What are Ginko Bonds worth?

Agreed on that Svar, the position is somewhat murky. I asked that question this evening from Luke.

WSE's constitution gives voting rights to shareholders if a director proposes a resolution

http://www.wselive.com/info/constitution
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Voting Rights
A Director may propose a resolution to all shareholders on behalf of one or more shareholders; every shareholder present in person or by proxy has one vote per share owned on a vote using WSE voting system. In order for a resolution to be passed, a simple majority is required.

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This is where we get into "issues" that would not exist in a real life market, because if a Director backed by a group of shareholders proposed a resolution that passed by majority vote, it may have to be enforced. In the absence of a willingness of the current CEO to accept any vote passed you would either have to turn to the Lindens for assistance (doubtful) or seek first life legal assistance. I suppose it all depends on the amount of money involved as to how far you push it

In addition Hope Capital is I believe a limited company in first life. Again the share structure of the company may have a bearing.

There are just so many unknowns here it is almost impossible to make sensible financial decisions.

As I have said before I wish the WSE well and believe that Luke is trying to run a straight business, but that is only a personal belief. I think that to have real progress on this and other future issues the WSE would have to be recognised as some type of share market maker in first life under a regulatory regime, that just happens to use SL as a platform in order to trade. In fact being that first life finance is of interest to me personally, there is a case for Linden Labs to crack down and state no first OR Second Life financial services business holding or investing other SL residents money is permitted to use SL as a platform to conduct business without first life regulatory approval

Finally I apologise to those in SL who are sick of Ginko threads and wish the whole thing would go away. But there are no easy answers to that one because some folks have lost significant sums of money measured in first life terms and need some help

A few years back I had to travel a lot for work.

My boss would travel with the group from time to time.

His idea of recreation was sitting in the hotel bar getting drunk and talking and bragging about Stocks with some of the other balding men hunched over Lap Tops on the hotel wireless.

Second Life "Finace" reminds me of my idiot boss.

Its like those balding men all got together and decided that instead of making up nonsense about the Real Stock Market, instead they would start handing over money to the biggest braggers and hope to get lucky.

Guess it beats my boss trying to get lucky with the bartender after his 10th glass of Merlot.

Why are you picking on old bald guys?

It was just describing the scene.

Its not my fault that they were balding.

yes I know dumb me but I have been reading and people have alot more invested than I did
by reading nicks posts he doesnt seem sorry about anything hes done to anyone hes sleeping well at night Im sure. It was a good scam for sure but some people have a heart and dont take the easy way to being ricj theres asses in both worlds and nick wins secondlife ass of the month award wear it proud nick this will come back at yu maybe not anytime soon but one day someone will do something to you maybe break your heart or steal your car something little but it will catch up with you.
You laugh Im sure you dont care aout the ramblings of a cartoon avi.
its just a game huh lol
maybe some take this too serious and need to cut our losses but still stings when your pulling the knife out of our backs

hope you never run into another scam artist like this Destini.

I dont think you were all that dumb really, lots of people recomended Ginko backwards and forwards as a real safe place to put your Lindens for Years.

I was more directing my "dumb" comment at everyone who said its dumb - since dumb investment or not - a scam is still a scam.

It doesn't matter how many times you say Ginko Financial was a scam and I am a crook. It won't make it true.

You are right,

Nothing I say has anything to do with making you a crook and Ginko being a scam.

You accomplished that all on your own.

Not to get this into the "gambling ban" thread..but isn't that why gambling got banned because the virtual money can be exchanged for real money, remember it was a business decision that put the gambling out of SL.

WSE says its fictional money.
Though those who put in or had 95000L in Ginko whose funds weren't returned were forced to use WSE. The value of 95k in bonds is only worth 15k in fictional funds.
It is pretty much worthless. Only use the service if you just have lindens burning whole in your pocket or you like throwing money away on fictional stock market.

It's only fictional up to the point when they cash out the L.

The "fiction" doesnt end there, actualy you're still dealing with fictional commodity untill you exchange from usd to something that actualy has value other than debt or license right.

The USD, very similary to L$ is not exchangable to anything of value by the US government (in SL's case by linden lab), specifialy heres the comparsion that proves that:

USD: Federal Reserve Notes are fiat currency, which means that the government is not obligated to give the holder of a note gold, silver, or any specific tangible property in exchange for the note. (source wikipedia)

L$: Second Life "currency" is a limited license right available for purchase or free distribution at Linden Lab's discretion, and is not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab. (source SL TOS)

And very similary to ginko's attempt to buyback it's own debt in a "cost effective way", the Federal Reserve has done thesame many, many times, for example as far back as in 1935 the fed issued new treasury bonds to buy back it's own debt (devalueated the fiat currency to buy it back cheaper) in other words they win you lose, just to top the inflating buyback strategy in 2005 they stopped publishing M3 (the largest factor to measure inflation) you can imagine what that means

Btw. it's not "the portocarrero scheme", it's "the federal reserve scheme"

No one seems to be mentioning the fact that as 34% stake holder of HCL, Nich stands to make a profit off of every GPB traded.

hmm well at least i got a laugh out of this tonight nick
I AM NOT A CROOK ..WE ALL HEARD THAT LINE BEFORE
do you look in the mirror and tell yourself that as you smile and feel warm and fuzy knowing you have fooled so many people..whats next little old ladies of of their life savings
At least lube as all up before you screw us !

