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Nassim Taleb On #OccupyWallStreet And His Updated Views On The Global Banking System
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.
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And according to the Constitution of the United States the people run the government (including the WH)
So again, I digress....why aren't people occupying DC? Why can't anyone answer this question?
Because there's two kinds of people in DC - those getting a paycheck from the machine, and those getting food stamps from the machine. Neither one is going to protest against the machine.
Kudos for the realest comment on this thread.
Bob, WS runs the WH, what more do you want?
I don't disagree with you that people should protest the WH, the Congress, etc, but WS, and pointedly, the Houses of Banking, is/are the crux of the problem.
I don't want anything else. You're weak minded.
If we lived in an imaginary world where WS was killed by "whatever group" where do you think we would be? 1% unemployment rate? No wars in the world? Perfect income equality? No debt? Peace and love around the world?
And, based on the ratings that you're getting, it appears that it's dangerous for you to open up your mouth. Not looking like your protein and electrolyte levels are in balance...
I think the socialism for the banks and capitalism for the poor is the point. OWS will never get the means by which they have been fucked in the microcosmic sense, but the labor vs capital battle royale is just heating up my friend. Stay thirsty, lol
The irony is that you don't understand what the OWS movement is all about. You're biting on the MSM image that's being portrayed. This is a deliberate attempt to create the feelings you've just expressed. The true movement is a non-partisan, populist protest against the uninhibited rape to which the American taxpayer has been subjected. Don't buy into the MSM attempt to help TPTB keep us divided.
My comment was non-partisan. It had no political leaning, it was a mere philosophical observation on the difference between capitalism and socialism as it pertains to current events.
BTW nothing I said was invalid.
In a capitalistic society the banks would have gone bankrupt. In a socialistic society the government picked which banks lived and which ones died and picked up the liabilites for the ones it felt were TBTF. Is that true or false?
That's true, and I believe the bank bailouts are one of the things the OWS movement is protesting.
So they want capitalsim?
Or do they want "selective socialsim"?
These guys can help you understand. Ratigan gets it.
http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=196146
I'm not gona' lie. I stopped when I heard Dylan say "is this an issue of fairness"
I already know where the rest of the clip is going. There is an income inequality. Ok I get it. But where did this income inequality come from? Was it Wall Street? I could go on an extended and meaningful diatribe but I just don't have the energy.
The fact is, is that the bloated government machine has been picking winners and losers for far too long. You can blame it on the k street...or can you? Our elected officals sell us out each and every day but we are going to sit here and blame it on the rich. How about we blame it on the people taking the bribes? I mean shit, how many people in appointed/elected positions have failed to pay taxes? I can start with our chief tax collector...Tim Geithner....I could go on, and on, as the list is long and distinguished but again, I just don't want to as I've done it too many times to even care anymore.
The problem is in Washington, that's all I'm saying and until we look at ourselves in the mirror and realize we elect the people we choose to represent us there will never be any change "we can believe in"
Awww fuck. And they said he was gonna 'bring the change' - Could somebody spare me somes?
T
"In a capitalistic society the banks would have gone bankrupt. In a socialistic society the government picked which banks lived and which ones died and picked up the liabilites for the ones it felt were TBTF. Is that true or false?"
And in a fascist one?
The OWSers are statist anarchists. That would also be a definition of insanity.
your mother is a statist anarchist...
Your mother wears Symbionese Liberation Army boots.
How can you get down arrows for this? It's hilarious!
Just goes to show how fucking ignorant people are of anarchism. Just still playing the same two-step shit, capitalism and socialism being the only possible ways forward, yet neither, if you ask either side, "have really existed in 'PURE' form, haven't been given a chance."
If it weren't all so painful it would be funny...
You should encapsulate the OWS into a label and then shove it up your ass becasue I'm thinking it's a supository.
OWS isn't one specific thing. There are union folks, people recently unemployed, anti-FED pro-Ron Paul types, Middle class and poor people. This rampant fear of Marxism on this site tells me many folks on it are in their 50's and 60's and know very little about OWS. I actually went by my city's OWS as I needed to go to that part of down town and I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the signs were spot on eg many End the FED and campaign finance corruption. Yes, I saw the Marxists and Anarchist types but they show up to EVERYTHING that is even slightly anti-establishment. Just because those tools are there doesn't mean anything other than they are still desperately trying to glom onto any and every movement they see to hijack it for their own ends. They are idiots and most intelligent people see through their tripe right away.
I respect the fact that the protesters haven't been damaging private property. During the G-20 in Pittsburgh a bunch of stores were rocked including mom and pop type outfits. In one case frightened employees hide under tables during the assault. The violence was not caused by any agent provocateurs, most of the damage was done by a twenty something male from California who didn't look like a dirtbag but who obviously was one in spirit.
Do what you gotta do but keep enough perspective that innocent bystanders don't get hurt or property destroyed.
Carry on.
this time i think the 'mom and pop types' will be joining them.
Ah, so damage to physical property deligitimizes efforts/movements? Anyone care to explain that one to the US govt? (busy spreading democracy by way of bombing folks into submission)
I think that if people were to quit focusing on it it would tend to diminish on its own. That is, with the exception of violence perpetuated by Agents Provocateurs (which would likely increase).
Yes and it's stupid, too. You can't help the little guy by destroying the infrastructure on which we all depend. Smashing windows and burning buildings makes less resources available, not more.
Ease up. Study history. When the gov f*cks the people, which they did bailing out terrible, crappy (and greedy) business models (banks) that should have been wiped from the Earth (like Lehman). The people get angry, very angry - nothing to do with socialism.
