Speaking Event Tonight With Nomi Prins and Daniel Gross
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1ST 7 P.M.
New York Society For Ethical Culture
2 West 64th St. at Central Park West
Registration Required: Contact Jinny Khanduja at jkhanduja@demos.org or call 212.389.1399
http://www.demos.org/events/prins_ny.html
The event tonight is a panel discussion with Nomi Prins, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is wicked smart at math, Daniel Gross of Newsweek, who wrote Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, and me.
The event is sponsored by Demos, the New York Society For Ethical Culture, and the Nation magazine.
As noted, registration is required. It’s at 7 p.m.
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Take video, please, for those of us 9,000 miles away and unable to attend
Ask and ye shall receive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RSu2UHuSKo
Matt, it might not hurt to add this to your original post for other people not inside the lesser New York Metropolitan Area.
Interesting discussion. Today’s word is abstruse. I hadn’t heard about the Maiden Lane / BlackRock / PennyMac connection, but I’m hardly surprised. I wish you guys had seized on the chance to talk about campaign finance at that point, but realistically speaking it’s kind of a moot discussion. Still, it’d be nice to see you explain how it’s really no different in America than it is in the rest of the world except that we codify our bribery as campaign finance and then pretend that’s some kind of alchemy that transforms it into not-bribery and our politicians can be bought so ridiculously cheap and give away so much. I don’t think most people back home have experienced bribery in its more pure form and really don’t understand the connection. In other places the cop takes money from you, the city manager takes a bribe, everyone will take a bribe. In America we largely get rid of that so regular people don’t see it and we restrict it to the upper crust. I don’t think people believe it because they don’t see it themselves.
Anyhow, good job on inserting the meth addict meme into the discussion, Nomi seemed to love that. Check her for purse for sudafed and tractor fuel.
In response to another comment. See in context »Thanks for posting this, expat. I watched about an hour of it, but it’s getting to be time to doing some work around here, so I’m into the comments for a bit, then outside and into the office later.
The discussion between Taibbi, Cross, and Prins supported my evolving belief that corporatism is the new feudalism and not a separate economic system after all. There’s even a defacto law of promegenitor where bad assets are concerned: 1) if my corporation does well, you still get to work away in your peon status to support us, and buy stock in us the bargain! 2) if my corporation bites the bullet, then you the peon assume out debt so that we can still have everything we want. We’ll continue to set policy for the greater good. Cheers!
The discussion hit a lot of important points. If we can keep this dialogue open, MAYbe it will stay in the public consciousness long enough to get some reform passed, which could lead to the possibility of campaign finance reform, and maybe even some corporate nepotism (in the sense of working for a certain corporation gets your foot in the door) hiring reform.
Interesting that David Brancaccio was the moderator. It’s been 10 years or so since he’s been with Marketplace, and I wonder if he left because he felt the show was going light, or if the show got lighter after he left just because. The show still covers some good issues, but also seems to support the market no mater what, all under the guise of making sense of market jargon. When I hear cutsie introductions along the lines of “round and round the whatever goes, and where it stops, nooooobody knows,” I get visions of Homer Simpson slapping his head and saying “That’s so funny/true” and then guzzling a Duff or inhaling a doughnut. Then again, maybe it’s just my general anger with the system allowing this to happen via lack of regulation, oversight, scruples, you name it.
In any case, I’m wondering how you’re gonna write a book that isn’t a billion pages long on all of this stuff*, Matt. There’s tons of material that needs to be fleshed out, and this cautionary tale needs to be part of every MBA curriculum.
*A friend recently informed me that “stuff” originally referred to horse shit. So when Nomi used the term to discuss what was being traded (to use that term loosely), I did chuckle a bit.
In response to another comment. See in context »Snap it off in her Matt!!!
Wtf? Ew; I think this should be saved for a locker room or in a dive after los of beers, near closing time,when noone can hear you.
In response to another comment. See in context »Sounds interesting and I will try to attend- wish the panel were more balanced, though. Nomi Prins is as dense as they get- saw her at a Smith Family Foundation event a while back.
Glad to see both The Taibbi and Nomi Prins, author of that outstanding book, Other People’s Money, the updated text of a similarly titled book by Louis Brandeis, written before the last Great Depression, and both highly recommended.
Also would recommend her latest book, It Takes a Pillage.
Ms. Prins has a first-class knowledge of what’s transpiring, and Matt is coming on strong in his learning curve.
Also like to recommend Joseph A. Tainter’s outstanding, Collapse of Complex Societies, a book which everyone should recommend to anyone in the M.O. category (Mentally Oblivious).
Matt, pls read the following:
http://www.avaresearch.com/files/20090930175434.pdf
It’s not bad (speaking for myself here, haven’t any knowledge of what The Taibbi would say), but it is still rather pedestrian.
Obviously, there was a takedown of WaMu, probably with the aid of TPG (the PE firms represent the top stratum of banking, with JPM, GS & MS the public stratum). The takedown of Bear Stearns, was obviously orchestrated by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan & Deutsche Bank (obvious from a close examination of surrounding market data during that timeframe), with Cayne making off like a bandit (est. $1 trillion plus—derivatives parked offshore).
Again, I would highly recommend Nomi Prins’ It Takes a Pillage. Having read every book published on the economic meltdown, this is hands-down the penultimate read (most of the others were subsidized by Wall Street to claim that “it just happened”….”nobody is really to blame”…..”accidental” — just a goofy bunch of Wall Streeters who happened to walk away with millions, billions (and in Cayne’s case) or trillions.
In response to another comment. See in context »