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Farewell RateLab

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/04/2010 23:49 -0400

Harley Bassman of Merrill's RateLab bids a fond farewell as he goes on an indefinite hiatus. All the best Harley.

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Tue, 01/05/2010 - 00:20 | 182674 Anonymous

Back in management classes,we learned that not all mergers work for the best. And here we are. I always argue that certain business models don't make good investment for stocks. Take for example,GS. It is a public corporation that benefits only partners,and I don't know why anybody invest in it. The only legitimate idea behind buying a compay's stock,is the possibility of a buy out. Without that possibility,there is absolutely no reason that anybody would bid a certain stock.So are almost all IBs. And if they realy didn't perform well when thay were independet,how can one expect them to perform well when they are part of a completely different culture?. So expect the marriage to last untill the buying banx run out of deposits to use in risk assets,and then the divorce would come in handy...

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 00:23 | 182675 Anonymous

Ayn Rand never advocated "removing all the rules". Rules to prevent fraud and to protect investors fall within the realm of the criminal justice system, whose existence is a prerequisite for any true Objectivist model.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 00:40 | 182693 Anonymous

Hello,

I would simply like to state that I am sick and tired of all the Ayn Rand bashing. The Gold and Economic Freedom essay that Greenspan wrote is consistent with her libertarian ideals. I don't believe she advocated for crony capitalism, with government picking the winners and losers. I don't believe she would be an advocate for bailouts for failed corporations. I doubt she would be an advocate for printing fiat currency out of thin air to purchase toxic Fannie and Freddie waste. Financial institutions that gorged themselves on derivatives knew that they would not personally pay the price. Perhaps unregulated CDS markets would have worked if the fear of losses existed.

We are seeing a coordinated effort to try to discredit her ideas by people who either have not read them or are threatened by them.

Thanks.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 08:20 | 182843 Anonymous

amen

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 09:24 | 182858 MortimerDuke

I couldn't have said it better myself. Right on. I would only add that I frankly have no desire to write rules and regulations that benefit the "public good." I don't even know what that ambiguous phrase means. And neither does RateLab.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 12:00 | 183003 Anonymous

Let's make a deal: We, the socialists, will quit bashing Ayn Rand if everyone stops cherrypicking her philosophy for the parts they like and ignoring the rest.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 13:54 | 183146 faustian bargain

what is "the rest"?

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 00:53 | 182699 Cursive

1 Part Chaos Theory + 1 Part Human Nature = This will end badly. I wish I could share Mr. Bassman's relative optimism.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 00:59 | 182704 mberry8870

In almost every part of Rand's writings the word rational is used. One's self interest is rational just as it irrational to infringe on someone else's rights, irrespective of the time line.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 01:16 | 182718 Anonymous

Or perhaps the Maestro just really thought of himself as Francisco D'Anconia....

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 01:55 | 182741 Reductio ad Absurdum

real freedom is the ability to act on your own within the confines of the rules

*head explodes*

(so... he's saying slavery is freedom?)

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 09:29 | 182862 MortimerDuke

Actually rules have nothing to do with freedom. The more proper way to phrase this would be "real freedom is the authority or right (legal or natural) to act as you see fit provided you do not violate the rights of others." Clearly, some laws and regulations are a violation of the notion of natural rights.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 01:59 | 182742 faustian bargain

I want the 5 minutes back that I spent reading that pile of half-baked concepts.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 06:04 | 182824 Mark Beck

I was thinking the same thing. All that experience and this is all you have to say, that Ben is likely to keep rates low longer than shorter. Most disturbing is the impression that he conveys about business-as-usual as our normal future progression, without any threats to the currency, and no mention of uncontrolled fiscal spending. Also, the statement about China was interesting because it depends a lot on our trade deficit, which in October (revised) was decreasing substantially. So we get it, the money managers follow the herd.

Disappointing.

Mark Beck

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 03:53 | 182786 Anonymous

A rather confused comment. Borrowing heavily *is* rational in a climate of negative real interest rates. Ideally one would like to see regulations and interest rates such that individuals' interests lined up with that of society as a whole.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 13:56 | 183148 faustian bargain

the inherent problem with that is in defining "society's interests as a whole".