It would not have been the end of the world if we had a decent meltdown in 2008, it would have sent a nice warning to newer banks/investment/mortgage entities to get their sh*t together. Hedge Funds implode once a week with out a bailout, they just disappear, traders (self funded or otherwise) make a mistake lose a sh*t load and never return. That's the pain, you learn from it. As for the protests, good on them! It's not socialism pe se, it's people who are pissed off, they picked up the tab from the corrupt i.e wall street. The Fed tried o buy them off with the insane money printing games, but gave them (everyone else) inflation.
Life is complex and a contradiction, you gotta deal with that; but when govs try and justify f*cking the people by rewarding the rich stupid wall st banks...prepare more and more for chaos/doomsday trade. We had it coming, Wall Street 100% has it coming and eventually the Fed.
"Occupywallstreet is anticapitalist. They desire socialism. Do they not realize that it is the very act of socialism/pseudocommunism that was the Wall Street bailout? The government allowed the banks to retain profit while distributing (socializing) the losses to the public. In a true capitalistic regime there would have been NO bailout...that's what capitalism is all about."
Amen Brother! I can't believe there are so many people, smart people, on this site that don't get it. Come on people!
That is not really what they stand for.
That is what the media is telling us they are for.
OWS is together we stand. We the people.
Once the pertinent information is disseminated to the
masses, the game is over. I can see what Taleb is saying about
passing the point of no return. It is a dangerouns situation.
I am sure glad I am not a cop on those streets. If the crowd
turns on them, they really dont have much chance for survival.
But if it does, they will crack down and bring in all the big guns.
From what I have seen in newer crowd control techs, if they wanted too,
they could rule OWS. But then we get another escalation. I am thinking
that the 'ELITES' bit off a few trillion over the last 100 years, if they were smart,
they would make major concessions immediately , so they can let everyone
forget, and start it all over again. (Not that I condone it). I think if they dont
we will get the escalation.
That is not really what they stand for.
That is what the media is telling us they are for.
OWS is together we stand. We the people.
Once the pertinent information is disseminated to the
masses, the game is over. I can see what Taleb is saying about
passing the point of no return. It is a dangerouns situation.
I am sure glad I am not a cop on those streets. If the crowd
turns on them, they really dont have much chance for survival.
But if it does, they will crack down and bring in all the big guns.
From what I have seen in newer crowd control techs, if they wanted too,
they could rule OWS. But then we get another escalation. I am thinking
that the 'ELITES' bit off a few trillion over the last 100 years, if they were smart,
they would make major concessions immediately , so they can let everyone
forget, and start it all over again. (Not that I condone it). I think if they dont
we will get the escalation.
"In a true capitalistic regime there would have been NO bailout."
And with no prospect of a bailout, there probably would not have been a crisis. It was the expectation that taxpayers would clean up the mess that made it possible.
What you are missing is that it may very well be possible to get rid of the bad, but not get rid of the good. For example, in pure capitalism would there be no public education? Most people won't want to go for that. Getting the OWS protesters to understand how the FED should go is one maybe doable thing. Getting the majority of the US to go for a 100% capitalist state that has no public education and no public health services is probably not what the majority want.
But perhaps we could get rid of corporations and banksters buying and controlling our government. I think the majority may go for that. And I include the Fed when I say corporations and banksters.
Bailout USA : It Lives! It will leach off of us for the next decade, then blow up again
Code of Hammurabi? Bring it!
small sample:
. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall
be put to death.
2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he
sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not
guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who
leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he
shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.
I, for one, would not protest against reinstituting the following law:
6. If a person has stolen goods from a temple, or house, he shall be put to death; and he that has received the stolen property from him shall be put to death.
No one has a right to kill another human being except as an act of defense. Those who sit and ponder ending a prisoner's life and who take that life with righteousness and in cold blood are the worst murders imaginable.
Not that I am against what you are saying, but I quoted that with a warm thought for some nice mass-looters, generational-enslavers masters of the universe. Don't tell me they don't deserve it.
Frodo: "Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death."
Gandalf: "Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
Wouldn't that mean all the banks and bankers that took bailout
money(what was stolen) would die immediatly?
Does it also say?
If a man and his lawyer accuse another, and cannot prove the accusation, the man and his lawyer shall be put to death.
You gotta like Taleb's simplicity and directness: if you've ever received taxpayer assistance to remain alive, you get paid as a civil servant and no more.
Right the fuck on.
Hamorabi's Law bisches.
Who are the Doom and Gloomers?
The politicians who told us the world would end if we did not continiously bail out the banking system? The banking system that is housed by just a few institutions? Or those who buy real goods/assets, like gold and silver?
Who are those that are truely worried? The ones preparing for the problems? Or the one's manically spreading fear systematically throughout geo-politics and the psuedo-financial system?
I don't CARE how someone FEELS (pertaining to this subject). THE issue is who are the DOOMERS. My CLEAR vote is cast for those who perpetuate the ponzi of endless growth on a finite planet, these are the folks who are really dooming us. Those that are aware of this and are seeking sustainable lives are the ones who are optimistic; and as usual TPTB are sure to twist it all backwards... I think that it was Malcolm X who warned that if people weren't careful the media would have the oppressed loving their oppressors and hating the oppressed.
At this point, anyone holding money in the TBTF's or investing in their shares are the problem. There is only one way to take these moterfuckers down: pull your fucking money out of them. No politician, regulator, ect. is going to do it for us.
What the FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR PEOPLE? The only way to insure these cocksuckers get booted and get their Hammurabi is to take your money out.
