tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post4415044107079121490..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Wall Street Values or American ValuesStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-41116340930203965982017-04-11T01:28:06.006-07:002017-04-11T01:28:06.006-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17534625961077755819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-38330861817857955682011-01-26T09:16:12.018-08:002011-01-26T09:16:12.018-08:00Stuart,
Good post. You are the on the right trac...Stuart,<br /><br />Good post. You are the on the right track here. I don't have the time to write an exposition here, but bottom line the banksters/financial elite own the system.<br /><br />Hank Paulson. Former Secretary of the Treasury and architect of the bailout. He was a former Goldmans Sach CEO.<br /><br />AIG which required a government bailout to "save the system". They needed the bailout to make good on derivatives obligations. Guess who the counterparty was? Goldman Sachs. Essentially, taxpayer money was funneled to Goldman Sachs so they wouldn't have to eat the loss.<br /><br />I could go on an on an on and on. There is a movie I am looking forward to seeing, Inside Job<br /><br />http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/<br /><br />I am not 100% sure on this, but I've read and heard that certain interests were instrumental in keeping this from being shown in the theaters on a widespread basis. Ignorance is bliss. It is in the interests of the banksters and financial elite to keep the masses dumb and ignorant.<br /><br />Here are a couple of good blogs that get into this:<br /><br />http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/01/fcic-what-caused-the-financial-crisis/<br /><br />http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/01/one-reaction-to-obama-state-of-union.html<br /><br />I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. <br /><br />Thomas Jefferson, (Attributed)<br />3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)Mike Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18365651431936540265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-90029073354147849672011-01-26T07:54:03.509-08:002011-01-26T07:54:03.509-08:00I hope I didn't suggest that everyone on Wall ...I hope I didn't suggest that everyone on Wall Street was living by the wrong values. Clearly, some are, or I should say, enough are in order to have created some very large problems. The story you link from the Atlantic is frightening, because it does seem to represent some level of systematic fraud.<br /><br />Thanks for pointing out that many of the wives of Wall Street's elites are limousine liberals. Are the people who are gaming the financial system and cheating investors, as the Atlantic piece explains, really capitalists? Are they really upholding the ethical standards that defined Wall Street or are they an aberration created by an educational establishment that never really understood or respected Wall Street?Stuart Schneidermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-76347622866978409752011-01-26T07:44:21.812-08:002011-01-26T07:44:21.812-08:00The issue on Wall St is not political correctness ...The issue on Wall St is not political correctness except to the degree the dishonest don it to suck up to the current Administration. Their wives may be limousine liberals (I live in a suburb full of them). <br /><br />There has been theft qnd corruption on a grand scale, but it's not fair to dismiss all Wall Streeters.<br /><br />But stories like this don't help:<br />http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/01/e-mails-show-bear-stearns-cheated-clients-out-of-billions/70128/<br /><br />My family used to say with surprise "But he's honest" when they met my spouse, because of the scum in the news about Wall St. I'd argue that the same hatred of Harvard grads stems from the obnoxious behavior of the most visible ones. <br /><br />Pls excuse any cellphone typos (snowstorm here)Retrieverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09036341287285545932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-75126601368335169832011-01-26T06:48:22.779-08:002011-01-26T06:48:22.779-08:00I think you're right, David. In all likelihood...I think you're right, David. In all likelihood Rich would cheer on people who made it their business to regulate business.<br /><br />And yet, what do you make of his line about "thieves with depositions?" Doesn't that suggest a critique of the negative role lawyers play in business and the sense that they are not enforcing the rule of law as much as getting their take.<br /><br />I don't know that this would make Rich a supporter of tort reform, but I certainly think that someone who supports tort reform would describe the trial lawyers bar as "thieves with depositions."Stuart Schneidermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-41955809353350192012011-01-26T05:34:41.028-08:002011-01-26T05:34:41.028-08:00"Wall Street" is the easiest target in t..."Wall Street" is the easiest target in the world. I suspect that if an Ivy League graduate goes to work for a "nonprofit," pushing for regulations that make it much harder for people to start new enterprises...or a law firm, profiting from litigation that destroys businesses...Frank Rich would view this as a noble action in the spirit of Rooster Cogburn.David Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15464681514800720063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-63558192679613152592011-01-26T04:29:36.518-08:002011-01-26T04:29:36.518-08:00Of course, I did not in any way mean to malign eve...Of course, I did not in any way mean to malign everyone who has gone to an Ivy League school-- I went to Brown.