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Inside Job

Started by PIE-GUY, April 05, 2011, 11:10:30 AM

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rowjimmy

This is the definitive quote from Taibbi on Goldman Sachs:

"The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. "

Read his book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

gah

Quote from: rowjimmy on May 12, 2011, 09:39:47 PM
This is the definitive quote from Taibbi on Goldman Sachs:

"The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. "

Read his book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

You have a copy?
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.

runawayjimbo

The only issue I have with Taibbi is that he has such a hard-on for Goldman that he seems to ignore the complicity of the other banks, hedge funds, etc. By talking about how Goldman screwed its "clients" (which they clearly did), he is IMO intentionally conjuring an image of Goldman selling a piece of shit to a little old lady and then doubling down by betting against her. These weren't unwitting retail investors daytrading CDOs on Goldman's website. They were institutional investors with (supposedly) sophisticated risk management processes who were willing participants in the most massive fraud in history. So it's hard for me to feel sympathy for a Morgan Stanley or an Australian hedge fund for getting screwed by a firm with a reputation of screwing its clients.

To me, Goldman wasn't the only asshole; they were just one in vast a sea of assholes.

Quote from: rowjimmy on May 12, 2011, 09:39:47 PM
This is the definitive quote from Taibbi on Goldman Sachs:

"The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. "

Read his book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

He does have a knack for the metaphor. My all-time favorite Taibbism is still from one of his early RS articles on the financial crisis.  On AIG (and specifically Joe Cassano, who ran AIG FP):

Quote
The best way to understand the financial crisis is to understand the meltdown at AIG. AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror. This is a company that built a giant fortune across more than a century by betting on safety-conscious policyholders - people who wear seat belts and build houses on high ground - and then blew it all in a year or two by turning their entire balance sheet over to a guy who acted like making huge bets with other people's money would make his dick bigger.

All this to say what Hicks said in 5 words:

Quote from: Hicks on May 12, 2011, 06:04:29 PM
Those scumbags make me sick.

Yep
Quote from: DoW on October 26, 2013, 09:06:17 PM
I'm drunk but that was epuc

Quote from: mehead on June 22, 2016, 11:52:42 PM
The Line still sucks. Hard.

Quote from: Gumbo72203 on July 25, 2017, 08:21:56 PM
well boys, we fucked up by not being there.

rowjimmy

Quote from: goodabouthood on May 13, 2011, 11:04:40 AM
Quote from: rowjimmy on May 12, 2011, 09:39:47 PM
This is the definitive quote from Taibbi on Goldman Sachs:

"The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. "

Read his book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

You have a copy?

On my Kindle app...

gah

#19
Quote from: goodabouthood on April 05, 2011, 12:59:03 PM
Quote from: susep73 on April 05, 2011, 12:42:15 PM
great documentary by the same dir. as No End In Sight.
Everyone at the 'paug and their extended families should see this movie!!! :samurai:

Added to my queue, thanks.


Watched this yesterday. Should be required viewing. It's unbelievable how epic Bush failed at this.
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.

runawayjimbo

I just got around to watching this today and it was phenomenal. I love how they spare no one - Republican, Democrat, academics, Saint Alan Greenspan. I watched HBO's Too Big to Fail recently and they made Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner out to be fucking patriots.

Inside Job also mentioned Magnetar, the hedge fund JPMorgan created so they could sell shit and then turn around and bet against it. I got a kick out of that since today JPM settled with the SEC for - get ready - $153M! That's a fucking rounding error on their balance sheet. Pathetic. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2924dd32-9c2e-11e0-acbc-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1PwGSlI33

I did laugh every time Dominique Strauss-Kahn appeared though. His credibility really takes a hit when all you can think of is him chasing a French maid down the hallway with a massive erection.
Quote from: DoW on October 26, 2013, 09:06:17 PM
I'm drunk but that was epuc

Quote from: mehead on June 22, 2016, 11:52:42 PM
The Line still sucks. Hard.

Quote from: Gumbo72203 on July 25, 2017, 08:21:56 PM
well boys, we fucked up by not being there.

gah

153Mil is a joke to these people. Unbelievable. I didn't even bother watching HBO's Too Big To Fail, had to turn it off after 5 mins. Def check out No End in Sight next. Worth the time, but be prepared to end up pissed off.
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.

runawayjimbo

Quote from: goodabouthood on June 22, 2011, 10:59:02 AM
153Mil is a joke to these people. Unbelievable. I didn't even bother watching HBO's Too Big To Fail, had to turn it off after 5 mins. Def check out No End in Sight next. Worth the time, but be prepared to end up pissed off.

