You're now on the archive server. Commenting has been disabled.
Janet Tavakoli Questions Where The Drama Pundits Were When It Mattered
»
- 3887 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
Contact Information:
Tips: tips [ at ] zerohedge.com
General: info [ at ] zerohedge.com
Legal: legal [ at ] zerohedge.com
Advertising: ads [ at ] zerohedge.com
Abuse/Complaints: abuse [ at ] zerohedge.com
Suggested Reading:
Make sure to read our "How To [Read/Tip Off] Zero Hedge Without Attracting The Interest Of [Human Resources/The Treasury/Black Helicopters]" Guide
It would be very wise of you to study our disclaimer, our privacy policy and our (non)policy on conflicts / full disclosure. Here's our Cookie Policy.
You Might Also Enjoy Reading:
- Janet Tavakoli On The Causes Of The Global Financial Meltdown
- Guest Post: Goldman Sachs - Reasonable Doubt
- Guest Post: I Apologize to David Viniar and Goldman’s Lawyers and Call for More Regulation of Goldman Sachs
- The Cannibalization At The Top Escalates: Sokol's (Re)Response To The Ukulele Master
- Janet Tavakoli Rips Into Charlie Gasparino
- Things About To Turn Violent Again - Greece May Mobilize Police Against Striking Students And Teachers
- Rioting Breaks Out In Egypt
- Janet Tavakoli Explains How Banks Converted US Housing Into "Fraud As A Business Model"
- Janet Tavakoli On Why Meltdown Risk Now Is Greater Than It Was In 2007
- Guest Post: Goldman's Lies Of Omission
Cat fight.
"MARK IT ZERO, DUDE"
Of course she's more accurate in forecasting than the other guys. She's a freakin time traveler....
She is one of the best.
in what? self-promotion?
nah, it's a little deeper than a cat fight. she raises some very real and interesting points, primarily the lack of depth found within msm; i think this can be attributed to the adhd society and sound bite methodology which is being fed to most people. hard questions often times lead to hard answers which require a lot of work, why would i give to you what took me a significant amount of effort to extract?
i really believe the best course of action sometimes is to close out all the trades, hedge all the positions, turn off the tv and spend some of that cash you generate. I can't tell you how many dinners i've been to that have been interrupted by emails, blackberrys, 'urgent messages' etc.. I can tell you the number of dinners that haven't though, and yet somehow through it all the world still managed to keep spinning.
Hey Rockfish, thats some funny shit.
Who cares what M. Whitney has to say she is a pub hound.
Janet,
What a pleasure to read a post from you here. Your new book arrived in my mail this past week, and after reading this tidbit distinguishing between models and malfeasance for causality weightings, I look forward to reading your new book even more.
Oh, and by the way, you are quoted on pages 265 and 268 of my book on the financial crisis (Feb 09)
Cheers fellow Chicagoan, we should do lunch sometime.
JB
I could read the piece here, but for whatever reason, i keep getting an error when i try to go to Scribd to read it. No big deal, just thought you might want to know.
What is the [IT] she's talking about ??????
DO NOT talk about IT
I imagine one day this story will be told, and I, for one, will wait in line at the book signing.
Janet Tavakoli for Chair of the Federal Reserve before Ron Pauls forensic audit of the Fed.
R. Christopher Whalen for Secretary of the Treasury so we can bankrupt most of the banks east of the Hudson
Tyler Durden for Chairman of the SEC.
When the American taxpayer finally wakes up and demand their "Pecola Commission" Janet would be a great pick to lead it.
I agree with her about Taleb. His books SUCK! I would not recommend them to anyone.
Isn't Meredith's husband a WWF wrestler? They know all about presentation over substance
Whitney's dividend call was a no-brainier. You just had to look at the dividend swaps market, it was already fully priced in before her call.
How about some real credit for truly documented early warnings:
Bear Stearns in a fight for its life - January 2008: http://boombustblog.com/20080127142/Is-this-the-Breaking-of-the-Bear.html
Commercial real estate will blow up and the nation's 2nd biggest CRE owner is underwater - From September 2007 to November 2008, that CRE owner filed bankruptcy a few months ago: http://boombustblog.com/index.php/20080615425/GGP-and-the-type-of-invest...
Warning on goldman's trading risk and valuation, July 2008: http://boombustblog.com/index.php/20080705449/Goldman-Sachs-Snapshot-Ris...
Warning on Morgan Stanley Risk: February 2008 - http://boombustblog.com/content/view/164/34/
Warning that MBIA was insolvent and the monoline business model was a sham, November 2007: http://boombustblog.com/2007111333/A-Super-Scary-Halloween-Tale-of-104-B...
the same with AMBAC, the same month; http://boombustblog.com/2007112937/Ambac-is-Effectively-Insolvent-amp-Wi...
VooDoo off balance sheet accounting in the homebuilders, November 2007 (they consequently changed how they report off balance sheet debt): http://boombustblog.com/2007112041/Voodoo-Zombies-Lennar%92s-Off-Balance...
Countrywide is bad, but WaMu may go bust too, September 2007: http://boombustblog.com/20070908106/Yeah-Countrywide-is-pretty-bad-but-i...
These 32 regional banks are in the Doo Doo (before anyone mentioned regional bank collapses - notice how many are no longer around), May 2008: http://boombustblog.com/component/option,com_myblog/show,As-I-see-it-32-...