You've got the general idea (and spirit), but it doesn't go far enough. One has to remove oneself from the entire system of grow-or-die. The banking system was just the most visible puss of this festering growth, the head of the boil.
I love the engineer and bridge analogy!
...and literally fell off the face of the planet.
Methinks your illiteracy is so acute as to sabotage your personal, actual understanding of finance, banking, etc. The ["etc,"] is not tobe taken lightly.
Learn how to use a dictionary. There is awesome understanding therein.
That would really be a black swan dive.
Poor guy must have been short GS back in 09.
An eye for an eye in bidness is fair.. I say even essential. I think I'm in love with Hamorabi.
Christianity = Turn the other Cheek.
Jewdaism = An Eye for an Eye.
Muslim = Cut off their head.
A man with as few brains as you has little use for his head.
Bank bailouts = Fascism light. In fascism, the government ("society", "the nations") supports select, favored private enterprise in order to "make them strong" but they remain private. Citizens can be required to not only support those enterprises but even to work for them and at pre-set wages. They also get subsidized deals on their cost inputs. That's why what we have today is fascism light, because we're required to support the banks but not (yet) required to work for them. But since your tax dollars come out of your earnings, you are working for them indirectly.
A good evening to you CE! Quasi democratic fascism indeed. This will make it to the history books not written by McGraw Hill in short order if reality doesnt set back in soon. I believe it is setting in as we speak. Good days are ahead CE, bet on it...I am.
"Fascism light"
I don't see anything "light" about it...
Do a Fascist Italy checklist yourself:
Nationalistic: check
Militaristic: check
Corporatist: check
Aspirations to Empire: check
Pathetic: check
"Mussolini claimed that Italian Fascism's economic system of corporatism could be identified as state capitalism which he claimed was state socialism "turned on its head", which in either case involved "the bureaucratisation of the economic activities of the nation." There is a scholarly consensus that fascism was influenced by both left and right, conservative and anti-conservative, national and supranational, rational and anti-rational."
Where is the u.s. politically? Still split weirdly, right down the fucking middle...has been since W., yet BOTH parties serve this corporatist status quo
But it tastes great and it's less filling.
I adore this man and his mind.
Nassim Baby ! I want you in my Brigade!
Hard Economic Justice. Death by traunches.
Huh. Odd how you never seem hear this information on Good Morning America or Meet the Press or see it on the front page of USA Today. Must not be important or newsworthy - like who is fucking which kardashian sister (and where) or what good ol' Charlie Sheen is up to.
I hadn't noticed that he hadn't been on those shows. MAYBE because (aside from the fact I don't have a TV or watch one) I'm not an idiot expecting the hear the emperor announce that he doesn't have any clothes on!
When you see stuff on the front page it means that it's ALREADY news, it's a DONE DEAL, and you've likely missed the boat! Not like real facts would be presented anyway.
I really want this OWS to gain momentum but until there is a clear message for the MSM it will eventually go down as a bunch of whiney people who always got trophys in sports and were never critiqued properly. Ask any teacher why they have to pass kids now, schools need funds.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the jist of this, I just also understand that the current system will not allow this to move on without a specific point. That's just the way it goes. It's naive to think otherwise.
I love Taleb and he rings a lot of familiar bells here but like other media stars before him he can’t resist trying to galvanize the amorphous OWS mob around a succinct, pointed message (fix banker compensation in this case).
It’s not a bad message per se it’s just that I don’t think these are the people we’ve been waiting for Nassim. If this crowd is simply longing for the days of utilitarian, 3-6-3, S&L style banking so that they can get down to the business of working toward a comfortable middle class existence…then that message has been cleverly hidden from me. “Where all my free shit at?” seems to be the common, occupied ground on the Venn diagram of bitches and moans in evidence so far.
Taleb’s probably right to worry about this kind of aimless protest devolving into plain and ugly class warfare too (it always starts with the students - they're so cute and so well meaning). Then again, actual class warfare is a lot of work…..dude.
I understand what you are saying, but the fact is, these people are on the street and we are not. They are taking real risks promoting change even if they don't know what that change is or understand the endgame of their actions. Sometimes it takes some useful idiots to get things started. I'll take some rioters instead of apathetic banker slaves, thank you very much.
You'll recall, we're living through the consequences of promoting "change" for the sake of change right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
I recall that slogan, but I never saw the change.
Isn't it funny?
"OWS ought to be about this!"
"No, OWS ough to be about that!"
"OWS is this! Look, it has some of "this" people in it!"
"No, OWS is that! Look, it has some of "that" people in it!"
What you don't hear from analytics and self-declared "experts": People are pissed about what is.
Too simple, too generic, too non-dualistic.
Does that make them have any point?
Well, no, besides of the situation being shit.
What does the majority of people care about? Umm, guess what.
My point? The demostrations *across the globe!" (what, you thought OWS is an US-thing?) simply are about people being pissed about the system. Their "solutions" vary as much, as there are protesters - but their reasons for protest do not.
Or in short, the message simply is "Current society sucks!"
Sure, you may argue about their individual proposals - but can you argue about their complaints? And can you actually fix their complains? That perhaps is, what every self-declared "fixer of everything" should ask him/herself: Can your ideas address the issues, about which 99% of people are pissed about? Unless you can address the majority of their complains, how about STFU!
Most successful people I have spoken with talk about how hard it has been to get to the point they are at in their lives. Then when they see the protesters they don't relate to their ideas. And their not even the 1%. Everyone needs an eye catcher. Something to relate to, maybe the silly production of pennies or the idea that there is no gold in Ft. Knox. Something needs to stand out LOUD. I respect the fact that they are protesting but it will not resonate broadly until a majority can grasp their complaints. Everyone does not think the same. It's important to understand this as simply as it sounds. I get it, but the majority does not and that is what it will take to change this.
