the elder children and grandchildren. I guess, like the rest of us, their siblings will have to fend for themselves.

Those a little younger will have to start over, but as long as they have a job they can rebuild a little dignity for themselves if they hopefully come to grips with it all.

That aside, I am sure there are other retirees in similar positions and will loose large streams of income, with dividends being reduced and fixed interest tanking completely. Welcome to the new world order of the sky rocketing welfare budget... my tax dollars at work.. I guess... never mid the infrastructure and education spending that we will forgo, in order to pay the increased welfare budget, leaving us even further behind when the economy (hopefully) resumes.

and the "aussie battler" that so often seems to be held up to the spotlight by political parties seems to be doing the best from this, (if they keep a job). Assuming they are mortgaged out the ying yang, there loan payments are now considerably less, their fuel bill is considerably less in commuting god awful distances from outer suburbia, CPI is down etc etc What care they as an owner occupier if their house prices fall.. I very much doubt Banks will want to foreclose as long as loan payments are met.

stung said:

Why can't you admit you're a crook for having your advisors lie to us all.

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You can't say things like this and get away with it. Don't be surprised if you get sued for defamation.

beachbum said:

If Mr & Mrs Cassimatas are so concerned about their clients, lets see them put all their personnel assets in the pot for their clients who lost all due to a "Black Swan Event". The Melton Terrace house is on the market. Let's see where the proceeds go.

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Well Mr Cassimatas did state in the 7:30 Report that '''I feel a huge moral responsibility." Whatever this means....

Trevor_S said:

"We" haven't forgotten the individual at all, those close to or in retirement will be entitled to a pension, paid for by the tax payer for as long as they live. That's quite the healthy bail out (or largess) from the tax payer IMO. Of course, that might not give them the lifestyle they had planned on, though reading these stories, lots of them seemed to want money for the elder children and grandchildren. I guess, like the rest of us, their siblings will have to fend for themselves.

Those a little younger will have to start over, but as long as they have a job they can rebuild a little dignity for themselves if they hopefully come to grips with it all.

That aside, I am sure there are other retirees in similar positions and will loose large streams of income, with dividends being reduced and fixed interest tanking completely. Welcome to the new world order of the sky rocketing welfare budget... my tax dollars at work.. I guess... never mid the infrastructure and education spending that we will forgo, in order to pay the increased welfare budget, leaving us even further behind when the economy (hopefully) resumes.

and the "aussie battler" that so often seems to be held up to the spotlight by political parties seems to be doing the best from this, (if they keep a job). Assuming they are mortgaged out the ying yang, there loan payments are now considerably less, their fuel bill is considerably less in commuting god awful distances from outer suburbia, CPI is down etc etc What care they as an owner occupier if their house prices fall.. I very much doubt Banks will want to foreclose as long as loan payments are met.

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I still dont understand the logic here Trevor!

Do you think it ok, that these huge corporatons take massvie salaries/bonuses, then put out there hand for help?

If they had been more diligent along the way and not cocked up the schemes that trapped people wanting to better themselves, both the individual and the world would not be in this position...

So insetead of the corporations been left out to dry, it is the individual who is punished, left to scratch out an existence on the dole, while the corporations sit back, get bailed out, and let there ceo's take salaires that could buy a small country out of debt..

taxes rise, annual payrises drop, fees rise, the rich get richer the poor get poorer is the old saying... Well I am just not comfortable with that...

Monario said:

I still dont understand the logic here Trevor!

Do you think it ok, that these huge corporatons take massvie salaries/bonuses, then put out there hand for help?

If they had been more diligent along the way and not cocked up the schemes that trapped people wanting to better themselves, both the individual and the world would not be in this position...

So insetead of the corporations been left out to dry, it is the individual who is punished, left to scratch out an existence on the dole, while the corporations sit back, get bailed out, and let there ceo's take salaires that could buy a small country out of debt..

taxes rise, annual payrises drop, fees rise, the rich get richer the poor get poorer is the old saying... Well I am just not comfortable with that...

Click to expand...

British philosopher and sociologist, Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "Survival of the fittest" this relates to the concept of competition for survival or predominance. My belief is that the term "fittest" refers only to an organism's ability to survive and not to physical strength, size or intellect.

There's no fairness test or universal policer in the matters you referred to above, you can't rely solely on Government, laws, rules etc. It's your innate belief in your own abilities that ensures and secures your own survival.

Monario said:

Of course CUTZ your so right.... Of course we should forget the individuals...