I don't know, $153M seems pretty stiff. What did investors think?

JPM closed UP 1.1% yesterday. I'd LOL if it wasn't so sad. Also, Bloomberg reported that $153M is less than 1% of JPM's profit last year, or less than what they earn in a week.

One final thought on the movie: the only issue I had was that it gave the American public a pass. A Mexican couple who couldn't speak English getting screwed out of their house is not representative of the situation. While predatory lending certainly occurred, there were just as many if not more cases where people signed ARMs knowing they could not make the payment after the rate increased. They made the same flawed assumption the banks did in their risk models - namely, that they would be able to refinance at the end of the year or two as the value of their home would never decrease. Throw in the massive amounts of car loans and credit card debt buying shit we didn't need and I'd argue the public was an accomplice as well as a victim.
Quote from: DoW on October 26, 2013, 09:06:17 PM
I'm drunk but that was epuc

Quote from: mehead on June 22, 2016, 11:52:42 PM
The Line still sucks. Hard.

Quote from: Gumbo72203 on July 25, 2017, 08:21:56 PM
well boys, we fucked up by not being there.

Guyute

Quote from: runawayjimbo on June 22, 2011, 12:12:19 PM
Quote from: goodabouthood on June 22, 2011, 10:59:02 AM
153Mil is a joke to these people. Unbelievable. I didn't even bother watching HBO's Too Big To Fail, had to turn it off after 5 mins. Def check out No End in Sight next. Worth the time, but be prepared to end up pissed off.

I don't know, $153M seems pretty stiff. What did investors think?

JPM closed UP 1.1% yesterday. I'd LOL if it wasn't so sad. Also, Bloomberg reported that $153M is less than 1% of JPM's profit last year, or less than what they earn in a week.

One final thought on the movie: the only issue I had was that it gave the American public a pass. A Mexican couple who couldn't speak English getting screwed out of their house is not representative of the situation. While predatory lending certainly occurred, there were just as many if not more cases where people signed ARMs knowing they could not make the payment after the rate increased. They made the same flawed assumption the banks did in their risk models - namely, that they would be able to refinance at the end of the year or two as the value of their home would never decrease. Throw in the massive amounts of car loans and credit card debt buying shit we didn't need and I'd argue the public was an accomplice as well as a victim.

This is really a more salient point than people give credence too.  While unpopular the trigger that started this whole thing was the mortgage issue.  While they were being given mortgages people didn't take the responsibility to see if they could afford it.  Even if the big banks didn't create the derivatives that wouldn't have prevented the crisis.  The mortgage collapse would have done most of it alone.  You can't leverage up the economy that fast for that long and then expect it will continue.  The economy wasn't growing at the same rate we were leveraging up so when it finally reached a tipping point and the economy slowed down forcing lenders to contract it rippled through the economy.  The big banks while taking most of the blame simply compounded the problem.   We were screwed whether they did that or not.
Good decisions come from experience;
Experience comes from bad decisions.

About to open a bottle of Macallan.  There's my foreign policy; I support Scotland.

runawayjimbo

A Keynesian economist wants another banker to replace Geithner at Treasury when he leaves later this year as widely expected. The original Choo-Choo.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/mark-zandi-jamie-dimon-fabulous-replacement-tim-geithner-154151963.html

Quote
Mark Zandi: Jamie Dimon Would Be "Fabulous" Replacement for Tim Geithner

The last remaining member of President Obama's original economic team, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is said to be considering leaving his post... on his own accord. Geithner wants to leave the administration after budget talks, according to several reports citing people close to the matter.

Geithner has faced many challenges and became a lighting rod in the last 3-plus years, in dealing with the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression, as the head of Treasury and in his previous role as New York Federal Reserve Bank President.

Critics say Geithner has been too kind to the banks, pointing to his work on the $700 billion TARP program as well as the AIG bailout - which in essence put taxpayer dollars on the line to ensure AIG's counterparties would be made whole. Others say without these moves and his stewardship, the Great Recession would have been far worse.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, applauds Geithner's efforts saying the Treasury Secretary has done an "excellent job." Zandi is especially complimentary of Geithner's work on the bank stress tests which he calls "one of the most successful" measures in helping to end the financial panic in 2009. Less successful, Zandi says, have been Geithner's attempts to resuscitate the housing market.