That is because, your "majority" does not understand the connection between the "cronies" and the consequences in their personal lifes. Or perhaps, the do understand it just perfectly.... it's just that the "terms" which OWS uses, are alien to them.... they don't understand, what "planned inflation" does to their personal lifes, wages, consumption and pretty much everything.
On the other hand, if anyone just told them, that any price inflation in this culture, is just a stealth tax.... and actually fully understood the implication of this, WDC would be colored in blood red, tomorrow. Same for the supposed mass"-entitlements" being nothing more than a means of wealth transfer, in principle EVERYONE paying tax, sponsoring megacorps, so that they can pay lower wages, to the 99%.... you'd get heads rolling in no time if any majority would grasp this.
I completely agree. However when protests against the war in Iraq were beginning the majority were led by the WMD and terrorists. That was the message that resonated with them and allowed that to advance. I'm not saying that was right, I'm only saying that people think in herds and think simply. It's not my majority, it is the majority.
Point taken. Thanks for playing the role of a muse. Will think about it.
Not that that I don't think that there aren't elements of logic in what you said, but I think that you need to think a bit less harshly about the youth. Youth are supposed to inherit everything. To suggest that they don't have a claim, no matter how nonsensical you may think it is, is pretty sad. Or, perhaps you're thinking that it should be YOUR claim (which, for some unexplained reason just hasn't permeated to them) that they concentrate on?
If the youth are failing then it's because the adults have failed them.
Banker warfare. Class warfare. Whatever-the-fuck warfare. Sorry, this is the Fourth(?) Turning. There's no program for this. Previous performances aren't guaranteed. We are not smart enough to create a plan to resolve what will to turn out to be proven (well, it's proven, it's just that it's not understood) to have been un-resolvable.
The smugness of "adults." Reminds me of John Stossel ridiculing kids for skipping school in protest of the impending invasion of Iraq. Stossel chided them when they stated that the US was bombing Iraq, saying that "we're not bombing Iraq!" Well, the US never STOPPED bombing Iraq since the start of the first Gulf War! But never mind, the "adult" Stossel was going to show those "stupid peace-loving" kids just who is in charge. NOTE: If anyone has any chance to address Stossel (I tried), please tell him he is a pussy-assed Mother Fucker, a piece of shit, and he should get his ass-kissing face on MSM and apologize. I'm figuring (and hoping) that some of those kids might one day square it up with him.
But back to the core...
And while folks like Nassim are close to the real underlying issues, they're still missing them, and to do further damage to being able to see them they tend to use all kinds of terms that only distract (in some cases intentionally, others not, but same result).
It's SIMPLE! Take all the words that we pretty much now to be key and then break them down into what they really mean and how their actions took form. I think that it'll come down to on key word: "Interest." Understand this and you'll get close to the center... (and no, it's not that we shouldn't be charging usury [which may or may not be "evil"]).
Banks that don't want to deal with the consequences of their risk-taking ought to be public utilities.
The financial system clearly cannot be seated at the adult table, they fail to grasp what should have been taught to them somewhere around age 10, that being, actions have consequences, and you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions. Instead of dealing with the consequences of their actions, they had to implicate the taxpayer.
You wonder why people are fucking angry not just in this Coutry, but around the World? Austerity to save the international parastic finance cartel that helped Greece sneak into the EU to begin with? Give me a a fucking break.
These entities adhere to the free market for everyone but themselves, they are ideological hyppocrites to the highest degree.
Let the chips fall. Excise the parasites. That's my campaign slogan for 2012.
Supercapitalism was a concept that developed in Italian Facism. Italy's Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, claimed that at the stage of supercapitalism, "a capitalist enterprise, when difficulties arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state's arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously."
Sound familiar?
Supercapitalism means Super Growth.
The problem isn't when things are bubbling up and everyone is feeling good, clearly. It's when the bubbles pop. The bubbles don't pop because there's been corruption. Bubbles pop because the cannot be SUSTAINED. It's about GROWTH.
When growth stops, or some "desired" growth rate (expected rates of return, increase in EPS, increase in GDP, increase in tax revenues, increase in pensions etc.) stops, That's when we start looking around for someone/something to blame. Whether the stoppage has been the result of incompetence, "management style" or whatever, there WILL come a time when none of these things can be blamed, that none of these things CAUSED the stoppage and the REAL reason is that the globe just couldn't deliver what we want at the rates that we want it. FINITE means LIMITED. At some point growth WILL stop.
As William Stanley Jevons observed (Jevons Paradox), efficiency tends to result in increased consumption rather than conservation. Capitalism IS all about efficiency. Other forms of "distribution" still promote increased consumption, it's just that they tend to not be as efficient.
bankers, doctors, lawyers, opticians, they all make too much money. old news.
civil service workers, federal employees, all overpaid.
knew this 30 years ago.
Yep. Even doctors are overpaid. Do we really need a visit to the doctor for some Penicillin??? Seriously... it's the 21st century. There are things called WebMD and Walgreens. And the part about doctors preserving the rarity of antibiotics to prevent bacterial immunity is complete bullshit in order to secure the medical cartel's monopoly. Millions of animals are treated each year by farmers/ranchers using the same medicines without any supervision.
http://www.google.com/#ds=pr&pq=antibiotics&hl=en&sugexp=kjrmc&cp=3&gs_i...
Broad brush.
2/3 of the world's population lives on $3/day or less. I'm thinking that this 2/3 of the world's population can say the same of us.