<br /><br />I'm a bit surprised at the reaction because the nation has spent the past couple of years debating whether the citizens or the educated elites should be making the decisions. And today's educated elites, the kind who go to Ivy League colleges, do not just think that they should be deciding, but they are making decisions as a function of their having been indoctrinated in political correctness.<br /><br />To me it is worth considering the role of political correctness in the financial crisis. The people who run the government institutions, the financial institutions, the media and the legal profession were steeped in political correctness. Doesn't it make sense to see their actions as having in some way been influenced by what they learned in college? Doesn't it make some sense to point out that many of them are Democrats...<br /><br />If I had said that there was a culture war between Tea Party patriots like Sarah Palin and Harvard elitists like Barack Obama and his cronies, and that a Frank Rich had declared himself to favor the Palin perspective, you would probably be surprised, incredulous, and somewhat pleased. You might even want to encourage him.<br /><br />That's pretty much what I tried to say. When we were all criticizing the Obama administration for being elitist and for relying on people with credentials and for not trusting the good judgment of the American people, most people seemed to feel that that was a valid point.<br /><br />If Rich were a politician, I would say about him what I said about Obama a couple of days ago... it is not a good idea to trust such a radical conversion.<br /><br />Yet, when a prominent defender of the counterculture, a man who has attacked 50s values and even Tea Party values, seems to be moving in a more congenial direction, I think that the rest of us should accept it... because it is going to exercise a certain amount of cultural influence.<br /><br />No, I do not think that Frank Rich will become a Tea Party activist, but I am trying to track a culture shift through some seemingly imperceptible movements in opinion leaders.Stuart Schneidermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-13752397804507455582011-01-25T22:33:50.806-08:002011-01-25T22:33:50.806-08:00Ugh... Frank Rich....
His picture, next to his b...Ugh... Frank Rich....<br /><br />His picture, next to his by-line, looks like a coprophagic worm. He truly looks like something that would crawl out from under a rock. Blecch.<br /><br />True Grit is the last movie in the world that needed to be remade. C'mon, The Duke....<br /><br />They might as well remake "Treasure of the Sierra Madres" where Fred C. Dobbs steals the money and gives it to the poor.<br /><br />--Gray<br /><br />wv: Wallodi. Where my Magyar Wampyr ancestors came from.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-31131296659960075002011-01-25T16:44:19.096-08:002011-01-25T16:44:19.096-08:00Well, Stuart, my objection to your review is simpl...Well, Stuart, my objection to your review is simply that Zuckerman in no way represents the Ivy League. He's just a particularly loathsome type, and perhaps the most succesful one recently. But dismissing the Ivy League because of him is like saying that Princeton is dreadful because that creepy MO went there. <br /><br />I reviewed the Social Network as well,http://artemisretriever.blogspot.com/2011/01/social-network.html mostly just disgusted by the picture it painted of Harvard, my alma mater. Naive as it may sound, I went there in pursuit of knowledge, with no interest in making money or wielding great power or influence. I took the motto seriously "Veritas". My family have gone there since it was founded (New England WASPs), and have kept out of the limelight, serving as academics, ministers, businessmen, doctors,inventors, in the service in wartime, writers, farmers, etc. My kids don't go there: one too young, one at Princeton, another at our state college. We were appalled by the anti-military and PC bias of Harvard when we were visiting. But the picture in the Social Network was painful for someone like myself to watch as there were still admirable people, devoted scholars and students who were gentlemen at Harvard when I went there (I married one, tho I didn't meet him til 9 years later!). <br /><br />I also have to somewhat agree with David that tho there have been flagrant examples of corruption on Wall St., I know plenty of highly ethical people who have worked there (my spouse amongst them, in former years, tho he is disillusioned with much going on there now).<br /><br />I don't mean to sound sharp, tho, as your comparison is an interesting one. It is simply that those of us Harvard grads who are patriotic Americans are not all greedy plutocrats, do not all live off the sufferings and exploitation of others' weakneses, and many of us have quite humdrum middle class lives. Many of us are frugal New Englanders who live in extremely modest houses, just spend far more on books and our hobbies perhaps than most.Retrieverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09036341287285545932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-65955755680002938292011-01-25T16:32:02.212-08:002011-01-25T16:32:02.212-08:00TO: All
RE: So....
