Log In | Register
By Barry Ritholtz, Published: November 5
I have a fairly simple approach to investing: Start with data and objective evidence to determine the dominant elements driving the market action right now. Figure out what objective reality is beneath all of the noise. Use that information to try to make intelligent investing decisions.
But then, I’m an investor focused on preserving capital and managing risk. I’m not out to win the next election or drive the debate. For those who are, facts and data matter much less than a narrative that supports their interests.
What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral - The Washington Post
Seeded on Sun Nov 6, 2011 10:36 AM EST
Article Source: The Washington Post- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (11)
Here's Ritholtz's WaPo column at his The Big Picture blog/website (pdf).
- 1 vote
#1 - Sun Nov 6, 2011 10:42 AM ESTGreat stuff in this article:
What made [Bloomberg's] comments so stunning is that he built Bloomberg Data Services on the notion that data are what matter most to investors. The terminals are found on nearly 400,000 trading desks around the world, at a cost of $1,500 a month. (Do the math—that’s over half a billion dollars a month.) Perhaps the fact that Wall Street was the source of his vast wealth biased him. But the key principle of the business that made the mayor a billionaire is that fund managers, economists, researchers and traders should ignore the squishy narrative and, instead, focus on facts. Yet he ignored his own principles to repeat statements he should have known were false.
- 4 votes
#2 - Sun Nov 6, 2011 10:51 AM EST
Number 4 is the true bellwether on what went wrong:
Derivatives had become a uniquely unregulated financial instrument. They are exempt fromall oversight, counter-party disclosure, exchange listing requirements, state insurance supervision and, most important, reserve requirements. This allowed AIG to write $3 trillion in derivatives while reserving precisely zero dollars against future claims.
- 2 votes
#3 - Sun Nov 6, 2011 11:01 AM ESTthe average american needs to read this in terms that are very visual so that they undertand what was done, time and again.
many do not, but pretend that they do.
- 4 votes
mountainfirefall,
Thanks for your constribution to my column.
needs to read this in terms that are very visual
Visuals? Christ. If only Americans would follow the investigations that our Congress conducts, on their behalf!!
- 2 votes
caltha... i except that not every 'citizen' is born to be the watchdog of all things 'congressional', which if you think about it, i'm glad that not everyone is build so ... but since this is said to require every american to make right, we need to start thinking about how to translate for the different 'styles' of learners...
just so we do not behave like corporate types (that old corporate culture thing) who present it in the manner that 'attracts' who they accept and convolute so they don't get who they dont' want... you know?
Well, I suppose the Watergate Hearings (and Viet Nam news broadcasts) are forever etched in my mind, as network television preempted popular television programs of the day (in addition my family was engaged in political dialogue that impacted our nation as a whole...perhaps because my parents followed the McCarthy Hearings of the 1950s)...so as consequence, I was forced to watch Congress in action at a very young and impressionable age.
However, Americans today have too many choices from which to choose, and watch video programming that makes them less "uncomfortable" with reality. We're left with scores of individuals who make "snap decisions, from short attention spans". Pity that.
- 1 vote
oh so well said... and getting to the heart of the matter!
America has been 'relieved'... from such a closed and distracting entertainment, i hope at least, as i have been hearing conversations that give me hope with the occupies. more words of curiosity then ever before, since i too grew up with a mother who valued and insisted on civic understanding from her children.
the congressional hearings taking place would have struck her I think... what we are seeing is, when i look through her 'eyes'... a farce. I often consider what she would have thought of Schumer, and Frank, what she would have said after hearing MN's senator regarding the overseas corporate rape and ensuing 'hearings'... insane i think she may have thought.
you see how those events differ from the things they are 'hearing' now?
the backwards nature of this republic's movement is astounding when i look through her eyes now gone.
So Wall Street is a carnival of numbers games, a racket where everybody gets to skim a little money out of the pile every time that pile crosses his desk.
Thank goodness! So I'm not the only one who sees this.
- 1 vote
#5 - Sun Nov 6, 2011 3:18 PM ESThey..
Got a website for you to check out. Here, its called the senate.cop.gov.
you can do some 'digging', with your computer and check out some of the articles in there also,
here, a start:
http://www.senate.gov/general/common/generic/COP_redirect.htm
go to that website, and check it out.
peace*
- 1 vote
#6 - Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:45 AM ESTYou're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
As a new user, you may notice a few temporary content restrictions. Click here for more info.