It's embarrasing that you even need Taleb to point out this most obvious of truths.
If he's said anything at all that struck you as news, you're a dolt.
The dumb ass interviewer just now hears that the banks lie and steal? Man, how the hell does he even find his way to work everyday?
He's a meat puppet...
They just lock that idiot in the supply closet at night...
But he can read a Teleprompter... so maybe some day he too can be president...
Whenever the oppressed are sick and tired of being taken advantage of do the assholes that have been the oppressors threaten 'chaos' from change-- it is the same bullshit that has happened throughout time.
Nothing short of taking our country back from these crony capitalists that have not only been undeservedly been compensated for their destructive impact upon our economy, but has destroyed the democratic process in this country.
End the world order, end central banking, end the IMF/Worldbank, and bring those responsible to justice. Too many people have been suffering unnecessarily.
And then we're free to carry on with over-consuming ourselves to death... Well done!
Grow-or-die!
The problem is the banks. They need to be taken out.
We took the banks out. Bought them a nice dinner. Took them to see a show. And then they fucked us right up the ass.
He looks like Bernanke.
Obama is the problem with America. Get him out!
Haha... the problem is a little more complex than that young Padawan.
No, the "problem" lies with people who cannot elucidate. Oh, and with party pussies!
Fucking childish shit. Yup, the elites are right, the people are too stupid to lead themselves!
dennis gartman says goodbye to gold...
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/10/18/gartman-very-real-damage-being-done-to-gold/
Why do they always print images of physical gold, when the "spotprice" is driven by paper pushers, independent of physical buying and selling?
Short version: BULLSHIT. NO technicals have any relevance to physical commodity demand and supply.... actually, it appears that after every sane person left the fucking "market", NOTHING has any basis in neither technicals nor fundamentals.
Want a "smart" opinion about where the market is heading, regardless of commodities or stocks?
Heres one: The illusionary marketprice, will be whatever robots decide it is..... because it is only robots left who care about the market - everyone else, has left already. Your market, is now literarily a videogame, isolated from reality. And once physical market restrictions are triggered - watch for all hell to break lose.... both regarding commodities (supply), as well as stocks (ACTUAL non-central banker demand, and actual economical (NOT stockmarket) performance of the corporation in question).
You play in the casino now, you play a videogame, that works until it doesn't.
Investing is returning my friend K. Yes, there are better ways to deploy capital than trading it for metals and stacking them in piles. No disrespect intended to the 'bugs'.
Gartman is a fucking tool. If I remember correctly, every time there was a correction he would turn bearish since 1998, the year that I started my accumulation process. The best advice over the years has always come from Richard Russell, who famously said gold was as cheap as dirt when gold just hit $1000 and a lot of people turned bearish including Gartman.
Black Swan....black swan comin'.......oh sorry, Cannonball....cannonball comin'
I think Taleb liked things better a couple years ago when people were a bit less prepared and a bit more worried.
Many are ready for the levee to be destroyed....and the river to be released. 6 months, 1, 2 years. Who really cares. Handle your business...live your life...have your chips ready for the last hand in the deck if that's to be the fates decision.
Be ready....enjoy your life....be ready....enjoy your life....be ready....enjoy your life....be ready....enjoy your life.
"Flip the bird"....to the Black Swan in waiting
IMO there is little chance of "class warfare" similar to european experience. Most of the OWS and other similar O.. are simply there to express themselves, to voice their various frustrations and anger and conviction that the upper echelons have been completely oblivious to both public sentimnent and basic common sense, costing the entire country trillions of $$$ and still giving a free ride to those who cause the problems.
Wall Street bonuses in 2010 amounted to 8% of M1. Honeybunch, I can tell you that they all should have been fired, not given bonuses.
Washington and New York are an axis of evil and will eventually be brought to a great humbling by the "People" though it will not be a communist form of government but to an honest, constitutional government that will force this. This next election will produce that change, or at least the beginning of it.
The next federal election (for an individual as President and for only half of the truffle snufflers in the House) will fix nothing. SECEDE NOW!!
Going Galt?
I agree...
He is making a very simple point.
The greatest and most effecive regulator of human behavior is FEAR OF FAILURE.
If you know you will be held accountable for the result of your decisions and activites you will be very careful about what you decide to do.
'IF' OWS ever had legitimacy. That is now gone.
Lies today have a half life barely worth telling.
This bullshit isn't the revolution. It is the retard idiot brigade playing revolution.
The revolution will come, but long after these miscreants crawl back into the hell they (unfortunately) were pied pipered from.
Know them by the lies they tell.
Know them by the dishonesty.
People of the lie.
Their idiots want YOUR effort.
Nothing is really free if it is stolen and on a long enough timeline greed = laziness.
its about the banks were bailout and then they foreclosed on the taxpayers houses.......this after Paulson first lieing about TARP would be used to buy toxic assets and then Obama lieing about HAMP and saving 4 million people from foreclosure........they opened pandoras box and moral hazard has now punched the fuckers in the face
we are way past moral hazard. that is a classic
euphemism. we are deep into systemic fraud and
stealing, looting and rape in broad day light.
but no body notices, they just go about their
business ..... it has been going on for so long
that it just seems ..... natural. it is the
design of the system, designed into the system
of our private legal tender fiat money, debt based
and lent out at interest in a fractional reserve
regime. it is the law of the land this "moral hazard"!
we choose it because we are dim and sick!
and there is an explanation for that too and it is
obvious if you just think about it. our identities
have been imposed by the market and the demands
of the arbitrary and incoherent money system and
that does not work . we are debt slaves by law,
that also does not work, but the solution is on the heels
of the ruination of the fraud !