Regardless of your view Geithner's departure, if it is indeed true, leaves the Obama administration one less economic advisor after the departure of Austan Goolsbee who replaced Christina Romer as the Council of Economic Advisers Chairman. National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag left the administration last year.

Who will replace Geithner?

Zandi names several policymakers as potential recplacements, including Fed vice chair Janet Yellen, FDIC chief Sheila Bair and former deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman.

But the economist seems to favor JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, saying he'd be a "fabulous" Treasury Secretary. Dimon would be a controversial choice: while a Democrat, Dimon has been highly critical of Obama's push for greater regulation. Meanwhile, consumer advocates and left-leaning Democrats would certainly worry about his Wall Street background.
Quote from: DoW on October 26, 2013, 09:06:17 PM
I'm drunk but that was epuc

Quote from: mehead on June 22, 2016, 11:52:42 PM
The Line still sucks. Hard.

Quote from: Gumbo72203 on July 25, 2017, 08:21:56 PM
well boys, we fucked up by not being there.

Guyute

Quote from: Guyute on June 22, 2011, 11:09:37 PM
Quote from: runawayjimbo on June 22, 2011, 12:12:19 PM
Quote from: goodabouthood on June 22, 2011, 10:59:02 AM
153Mil is a joke to these people. Unbelievable. I didn't even bother watching HBO's Too Big To Fail, had to turn it off after 5 mins. Def check out No End in Sight next. Worth the time, but be prepared to end up pissed off.

I don't know, $153M seems pretty stiff. What did investors think?

JPM closed UP 1.1% yesterday. I'd LOL if it wasn't so sad. Also, Bloomberg reported that $153M is less than 1% of JPM's profit last year, or less than what they earn in a week.

One final thought on the movie: the only issue I had was that it gave the American public a pass. A Mexican couple who couldn't speak English getting screwed out of their house is not representative of the situation. While predatory lending certainly occurred, there were just as many if not more cases where people signed ARMs knowing they could not make the payment after the rate increased. They made the same flawed assumption the banks did in their risk models - namely, that they would be able to refinance at the end of the year or two as the value of their home would never decrease. Throw in the massive amounts of car loans and credit card debt buying shit we didn't need and I'd argue the public was an accomplice as well as a victim.

This is really a more salient point than people give credence too.  While unpopular the trigger that started this whole thing was the mortgage issue.  While they were being given mortgages people didn't take the responsibility to see if they could afford it.  Even if the big banks didn't create the derivatives that wouldn't have prevented the crisis.  The mortgage collapse would have done most of it alone.  You can't leverage up the economy that fast for that long and then expect it will continue.  The economy wasn't growing at the same rate we were leveraging up so when it finally reached a tipping point and the economy slowed down forcing lenders to contract it rippled through the economy.  The big banks while taking most of the blame simply compounded the problem.   We were screwed whether they did that or not.


Uggh
Good decisions come from experience;
Experience comes from bad decisions.

About to open a bottle of Macallan.  There's my foreign policy; I support Scotland.

sls.stormyrider

#26
Quote from: Guyute on June 22, 2011, 11:09:37 PM
Quote from: runawayjimbo on June 22, 2011, 12:12:19 PM
Quote from: goodabouthood on June 22, 2011, 10:59:02 AM
153Mil is a joke to these people. Unbelievable. I didn't even bother watching HBO's Too Big To Fail, had to turn it off after 5 mins. Def check out No End in Sight next. Worth the time, but be prepared to end up pissed off.

I don't know, $153M seems pretty stiff. What did investors think?

JPM closed UP 1.1% yesterday. I'd LOL if it wasn't so sad. Also, Bloomberg reported that $153M is less than 1% of JPM's profit last year, or less than what they earn in a week.

One final thought on the movie: the only issue I had was that it gave the American public a pass. A Mexican couple who couldn't speak English getting screwed out of their house is not representative of the situation. While predatory lending certainly occurred, there were just as many if not more cases where people signed ARMs knowing they could not make the payment after the rate increased. They made the same flawed assumption the banks did in their risk models - namely, that they would be able to refinance at the end of the year or two as the value of their home would never decrease. Throw in the massive amounts of car loans and credit card debt buying shit we didn't need and I'd argue the public was an accomplice as well as a victim.