....Frank Rich wants an 'h...TO: All<br />RE: So....<br /><br />....Frank Rich wants an 'honorable social code', eh?<br /><br />I know of one that is millennia old. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that if you mention it to him, he'll shrink back like a vampire confronted with a crucifix. <br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Chuck(le)<br />P.S. If we did a root-cause analysis of this mess, we'd find the real source of all our problems. But people wouldn't want to hear it. And we were warned about this....long ago....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-8537919646385417032011-01-25T14:20:34.969-08:002011-01-25T14:20:34.969-08:00I don't know any of the Facebook principals, b...I don't know any of the Facebook principals, but I do know quite a few venture founders/CEOs and venture capitalists, and the group includes many high-integrity individuals.<br /><br />As a general matter, I do think the emphasis on educational credentials (especially Ivy League credentials and advanced degrees) and on theoretical knowledge rather than experience has contributed to the problem in a big way. MBAs with IQs of 130, advised by PhDs with IQs of 145, made mistakes that would not have been made by old-line loan officers with IQs of 115.<br /><br />The thing that is going to make it very difficult for us to ever get out of economic stagnation is the increasing nexus between economic success and political power. We are in grave danger of creating a situation in which it can truly be said that "All business is just dirty politics and all politics is just dirty business." See my post <a href="http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/16654.html" rel="nofollow">the accidental eloquence of mrs rearden</a>.David Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15464681514800720063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-79217500865504575702011-01-25T13:59:40.945-08:002011-01-25T13:59:40.945-08:00Actually, I did change some of the focus here. I d...Actually, I did change some of the focus here. I did mention that the crisis seemed to have been caused by a nexus of bankers, lawyers, bureaucrats, regulators, and media enablers. To say nothing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. <br /><br />I have also been led to understand that the losses of the banks and the agencies have effectively been socialized?<br /><br />And I had also understood that the banks the went down did so because they took out 30-1 leverage, or something like it, on mortgage backed securities. Add in the Credit default swaps that were written against these mortgages and you had a formula for disaster.<br /><br />I do not know about Frank Rich, but that is the way it was all explained to me. It does not place all of the blame with the bankers... but it required the collusion of the others I mentioned.<br /><br />That did not feel very prudent to me at the time. And I know many bankers who did not think it prudent either.<br /><br />Anyway, I and a lot of other people would appreciate it if you would explain to us what brought about the crisis if it was not the Ivy League educated Democrats who ran all of these operations and who are currently hard at work blaming it all on the Bush administration.Stuart Schneidermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-40798764154024470172011-01-25T12:49:02.700-08:002011-01-25T12:49:02.700-08:00I would point out that part way thru the original ...I would point out that part way thru the original True Grit Rooster Cogburn admitted to Mattie that earlier in his life he had "liberated" some large sums of money from paymasters and banks to establish some seed money for setting himself up. <br /><br />I can't beleive that Mr. Rich has ever actually worked on "Wall Street". Becasue if you did you would not so easily paint all of the denizens of Wall Street with such a wide and wet brush of ethical shortcomings.<br /><br />I'm sorry but what industry have you worked in that did not include cheats, thevies and morally bankrupt individuals ? <br /><br />This wailing about "Wall Street" ethics is just a fact deficient screed against the crisis while trying to scapegoat somebody, anybody for it.<br /><br />What some call Wall Street Greed is simply the icing on the cake of Main Street Greed. Who do you think took out all of those subprime loans for houses they couldn't afford ? It wasn't Wall Street bankers or traders.<br /><br />Does Mr. Rich even know what finacial instruments brought down Lehman Brothers which precipitaed much of the crisis ? Well, it wasn't Mortgage Backed securities or derivatives based on anything to do with housing.<br /><br />I have worked for or with "Wall Street" firms since 1985 after leaving the US Navy as an officer and am a 1980 graduate of USNA and I can tell you that I would put the real ethics and morals of the workers on Wall Street up against any industry or profession for comparison. <br /><br />This is simply the demonizing of capitalists for the benefit of socialists.The Ghosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09554055593581812426noreply@blogger.com