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Wien's World: Another Billionaire Detached From Society

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Lance Roberts via STA Wealth Management,

 

 

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Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:10 | 5956057 Herd Redirectio...
Herd Redirection Committee's picture

Anyone care to lend me a billion dollars?  I want to be a 'billionaire' too!

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:16 | 5956077 Dr. Engali
Dr. Engali's picture

I personally look forward to the day when I get my first trillion dollar Obamabill.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:18 | 5956085 ted41776
ted41776's picture

let's all hope that it's two ply and super absorbent

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:25 | 5956113 venturen
venturen's picture

you make the likeness yourself

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:31 | 5956134 813kml
813kml's picture

That's a smear job, but it would be good to see Obama supporting the arts.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 16:35 | 5956938 TahoeBilly2012
TahoeBilly2012's picture

He is connected to A society, just not ours...

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 17:20 | 5957056 AGuy
AGuy's picture

"let's all hope that it's two ply and super absorbent"

My guess is that the US treasury will go 100% digital. Printing money costs money. Ones and zeros of free. Everyone will just carry a EBT/Debt card issued by the gov't. Failure to comply with Gov't regulations/law? No problem, they just disable your card.

 

Emergency Banking act of 2021:

Immediately after his inauguration in January 2021, the President  set out to rebuild confidence in the nation’s banking system. At the time, the New Depression was crippling the US economy. Many people were withdrawing their money from banks and keeping it at home. In response, the new president called a special session of Congress the day after the inauguration and declared a four-day banking holiday that shut down the banking system.   The terms of the presidential proclamation specified that “no such banking institution or branch shall pay out, export, earmark, or permit the withdrawal or transfer in any manner or by any device whatsoever physical currency. All payment transfers will made using the new SUCC (Standard Univiversal Currency Card). All outstanding Cash must be turned to banks and will be exchanged for the new SUCC system.

Embrace the SUCC(K)!

 

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:26 | 5956117 813kml
813kml's picture

They won't even have to put a security strip on it as counterfeiting will be a waste of time.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 13:21 | 5956274 junction
junction's picture

Wien left off his list the enormous monies earned by the American drug cartel, composed of the following: the DEA, the CIA, the Presidents of Mexico and the United States, big banks like HSBC and Citibank (who launder the connected drug lords' money) and of course, the NSA, now shown to use its wiretapping powers to provide the information to get independent drug dealers arrested. 

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 14:15 | 5956495 Captain Willard
Captain Willard's picture

Byron is not a multi-billionaire. He is indeed very rich and I wish I had his apartment. His arguments may often be flawed. And he certainly spends more time hobnobbing with the rich and powerful than with average folks. 

However, the author just rehashes Hussman's arguments attempting to rebut Wien without adding anything but insults. Wien is 80 year old. Does anyone here honestly think he wouldn't try to call a crash if he saw one coming? It would be the capstone of his career. Blackstone would thank him for getting them to sell their PE investments before the debacle hit. (Of course, Blackstone has been selling like crazy for 2 years now. )

So from now on, we should all ignore anyone who has money? I suppose when the market top is in, shoeshine boys and cab drivers will tell us? John Hussman (and plenty of other bears) are pretty rich too. Are they wrong because they are short the market?

Lance's repackaged arguments plus insults do not equal cogent analysis. Hussman himself is a brilliant but modest guy who has admitted prior flaws in his analysis and tried hard to improve his models. He wouldn't stoop to the kind of crap Lance puts forth here. Hussman doesn't need to stoop to ad hominem because he lets his brilliant analysis speak for itself.

Everyone on Wall Street has an axe to grind and talks his book. It's better for people to weigh arguments on their merits rather than the personal circumstances of their proponents or opponents.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:14 | 5956059 ted41776
ted41776's picture

bad weather? headwinds? looks like some folks got swindled

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 15:29 | 5956745 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

the unsinkable, now face down and the captain's at the helm and he's waiting to drown

 

 

 

yeah right, cap'n will be watching the ship crash from the helicopter

 

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:11 | 5956064 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

The decline of American exceptionalism is due to several factors that can never be replicated.

