Revolt of the Insiders
A few months ago, I did an interview with and took some photos for a piece in January 2012 Money magazine. The scrum of photographer’s crew during the outdoor shots was absurdly hilarious. The full piece has now been published online.
It was a privilege to be included in this group: Mutual fund manager John Hussman, former Credit Suisse housing analyst Laurie Goodman; banking analyst Mike Mayo, and lil old me.
The overarching theme in the four part piece is about Wall Street Insiders who are none too happy with the state of their industry — not the usual criticisms about too much regulation, but rather, us being mortified at what the industry has become.
The article actually came out well — you can see all four of them here:
Me: Why Wall Street watchdogs won’t bite
Bank analyst Mike Mayo: Fix shareholder rights
Money manager John Hussman: 1 bailout equals endless bailouts
Housing analyst Laurie Goodman: 1 bailout America needs
I am never comfortable having my picture taken, and you can see the obvious reason why below.
It looks like the photographer had me fire up a big fattie just before he took this photo; Of course, that is the one which ran in Money Magazine:>
>
Dude, Where are the Doritos?
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January 18th, 2012 at 10:38 am
Man when are you going to hit Denver for a talk?
Doobies and Doritos from one end of the town to the other.
January 18th, 2012 at 10:40 am
LOL — perhaps sometime later this year
January 18th, 2012 at 10:41 am
LOL, very nice, for some reason (no disrespect intended), you look like a funeral home director in this picture..
January 18th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Give a heads up, I’ll try to get some people to the event.
January 18th, 2012 at 10:49 am
The pic – freaking awesome!
January 18th, 2012 at 10:55 am
big fattie, tweek, oxy, there just volume adjustments, content is the same. Good for you BR!
January 18th, 2012 at 10:57 am
Nice to see that the Money people had professional photogs on hand. That nose casts quite a shadow. And, open those eyes.
January 18th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Thats how I look — stone cold sober, I look baked.
The bags under the eyes are a family trait, slit eyes even when they are wide open!
January 18th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Lol, nice picture, don’t squint next time.
“not the usual criticisms about too much regulation, but rather, us being mortified at what the industry has become.”
Well, your industry is 50 times bigger than the real economy, that’s absolute power, abuse is to be expected but not tolerated.
January 18th, 2012 at 10:59 am
Well, it is an election year. So perhaps the long awaited ‘biting’ by the watchdogs may be a boost for the incumbent. Barry is right – there are a lot of Wall Street bigwigs who should be sharing a cozy cell.
January 18th, 2012 at 11:08 am
as to watchdogs
Roosevelt asked Pecorra basically will the SEC work?
will it accomplish its goals?
Pecorra’s answer
it depends on the people.
so we now have an SEC that wont even let the courts drag it into doing its job
which is what you get when you pick the wrong people
as to image i like people that dont try too hard
but in your case you could try a smile-im curious
dont believe i have seen one on your oft seen face?
January 18th, 2012 at 11:10 am
Here is a great example of what has ‘become’ of our great capitalistic job creators. Cronies all of them.
Carlyle sits on top of the ‘networked’ heap.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/carlyle-group-moves-to-block-shareholder-suits-2012-01-18
January 18th, 2012 at 11:11 am
How come I can’t click for a ginormous version?
January 18th, 2012 at 11:13 am
You look just fine. Really.
January 18th, 2012 at 11:14 am
Here I am signing petitions against SOPA and PIPA and I come back to your pic. Absolutely marvelous. You have become a household name in my family. I too share the discomfort of posing for a picture, but your words are what is important, not your squint or stoner- like eyes. lol!!
January 18th, 2012 at 11:16 am
Newton the pimp.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-18/gingrich-paid-40k-in-speech-praising-pe-levy.html
January 18th, 2012 at 11:17 am
Too hard on yourself Barry. Ego-driven pics focus on an agenda; authenticity communicates from the heart and mind, as does this pic since it captures how you’re meeting life as it is. The photographer knew this. You talk and write about the things that really matter to you and because you make sense we take you seriously. Remember, it’s easier to be present when you’re being true to yourself. Stay true…well of course you’ll stay true. That’s who you are. That’s why Mrs. Big Picture married you. She’s a smart woman, natch. Ok, end of pep talk.
January 18th, 2012 at 11:18 am
dont get me wrong
its a nice serene near smile but show some teeth ?
