Objectively intelligent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I wouldn't claim to understand the financial crisis.

Ask an antitrust lawyer who spent years working in that space.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Ask an antitrust lawyer who spent years working in that space.

Why? If he were smart I'd expect he'd tell me to ask Thurgreed.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Why? If he were smart I'd expect he'd tell me to ask Thurgreed.

If you want to understand why the markets failed, it makes sense to talk to someone who was paid to understand how the markets work, and who worked on clearance for transactions that happened during the crisis.

But, hey, you be you.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If you want to understand why the markets failed, it makes sense to talk to someone who was paid to understand how the markets work, and who worked on clearance for transactions that happened during the crisis.

But, hey, you be you.

So if I wanted to know all about how New York City moves, I should to talk Ralph Kramden's friend Norton?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

So if I wanted to know all about how New York City moves, I should to talk Ralph Kramden's friend Norton?

OK, boomer.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

OK, boomer.

Ty’s Neighbor on Next Door: I need someone who can help me rewire a home built in 2008. Anyone?

Ty: I can probably help. I worked in regulating consolidation of energy sector companies in that time frame for DOJ.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Ty’s Next Door Neighbor: I need someone who can help me rewire a home built in 2008. Anyone?

Ty: I can probably help. I worked in regulating consolidation of energy sector companies in that time frame for DOJ.

When you turn this into a story that wins third place in The Moth in Dayton, I expect you to buy me a beer.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Ty’s Next Door Neighbor: I need someone who can help me rewire a home built in 2008. Anyone?

Ty: I can probably help. I worked in regulating consolidation of energy sector companies in that time frame for DOJ.

This discussion thread started with your assertion that a lawyer who worked in lending was most qualified to state what happened in 2008 re MBS. (You raised it as a question, but you were assuming that answer.)

And that answer is not wrong, usually. A person working closely with industry participants does know more than a regulator or someone suing people in the industry. Usually.

But the question that started this all was whether the banks were engaged more in fraud than mere victims of a bubble bursting. (This is a strange choice, as these aren't mutually exclusive and can run together, but forget that for now.)

If you accept the industry argument that the banks were more victims of a bubble than people engaged in wilful ignorance and fraud, you necessarily assert that a lot of people in the industry were incompetent or negligent. If a lot of people in the industry really didn't understand the products with which they were working, or the cash flows and credit risks underpinning them, might this be an exception to the rule that people within the industry know best what occurred in 2008? Might this be a situation where, if you believe the industry was caught as flat footed as it asserts it was, knowing what it knew about the housing market and securities derived from it at the time isn't really worth much?

Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote a book about 2008 called TBTF. He interviewed and culled quotes from largely industry insiders, and unsurprisingly, the book carries water for the industry and asserts the banks were more victims than fuckups or practitioners of IBGYBG. Numerous other books, too many to list, take a broader look (incorporating sources inside and outside Wall Street) at the housing market and MBS, and offer different a different verdict. They see a mixed bag of fraud, incompetence, and mania.

I'm not sure Wall Street is the best or exclusive source from which to judge what occurred in 2008 re MBS. It's one of many needed to ascertain what took place. So Ty might in fact be as good a source as any other on this.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If you want to understand why the markets failed, it makes sense to talk to someone who was paid to understand how the markets work, and who worked on clearance for transactions that happened during the crisis.

But, hey, you be you.

I'd ask if you worked on the only 24 hour early termination I've ever personally witnessed, but I don't recall which two banks were involved (and wouldn't name them anyway).

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

I'd ask if you worked on the only 24 hour early termination I've ever personally witnessed, but I don't recall which two banks were involved (and wouldn't name them anyway).

Adder during those years at work he had to only be reading blogs about why W needed to be impeached and posting them here. He had a new theory every day. There is no way he had time to have any significant role in a real matter. The only termination he worked on there was when he left.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

predict. Or speculate.

But just for the sake of envisioning this black swan... What if Trump were convicted and removed?

How would he react?
His 40% react?
The market react? (I think it’d do little, perhaps even rise.)

Civil unrest?
End of the GOP?
Bernie crushing Joe as last populist standing?
Joe crushing Bernie in a grand “return to normalcy”?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

predict. Or speculate.

But just for the sake of envisioning this black swan... What if Trump were convicted and removed?

How would he react?
His 40% react?
The market react? (I think it’d do little, perhaps even rise.)

Civil unrest?
End of the GOP?
Bernie crushing Joe as last populist standing?
Joe crushing Bernie in a grand “return to normalcy”?

I'm looking for the "crawl back under their rocks" option. That's what I'm hoping for. That some of these reptiles just get back under the rocks.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

predict. Or speculate.

But just for the sake of envisioning this black swan... What if Trump were convicted and removed?

How would he react?
His 40% react?
The market react? (I think it’d do little, perhaps even rise.)

Civil unrest?
End of the GOP?
Bernie crushing Joe as last populist standing?
Joe crushing Bernie in a grand “return to normalcy”?

Conservatives would love a good stab in the back.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Adder during those years at work he had to only be reading blogs about why W needed to be impeached and posting them here. He had a new theory every day. There is no way he had time to have any significant role in a real matter. The only termination he worked on there was when he left.

I was on the phone with a guy yesterday regarding a land use issue. Conversation was regarding p/e investors in a project who'd no clue about how the physical and infrastructure pieces came together. This was the term he used: "chart readers."

I think you get a lot of that these days. My best friend who covered an industry well enough to retire a few years back doesn't know much about how the industry actually works at ground level. But why would he? He just bet on helicopter level data about it all of which was created by analysts in cubicles, based on occasional field reports from sources most of whom they'd never met.

People write investing newsletters from their homes based on shit they read on Bloomberg terminals.

I don't see how gambling remains illegal anywhere. These "chart readers" are effectively just gambling on projects as you might gamble on a football game. I guess one can say this is technically capitalism because they are allocating money to productive endeavors. But to call these people experts on these fields is a bit rich. They are experts on how investments in these fields perform and the value of investment products based on activities in these field fluctuate and trade in relation to helicopter level data fed to the market for such investments. Two different things.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I was on the phone with a guy yesterday regarding a land use issue. Conversation was regarding p/e investors in a project who'd no clue about how the physical and infrastructure pieces came together. This was the term he used: "chart readers."

I think you get a lot of that these days. My best friend who covered an industry well enough to retire a few years back doesn't know much about how the industry actually works at ground level. But why would he? He just bet on helicopter level data about it all of which was created by analysts in cubicles, based on occasional field reports from sources most of whom they'd never met.

People write investing newsletters from their homes based on shit they read on Bloomberg terminals.

I don't see how gambling remains illegal anywhere. These "chart readers" are effectively just gambling on projects as you might gamble on a football game. I guess one can say this is technically capitalism because they are allocating money to productive endeavors. But to call these people experts on these fields is a bit rich. They are experts on how investments in these fields perform and the value of investment products based on activities in these field fluctuate and trade in relation to helicopter level data fed to the market for such investments. Two different things.

I was in a board meeting yesterday. At the risk of describing the obvious, you have a back and forth between executives who are buried in the details of the business every day, and directors who check in for a few hours every three months. If you do it right, the directors can add a lot of value. But if it were easy to do right, everyone would do it.