After spending several years writing money-losing columns that were lacking in any insight into Wall Street for the New York Times, Ben Stein has returned.

After his NYT dismissal for becoming the pitchman for scam site FreeCreditReport.com ^[1], enough time has elapsed that Stein seems to have landed a gig with Bloomberg owned BusinessWeek.

We will see which direction of wrong Stein heads in this time. His former free market absolutism out of favor, he seems to be tacking in the direction of populist outrage.

This is another column not worthy of much dissection, but one sentence leapt out: “Goldman can make money by creating a scam synthetic security, as the SEC’s complaint alleges…”

No, that is not what the SEC complaint alleges — the legal charge is GS and Tourre engaged in fraud, made material misrepresentations about the security for sale, and had omissions of material facts.

Once this faux outrage passes, I expect to see the same old money losing lack of insight we’ve come to know and love about Ben Stein . . .

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UPDATE: April 21, 2010 9:14pm
“Bloomberg informs me that Ben Stein is not a BusinessWeek or Bloomberg employee. This was a one-time editorial contribution.”

I am thrilled to be wrong!

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Previously:
Farewell To Ben Stein ^[2] (January 29th, 2008)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/01/farewell-to-ben-stein/

Good Riddance, Ben Stein ^[3] (August 7th, 2009)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/08/good-riddance-ben-stein/

Source:
Goldman Sachs SEC Fraud Lawsuit Makes My Eyes Burn ^[4]
Ben Stein
Business Week, April 20, 2010
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-20/goldman-sachs-sec-fraud-lawsuit-makes-my-eyes-burn-ben-stein.html