Helocs will break the banks, may 2008: http://boombustblog.com/20080527391/A-little-more-on-HELOCs-2nd-liens-an...
The muni bond market will be in crisis, May 2008: http://boombustblog.com/20080524392/The-Municipal-Bond-Market-and-the-As...
I can go on, but I assume that I may have gotten my point across. May I suggest that ZeroHedge carry some of my content, for it is again becoming quite contrarian since the market has taken off and everyone seems to be a born again bull(shitter).
Cordially,
Reggie Middleton
PS
I would gladly stand up and discuss my successes and failures. Due to what I percieve as market manipulation, this has beed a horrible year for those that follow fundamentals. Facts are facts, though, and I am following a slew of zombie companies and management that spend more time manipulating their numbers than they do growing their company.
Ms. Tavakoli...I wonder what the point of your missive is, other than to let off a little steam and frustration. While everything you say might well be, and probably is, correct, you must be aware that it doesn't matter a lick. Perceptions and first impressions are most often set in cement; they rarely change. In addition, mediocrity on WS and in the financial analyst community is not only NOT a barrier to success, it might well be a pre-requisite. Witness the fact that Dick Bove can still get a talking head spot on TV. (As an aside, the analysts I found most useful during my trading career were the ones who were most consistently wrong; ironically, there were all the most famous and most highly paid.)
Whatever Meredith Whitney got wrong, she did get a few things right, and she was largely responsible for the beginning thrust of this most recent rally. Nobody ever said the markets were rational...well, quite a number of Nobel Prize winners in economics did, but that's another story.
Finally, you are a bear, at least at this time. Nobody likes a bear. Folks hate bears when they say the end is near, and hate them more---even blame them---when the end comes.
Perma bulls, on the other hand, are almost universally loved, ESPECIALLY when they are wrong. They get the sympathy factor, and are salved with such comments as, "Well, nobody could have seen this coming".
Though this should not matter, you are an attractive woman, and that carries a certain door-opening quality. Become a permabull, and no matter how wrong you are, your business will soar. You'll be on TV as often as you want, and your phone will never stop ringing. Nobody will blame you no matter how badly your advice hurts them.
You're left with a business decision or a character decision. Be successful, or stick to your guns and feel better about yourself. I think I know what path you will choose. Given that, however, you would save yourself a lot of bile if you just let this other stuff go.
Anony 19103,
Your post exemplifies the attitude that brought us here, and the attitude that I am sure prevails on Wall Street and in DC: go along, get along, lie to people (or even worse, change what you believe to suit your business), make money, truth be damned, blow another bubble. Either that, or is it tongue-in-cheek? I suspect it's the former.
BTW, my own concerns about reality got me out of stocks in Oct/Nov 2007 and saved me quite a bit of jack, like about 40% of my net worth.
One thing I've not been able to quantify / date: at what point did our "capital markets" in fact stop being capital markets? The crap shoot / house rules nature is obvious now for all to see, especially given the light being shined on them (the markets). But how long have they been mostly corrupt casinos? I am sure that different people would give different answers. I am equally sure that the current markets are not at all capital markets in the traditional sense, and that is the thing we must fix. How else can we conduct actual business and create wealth?
I'm the Anon in question. I believe my view is quite clear. It is an admission that there is no reward for being negative and right, and no cost for being positive and wrong (for talking heads, not actual investors). I do not like that fact, but unlike Ms. Tavakoli, I try not to let it bother me (though it occasionally does). Being a natural born skeptic has served me quite well, especially ober the last two years.
As I also believe I made clear, I doubt Ms. Tavakoli would sell out her convictions for profit. She would have more luck trying to convert fanatics into apostates, however, than trying to win any fans with the above writings. Being confronted with facts tends to make people indignant.
Well said. The "lie to me if it makes me rich" mentality has a lot to do with why we are in this financial crisis. Sadly, few seem to have learned from the mistakes of the recent past, and in fact many are being rewarded.
"...no reward for being negative and right, and no cost for being positive and wrong (for talking heads, not actual investors). I do not like that fact, but unlike Ms. Tavakoli, I try not to let it bother me (though it occasionally does)."
This is a symptom of a problem that I view as larger, systemic and cultural. We have spent our entire adult lives living in a giant credit bubble, blown continuously / repeatedly, with a few intervening hiccups, in a vain effort to maintain the empire. I trace the roots of the sentiment you express above directly to the fact that we have not been living in fiscal reality for an entire generation, and by that I mean 40+ years. The government demonstrated its willingness to turn its back on fiscal reality in order to finance the Vietnam war. Our view as humans of reality has been skewed by constant easy money. The notion of the Fed riding to the rescue with easy money is firmly embedded in the American psyche: "Don't bet against the Fed."
Any examination of American culture reveals this; we have completely surrendered our cultural senses to materialism and self-indulgence. We completely neglect to think about the future.
Only in such a fundamentally phony environment can there be "...no reward for being negative and right, and no cost for being positive and wrong". It is time, no it is past time, for pundits who advocate reality.
Janet Tavakoli does not seem "bothered," and she is certainly not wasting
her time with her piece. She is performing a service for those who care to
know who among the "experts" are confirmed bullshitters. Thank you Ms. Tavakoli.