After all the banking system has not burdoned the tax system in anyway, SUBPRIME MORTGAGES have nothing to do at all with the situation the world economy is in, and the hugely obscene salaries that CBA and MACQUARIE heads took on the back of these type of investments are ethically and morally correct... Its fine for them to have done what they have and have taxpayer dollar secure them, not to mention that they will after this help continue to take these obscene salaries and bonuses....

Your absolutley rite to feel that tax money should be spent only to help the corporations, why should it be spent on the indviduals who tried to be self funded retirees and not burdone the system, just because they have been self sufficient for the last ten years does not entitle them to not have to pay tax..

I also agree Whole heartedly with companies like RIO/BHP recieving 500mill a year in taxpayer funded fuel subsidies for onsite machinery, and also feel that its fine for them to continue to recieve it even after they sacked 7000 Australian employees over the last 12 months..

Hmmmm... Now that I have read that not sure if I do agree...:

Appears to me that with majority of people thinking like this it may not be long before the world is controlled soley by corporations, and not government...


I also agree with the 10bill spent to stimulate the economy, I mean of course the people who got it deserved it, and in no way would it have been better spent on infrustructure, And I am sure that 10bill spent on renewable resource projects would have created ZERO jobs for people who are losing them daily to move into... And would also have had no effect on the Carbon scheme we are trying to get off the ground...

I mean that 10bill that was poured in, in no way helped prop up the massive corporations that are ailing, and cutting jobs, and are the bulk of the reason the economy is stuffed.... The only reason the economy is up to SH*T is because of these greedy self funded retirees who have lost everything..(everything been on average 2mill, which encompasses there house, retirement fund, and investment)
And it has nothng to do with what banks around the country and world have done...

I feel the best course of action would be that these people lose everything incuding their homes, then rely soley on govenrment handouts over the next 15-25years of their remaining days on this earth...

Click to expand...

So if the government was to use taxpayers money to bail out Storm clients, should they also bail out every other person in the county who makes or has made an investment that failed?

A farmer sinks half a million dollars of borrowed money into developing his farm for cotton growing. The price of cotton collapses - his bank forecloses because he can't meet his loan commitments. Should taxpayers money be used to bail him out?

An entrepreneur borrows heavily to build a child care centre in a booming mining town. He runs into financial difficulty when a big chunk of his custom disappears after hundreds of miners are laid off and leave town. Should taxpayers money be used to bail him out?

I'm a currency trader. If I make some bad trading decisions that bring me undone, and the banks start closing in on me, should taxpayers money be used to bail me out?

I could give you other examples, but I won't. There are thousands of investors in hundreds of different businesses and investments who could, and sometimes do, get into financial trouble. Sometimes the fault is theirs, sometimes it's not. Should taxpayers money be used to bail them out?

If the government moved to bail out disgruntled Storm victims, it would set a precedent that could bring claims from every failed investor in the country.

By asking the government (read taxpayers) to bail out his clients, Cassamatis is doing nothing more than trying to restore a small degree of credibility to his increasingly tarnished reputation.
He knows very well it's not going to happen. And so it shouldn't.
Storm clients never offered to share their profits with me when they were doing well. Why should I and other taxpayers now be asked to share their losses?

bunyip said:

So if the government was to use taxpayers money to bail out Storm clients, should they also bail out every other person in the county who makes or has made an investment that failed?

A farmer sinks half a million dollars of borrowed money into developing his farm for cotton growing. The price of cotton collapses - his bank forecloses because he can't meet his loan commitments. Should taxpayers money be used to bail him out?

An entrepreneur borrows heavily to build a child care centre in a booming mining town. He runs into financial difficulty when a big chunk of his custom disappears after hundreds of miners are laid off and leave town. Should taxpayers money be used to bail him out?

I'm a currency trader. If I make some bad trading decisions that bring me undone, and the banks start closing in on me, should taxpayers money be used to bail me out?

I could give you other examples, but I won't. There are thousands of investors in hundreds of different businesses and investments who could, and sometimes do, get into financial trouble. Sometimes the fault is theirs, sometimes it's not. Should taxpayers money be used to bail them out?

If the government moved to bail out disgruntled Storm victims, it would set a precedent that could bring claims from every failed investor in the country.

By asking the government (read taxpayers) to bail out his clients, Cassamatis is doing nothing more than trying to restore a small degree of credibility to his increasingly tarnished reputation.
He knows very well it's not going to happen. And so it shouldn't.
Storm clients never offered to share their profits with me when they were doing well. Why should I and other taxpayers now be asked to share their losses?