Oligarch meme #1

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:23 | 5956097 813kml
813kml's picture

 In 1947 America accounted for half of the world’s GDP

WWIII should put US GDP % back on top.  It's for the children.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 16:58 | 5956997 localsavage
localsavage's picture

Send some of the peasants kids to get blown apart so that we can buy new gold plated toilet paper holders to go with the gold plated toilet paper holders that we already have. 

Sat, 04/04/2015 - 01:20 | 5958058 August
August's picture

WWWIII is, ultimately, pretty much a sure thing.  The USA's being on the winning side... not so much.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:13 | 5956070 centerline
centerline's picture

It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.

(something like that...).

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:13 | 5956072 KnuckleDragger-X
KnuckleDragger-X's picture

It starts with people trying to build a better life and the government is regulating that out of existence. You dumb everything down as much as possible and have bread and circus's. Then you wonder why we're going to hell as a country......

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:17 | 5956080 ted41776
ted41776's picture

WTF  are you seeing what's happening to gold today? no, it's totally not rigged!

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:24 | 5956103 venturen
venturen's picture

I guess it will be revolution, then!

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:25 | 5956110 TabakLover
TabakLover's picture

Byron Wien(er) ; Jack. Ass. Hole.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:34 | 5956143 Mike Honcho
Mike Honcho's picture

Say it a 3rd time looking into a mirror and he will haunt you with bad investing advice from a disconnected point of view.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:25 | 5956111 TabakLover
TabakLover's picture

Byron Wien(er) ; Jack. Ass. Hole.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:26 | 5956118 bnbdnb
bnbdnb's picture

All charts are just indicating the fed reserve rate * us total debt * 1000.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:37 | 5956147 Chuck Knoblauch
Chuck Knoblauch's picture

Only the magic of the 1913 FRA could yield such exceptionalism.

The power to create instant money is god-like.

Byron likes the sound of his own voice.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:43 | 5956159 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

OK I got it now...

Youre a muppet while you still have money to steal.

Once they have it all, you become a smurf.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 12:59 | 5956194 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

The exceptional idea is that the United States is exceptional based upon the exceptional value of its exceptionally QE bloated equity capital markets: exceptionally moronic.

This is also what the Ivy League inculcates members of the club to propagate to the dumb and naive. 

What we have is a moron bubble.

Not the first time it has ever happened either.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 13:32 | 5956334 WillyGroper
WillyGroper's picture

I believe this parasite was caught on video last year at an elite frat party of cross dressers making incredibly cruel jokes of all that got hosed by the banksters.

May he get scabies.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 13:54 | 5956413 Bastiat
Bastiat's picture

I know more than a few Ivy Leaguers - they are very smart but mostly in-the-box people, avid conformists in their elitism. 

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 14:23 | 5956537 Captain Willard
Captain Willard's picture

Some are on ZH too :) Folks here paint with a very broad brush.

But you're correct that many good short-sellers are outsiders, non-comformists and non-Ivy Leaguers. Some are Ivy Leaguers (like Jim Chanos). It's better to keep an open mind about everyone, as you suggest.

Sat, 04/04/2015 - 12:42 | 5958751 Basilian
Basilian's picture

The perpetrators (bankers,governement, quasi orgs)  claim ignorance while getting personally rich and people are often giving them the hall pass as if the "mistake" was innocent. What is anyones percentage individually profitting grossly on repeated mistakes of supposed ineptitude? Now who is the moron in this scenario?

