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Okay kids, story time. After the crash of 2008, I spent some time working with Dick Fuld. Yes, the former head of Lehman Brothers. Yes, the one people describe
by numair 6y ago
Okay kids, story time.
After the crash of 2008, I spent some time working with Dick Fuld. Yes, the former head of Lehman Brothers. Yes, the one people describe as “disgraced,” among other terms. Here’s the irony, though — Dick was one of the only people I encountered at that level of business/finance who wasn’t a scumbag. Unlike so many virtue-signaling Silicon Valley darlings, the guy behind the curtain was an honorable dude. And again, that’s a direct account from someone who has no vested interest or a book to sell or anything of that sort.
Dick and I worked closely together, one on one. After enough time, after he trusted me, I finally got to ask him about what the hell actually happened. The man had a ton of PTSD — and probably still does — but eventually it became clear that the real story was completely, utterly, unbelievably stupid.
Yes, Lehman was doing a bunch of stupid stuff, and the management under Dick were behaving like cowboys. But at the end of the day, that was the entire market at that time. What sunk Lehman was, in the end, a decision by all of the other big banks and the regulators that they’d let Lehman die because of something that might be best summarized as “lol idk sorry Dick but we’re just gonna let you go and let the Fed bail the rest of us out sorry bro lol.” Like really. That’s how it went behind those closed doors in the lairs of the lizards that control the universe. Lehman had already suffered near-death in 1994 — the world has now forgotten that Dick was the hero that saved the firm back then — and now it was to be made a sacrificial lamb for everyone else’s benefit.
Why am I telling you this story? What is the point? Well, what I am trying to say is that these supposed “adults in the room” who are so much smarter and better than the the “retail investors” are pretty much the same sort of immature, self-centered children as the other side. The difference is, they’ve got the regulators and the politicians in their pockets. So when they say “lol oops” and literally blow up the global economy to save face, nothing happens to them. But for some reason when it’s the retail guys, a moral panic ensues.
In my eyes, the Internet-connected retail investor is learning the power of what I call “massively multiplayer liquidity.” Yes, there’s some growing pains, but let’s not kill this wild new phenomenon before we learn what it can do. Because, from what I’ve seen from the other side of things, I doubt these self-styled “retards” will ever end up as depraved and corrupt as the people they’re disrupting.
Play ball, kids. And as Dick always used to say, “don’t get left with nothing other than a ham sandwich.”
- briefcomment 6y ago> "these supposed “adults in the room” who are so much smarter and better than the the “retail investors” are pretty much the same sort of immature, self-centered children as the other side. The difference is, they’ve got the regulators and the politicians in their pockets." Absolutely. Dick and Trump are examples of scapegoats. Throw someone under the bus publicly, so you can continue doing what you're doing while the public is busy staring at the spectacle.
- mindslight 6y agoI don't know how it's possible to spin someone who made many public statements disrupting our society's pandemic response from a position of high authority as a mere "scapegoat", but at this point I'm no longer amazed.
- fallingknife 6y ago> “lol idk sorry Dick but we’re just gonna let you go and let the Fed bail the rest of us out sorry bro lol.” Like really. That’s how it went behind those closed doors in the lairs of the lizards that control the universe. Says Dick Fuld. I doubt that's true, though, because at the time Lehman was going under, they didn't know that all the other banks were going with them. Remember, the bailouts didn't come until a few weeks later when the money market funds broke the buck triggering $trillions of withdrawals in what would essentially be a financial system wide run on the bank. The regulators didn't like the idea that a failing bank should be bailed out (as they shouldn't), and they couldn't find a merger partner like they did with Bear Stearns, so they let it fail. The bailouts didn't come until they realized that the fallout from Lehman's failure would bring down the whole system. Yeah, Dick Fuld wasn't really any different than any of the CEO's that got a bailout, but to cast him as the good guy among the group is ridiculous.
- numair 6y agoThe unforeseen side effects of what was meant to be a very orderly and master-planned wind-down of one bank for the benefit of all the others — that speaks to the exact point I was making about the ridiculous notion that these are mature, all-knowing, all-wise adults. As far as good and bad people, well... The senior $LARGE_CONSUMER_BANK Vice-President who told me how much he loved the profit he was making off the overdraft fees he thought were “an honest service” to his poorest customers, with a huge smile on his face, was definitely a lot more evil than Dick. But look, if you’ve had direct experiences with a bunch of the CEOs and senior execs at these firms, feel free to provide a counter! If you’re basing things on journalist accounts, however, you’re going to be in for a surprise when you learn who pays their bills and takes them on trips...