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Point taken, but if we take the approach that, individuals should be resposible for their shortcommings why dont we take that for the corporations that have done the damage in the first palce.....

Here is one for you....

The banks have leant out massive amounts of money to clients that could not afford the loans in the first place, loans that they carry out risk analysis on, they have gone south and now, the government spends billions bailing out the banks.... Hwoe is at fault here? and why are they getting aid while the individual gets nothing?

My Question to all is not: why are we not helping the individuals get out of the Sh*t.....

My question is: why are we only helping the banks/corporations that were the root cause of the majority of these problems in the first place?

bunyip said:

Storm clients never offered to share their profits with me when they were doing well. Why should I and other taxpayers now be asked to share their losses?

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True, they never offered to share profits directly with you, why would they... However, they did choose for many many years, to be self funded, and not draw an income from the tax dollar. (within this they are actually sharing proceeds of their investments by not drawing income from pensions etc.)

Did BHP offer up anything to you for the 500mill. you paid in subsidies, subsidies that were for carbon emmiting highly pollutant machinery?

Did CBA/NAB etc. offer the full rate cuts after our taxes went to prop up their failed systems?

Did local councils that bought bonds of bad debt (subprime) with taxpayer dollars offer to repay this? did the banks that sold it to them offer compensation?

Sure they did not pay tax, well actually they did, and all of them paid to some extent, but they also did not draw an income form the tax system..

I hope you can see what I am saying here...

I have lost a lot of money in the last 18 Months as well but not with Storm Financial.

I ask nothing from the Government from ultimately my own own failures through bad investments so why should anyone else?

Without reading the whole thread all I'm going to say is if you bail out one bad apple you got to bail all of them out. My opinion is that let the receivers do their job, get back what you can and live with your mistakes. Nobody holds a gun to your head when you make these bad investment decisions, good luck to all, I know how you feel.

bunyip said:

An entrepreneur borrows heavily to build a child care centre in a booming mining town. He runs into financial difficulty when a big chunk of his custom disappears after hundreds of miners are laid off and leave town. Should taxpayers money be used to bail him out?

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I can give you a conclusion to this...

Raptis group have gone foul, they owe an estimated 450mill to unsecured creditors...

Unsecured creditors, people like you and me, contractors, small business trying to get ahead....

But instead of these people been the first inline, it is the banks. The banks were the ones who leant the money under stringent risk analysis and conditions... They measured the risk and took it, and they expect the individuals who worked their arses off to to build the project and hopefully make the banks a profit, to walk away with nothng..

These people have lost wages, put there homes on the line to start business, that will now fail due to the banks initial stuff up of not measuring the risk accurately in the first place...

They now will sit back, liquidate the company, pay back the loans, and cash in on all the individuals misfortunes who were tied up in this debacle.. these people will either lose there homes to the bank and still owe money, and rely on small pathetic government assistance to continue on, or hopefully manage to pick up the pieces and move onto projects that will pay out.. But one can only struggle so long before realising the system has a few too many holes that let the big players slip through... unscathed

Do you feel that this is ok? a simple yes or no answer will suffice!

Bill M said:

I have lost a lot of money in the last 18 Months as well but not with Storm Financial.

I ask nothing from the Government from ultimately my own own failures through bad investments so why should anyone else?

Without reading the whole thread all I'm going to say is if you bail out one bad apple you got to bail all of them out. My opinion is that let the receivers do their job, get back what you can and live with your mistakes. Nobody holds a gun to your head when you make these bad investment decisions, good luck to all, I know how you feel.

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I agree Bill, but this is not the case, here the government is propping up the banks for their mistakes, while the CEO"S of them still take home huge salaries, and move to strip the personal assets from the people they should not have leant the money to in the first place...

Monario said:

I still dont understand the logic here Trevor!

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I was just pointing out, that it's not like they get nothing, ever again, well those on or near retirement age, we DO give them a bail out, to the tune of a crap load of free money they never have to pay back, in the form of a pension.

Monario said:

Do you think it ok, that these huge corporatons take massvie salaries/bonuses, then put out there hand for help?

Click to expand...

No but remember, the result of not supporting a "huge corporation" are huge job losses .. flip a coin... I have long argued that Board and CEO salaries should be capped (even Warren Buffett and Gerry Hervey think they are overpaid) at 10x the median wage of the company they work for and they have no other financial entitlements then what is available to every other employee... but that's a whole other debate. It can't be done by the shareholder, it's something Government has to legislate.

