If The Big Short, Adam McKay’s adaptation of Michael Lewis’s book about the 2008 financial crisis and the subject of last month’s Vulture cover story, got you all worked up over the holidays, you’re probably wondering what Michael Burry, the economic soothsayer portrayed by Christian Bale who’s always just a few steps ahead of everyone else, is up to these days. In an email, which readers of the book will recognize as his preferred method of communication, the real-life head of Scion Asset Management answered some of our panicked questions about the state of the financial system, his ominous-sounding water trade, and what, if anything, we can feel hopeful about.
Go see that, by the way. It’s good.
I liked the interview but I suspect he is wrong on the water trade. The fact is we buy vegetables from places which depend on failing irrigation. Go figure.
I like the part where the wealth gap keeps getting wider.
get used to the possibility of a world where 98+% of all assets and resources are owned/controlled/whatever by 3 groups: individuals, corporations, and gubbamint.
I am revising my prediction to include gubbamint because THAT covers the nations which go totally socialist. we already have that in shytholes like n korea. there will be an uber uber elite club of multibillionaires and maybe that much envied trillionaire who between them act out the mafia styled truce to distribute control based on perhaps different markets and not necessarily geography. corporations will be the next. the former middle class will find refuge in corporate stock, but mostly a result of the famous stock swaps, a form of financial incest if you will.
the indicators are there, according to forbes magazine, there are now more billionaires in communist Chirer than USA which specialized in capitalism. ironic eh?
and those russkie fat cats that seized the opportunity when the USSR broke up, to seize the vast mineral and oil wealth. google the numbers for yourself.
also, ms mcwynne’s vowed determination to sell Ontario Hydro is further evidence of privatization on a vast scale. I had a pamphlet describing it as a ‘payday’ loan. very accurate. its coming to a theatre near you, millions of bankruptcies that allow the money boys to grab up property for fractions of a penny on the dollar. they just love collapsed economies eh?
all in our lifetime. technology merely accelerates the process.
you dont think so mr doubting thomas? what are you going to do when the politishuns of the day crank property taxes up up up 1000%, claiming they ‘have no choice’ when in fact its the money boys again, prompting them, bribing them, lobbying them into triggering mtg defaults so they can grab all that property. there. done. block after block after block of residential & commercial real estate now owned outright by a tiny tiny elite. see what I mean? and a big tqvm to the conservatist George Dubya’s thug republitards for their nifty little eminent domain trick. another way to take peoples’ homes right out from under them. all part of the plan.
watch for it. look for the signs and evidence. so go ahead and buy all the guns you want, unless you know how to do hand made bullets (which are outlawed) you’re scaREEEEWED.
Try this
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/time-for-torches-pitchforks-the-little-guy-is-going-to-get-monkey-hammered-again/
the comments in Another Ian’s posting pillory the bush/cheney thieves. again, there is a form of incest, when politico big shots retire from public office and get hired by the very sectors they were overseeing.
and mr greenspan? what about him? in his position during the presidencies of 3 republitards incl ronnie raygun who appointed him, and uno democrap the much ballyhooed and also pilloried slick willy.
in other words, the damage he did dovetailed quite nicely with the bush/cheney view of life. the same george dubya who is such a go***mn hero here @ SDA.
go figure . . . .
. . . .[posting] ///correction///: LINK pillory . . . .
Like probably many here, and other small investors around North America, we were hurt by the Dot com bust and by the 2008 bust.
It almost makes you think that the Bank of Mattress would be the best place to put your money.
Only in a global sense, not personal sense, was I affected by the dot com and mortgage bubble. They were obvious scams, just like green anything. The problem is when the scammers win the politicos (one might say natural allies) that the shyt really hits the fan.
Saw the Big Short two days ago. Highly recommended, even though I’d read the book and knew the whole story backwards and forwards (from reading ZeroHedge for the last five years, for one thing).
The only thing that surprised me was at the end, the audience didn’t start shouting “Jail the banksters!”. They just filed out, muttering grimly.
what ‘not personal’ sense are you referring to? Getting any yield on the bond portion of your portfolio these days? No? ZIRP is the reason, and ZIRP only exists because of the mortgage bubble.
For me the money quote is: The major reform legislation, Dodd-Frank, was named after two guys bought and sold by special interests, and one of them should be shouldering a good amount of blame for the crisis. Banks were forced, by the government, to save some of the worst lenders in the housing bubble, then the government turned around and pilloried the banks for the crimes of the companies they were forced to acquire.
If you look at the latest only-in-the-developed-world crises you’ll see that the government overseers that didn’t do their jobs face no penalty. In Walkerton the governmental negligence caused deaths. Proper oversight would have prevented the Mount Polley tailings dam failure. In neither of these cases were any disciplinary action, or legal action, taken against those whose job it is to “act in the public interest”. Can anyone name for me a case where someone working for the government who hasn’t done their job correctly has been formally charged? I don’t mean someone bribed to look the other way, which is a separate crime, but someone working in a government oversight position who has done their job so incompetently that deaths or massive public environmental damage (e.g. the Gold King mine adit plug failure) have resulted. Why have government oversight if it keeps proving itself ineffectual?
Water is a non-starter. Fresh water can be produced for a minimum price to bring desalination online. It’s a lot like electricity – once the need is agreed upon and the long-term pricing is understood well enough for the economists, the supply will be developed (with or without government involvement). As with cheap power, kleptocracies won’t be trusted with the initial investment so the poorest in the world will be the hardest hit.
Locked in retirement funds. LIC’s I think they’re called, they did better than all the other mutual funds, RRSPs and such type portfolios. Talk to a reputable non-bank employed financial adviser.
“People don’t plan to fail, but they often fail to plan”.
As far as the ravers that are still blaming the GOP, give your head a shake.(not you KevinB) Obama has printed over 50-80 BILLION per MONTH for how many years now? So if GWB et all are stupid then Obama took stupid over the cliff the size of the Grand Canyon and that sudden stop at the end has yet to happen-again.
DEMS had the power in last 2 of GWB’s years to force the banks (FF, FM) to give mtgs to risky borrowers. All those ads on TV are still in my memory – come get your free money honey!!
Stock market now is a printed money market which is why only the rich/wealthier are making money.
I just saw the Movie… They didn’t mention that academia had fostered the generation of “Wealth” using the Housing Market… The original housing market had locked-in individual wealth appreciation that they wanted to free-up for investment money to replace the dot.Com loses on Wall street… It was Georgetown that pushed the plan for Poor People to “also” generate wealth.. The whole variable Mortgage(with bubble payment) was used to help those who could not qualify for a traditional load & they “hoped” could refinance (appreciation) to make the bubble payment…. Like all Government policies it got out of control…free money…free homes…free fall
BTW: Georgetown had a postmortem debate where they agreed their policy of using housing as wealth was dead wrong…
The movie made an honest portrayal of regulators.. SEC & rating agencies… Scary real
Hank Paulson was GWB man, he was a crook from the Clinton era…Dodd-Frank.. both crooks
The Dot.com era was even wilder… Time-Warner buying Ted Turner & then AOL buying both (A0L projected billings of >$300.mo per user in 1998)… IPO evaluation Madness
The AGW Carbon scam will draw the same sharks …