Hey, I am the "Quotation of the Day" for July 24, 2008
"The collection of ne’er do wells, clueless dolts, political hacks, and oh, let’s just be blunt and call them what they are — total Idiots — expands into an ever larger circle.
"While the Republic burns due to the unsavory combination of incompetence, ideological rigidity, and crony capitalism, the fools and assclowns seem ever more determined to avoid any personal responsibility for the damages they have wrought. Instead, they flail about blindly, blaming everything and everyone — except their own horrific negligence.
"This is financial incompetence writ on a scale far grander than anything seen for centuries."
– Barry Ritholtz, money manager, on the current market calamity.
http://www.citywire.co.uk/adviser/-/blogs/business-development/content.aspx?ID=308546
Cool!
Bravo, Barry….next they will be quoting Grant on Outrage….
there is going to be BullsEye on your back….
I presume you are alluding to Congress.
Classic stuff! I don’t recall seeing that one elsewhere – well worthy of a self-quote.
And dont forget to top it all off with a dollop of family values!
I finally understand why I like you, as much as I can like a person vis a vis a blog:
You have good information to convey, and you use words like “ass-clown” to convey it.
Bravo! I would sign up for your service if I could afford it :). Maybe in a year or so.
bravissimo!
The observation is true enough.
The more complicated question, however, is what legislation might there have been which could have ACTUALLY BEEN APPROVED by both Congress and the Administration and which would have prevented all this?
Easy to come up with solutions in retrospect. But I’m not sure that Congress would have gone along with any of them during the 2002-2005 bubble period.
Bravo!
Is ‘assclowns’ really a noun? Great! Never heard it before, but I’ll use it regularly now. Super descriptive word.
Is ‘assclowns’ really a noun? Great! Never heard it before, but I’ll use it regularly now. Super descriptive word.
> “This is financial incompetence writ on a scale far grander than anything seen for centuries.”
Don’t hold back, say what’s on your mind.
:)
That was pretty smoking. Mish had a pretty smokin piece (yesterday?) on delusions of market solvency, but your quote was much more to the point.
Bravo!!!
The truly bad part is that there is no easy way out of the mess we’re in.
Where have all the great leaders gone?
All we have now are selfish, self serving political hacks that can’t see five minutes into the future – so sad.
Jim
Cordova, Tn.
In the words of the famous philosopher, Hulk Hogan, “Preach it, brother!”
They didn’t even get to the best part.
Ideological Idiocy.
Hmmm, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry that in 30 years from now when they write about this time in the history books, there will be quotes like this written about our times. And directly opposite this will be Paulson “We believe in a strong dollar policy”
Laugh or cry, maybe a combo of both.
You deserve it, no doubt about it.
Let’s not forget that said assclowns have been abetted by a media that have lost any remnant of moral fiber and obedience to the facts, to become abject servants of the dominant ideology and their own cataclysmic laziness.
Remember the famous encouragement given to Harry Truman: “Give’em Hell (Barry)!”
And quoted by Brits! It’s not often they deem us so worthy…
Great quote…now let’s do something about it. Host a live issues roundtable on your blog…you mediate…with anti-clueless dolts such as Volcker, Roubini, Bogle, Shiller, maybe Bill Seidman…other nominees? Otherwise we may as well give up. No way our politicians can get us out of this on their own. When the roundtable is done, call Kudlow and go on his show to promote it. Even get his buy in on some points if possible. C’mon Barry…you can pull it off. Whatever you want me to do, you have my email.
Give em hell Barry!
Hey name some names.
Point the finger.
Say, GEORGE BUSH!
Nice work, Barry, but I hope this isn’t a sign that you’ve “jumped the shark”.
I’m afraid I have to exclude Paulson from this. He’s been Treasury Sec for a year and inherited a disaster. I tremble to think what would have happened had Snow still been there. Whatever any of the hyper ventilators say(and you don’t really disagree do you Barry?) he and Ben had to rescue Bear and F/F. Because the banks have pulled back, F/F are currently buying some 90% of the reduced amount of mortgages being originated and hold or guarantee the famous $5trillions worth. Anyone who thinks they should be allowed to fail in order to satisfy the abstract virtue of moral hazard basically doesn’t have any idea of what their talking about. By all means make your point BR that there has been a lot of incompetence and chicanery but don’t get disconnected from the reality which first attracted me to this blog. Paulson is doing a pretty good job. Him and Gates are the only competent people in this administration.
That’s a pretty deep link to tout and it’s just another blog?
My 401K’s are all back in the market and still buying going forward. Too many great opportunities to pass up.
It would be nice if 401K’s allowed the owners to buy and sell on their own.
That was an excellent rant and most worthy of being quoted! Too bad it isn’t being quoted in the U.S by our main stream media. But then maybe that’s why you haven’t been on Kudlow recently.
Barry I respectfully disagree.
