How Bankers Think
By Barry Ritholtz - January 14th, 2010, 5:00PM
Hat tip Bruce Mac
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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
OK, it’s funny. But somebody still needs to learn how to spell “subpoena.”
~~~
BR: Fixed
January 13th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Dude, that is fucking hysterical
January 14th, 2010 at 12:03 am
I like this shit, can you notice “Lord” Blankfein’s wicked smile?
January 14th, 2010 at 12:16 am
Dimon’s thought bubble was perfect!
January 14th, 2010 at 12:40 am
Thank you.. I love it.. What a great photo and that is the way to read their minds!
January 14th, 2010 at 1:37 am
The best thing the government can do for the economy is to break up them up. Think about it. Look what happen to the economy after they broke up ATT in 1983. Look how many over companies can into being. We would not have the internet if ATT was still the same old power house bell head that it once was. We need a level playing field and we need to let the power of competition move the financial markets.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:54 am
Sad but true . . .
January 14th, 2010 at 5:38 am
OT: Great interview of Eugene Fama in the New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2010/01/interview-with-eugene-fama.html
I read that through and I just had to ask what planet does this man live on?? And how does this man deserve an Economic Nobel Prize?
An excerpt:
——————————————————
New Yorker: Is it not true that in the credit markets people were getting loans, especially home loans, which they shouldn’t have been getting?
Eugene Fama: That was government policy; that was not a failure of the market. The government decided that it wanted to expand home ownership. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were instructed to buy lower grade mortgages.
——————————————————
January 14th, 2010 at 8:44 am
When asked about his knowledge of Goldman Sach’s refusal to accept a discount on their share of the AIG bailout, Blankfein stated that he “did not recall” being involved in the decision. He went on to say that the decision was made by someone else who only mentioned it to “his boss”.
Blankfein’s nonverbals however told another story. When asked, he first looked down and then to his right before answering the question. I understand this is a typical reaction when someone is formulating a lets say “less than honest” response.
All witnesses swore to tell the truth subject to perjury. If Blankfein was in fact involved in this decision, which one would expect the CEO of a company to be, then he lied to the Committee.
It will be interesting to see if anyone else has picked up on this and if it goes anywhere.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:45 am
This picture should be posted on the door of every bank branch in the US, Martin Luther style!
January 14th, 2010 at 8:45 am
LOL good one .. and Okie troll p# pullin a troll p# fyi ya’alls – I got this post going and wtf – the pic caption is right / picthread editing? if ya can’t believe what you read on the www .. we’re doomed .. dooommed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpoena
January 14th, 2010 at 8:46 am
Oh, and the landing page/splash page of their websites.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Is it me, or is Lloyd a little, ahem, “light in the loafers”? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just asking.
January 14th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Here’s your f#$%ing money back.
I took the f#$%ing big jet down here.
If you f#$% with us any more, you’ll never work in this town again.
Have you f#$%ers yet figured out how this all f#$%ing works?
January 14th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
When the wallet is bigger than the brain
and the politicians with bankers have lain
you’ll see that the ending
is continuous spending
And the country will go down the drain.
Alan deHaas
January 14th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
[...] The Big Picture [...]
January 14th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Yup, that’s pretty much it. All that’s missing is an image of each one having turns with the taxpayer bent across the table… all the while the regulators, wearing a police uniform costumes, are holding the taxpayer down so they can’t get away.
January 14th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
How Bankers Think?
Actually, these people aren’t bankers at all. Bankers aggregate capital, then loan it to business and investment to foster wealth creation in the real economy.
These corporate masters own the casino and the gaming commission, play both sides of every bet, and when they do incur a loss, they’re immunized against civil damages or criminal prosecution, and then bailed out by the very people they ripped off in the first place. And for their superior performance, they pay themselves tens of billions in compensation.
Think it’s way past time to put an end to this fraud? Click to http://moveyourmoney.info/ and take action to restore Glass-Steagal — one consumer/taxpayer at a time.
January 14th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Any group photo of compadres standing up in front of a group of serious-looking elderly white men wearing suits, all raising their right hands in unison, has absolutely ZERO intention of doing exactly what they are swearing to do: tell the truth, the WHOLE truth, and NOTHING BUT the truth.
So help them, God.
January 14th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
The only thing funnier is CNBC and Bloomberg’s commentary on Intel’s beat with a 12% tax rate. I wish I had a 12% tax rate!
