Nassim Taleb takes a Bloomberg interview on Occupy Wall Street into a discussion of mark to fantasy vs mark to market, and how the only thing bank earnings are good for is discovering bankster compensation and bonuses. Taleb believes Occupy Wall Street risks devolving into a Marxist mob unless the group focuses its anger on bankster compensation.
Bloomberg Host: What comes to mind when you hear me talking about earnings and revenue (for banks)
Taleb: You’re wasting your time, everybody’s time, talking about bank earnings. They’re not a hedge fund, they don’t mark to market, you don’t know what’s there. They don’t mark their loans. European banks…Greece..it’s irrelevant. The only information you get from bank earnings is compensation. The only valuable information you can get from it is how much they pay themselves!
If we bail you out, you should not be paid a bonus! Without us, Goldman Sachs would not be in existence! Without our loan to AIG (the taxpayers loan to AIG) they would not exist. So they are on artificial life support.
There was a time when Nassim Taleb media appearances were a daily thing. Then he decided to take a sabbatical from the public’s eye, and literally fell off the face of the planet. And while over the past year or so, he has gradually resurfaced, his extended discussions on various topics are still almost as rare as a double digit move in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Tonight he broke his vow of silence, and joined Bloomberg TV’s in discussing the “Occupy Wall Street” protest, which he expects to devolve into class warfare, as well as his view of the global banking system. And an interesting tangential discussion to develop is his observation of applying the principles of the “Hammurabi’s Code” to the banking system.
Still missed the target!
When will people stop whacking away at the branches and go for the roots?
No, it’s not the “rich,” it’s WHAT THEY DO AND WHAT THEY REPRESENT that is the problem!
Who was it, GW Bush?, who is now going around saying that we need people to work up plans to give us 4% growth or something. WTF? We DON’T have the resources to do that, not now, not ever (again)!
The “rich” are junkies (the rest are just casual users who would love to be able to afford a full blown habit) of the drug GROWTH, even though it will KILL them!
Setting your consumption based on totally unsustainable activities is the road over the cliff. Anyone what can’t get this simple idea ought to be recipients of the Darwin Award.
Yes there’s corruption, always has been, always will/would be, but the reason why it’s gone so terribly bad is because the music has stopped. WE ALL PARTICIPATED in the game of “let’s pretend we can grow indefinitely!” And now since we’re finding that our little fixes aren’t there we’re hollering at those that are still drugging it up!
The “rich” have no problem giving us a different set of laws and in executing us. What is it that religions ask of people? Convert else you’ll go to hell? Well, they best start showing some sense of conversion otherwise it’s a sure thing that they’ll be seeing hell. History tells us that mass de/re-programming is a bitch. Not saying that I’m FOR it, just saying that it’s just the return side of “what goes up.”