This is really a more salient point than people give credence too.  While unpopular the trigger that started this whole thing was the mortgage issue.  While they were being given mortgages people didn't take the responsibility to see if they could afford it.  Even if the big banks didn't create the derivatives that wouldn't have prevented the crisis.  The mortgage collapse would have done most of it alone.  You can't leverage up the economy that fast for that long and then expect it will continue.  The economy wasn't growing at the same rate we were leveraging up so when it finally reached a tipping point and the economy slowed down forcing lenders to contract it rippled through the economy.  The big banks while taking most of the blame simply compounded the problem.   We were screwed whether they did that or not.

If the banks didn't offer sub prime loans, then no one would have borrowed sub prime.
If the regulators didn't allow them to happen, there would not have been sub prim loans.
Banks have the power to refuse to loan people money. They didn't do it.
If the banks did their jobs properly and responsibly, these loans wouldn't have been made. There wouldn't have been foreclosures because their wouldn't have been loans.
>crisis averted

furthermore:
If the toxic loans weren't re-packaged in "AAA" rated derivatives, investors wouldn't have bought the loans.
If the secondary market wouldn't have existed, these loans wouldn't have occurred.
> crisis averted

If derivatives were regulated, and if CDOs were regulated, the house of cards may not have fallen down.

like I said in the other thread, there is already class warfare - the financial industry - govt complex against the rest of us.

great movie, and I'm even more pissed at more people than I was before
"toss away stuff you don't need in the end
but keep what's important, and know who's your friend"
"It's a 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses."

susep

Quote from: slslbs on September 17, 2011, 10:49:32 PM


great movie, and I'm even more pissed at more people than I was before

Paulson, all those guys =  :samurai:

gah

Quote from: slslbs on September 17, 2011, 10:49:32 PM
Quote from: Guyute on June 22, 2011, 11:09:37 PM
Quote from: runawayjimbo on June 22, 2011, 12:12:19 PM
Quote from: goodabouthood on June 22, 2011, 10:59:02 AM
153Mil is a joke to these people. Unbelievable. I didn't even bother watching HBO's Too Big To Fail, had to turn it off after 5 mins. Def check out No End in Sight next. Worth the time, but be prepared to end up pissed off.

I don't know, $153M seems pretty stiff. What did investors think?

JPM closed UP 1.1% yesterday. I'd LOL if it wasn't so sad. Also, Bloomberg reported that $153M is less than 1% of JPM's profit last year, or less than what they earn in a week.

One final thought on the movie: the only issue I had was that it gave the American public a pass. A Mexican couple who couldn't speak English getting screwed out of their house is not representative of the situation. While predatory lending certainly occurred, there were just as many if not more cases where people signed ARMs knowing they could not make the payment after the rate increased. They made the same flawed assumption the banks did in their risk models - namely, that they would be able to refinance at the end of the year or two as the value of their home would never decrease. Throw in the massive amounts of car loans and credit card debt buying shit we didn't need and I'd argue the public was an accomplice as well as a victim.

This is really a more salient point than people give credence too.  While unpopular the trigger that started this whole thing was the mortgage issue.  While they were being given mortgages people didn't take the responsibility to see if they could afford it.  Even if the big banks didn't create the derivatives that wouldn't have prevented the crisis.  The mortgage collapse would have done most of it alone.  You can't leverage up the economy that fast for that long and then expect it will continue.  The economy wasn't growing at the same rate we were leveraging up so when it finally reached a tipping point and the economy slowed down forcing lenders to contract it rippled through the economy.  The big banks while taking most of the blame simply compounded the problem.   We were screwed whether they did that or not.

If the banks didn't offer sub prime loans, then no one would have borrowed sub prime.
If the regulators didn't allow them to happen, there would not have been sub prim loans.
Banks have the power to refuse to loan people money. They didn't do it.
If the banks did their jobs properly and responsibly, these loans wouldn't have been made. There wouldn't have been foreclosures because their wouldn't have been loans.
>crisis averted

furthermore:
If the toxic loans weren't re-packaged in "AAA" rated derivatives, investors wouldn't have bought the loans.
If the secondary market wouldn't have existed, these loans wouldn't have occurred.
> crisis averted

If derivatives were regulated, and if CDOs were regulated, the house of cards may not have fallen down.

like I said in the other thread, there is already class warfare - the financial industry - govt complex against the rest of us.

great movie, and I'm even more pissed at more people than I was before

Your anger is justified. Honestly, the frustration felt by people as more become politically aware of what is occuring is only at a buzz right now, but I could see it getting pretty loud. You need to get The Corporation next. It's from 2003, but still, quite relevant:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.