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 13:41 | 5956361 PTR
PTR's picture

We're all serfs now.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 13:49 | 5956391 yogibear
yogibear's picture

It's creeps like this guy that fostered the present day robber-baron environment.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 14:51 | 5956648 Farqued Up
Farqued Up's picture

The old Robber Barons at least produced things like autos, electricity, railroads, oil and gas, farm machinery, airplanes, ad infinitum. I personally believe the present day RBs, without the government and its licensing and regulations, cannot successfully support a monopoly. Smaller more efficient competition would eat the oligarchs alive, including old RBs, once the emphasis was off brute capital and labor intensive industries. The government chose the winners, go visit Harrah's Auto Museum in Reno and look at the different autos that were on the scene before the FDR Fed depression. Now look at what we have, last year more GM cars were on recall than were sold by them. 

Today's Robber Barons, tell me again what they contribute? They are the chosen ones by government. Parasites. Same ole shit, different latrine.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 15:54 | 5956799 ersatz007
ersatz007's picture

ANY robber baron would be eaten alive in a TRUE market economy.  the problem is that even true market economies eventually get corrupted by the robber barons so they don't have to worry about the competition as much.

 

but you're right, at least the old robber barrons' companies produced actual things.  today...it's just gambling (a lot of which is done illegally) at fancy casinos where the chips are called 'derivatives', 'equities', 'mid-caps', 'futures', etc...so as to make things sound legit.  

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 14:14 | 5956486 Hohum
Hohum's picture

I suspect Mr. Wien is a typical tycoon that borrows his fortune then has others borrow enough to cover his bets.

Sat, 04/04/2015 - 10:29 | 5958494 messystateofaffairs
messystateofaffairs's picture

nah, he's just a nice jewish orphan who loves everybody, just like warren does.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 14:47 | 5956633 Jack Burton
Jack Burton's picture

It's fairly simple. The top 10% have had the greatest share of equities and assets. Capital Gains taxes have been repeatedly cut since Reagan. The Fed has for over a decade been stepping directly into markets to prevent investor losses and to greatly juice their returns. Note the current raging bull market, in the face of a terribly weak main street economy. Then the top 10% tend to be in the financial sector, which is the one with the greatest compensation gains over time. Add in repeated drops in high income earner income tax levels, plus their ability to go off shore or employ tax accountents.

The deck is clearly stacked in the 10%'s favor. Many argue that they earn it, deserve it and it is the fruits of the free market. I do not hold with that idea. The Fed alone is tilting the deck and shaking all the money into the 10%'s corner. Stop manipulating interest rates and the stock markets.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 14:56 | 5956667 Basilian
Basilian's picture

No doubt a good article but exactly how would you ever skip the ultimate factor of the USA becoming the "RESERVE CURRENCY" and its unfair advantage? A game of monopoly where we control the bank and have first take on all new money that we print at will---"an exhorbitant privilege" as De Gaulle called it. If you do not know how this works then you cannot hope to understand the rest. We created a finanical empire where the  empire citizens were made poor -- and the USA political powers killed our reserve currency unfair advabtaged position which is treason of its highest form.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 15:13 | 5956708 gcjohns1971
gcjohns1971's picture

"The decline of American exceptionalism is due to several factors that can never be replicated. Following World War II, there was little left of Europe and Japan in terms of manufacturing and industrial capacity. The U.S. was the beneficiary to a world ravaged by the war that needed rebuilding."

 

The exceptional US economy was not in 1947, as this article suggests, but in 1847 through the Great Depression, despite having a Civil War during that time.   During the period from 1870 through the 1920's compound growth in the economy was in the order of 7%...and the reason why is clear and replicable. 

- There was little government skimming.

- There was no income tax or income withholding to facilitate government skimming

- There was no Central Bank systematically stealing from producers and transfering that wealth to borrowers and bankers

- There was no 'legal tender' only a quantity of element 79 otherwise known as 'Dollar'.

 

The difference between then and now is ENTIRELY due to misplaced confidence in 'EXPERTS' to rule society through a government bureaucracy.

Fri, 04/03/2015 - 19:00 | 5957415 q99x2
q99x2's picture

Arrest Byron. Redistribute his stolen wealth.

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