January 14th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Joseph Martinez, the telco’s were broken up and we’re right back where we started.
The old-telco’s now control critical junctures of networking. Mostly in the last mile. The irrelevant parts of the business (ex. long distance) were flushed long ago.
Plain-vanilla banking operations are essentially loss leaders for their investment operations. Chop them apart and the keys to the kingdom (investment operations) will be bailed out by the taxpayers another day.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
And Blink Blank still maintains that being on both sides of the CDS and MBS transactions, GS was just acting as an honest broker serving client demand on both sides by “Professional” investors.
The obvious follow-up question should have been “So you are saying that GS never traded on the short side of these transactions using its own capital?”
January 14th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
19 too greedy to fail banks got $12 Trillion in TARP, borrowed at Fed discount window at zero %, and Obama is slapping their hand with a $90bn fee.
No wonder these smug assclowns look and act the way they do and Obama has audacity to say ‘hope and change’ is alive and well!
January 14th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
@john
Re Intel: 90 days ago, analyst estimates were for .43…they plummetted to .30, so INTC could beat by .10.
fresh 5 year highs (at least) for Bull/bear ratio…I do not have data for 2003-2004, but this may be decade highs.
http://www.market-harmonics.com/free-charts/sentiment/investors_intelligence.htm
January 14th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Where’s Ritholtz? Isn’t he part of this deal?
January 14th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
prolly true……….
wonder why?
the motives of those asking the questions are more sinister than those answering them.
always the apologist for the state barry……..
January 14th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Harking back to Reagan in Manchester, NH in 1980:
Mr. Chairman, we paid for these microphones !!!
And drapes, and chairs and … you.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
The best thing the government can do for the economy is to break up them up.
Fantastic idea! Oh, you meant the banks. I thought you meant the actual bankers themselves. :)
January 15th, 2010 at 3:13 am
[...] – How bankers (really) think. [...]
January 15th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Where’s Elizabeth Warren ? Did the O-team tie her up with a gag order ?
January 15th, 2010 at 3:55 am
[...] but nothing could stave off the collapse. On Wednesday the chief banksters slouched in. The photo of these crooks being sworn in provided the only amusement and insight. The sneer, the scorn, the boredom, the [...]
January 15th, 2010 at 4:02 am
I love Jamie Dimon’s recent quotes:
“Using tax policy to punish people is a bad idea.”
i.e., only to reward greedy bankers for making stupid decisions. Taxpayers eventually pay to bail out the banks.
Here’s an idea:
You accept bailout money, you cannot pay anyone higher than the President of the US who saved your ass. Any dollar paid out over $400K gets split 3 ways. 1/3 to the IRS, 1/3 to shareholders as a special dividend and 1/3 to the employee. Plus, it ain’t deductible!
January 15th, 2010 at 5:15 am
Sad thing is, like always we are fighting the last war! This talk of taxpayers bailing someone out is misrepresenting the truth. The tax coffers are empty, the money is being made out of thin air by the Fed’s ponzi scheme. That is what is so absurd about this whole mess; we the people are drowning without even realizing it, yet.
January 15th, 2010 at 7:08 am
JPM crushed estimates.
.74 vs. .61
A lot of you guys sound really pissed.
Many should have not dumped last winter.
“…annnnnnd the train left the station.” ~ Robert Johnson
Ifish(andfishandfishandfish…)
January 15th, 2010 at 7:27 am
Here’s an idea:
You accept bailout money, you cannot pay anyone higher than the President of the US who saved your ass. Any dollar paid out over $400K gets split 3 ways. 1/3 to the IRS, 1/3 to shareholders as a special dividend and 1/3 to the employee. Plus, it ain’t deductible!
Does that include his campaign war chest and futures on his speaking engagements?
January 15th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Brilliant, BR.
And look on the bright side, at least this time they actually found a way to get to D.C.
January 15th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Let’s find their coffins, get righteous, and hammer in the wooden stakes.
January 15th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I like Driftglass’s modification of the bankers’ pic –
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2010/01/as-parts-of-world-collapse.html
January 17th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
[...] And for laughs, here's what the four bank mandarins are thinking. (TBP) [...]
January 20th, 2010 at 11:04 am
[...] The photo used at the top of the page was created by Bruce Mac, and posted at The Big Picture on 1/14. [...]