January 18th, 2012 at 11:33 am
Hey Godfather, how about making congress an offer it can’t refuse?
January 18th, 2012 at 11:38 am
this may be a waste of time – but I support the Occupy Movement… and I think all people replying in any way should declare themselves… Occupy seems to be a “joke” among some folks – but by spring it is going to become bigger and more powerful than most think… I think most “Wall Street biggies” are now hiring armed security and they should Just think…” One Down and Dead” and Terrorism will mount from within….
Lloyd Blankfein probably has a small army by now…..Do you know Why “Target” department store has never produced a t-Shirt? Lloyd Blankfein “Down” will not affect my day… just business as usual in reverse.
January 18th, 2012 at 11:42 am
what ‘TacomaHighlands’ said..
esp. “…; authenticity communicates from the heart and mind…”
(note: also, a big part of the reason that Romney ‘looks’ the way he does.. (as a ‘negative’ ex.))
~~
but, *funny, “everyone” has Time to squawk about ‘the pic’, no one picks up on the “Fix shareholder rights”-Issue, or the others..
must be MutFund/401(k) (di-)vestors, to begin with..~
“panem et circenses” –has been correct for Thousands of Years, ‘mazing that the ‘Experiment of Liberty’ lasted as long as it did..
ol’ H.L. …
“Democracy is the theory that the common people
know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote/h._l._mencken_quote_f751
sometimes, it’s, little, wonder why he displayed ‘misanthropic’ tendencies .. :)
January 18th, 2012 at 11:52 am
Mr Ritholz,
Maybe you should have added “White House” under Congress.
Bloomberg reporting WH to name Larry Summers to head the World Bank.
Larry F##cking Summers!
Guess the President doesn’t read your blog and didn’t read Confidence Men.
January 18th, 2012 at 11:58 am
Damn BR, you put Pale Rider (Eastwood) to shame with that staredown….
January 18th, 2012 at 11:59 am
TacomaHighlands said: “…authenticity communicates from the heart and mind, as does this pic since it captures how you’re meeting life as it is. The photographer knew this. You talk and write about the things that really matter to you…”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The shot looks fine! They wanted it to look stylized, hence the dramatic lighting and positioning the camera lens lower (which they did for all four of you) to make you appear more monumental in scale and gravitas.
FWIW, if you’re striving for more flattering pictures, the camera lens should be at eye-level, or slightly above the subject, and pointing a few degrees down from horizontal. The subject should extend their chin ever-so-slightly forward and up. A quick example of this camera position (not the chin, obviously) is the portrait of Steve Jobs on the cover of his biography.
Keep up the good work…
January 18th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
A bit off-topic, but:
Federal Authorities Charge 7 In Insider Trading Case
by NPR staff and wire services
January 18, 2012
Federal authorities announced charges against seven people in connection with a massive ongoing insider trading investigation that has involved some of Wall Street’s most prominent money managers.
Prosecutors said those charged took part in an insider trading scheme that netted more than $61.8 million in illegal profits based on trades of a single stock.
SOURCE: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145391479/fbi-arrests-3-in-insider-trading-case
January 18th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Great pic. The look of honesty and integrity.
January 18th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
I don’t mind bailouts of the essential financial system, I mind the bankers turning around and paying themselves big bonuses that year and the next, rather than building up capital in their institutions.
The bailouts have been mostly paid back. Most of the culprits have been fired. Laws are changing.
Now think about who actually did the bailouts, and who is fighting the re-regulation of Wall Street? That”s the other thing I mind.
That photo is classic.
~~~
BR: Actually, 92% of the TARP recipients’ senior management remains essentially unchanged post-crisis . . .
See Banking Sector Remains (literally) Unchanged
January 18th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Senor Barry….
Damn, you look like a front man for a superpac fund (I’m sorry, there’s no need for that degrading comparision).
You should have an ‘encore’ career in film/tv for a ‘character actor’ as you’ve gots LOTS of character!
“A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know. ” H. L. Mencken
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. ” Mark Twain
“The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself. ” Will Rogers
Btw listen to bear-in-mind as he knows what he’s talking about. The camera ‘never’ lies!
January 18th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
I once did fire-up one before meeting a friends new girl friend. Her response, in her strong Brazilian accent was “Robby, is your friend blind?”. He has never let me forget it…
January 18th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
BTW, as a mid aged fem, I find your strange unnatural beauty rather dishy.