.
Nick Lowe - True Love Travels On A Gravel Road (Unplugged)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK4zDsVLzF8
I'm going to be diplomatic here.
You fucking idiots who are bashing Occupy Wherever - in my instance, Pittsburgh - don't have a goddamn fucking clue as to what they are about.
Read their demands. Go to their camp sites. You'll quickly find out what they are about.
End the Fed. Stop the corruption. Prosecute. Pro-capitalism, anti-corporatism. And so on and so forth.
Get a grip on and join reality.
EVERY one of us 99%-ers should rally behind these people.
It quite well may be our last best chance to "take our country back". I know, that sounds stupid, doesn't it?
But it might be realistic.
Get your head away from your asses.
A war of the classes? It's been being waged for centuries. And it hasn't been a fair fight.
It's time for us to turn the tide.
Battles have been lost, but the war is still ours to win.
And, if you ARE part of the one-percent:
Prepare to die.
+1
I am not motivated by a desire to become part of some special interest group. "Ninety-nine percenter" means nothing to me. If you want to sell this steak you're going to need a different kind of sizzle.
Replace 99% with "those getting raped" which here is supposed to mean: You're treated like a host by parasites... not just a little bit, but big time - better? Kay, now just stop short of voicing an opinion of what to do instead, and you got the common anger, minus the very diversified demands.
I've been ripped off by rich and poor alike. Most rich people have never done a thing to hurt me. Many rich people have produced goods, services and works of art from which I have benefited greatly. Do you suggest that I should falsely accuse such individuals of rape?
It's open season on the fools...go get'em.
We all got played by the tiny %. And no one likes being played. You got my support.
If it was as simple as that we wouldn't be where we are... Power is an aphrodisiac. Those who have tasted it will kill for it, without limits.
Hummarabi's Rule, a country that does not degenerate into class war, is the safeguard against anarchy, against losing it all and restoring rule of law.
Learn from the past, from the french revolution.
I agree. After watching them destroy the economy and then beg for tax dollars makes me want to puke. And after watching Bank of America dump their crap debt onto the FDIC is just another reason to treat these pigs for what they are, scum.
Yes, by all means let's go Cambodia. Sure worked out for them, didn't it? According to the synapses in your challenged brain, rich=guilty. In Cambodia guilty was based on having a decent set of teeth, glasses, or a lack of callouses on the hands. The best of Cambodian society was wiped out, while much of the worst stayed alive. The average IQ tumbled. Today, Cambodia is a magnet for two things: NGOs who live off crises, and international pedophiles.
No thanks. I vote for NOT having you as a leader.
Incidentally, you are exactly what is of concern to Taleb, where the "solution" is worse than the problem.
"Prepare to die"? You reveal yourself rather boldly and prove again conclusivly that the real goal of you socialists, communists, progressives, modern liberals, 99%ers et al is death to those who oppose your lust for power.
Hundreds of millions of human beings died in the 20th century, the direct result of collectivist movements. We do not need another century of death to prove how insane you people are.
What Black Swan is happening right now? Seriously, the EUR is up big against the USD again tonight: so stocks should shred higer by about 3/4% tomorrow (and no I'm not being sarcastic). Every market in the world is melting up. Hell even the Shanghai is up. But Silver? It's down yet again. Weak dollar, strong Asian markets, U.S. stocks rip roaring higher and silver is down? WTF.
The precious metals have lagged this entire move. This tells me one thing: the equity rise is being manufactored with AGLOS's doing what they do as they use the shorts as bait. It's as simple as that. If the market was anticipating a truly huge 2 trillion EFSF fund, Gold and Silver would be in a parabolic rise right now.
So, the take-home is this, once this manufactored rise ends, and it will soon judging by the amount of people here quiitting and covering with negative sentiment as they have their asses handed to them, then as Bubba Lang once said, my predicition is "pain" for the longs at that point. Which is in keeping with what I have said for some time: shorts will be fucked first, then longs, then the 50% who don't own shit.
First, though: shorts will be decimated. Hell, even Apple will gap down and uptick higher the rest of the day with the QQQ being the lagger with a roughly 2.5% rise tomorrow. Watch and learn.
Asia (Korea/Japan) did something weird a little while back opened up a massive swap line. Sounds like a liquidity sqeeze, rumor it was Korea that asked for it. Attention may turn away from those Euro butnuts and turn to Asia very, very soon
Stocks rallied last session on that toilet paper Guardian article that was later slammed by a Dow Jones wire that is was quote: "Bullshit". Something is up, sell wends/Thursday, rally into the weekend...maybe, hopefully...
we are in, headed for, the big squeeze, long and short.
the "money" system is debt, credit , based. a long period
of easy credit tied to physical assets followed by
the squeeze where the central banks gorge the
lenders with fresh cash and backstops and guarantees
to cover their leverage sickness is nothing but the
tyranny of power thinly and poorly disguised as
economics, politics and "government". ( idiocy
at the highest levels ), total failure in every
aspect of culture, reducing humanity to the functional
status of the rodent, rat race. it was all in the genetic code
of that p=p+I inequality and the compounding iterations,
resulting in desperate hunger and immorality, time
compression and distortions of every possible endeavor.
systemic usury where everyone is blind to the stupidity
that is the foundation of our impossible economic survival.
so we will kill each other and ourselves and die dumb.
or not? it is up to the people. but we don't care
to think about how the essential structural and functional
systems that we live by determine our fates?
since the writing of the declaration this country has
set itself apart when it declared " we the people.."
it set itself apart from the enemy of "we, the people"
we best figure out just exactly who and where that enemy
is at this point in time. could it be ourselves? if so,
that is also something that we can correct.
or not?
too much mis-education and distraction. we need leaders
who understand and can articulate the basic truth that
must sustain life in all its complexity and possibility.
not a dream but a perspective of the truth of infinite
perspectives. all the answers are right there in front of
us if we just know the correct essential questions and
ask them. it is not rocket science folks. it's much more
complicated, and fun, than that.
imho
and now we have a president who will spend the better
part of his first term campaigning for a second term
when he hasn't done a thing to earn the title of "leader".
and what is worse is that the other party is so deranged
that they probably won't be able to defeat him, not that
that would change anything as these people are all, except
maybe one?, unable to articulate anything resembling the truth
or insightful as it would either horrify their audience
or be entirely incomprehensible to the majority of listeners.
