Sunday, January 4

Lewis and Einhorn Nail It

Unbelievably correct article from the NYT.  If you're wondering how our financial markets got so fucked up, then read this.  Even if you're just ignoring financial news because you can't handle how crappy it is, read it.  There is very, very little accurate commentary or analysis out there about how we got here that you owe it to yourself to read the pieces that nail it like a roofing gun.
It's titled: "The End of the Financial World as We Know It".  I'm not going to say I told you so...oops.
Select quotes:

"In the “Highly Likely” scenario, wrote Mr. Markopolos, “Madoff Securities is the world’s largest Ponzi Scheme.” Which, as we now know, it was.  Harry Markopolos sent his report to the S.E.C. on Nov. 7, 2005 — more than three years before Mr. Madoff was finally exposed — but he had been trying to explain the fraud to them since 1999."...

"Indeed, one of the great social benefits of the Madoff scandal may be to finally reveal the S.E.C. for what it has become.  Created to protect investors from financial predators, the commission has somehow evolved into a mechanism for protecting financial predators with political clout from investors."...

"How does this happen? How can the person in charge of assessing Wall Street firms not have the tools to understand them? Is the S.E.C. that inept? Perhaps, but the problem inside the commission is far worse — because inept people can be replaced. The problem is systemic."

And then read the next story they wrote titled:  How to Repair A Broken Financial World

1 comment:

John Duke said...

Good articles. Did you see the WSJ one about the demise of the US? Hardly on point like these but fun to read. I wrote a post about it today.