Jim:    GM’s stock is still trading, even after a big decline today, over $1... although, Merrill Lynch just ohpined that the stock is worth no more than a penny a share… I agree with Merrill, that is right a penny… that is Merrill Lynch’s target price for what is trading… a penny… the thing that you leave at the register rather than put in your pocket… the way that I see it, your GM stock certificate is at best a charade… a pretend piece of paper, that might, if you are very lucky, be turned into a warrant that will pay off years down the road if GM ever starts making a lot of money.

This one is so bad that even the bond bullies, who almost always get all of the stock common stock in an reorganization, are going to be crowded out of it… it feels like a total cram down… it feels like cancellation coming.. yes, I think it could be that bad… and if the bond holders are in such sad shape… the people who own the current common they are in huge, gargantuan, probably indescribable trouble at this point… they are truly in… the house of pain.. there is truly no way for them to win.

If ever there was a screwed up game, selling people shares of GM’s current common stock is it… I think that the only people buying GM here are the duped and the ignorant… and frankly, I have got to tell you, that it is so bad… I actually think that they need to be protected from themselves.

I just do not see any good reason for GM to keep trading… so why does it… well lets think, GM is just the latest to join the rank of stocks that should not be trading… a member of the living dead, like AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac… these are all zombie common stocks that just hang around because no one in this country has the guts to cancel them… I think that they are not cancelled because by continuing to allow them to trade… exchanges and brokers make a ton of money… these stocks generate a huge amount of volume, for instance, for the New York Stock Exchange… as poor fools continue to believe that these slivers of equity actually amount to something… that somehow you will own the upside to AIG, after we work thru the $200b the government has already spent or is spending to keep this rogue outfit afloat.

Fannie and Freddie… come one, bankruptcy in name… buying either of these stocks is like investing in the FHA… or the Federal Home Loan Bank Board… they are public trusts… or more like, public mistrusts… not companies that should have stocks.

And now GM has been added to the pile… the whole thing just gets more and more obnoxious, the dog pile… these securities are all cynical excuses of paper… totally nonsensical, outavistic, vestiges of a different age… and they cannot be uprooted… because these stocks make certain interests too much money to be allowed to disappear… the brokerages and the exchanges benefit from having them around… in their desire to make just a bit more money they have made a joke of the market… I would not even them for contact paper… they are more like toilet paper… single ply.

Our colleagues in London would suspend these shares pending clarification of the companies financial position… and make a notation that they would most likely be cancelled…just a little bit of a warning please… like a little something on the side of a cigarette box… how about it… over there in the UK they actually worry about the innocent investors… I think they are right… but, and this may be the most outrageous thing of all… when it comes to stock trading in this country, there are no referees anymore… the government please… I mean before they could appoint some refs, they would have to stop being completely oblivious to the day to day trading of all stocks… they sure are now.

Frankly, I think that it is too bad that the Nevada gaming commission is not running the joint… they would never allow betting on a fixed fight… or a fixed horse race… which is exactly what I think these shares of GM, AIG, Fannie and Freddie are… alright, let me go to the extreme… the extreme that some of you may actually recognize… even the MBA refs do a better job than the SEC… particularly, after the Laker series, that is saying something… sadly, it is not in anyone’s interest to get rid of them… except the publics interest… which is continually duped daily in the market… as these stocks are fitting treats for investors who do not know what they are doing… people who we need to protect at all costs if we ever want to get to a place where the market can be embraced by everyone… not just the card sharks that dominate it.. no other market in the developed world would ever permit this travesty of a mockery of a sham… but we embrace it here… too infuriating for worlds… if you ever want a level playing field… I think these zombie stocks have to go… we must drive stakes thru their hearts… even if it means that the brokers and the exchanges lose a little bit of money… and a lot of the action.

[end of segment]