.
meanwhile, back at the house the treasury is being completely
cleaned out in broad daylight and the cover story is that
it is being done "in the hope" there will be "a change" in the
employment numbers. i doubt that is it. more like stocking up
on ammunition to purchase assets that will be available cheap
once the foreclosures and bankruptcy circus comes to town.
thank you wall street and washington d.c.
.
and speaking of socializing risk.....
http://maxkeiser.com/2011/10/18/this-is-a-direct-transfer-of-risk-to-the...
.
the madness just keeps getting more mad.
Bonuses? Taleb's a Wall Street Shill
Let's try prosecuting the massive securities frauds and foreclosure frauds... handing out Madoff Time for the guilty...
Then we talk about no bonuses for Tax payer Welfare Ho' Wall Street Banksters...
Notice Taleb doesn't mention the massive criminal activity by Wall Street...
he doesn't want to burn his boats and get prosecuted as a result. Burden of proof...baby. Name names and you carry blame for damages.
PotteryBarnarabi Code, 21st Century - You break it, you pay for it.
Banks should have been nationalized and broken up and the FED given their pink slip notice in 2008. I think I read at ZH that the Swiss bankers' private assets are also fair game in bank failures.... sounds like a good deterent to me.
The behavior of the banks is so agregious it tells me they are doing their final looting as Rome burns. They are making things worse and are going to let the house burn down to hide all the evidence. Not comforting to know the SEC is also now immune from FOIA and is ritually destroying evidence. The MSM are now in the business of keeping a Digital Curtain tightly drawn to hide facts, not reveal them.
With such lawlessness going on at the highest levels it should be no surprise BHO is leading the parade. It is not clear whether anyone, especially the military, will believe that the community-organizer-in-chief will have any remaining moral authority to excerise any extraordinary executive emergency powers before the election, should it continue to appear he is going to lose in a landslide.
"Marxism never sleeps.... so niether shall I." - Gulag inmate, Soviet Union.
Even though, i did not appreciate the lame ideological keyword appealing in the end (marxism has existed as little, as any free market in history - it really doesn't matter whatever ideological direction you pick, none of them have everr happened according to the definition of their supporters. On the downside, you got the same kind of kleptocracy over and over, in different packages though, across history), i agree with everything else. So, +1 from my side.
I should stay out of this, as I'm a bonehead. However, I know what their agenda should be.
The government's one real use is in the enforcement of contractual law. They have dropped this ball long ago. The elite captured the government. Look at the laws in place for banks and insurance companies, just damn.
We need justice, the rule of law.
edit- US WANT THUNDERDOME!
Bonuses + Salaries = Bailouts?
Taleb doesn't really seem to have anything to say that's of use to actual professionals and practitioners. I mean, if we're being honest he wrote one decent book on options, and then three, long-winded tomes which go on and on saying the same thing over and over, but rendered impenetrable by the use of hundreds of literary and philosophical allusions. His main insight? Returns aren't Gaussian, the real world is heteroskedastic, skewness matters, and people who don't know anything about statistics get screwed up on conditional probability. Did we really need that thousand pages of text to tell us something we've known for decades?
And has he really added anything to the literature on pricing derivatives? He sure seems to think he knows a whole lot about option values at various moments (he claims to have become independently wealthy after the 87 crash) but maybe he's just Fooled By Randomness, and it was all pure luck. He doesn't seem to have replicated that outlier at any of his subsequent funds.
If you go around saying that bad things happen more frequently than we think, eventually you're right. If you come up with a pithy moniker for these events, you'll get a youtube channel when something bad happens. If you write a book about it, you'll get on TV. If you write a book about it that people will want other people to see them reading, you'll never have to work again.
YMMV.
This came from sources unnamed, the OWS working group has a proposed list of grieviances. Make of it what you will, but read it through.
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
I'm quite sure that the authors did not consult with 99% of the population even though they claim to speak for them. The entire concept is repulsive. I want fewer people telling me what to do and pushing me around, not more.
I'm quite sure that the authors did not consult with 99% of the population even though they claim to speak for them. The entire concept is repulsive. I want fewer people telling me what to do and pushing me around, not more.
It is obvious that you didn't read this. They are working on possible grieveances here and are proposing that elections be held all over the country to elect representatives that will finalize the list of grievances by July 4, 2012.
That's a fine example of how what you see as obvious is completely incorrect.
I did read it. You simply fail to understand that I don't need "representatives" in order to express my own views and live my own life. Each person is unique. Millions of people can not be "represented" by a few members of a new elite.
Get it?
Actually I do get it and would much prefer if we all voted on the grievances instead of electing representatives to vote on the grievances. I think I will get more involved with OWS to see if I can change how they are doing this. I'm surprised they want to elect representatives when they have much talk about true democracy.