Out current situation is most definitely *not* the results of incompetence or idiocy. We are observing the consequences of explicit policy choices based on the concepts that (1) markets can regulate themselves and (2) regulation is bad. The result is perfectly predictable: Markets Gone Meshugena.
It is wrong to use labels such as clueless, idiot, and incompetence to describe Bush & Co. It diminishes the fact that they made conscious policy choices based on specious and simple-minded concepts. Using terms like idiocy diminishes their complicity in leading to the current dire situation.
It’s pathetic to watch people such as Paulson, Cox, and Bernanke hop around like cats on a hot tin roof. We all know their policy choices set the house afire yet it’s tempting to laugh at their frantic antics and discomfort.
But face it, the joke’s on us. What makes us think that the folks who set the house afire can actually extinguish that fire?
WTF beat me to it.
Much like the “incompetence” surrounding the war, this is designed. Is it in control? No. But surely designed.
Designed to make enough breathing room to bailout criminals. Was this weeks early financial run up engineered? Jokes about bears and popes ensue…
The joke is on us. Pitchforks or crickets?
We know they’ll be listening…
Congrats on the recognition and for hosting. The need for forums in the economic space may even be more important than the political.
CNBC 6-24. Paraphrase:
‘The only way to get out of their overleveraged position is to borrow more money.’
WHAT??? Anybody else catch it??
I wish I had a tape of it! One of the reporters speaking about the overleveraged investment firms and the ability to internaly borrow. I wasn’t really watching, just had it on in the background and was getting a cup of coffee.
CNBC 6-24. Paraphrase:
‘The only way to get out of their overleveraged position is to borrow more money.’
WHAT??? Anybody else catch it??
I wish I had a tape of it! One of the reporters speaking about the overleveraged investment firms and the ability to internaly borrow. I wasn’t really watching, just had it on in the background and was getting a cup of coffee.
Barry,
Nailed it. But we are not talking Paulson and other Bush cronies here, we are also talking about lenders and money managers whom should know better. What happened to fiduciary duty?
Sure easy to blame Main Street and subprime borrowers. But if the lender says you qualify based on their underwriting…it is the lender, not the small business or grunt would be home buyer, is whom takes on what is supposed to be reasonably calculated risk. But greed trumped reason. Therefore crappy loan were made that no one really understood the implications and turned into complicated debt instruments and leveraged up in ways no one really understood could be very very bad.
Turns out the money guys forgot that assets can depreciate and deflation is the culprit and leveraging requires an idealized and stable credit market.
So pass all the worthless legislation you want. The banks are going to own a lot of worth less assets and therefore in truth holding a lot of worthless paper.
And responsible folks are getting to be taken down by the gravity of the situation while the big boys get to parachute to earth intact.
In the end we get corporate socialism as a reward for bad behavior. Not to worry Titans of Capitalism, you still have your vacation house and plenty of cash to sit on. What a country!
Great quote!
It’s so much more interesting to read than “We’re now forecasting slow growth for the second half of oh eight, with the economy and the markets improving by mid 2009 as the housing market returns to normal” – that kind of thing.
John, about Paulson, if he wants to socialize the housing market, fine, just take F/F over and be done with it. I can’t figure out what is good about taxpayers guaranteeing debt, promising equity infusions when needed, while the stock is still being traded (manipulated?). My feeble mind can’t see any limits to the potential corruption/abuse in such a situation.
Great quote!
It’s so much more interesting to read than “We’re now forecasting slow growth for the second half of oh eight, with the economy and the markets improving by mid 2009 as the housing market returns to normal” – that kind of thing.
John, about Paulson, if he wants to socialize the housing market, fine, just take F/F over and be done with it. I can’t figure out what is good about taxpayers guaranteeing debt, promising equity infusions when needed, while the stock is still being traded (manipulated?). My feeble mind can’t see any limits to the potential corruption/abuse in such a situation.
We have a ‘move to where the food is’ culture. They are all looking after their short term interests. Nothing more. The unevitable result will arrive shortly. Have a nice day!
Jasper:
I personally like you would have favored an outright nationalization of F/F but the main reason that hasn’t happened was an administration decision because it would have meant they would have had to show their debt obligations in the Federal budget which would have added the famous $5trillion to the debt ceiling. I’m sure there were conservative philosophical objections too. So Paulson has come up with this scissor and paste solution which keeps them technically private but makes explicit rather than implicit the Govt guarantee of their debt. He’s having to make the equity option available because I just don’t see private equity investment. Bismark, sausages and laws? My point, it’s no good shooting the pianist for doing what has to done.
Please name some names about who the really bad actors are in government and in the corporate arena, BR. It makes it far more damning when a respected guy like yourself, without a political axe to grind, gets very specific and brings it into stark relief. Painting with a broad brush is a good start.
I have never, ever, in my life seen a period where so many “leaders” (government or business) were so totally incompetent.