Posted on 10/17/2008 7:59:07 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
In the midst of Wall Street's agonizing slide last week, there was at least one place in Manhattan where the liquor was flowing, the cigar smoke was billowing and the theme of the evening was simple: Work hard. Play hard.
"I was a crook," says Jordan Belfort, once a Wall Street fat cat who made $1 million a week before going to jail.
"It's like fiddling. Nero fiddled while Rome burned," said Thomas Graf, vice president and producer of Northmarq Capital. "We're smoking cigars while we're losing our shirts, literally."
He was among hundreds of mid-level Wall Street executives and traders gathered for a party thrown by Cigar Report magazine, published by New York-based Doubledown Media.
And if they seemed a little tone-deaf about how this kind of event could be perceived as millions of dollars were lost, at least on paper, most did not seem especially concerned.
"It is a great time," said Adam Marsh of Empire Capital Partners. "I think for at least a couple of hours in the evening, we can kind of sit back, have a few drinks, forget what's facing us on the Street tomorrow."
Few of the men and women at the party earned millions in Wall Street bonuses on top of their salaries. But nearly all did very well, they say, at the top of the Wall Street bubble. And their bosses, along with those who managed Wall Street hedge funds, did even better.
"These guys were spending more than $250 billion a year," Robert Frank said. "They bought mansions in Greenwich and Palm Beach. They bought art for $100 million a painting."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Especially the government-assisted fat cats who operated Fanny and Freddie...nothing but government-backed hedgefunds. I’d like to throw those in jail first....along with the Dems who enabled them and benefited from them.
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE BROUGHT LOW BY THEIR OWN HANDS.
And while it certainly would not have prevented all of these excesses, an HONEST MONEY SYSTEM MIGHT have made it much harder to pull off the sorts of scams now bringing the rest of us down with them.
A phoney “money” system brings with it equally phoney systems of finance and malinvestment — and phoneys to operate them.
I keep thinking of a FReeper’s thought that Obama should come up with a tax on accumulated wealth over 10 million; NOT income, but accumlated wealth. Then, Obama’s buddies like Buffet could not escape the tax system as they do now.
I sure that Buffet, et.al. would love to contribute a few billion to the new welfare state.
Maybe Atlas is shrugging.
Maybe, just maybe, America will relearn to value those who MAKE AND DO TANGIBLE THINGS and not just shuffle phony paper from here to there.
Sarah and Joe have shown the way.
Sarah Palin spoke about this in an interview with Lars Larson yesterday. She said she’d like to see those responsible for the financial meltdown do some time.
http://www.larslarson.com/pg/jsp/charts/streamingAudioMaster.jsp;jsessionid=168243FC2C652F6841
Slouching along to Socializm with the three amigos.
The allocation of capital is a serious business, and the failure to get it right can cause catastrophe, as we have seen.
So let’s identify the root causes of why we have this problem. I have two prime suspects:
1) Easy money. Thanks Ben!
2) Moral Hazard. Fan & Fred could privatize gains and socialize losses.
Everything spun off of those two sources, with the finance guys just playing along with the tune the Government set.
So let’s get the financiers back to the free market with sound money and get the government out of the markets. Then, allow market discipline to spank those who get out of line.
It is not the fault of capitalism or capitalists to attempt to make money according to the rules set out for them. The fault is with the rule makers.
Fire Bernanke! Liquidate Fan & Fred!
I know from personal experience people who I wouldn't trust to take care of my dogs who fancied themselves wheeler-dealer masters of the markets.
The trick is to direct credit to those who need it to make and do things, and not to those who want to play financial casino games.
Here’s a “Bubble Alert!” I’ve seen twice in my lifetime now:
When the clerk at your company crows about how he’s making money flipping houses, the bubble is about to burst.
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