Deciet Street

Lies and the Basterds Who Tell Them

I just read a research report from Dick Bove of Rochdale Securities that made me actually laugh out loud. It has the most irony impaired title I have ever read — the bold, all caps, title Bove penned was:

WILL IGNORANCE, DECEIT, AND RAGE DESTROY THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM?

Someone should tell the boy its too late for “ignorance, deceit and rage,” as the financial sector has already destroyed financial system . . .

I just have to ask: WTF do these people get their ginormous cojones from? Do they have a tailor on call to let out their inseam to make room for their balls ? Talk about unmitigated gall — a research analyst from Wall Street is upset over anger destroying the financial system. It would be funny if it wasn’t so god-damned pathetic . . .(by Barry Rithholtz - http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/ )


I have a Russian friend who arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa a couple of years before the Berlin Wall came down. She struggled for a few years as an illegal alien, but with hard work and some luck, overtime she found success in her life. She is now an American citizen. She likes to rant about how:

"back then in the Soviet Union our lives were saturated by propaganda. Here in America there is now even more propaganda then what I experienced in the 80s in Moscow. The difference? Back then, we new we were being lied to, and that gave us some power. But here I see intelligent successful educated people not being able to see the lies, the half truths, the twisting of facts and utter broadcasts of falsehoods."

Maybe it is time for all Americans to read or re-read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I have people I know calling me for financial advise. I have no experience in this area. They figure sense I was somewhat successful and retired early that I must know something about money. I don't. As an amateur investor yes, as someone to give another advise no. Most of their money that is in the equities market is in their retirement accounts. They feel better that it has come back from the death pit of March 09 but they are afraid it may be headed back there. I tell them that I have no idea what will happen. To me it feels like a casino in Las Vegas, you know the house is going to win, you may or may not. Every time I say "what does your broker/financial service provider have to say about this their answer, and I am paraphrasing, is:

"I wouldn't trust that jerk off with an old chewed piece of gum"

I say, then why are you with him/her? Always the same answer - "I don't know"

IMO, if this market starts to meaningfully retract, there are a lot of average middle to upper-middle class citizens who collectively have hundreds of billions in the market through their retirement accounts and I don't believe they have any interest nor stomach in going on the downside ride of this financial Ponzi scheme. That could really accelerate a trend.

Here in Europe where I spend most of my time, people can't even grasp the concept that in the U.S. the people have to rely on the stock market to secure their retirement. They think I am joking. And when I say no, no really, I am not kidding you, they look at me and say "what is wrong with your country?".

IGNORANCE, DECEIT, and RAGE will destroy the financial system. However it is The Masters Of The Universe and our Overlords of Wall Street (Deceit Street?) who posses this ignorance in abundance and who use the mighty sword of deceit against the masses and who carry a hateful self-centered rage towards moral and ethical standards of decent humane human society.

Pay back is always a bitch. And it is always served cold.