Monario said:

If they had been more diligent along the way and not cocked up the schemes that trapped people wanting to better themselves, both the individual and the world would not be in this position...

Click to expand...

That's one way of looking at it.

Monario said:

So insetead of the corporations been left out to dry, it is the individual who is punished, left to scratch out an existence on the dole, while the corporations sit back, get bailed out, and let there ceo's take salaires that could buy a small country out of debt..

Click to expand...

Complain to your local member.

Monario said:

taxes rise, annual payrises drop, fees rise, the rich get richer the poor get poorer is the old saying... Well I am just not comfortable with that...

Click to expand...

PM me your address, I will post you a well worn set of sneakers to be comfortable in...

Trevor_S said:

I was just pointing out, that it's not like they get nothing, ever again, well those on or near retirement age, we DO give them a bail out, to the tune of a crap load of free money they never have to pay back, in the form of a pension.

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A crap load? less the $270 a fortnight.

Trevor_S said:

No but remember, the result of not supporting a "huge corporation" are huge job losses .. flip a coin...

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And clearly as we see today, and in recent time supporting them also leads to job losses...

Trevor_S said:

That's one way of looking at it.

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Show me another please, I am open to understanding this, and am not posting here just to rant and rave, but to learn and understand why there are so many flaws in the system that never seem to be fixed.

Trevor_S said:

Complain to your local member.

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I have and am in the process of talking with them on these and other issues.

Trevor_S said:

PM me your address, I will post you a well worn set of sneakers to be comfortable in...

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The shoes would happen to be those of a company CEO..?

Monario said:

Point taken, but if we take the approach that, individuals should be resposible for their shortcommings why dont we take that for the corporations that have done the damage in the first palce.....

Here is one for you....

The banks have leant out massive amounts of money to clients that could not afford the loans in the first place, loans that they carry out risk analysis on, they have gone south and now, the government spends billions bailing out the banks.... Hwoe is at fault here? and why are they getting aid while the individual gets nothing?

My Question to all is not: why are we not helping the individuals get out of the Sh*t.....

My question is: why are we only helping the banks/corporatins that were the root cause of the majority of these problems in the first place?

Click to expand...

With the Storm Financial debacle, I'm not convinced the banks were the root cause of the problem. Banks make loans available only after the borrower satisfies the banks requirements regarding income, net assets, and the ability to meet loan commitments.
Normally the borrower must provide proof to back up whatever claims he makes in his loan application. Such proof would normally include things like pay slips from the last three months to prove income, and current valuations from a registered valuer of the borrowers main assets such as real estate. If a third party is acting on behalf of the borrower, then I presume it's the responsibility of the third party to provide the proof.
Lenders of my experience will never make the loan available without a signed statement from the client, stating that they've read and fully understand the conditions of the loan.
The bank will normally spell out what action they, the bank, are entitled to take during the life of the loan.
I think Storm clients who are blaming the banks for what happened are perhaps doing so prematurely and maybe unfairly.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into some pointless debate about whether the banks or Storm bear the responsibility. What I do know with absolute certainty is that anyone borrowing investment money, Stormers or anyone else, has a responsibility to themselves to keep their fingers well and truly on the pulse. Even if they employ professional investment advisers, it's nevertheless imperative that they monitor both their investments and their investment advisers.
Some people might take issue with this, asking, quite reasonably, 'why the hell should I have to monitor my investments when I've employed a professional to do the job for me'?
And the answer is 'You shouldn't, but prudence dictates that you do'.
Why? Because if you don't, you take a hell of a risk. You assume that your adviser/financial planner is infallible. You assume he's doing everything just the way you want it done. You presume he has integrity. And that's a very dangerous assumption.

I know someone who bought an inland cattle property from a butcher who had a chain of butcher shops on the coast, four hundred kilometres away. The butcher was selling the property because it wasn't paying. It wasn't paying because he rarely went near it, and the property manager was robbing him blind, selling truckloads of cattle on the sly and pocketing the proceeds.
The butcher was a businessman, but not a cattleman, so he believed he was doing the right thing in employing a professional cattleman to manage the property. Sound thinking, but his mistake was in his attitude of 'I'll leave the running of the property entirely to my manager....he's the expert cattleman, not me.'
His outcome would have been very different if he'd had the sense to visit the property once a month and keep tabs on the operation and the bloke managing it.
Storm investors outcome would have been different if they'd kept tabs on their investments and the people managing them.