January 18th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Didn’t know there was still a ‘Money’ magazine :-/
(kudos on the article)
January 18th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
That 92% number is amazing. I was incorrectly focusing on the Fulds, Greenburgs, and misc Tan men.
“… Princeton’s Burton Malkiel, author of “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” and Pimco bond guru Bill Gross — both Republicans, by the way — have recently warned that capitalism as it’s now practiced in the U.S. diverts rewards from the deserving to the influential…”
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/13/pf/ows_mayo_best_money_moves.moneymag/index.htm?iid=EAL
Bush allowed bank to leverage to go from 10 -to-one to 40,50_to-one in their Ownerships Society policies of 2004. The banks leveraged up, when the asset prices corrected, the leverage bankrupted the banks. Bush bailed the banks out.
Now, the problem I have with this is that the bankers then turned around and paid themselves bonses. And now the very political party that made the dumb change for their financiers on Wall Street, fixed their companies without wiping shareholders in plenty of cases, now, refuse to allow regulations to fix it.
Socialism. That’s Socialism, socialism for the rich.
So why are we rewarding this rich guys with lower tax rates than workers again? So they can use their influence to get laws changed, which create problems, gov’t has to pay for?
Romney said it himself, what he did at BA is was exactly like what Obama did with the auto industry…
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-rush-freaks-20120112,0,16119.story
…but Obama fired the executive, wiped out the shareholders, and even made the debotrs take a haircut. No too mention the huge union give backs.
Even thought the trailer parks throughout America listen to their hero, Rush Limbaugh try to spin it otherwise, Obama the technocrat did the bail out right. The auto industry is kicking ass, ans the banks are still suffering.
That is why Obama has been a fantastic Commander-in-Chief.
January 18th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
dude, you are starting to look like my father in the eyes, nose, forehead, and hairline. fortunately, I take after my mother. spooky.
January 18th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
In these stressful times, it’s reassuring to see that your doobie supply is still holding its AAA rating.
January 18th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
to go along with your comment regarding the pic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HcXcYlF3_0
Thanks for being an honest guy who upholds the truth Mr. Ritholz. (FYI: i have the same genetic eye-bags thing but much less hair than you – so you actually come off as “handsome” from here).
January 18th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
“Most of the culprits have been fired. Laws are changing.”
Venn that is one of the most ridiculous comments ever posted here, except for some of my Ostrich videos.
BR- The pic is great , looks like a Soprano’s Promo.
January 18th, 2012 at 4:14 pm
I have the same eye situation, except with my allergies they’re also dark. Oh, well, I’d rather have that than some of the major health issues that friends my age have.
January 18th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
too bad you weren’t holding the sign with one hand and an ak47 in the other to make your point even stronger. but the facial expression is still pretty strong.
and what a compliment to you to be 1 of the 4 esteemed authors. they had lots of possiblities to pick from and picked you!!
January 18th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
We don’t always agree Barry, but a greater man than me once suggested we judge a man by “the content of his character”…of course they shot that guy for thinking that way. I don’t think your readers [or your clients] give rat’s buttocks what you look like.
We live in an age where charlatans, thieves, sycophants and sociopaths rule with naked disregard to the men and women who have made their wealth possible. We may be helpless to stop the elite from their insatiable greed and their headlong dash towards disaster, but we can be honest amongst ourselves [at least for now].
January 18th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Can I get this picture on a Fathead poster?
http://www.fathead.com/nhl/detroit-red-wings/pavel-datsyuk/?src=browse
January 18th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Roger Bigod Says:
January 18th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
In these stressful times, it’s reassuring to see that your doobie supply is still holding its AAA rating.
Dude! You have no idea man…thank God for that!
January 18th, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Re: “I am never comfortable having my picture taken, and you can see the obvious reason why …”
BR: … well, your pic confirms, in my mind, why I regard you as the most credible financial source on the world-wide web … integrity, toughness, pls don’t stop blogging !
January 19th, 2012 at 12:23 am
I wish he hadn’t posted the pic though. I had a bad case of contact munchies all afternoon. Luckily there were some stale oreos and a bottle of ranch dressing around the house.
January 19th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Dude, you look like a cross between Robert DeNiro and Ben Stein. Not sure if that’s a compliment or a dig, take it FWIW.
January 19th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Make it Robert DeNiro and Robert Mitchum and you are on to something
January 21st, 2012 at 6:45 am
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January 21st, 2012 at 10:48 am
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