Despite the overwhelming evidence and sentiment in the forums that the above statement is laughable, it is *possible* that it is true - yep - that Mr C is NOT a crook. On the face of it, I totally respect the fact that Mr C has kept a VERY public profile in the last two weeks and is very clearly working reasonably hard to get this situation resolved (altho some might say perpetuated...). If he WAS a crook you would have seen him disappear a LONG time ago....... ASSUMING of course that he had something to disappear with.

I personally think that there is a very good chance that Mr C is, or at least (hopefully realistically "was" just very CONFIDENT. He is also very intelligent - he has a perfect grasp of American English (perhaps Rhode Island English), has very good knowledge of financial systems banter and has an unnerving ability to closely define ponzi and pyramid schemes and the legal implications of such (see the other thread).

The question is this - WHY DOES HE HANG AROUND? Possible answers include:

1. He genuinely wants to fix the situation and pay everyone back.
OR
2. He hasn't actually made any money, but hopes he can still do so (this does not necessarily mean "run away with it", but of course it could).

Mr C is deeply invested in other SL businesses that could possibly return something and seems very reluctant to liquidise these assets right now..., but that could support scenario No.1 or No.2. This begs another question - why doesn't he do this? Possible answers include:

A. He is very CONFIDENT that his non-liquid assets will eventually return something (cos they have "exponential growth for an exponential world"......)
OR
B. Liquidising those assets will cause an even greater crash in the WSE and harm its major investors and shareholders, and some of them might know who he really is and/or where he lives.

Unfortunately, scenario A is probably unrealistic. Altho SL has appeared to perform rather well until now, there is no evidence that the businesses Mr C (i.e. the tangly web that is Ginko, WSE and other businesses) has invested in will see the exponential, scaleable or even sustainable growth that his confidence depends on, particularly in the financial sector of SL (OMG - there are THIRTY more Ginkos out there) and also the land sector - mainland prices have HALVED in the last four months. Land depends largely on premium membership numbers and 80 000 premium memberships out of 8 million sign ups means that 99 per cent of people do not become serious SL users.

That leaves scenario B. What are the consequences of scenario B? Well, I think they are REAL LIFE consequences, and hence CONFIDENCE has now turned into FEAR. not fear of prosecution - that is highly unlikely to work; not fear of retribution from his co-investors...... but fear of the one thing that he probably holds most dear - his RL reputation and the possible impacts on his RL activities (perhaps similarly structured to his SL ones) or, quite probably, given his "beyond armchair" enthusiasm and knowledge of the financial workld, his RL employment.....

The end is nigh....... and - I say it again - OMG - there are THIRTY more Ginkos out there.

Well... there's the solution, then!

Simply unload the Ginko bonds, liquidate all assets, take the pennies left over... then 'reinvest' the handful left at dizzying percentages in the OTHER 'banks'!

The money will be back in no time, mmm?

What a beautiful solution, if I do say so myself!

grin

Odds are, they won't ALL go broke at the same time!

Just keep the money moving from one bancruptcy to the next!

I guess I have to consider myself lucky when I pulled all my fund out of Ginko after figuring out that simply playing the trade cycle and buy/ sell order mark would net me more than the promised interest.

Interestingly, Ginko's problem seem to coincide with the piling up of sales order at L$265. Before the "Financial Crisis" the usual volume of sales order at L$265 would be about 10M (1/6 of daily volume) or so, in the last few weeks it's up into the 40M range (over 60% of daily total $L volume).

I have timed, prior to the banning of gambling and the "Financial crisis" It took me about 3 days to complete a trade cycle, (sell at 265 buy at 277) now it takes almost a week.

This resulted in lowered liquidity of $L (as in getting USD out) as well as devaluing of $L. I wonder if playing the LINDEX was what Ginko and other bank has been doing to make "money" and with the much slower trade cycle. They are not making enough to pay the interest.

I feel sad that stupid people are unable to handle their own money properly and end up getting hurt because of it. I also know that is not my fault. I stole nobody's money, I commited no fraud. The gigantic amount of stupidity that has surfaced after this has convinced me not to even try this again but not because I think I did something wrong.

What did you do with the money, Ponzi Man?

Exactly what I said I would, I invested.

People being stupid doesn't make it okay to take advantage of them. That's what half of most countries' laws are about!

...invested in...?

Yes, you are a crook. You converted people's money - loaned to you - into an instrument which does not require you to pay them back, and signaled by your strong objection to the WSE restriction that you had really had no intention of paying them back in full, if at all. Forget the interest - no intent to pay back the principal in full is what makes you a crook.

I haven't "taken advantage" of anyone.