Ritholtz: An Uncompromised View of Contemporary American Politics and Economics

The excerpts from this interview are to the point, and it is a rather sharp point at that.

I somehow missed them the first time around, probably due to a family illness, but someone sent this extended set of excerpts from the two interviews that Jonathan Miller did with Barry Ritholtz.

To say that Barry Ritholtz 'pulls no punches' is like saying that Joe Louis had a nice right cross.

Its a good read for a Non-Farm Payrolls Friday. Forgive me if you have already seen it.

Enjoy.

"I have libertarian friends who are always bitching about government. I always say to them, when a dog bites you in the ass... that's what dogs do - don't blame the dog. Look up the leash and see who is holding the handle. When you look at Congress - Congress is the snapping dog.

But they are somebody's bitch. You have to see who is holding the leash. Very often it is banks and Wall Street and the financial sector having Congress do its bidding. Most of the things that got us into trouble have been done at the bequest of the banks...

I don't want to say Congress are whores, that go to these corporate executives with knee pads and lip-gloss. Congress is corrupt. Politicians in both parties are worthless...They don't even hide how corrupt they are anymore. It just came out that one of the new guys had sent out a note to CFO's asking them what legislation they would like to see changed. They will do anything for any kind of campaign contribution... (Not coincidentally most politicians are also lawyers - Jesse)

To me, if you give up your virtue for money, you are a prostitute. Credit rating agencies are prostitutes...

There is no such thing as rogue traders. There are only rogue banks. If you are that grossly negligent that you have to be rescued by the government, then I guarantee you they are doing lots of other things wrong. If you have an entity that messed up so badly that it can't survive... how are you going to go out and run a marathon? Jamie Dimon is the next CEO who needs a humbling...

Putting Rubin, Summers and Geithner in power was the tragedy of the Obama administration. Obama and Bush were both given an opportunity to be transformational - a Churchill, a Roosevelt. Obama's problem was that he sought out the biggest asshole in America - Robert Rubin... (Note, he later recants and nominates Larry Summers - Jesse)

Greenspan has to go down in history as the worst Fed Chairman... (He has my vote - Jesse)

I look at bankers like 5 year olds - if you give a 5 year old a bowl of chocolate bars and say they can have one... As soon as you leave the room they will eat until they are sick. Bankers are no different. As soon as you say, 'You're a big boy... we trust you not to blow up the economy and send the world to the precipice...' They are so short-term focused, they will do whatever is necessary to get that bonus, and then will let the world go to hell and let it be someone else's problem. (History of the World, Part 3 - Jesse)

The whole run-up from 2003-2007 was make-believe, (Ponzi scheme, control fraud, take your pick - Jesse) based on risk not mattering. If risk doesn't matter, you mash your foot to the carpet and let the speedometer go up to 250. When the driver hits the wall he kills himself. The difference is the driver kills himself, but the bankers take everyone with them."

Jonathan Miller, Interview with Barry Ritholtz

The first decade of this century is founded on official corruption, control frauds, the madness of a people incited by the propaganda of fear and ideology, leverage, and the conscious mispricing of risk.  Everything else is commentary.

Forbes: United States Is a Plutocracy and Academic Economists Are the Vichy

Forbes?!

Interesting piece, but what was most interesting was that it is from Forbes, 'the Capitalist Tool' business magazine, and not Rolling Stone or Mother Jones.

As Bloomberg television, and Mayor Bloomberg's city administration I might add, go full bore plutocrat, Forbes is standing for genuine reform, or at least permitting it to be discussed? As Sheldon Cooper on Big Bang Theory might ask when chili and margaritas are served on pizza night, 'where are we, what is happening?'

The author, Lee Sheppard, is "a contributing editor of Tax Notes, a Washington-based weekly tax journal. Trained as a lawyer, she is a legal commentator on tax questions, and is well known for her trenchant observations. She covers all areas of tax law, including international taxation, corporate taxation, partnership taxation, bankruptcy tax questions, pensions and tax accounting questions."

Economics certainly is, as Jamie Galbraith said, a 'disgraced profession' that is largely in denial, but it has good company in politicians, accountants, big media spokesmodels, business CEOs, bankers, and regulators.

Forbes
Economists' Malign Influence on Taxes
By Lee Sheppard
May 3, 2012

If Occupy Wall Street supporters are looking for new places to protest, they might think about picketing the economics departments of the most prestigious American universities.

Not only would they find a more convivial place to camp than an ugly concrete slab in lower Manhattan, but protesting at universities would serve two purposes.

First, those who are unemployed and burdened with non-dischargeable student debt — which now exceeds U.S. consumer debt —could make a point about the inutility and expense of American higher education.

Second, and more important, protesters could confront another group of elites who are responsible for the financial meltdown and have yet to apologize: the nation’s academic economists.

Free market economic “literature” as economists call it — and their papers frequently are works of fiction — gave succor and intellectual respectability to the decades of deregulation and tax cuts that have bankrupted the country. Congress is compromised, to be sure, but lobbyists and members need economic studies as cover for what they are doing.

The United States is a plutocracy, with an income and wealth distribution that rivals South America’s worst cases, but economists refuse to acknowledge that these outcomes are attributable to ill-advised public policies on taxation, regulation, trade, and education spending over the last several decades.

Economists bleat about “globalization” as though it were inevitable rather than a set of deliberate policy choices. Markets are political creations, so results produced by them are not inviolable or free from question. And they don’t always produce equilibrium...

Read the rest at Forbes.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Pete 'n' Repeat - Fed Is the 'Vampire Squid of Squids'

A bit much perhaps, ahead of the Non-Farm Payrolls.

Let's see if those are inverse H&S bottoms forming up on the gold and silver charts, or something else.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT BY BILL MURPHY, CHAIRMAN OF THE GOLD ANTI-TRUST ACTION COMMITTEE

HEARINGS ON THE METALS MARKETS, MARCH 25, 2010


On March 23, 2010 GATA Director Adrian Douglas was contacted by a whistleblower by the name of Andrew Maguire. Mr. Maguire, formerly of Goldman Sachs, is a metals trader in London. He has been told first hand by traders working for JPMorganChase that JPMorganChase manipulates the precious metals markets and they bragged how they make money doing so.

In November 2009 he contacted the CFTC enforcement division to report this criminal activity. He described in detail the way in which JPM signals to the market its intention to take down the precious metals. Traders recognize these signals and make money shorting the metals along side JPM.

He explained how there are routine market manipulations at the time of option expiry, Non-farm payroll data releases, and Comex contract rollover as well as other adhoc events…"

Jim Grant had an interesting interview on Bloomberg television this afternoon.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Jitters In Front of the Non-Farm Payrolls