As for why do we bail out corporations but not individuals. The answer to that one is so simple it's a no brainer. Corporations are no more worthy of being bailed out than individuals are. They're bailed out as a measure of avoiding catastrophic job losses and subsequent negative flow on effects to the economy.
They're bailed out to preserve the revenue stream they provide to government.
Yes, we all know it doesn't seem fair, but that's part and parcel of capitalism at work.

bunyip said:

Yes, we all know it doesn't seem fair, but that's part and parcel of capitalism at work.

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intervention in capitalism @ work.

or the 'government must be seen to be doing something' effect.

Monario said:

I can give you a conclusion to this...

Raptis group have gone foul, they owe an estimated 450mill to unsecured creditors...

Unsecured creditors, people like you and me, contractors, small business trying to get ahead....

But instead of these people been the first inline, it is the banks. The banks were the ones who leant the money under stringent risk analysis and conditions... They measured the risk and took it, and they expect the individuals who worked their arses off to to build the project and hopefully make the banks a profit, to walk away with nothng..

These people have lost wages, put there homes on the line to start business, that will now fail due to the banks initial stuff up of not measuring the risk accurately in the first place...

They now will sit back, liquidate the company, pay back the loans, and cash in on all the individuals misfortunes who were tied up in this debacle.. these people will either lose there homes to the bank and still owe money, and rely on small pathetic government assistance to continue on, or hopefully manage to pick up the pieces and move onto projects that will pay out.. But one can only struggle so long before realising the system has a few too many holes that let the big players slip through... unscathed

Do you feel that this is ok? a simple yes or no answer will suffice!

Click to expand...

I don't know of anyone who's claiming the system is perfect or entirely just. But that's how our capitalist system works, rightly or wrongly. The banks and big corporations will always get looked after before the little blokes like you and me, because without them to provide the credit and the lending and the jobs, our whole system collapses.
That's just the reality of the situation. You can rant and fume about it all you want, as we all can. But the system will remain pretty much as it is.
I don't like the banks either....I've paid them a lot of money in the past which I reckon they weren't entitled to. But they are, unfortunately, a necessary evil.
For all the shortcomings of our system, I still think we're fortunate to be living in a capitalist society. Anyone who thinks otherwise should move to a communist country for a while to get a comparison.

Stormin_Norman said:

intervention in capitalism @ work.

or the 'government must be seen to be doing something' effect.

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Yeh, you're probably right there Norm - it's intervention in capitalism.
But intervention in capitalism, via government bail outs, has become so commonplace that I think we can almost view it as part of the capitalist system itself.

Governments cover their posteriors any way they can, and bail outs are just one of the methods they employ.

bunyip said:

I don't know of anyone who's claiming the system is perfect or entirely just. But that's how our capitalist system works, rightly or wrongly. The banks and big corporations will always get looked after before the little blokes like you and me, because without them to provide the credit and the lending and the jobs, our whole system collapses.
That's just the reality of the situation. You can rant and fume about it all you want, as we all can. But the system will remain pretty much as it is.
I don't like the banks either....I've paid them a lot of money in the past which I reckon they weren't entitled to. But they are, unfortunately, a necessary evil.
For all the shortcomings of our system, I still think we're fortunate to be living in a capitalist society. Anyone who thinks otherwise should move to a communist country for a while to get a comparison.

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Perhaps we are overdue for some restructuring of the legislation that companies, failed companies, and ceo's etc. hide behind when the things go wrong...

I, and I believe many others feel it is time that the laws that let these things happen, are updated...

Monario said:

A crap load? less the $270 a fortnight.

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Its not much I'll grant that - but at the same time it might be time to count your blessings - there are people living in far worse off situations around the world.

Storm financial pushed clients into these products - and it sounds like many clients took zero responsibility for understanding what was happening with their money and for the level of debt that they were taking on. Its all well and good to blame the banks - but there are three parties involved in these transactions by - Storm, the bank and THE CLIENT - the client has a responsibility to monitor their debt and their investments.

There are numerous people that are in financial strife as a result of the global meltdown - I don't see why govt money should be directed solely at Storm clients. The only reason govt money is directed at the banks is because we'd probably be in civil war by now if they hadn't - bank runs on our major banks would be an ugly thing.

But raising the pension doesn't sound like a bad idea.