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 10:09 | 182805 Cognitive Dissonance

I thought Bernanke called the top with all the self serving rehtoric contained in his Sunday speech. I was wrong. I agree that people will "rationally" follow the path of what's-in-it-for-me, something I've expressed often on ZH.

But then he tells us about "Greenspan’s error in judgment" which in my view is self serving as well as incorrect. But explaining Greenspan's actions as "errors" he can then rationalize his actions of grabbing for the sandwich left unattended on the table.

Call a spade a spade sir. Greenspan, whether in error or otherwise, afforded you and many others to act with pure greed and not in the interest of the greater good. It's then doubly rationalized by saying everyone else does this so it's OK for me to do it. Explain your greed as it is, greed. I'm not making a moral judgement about greed as much as I'm talking about your explaination for your greed.

I could go on but you get my point.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 05:01 | 182813 Anonymous

umm...

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

...productive achievement as his noblest activity? Sounds like a socialist agenda to me.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 09:26 | 182860 Anonymous

...productive achievement as his noblest activity? Sounds like a socialist agenda to me.

Are you bleepin kidding me? Put your helmet back on and get back on the short bus where you belong.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 05:05 | 182814 Anonymous

And as far as reality existing independent of consciousness, I would suggest a review of quantum physics.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 14:03 | 183154 faustian bargain

quantum physics speaks to behaviors at the extremes of size and speed, and has little to do with the everyday reality we walk around in. The theory of relativity modifies Newton's laws in a vanishingly small way when applied to human-scale perception.

Anyway - the study of quantum physics exists whether you or I know anything about it or not.

Or does it. Hmmm.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 08:44 | 182847 Anonymous

The problem with Ayn Rand's philosophy is that most in the financial world fall under the category of "moochers". All services provided by these "experts" yields little extra gain to those who use their services as money is skimmed from the principle. Sad to think that most of the people that quote her works are the very people she despises and warns against.

It is a little like "How to Stop worrying and Start living life" by Dale Carnegie. His book is pushed to thousands of financial products salesmen throughout the US every year, but if you read the original, uncut version he has an interesting chapter on Life Insurance Salesmen. But we pervert that to sell some more books.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 16:29 | 183286 Marley

Thanks for saving me the keystrokes. I was going to use the relationship of the "moochers" category as people standing side by side with their hands in each others pockets, but what the hay.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 09:40 | 182870 jm

Thanks for the work and insight, Harley. Hope your new year is prosperous.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 09:44 | 182874 Anonymous

real freedom is the ability to act on your own within the confines of the rules

Yes. Rules. Like the US Constitution. Saying thats a bad set of rules?

Libertarianism, like any ism, can be taken too far. That said, I'm not sure that any political philosophy could get around the multi chain canine cluster fuck that was the US mortgage market.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 14:05 | 183155 faustian bargain

Show me one instance where libertarianism has been taken too far. In fact, none such exist.

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 10:02 | 182884 lookma

Epic fail of superhuman proportions. Is he gonna go work for the FED writing speeches?

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 16:00 | 183254 Anonymous

We know that Greenspan was a close associate of Rand and had strong laissez-faire opinions about monetary policy consistent with Rand's radical capitalist individualism.

What we've all at least tacitly assumed is that Greenspan broke away from that and "sold out" to the system he'd previously excoriated in order to get ahead, ultimately parlaying that into a Fed chairmanship.

Why do we make that assumption? One of Rand's major fictional heroes in Atlas Shrugged worked as an "inside man" to accelerate the destruction of the system he hated and cause it's sudden collapse. Could Greenspan's actions as Fed Chairman have been any better calculated to have undermined the entire mixed-economy pseudo-welfare-state of the United States if they'd been intentional rather than the product of incompetence?

Without the credit system on which it feeds, the socialist democracy so hated by the Randians is absolutely unsustainable. Just look at what's happening in local, state, and national governments now that the credit markets have gone into cardiac arrest following the contraction of Greenspan's bubbles.

Maybe the Greenspan Put should really be called Rand's Revenge.

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Farewell RateLab

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