"God Bless our military... especially our snipers." -- bumper sticker on back of Kyle Bass's Hummer.
The Harvard Crimson gave column space to the Revolutionary Communist Party spokesman, Ray Lotta, to share their Communist Constitution for North America, for the revolution and after.
The Highlights: violent overthrow of the USA, tribunals (death penalty in play) for those who oppose the revolution, no property rights whatsoever, no paid labor, break up USA into regions, Regions given to black and hispanic races, forced migration of current oher races, all future migration strictly according to new commie rules, all commie constitutional rules to be stictly enforced. In other words, they have unmasked their Utopian Dreamscape and it's a inspiring fusion of violent race war with totalitarianism on steroids.
Articles: The Revolutionary Communist Party's Little Yellow Book
Shit. They're asking for fucking Band-Aids because they don't know what the root cause of all their sufferings is. As Michael C Ruppert likes to say, "unless you change the way money works, you change nothing."
Shit. They're asking for fucking Band-Aids because they don't know what the root cause of all their sufferings is. As Michael C Ruppert likes to say, "unless you change the way money works, you change nothing."
Here is the group where they are working on it.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the99declaration/
Join it to press for the right changes.
the police would not even see who shot the banker(s), its quite possible that some ex-hippy type in his pin stripe uniform could d get 5 or 6 at a time near 5:oclock?
just dreaming
5:09 What would happen if banks mark their asses!!! LOL
I've never followed Taleb, but he makes a lot of sense. The protests have gone global and are certainly at risk of spiraling out of control and running into class warfare / Marxist revolution. While the protestor's message is garbled and mixed, there seems to be a great deal of anger directed at the TBTF banks that have systematically looted the public treasury. Our government, run by banking lobbyists, has stood by and even encouraged the theft. Now comes the unintended consequences of this government ineptitude. It's called blowback, and it looks to be growing. The problem is the genie is now out of the bottle. It can no longer be controlled, and will take on a life of it's own. The movement may take a path down the ugly recesses of human nature. BTW Ron Paul never voted for the bailouts and has always advocated that banks be allowed to fail when they make bad decisions. We are about to see what happens when central economic planning runs afoul of the will of nature. They may have saved us from short term pain, but in the long run we may lose our republic or perhaps even our civilization.
No-(f***ing) Bonuses for- bailed-out- bankers is so blindingly obvious that even the Dutch government got it and made it law.
That this does not happen in the US just shows who's BOSS over there. (and not shy to hide it!)
Nassim is right that there is a danger of unfocused class-war anarchy.
What the Occupy movement needs is intelligent leadership, capable of a focused coup against the Cartel, resulting in it's break-up.
Oh yeah, I noticed how Nassim said : "We still are in a 1 man 1 vote environment". Does he see a flock of black shirts on the horizon? Votes for taxpayers only?
Why are people arguing on what he is saying. To me it is rational. Symmetry!
I think his stuttering and English as a Second Language garble his message.
But what he is saying is correct and just plain sense.
If you got bailed out, then you are owned by the one that bailed you out and you do not deserve excessive fraud compensation.
.
on wires 10mins back. Sth Korea approached Japan for a HUGE currency swap. Korea liquidity squeeze?
The real OWS, you know, the one the racist bigoted MSM woun't show. Enjoy :)
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/10/18/wall_street_protesters_victimized_by_fellow_thieves
They're giving free food, so some of the people there are probably only there for the food and not for idealogical reasons.
Remember when price was here, I said AAPL could run all the way up to that black line.
This contradicts my previous post of 3 to 5% more up on overall indices, but maybe not, maybe they ramp the indices in the face of Apple failure, just because they can.
It is almost impossible to "accelerate" out past that black line, but it could fart around for a year and get up to 480 or so, but I think this thing is done for a while, put a fork in it. The reaction to the yellow line will be very telling though, and the whole market may follow. I mean the whole thing.
http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/2011/10/doctor-apple-just-took-crabapple...
I love Taleb;
I hate the idiot who was always interupting him.
"My fear is that the thing degenerates into class struggle."
Has he not been paying attention? That's exactly what it began as.
The US is a story of classwarfare.
The banksters need to be hung. Nothing less will do. To let them destroy the world economy and the politics of virtually every country on earth, and then simply say "no more" is an egregious injustice. Hang them all, and leave their skeletons hanging forever as a reminder to every future purveyor of fiat and fractional reserve scams.
hanging is too merciful: make a "banker centipede" out of em. (see: human centipede)
Taleb is very cool. The Bloomberg guy is an idiot.
The '90210 host look-alike' asks the appropriate question:
"What do we make of occupy wall street?"
He then goes on to put the 'important people's' spin on the movement, wondering:
"Will this be a passing fad, or"
And then his puppet masters strings enter the scene :
"a mass movement that sweeps the Western world and sweeps us all into anarchy"
And then he introduces his guest.
MIddle America?
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/18/video-occupy-wall-street-i-need-attention/
Made me laugh. The US citizens 'performance at failure at self perception is impressive.
So here again, they are all about class warfare.
The same that would want to restore 'America'
But 'America' has been a story of class warfare, the US middle class taking on the upper class, lying the lower class into a conflict the lower class would draw no benefit from.
The impossibility of US citizens to face their own past, their overreliance on a fabled past confirm once again that the US is not the solution, the US is the problem.
Problemsolving does include denial of problem (which is a solution to the problem) but this solution, adopted by US citizens, requires means. Meansthat are less and less existentas the US has drained so much theworld.
As the solution by denial is going to disappear, US citizens will dance as much as they want, they wont hide the facts.
US has been a story of classwarfare.