“Investing” in AIG, et. al.: understand the scandal

I haven’t posted here due to a lack of time, but what we are witnessing is no short of the most abject scandal run by the collusive political and financial sides of American elite. Oh, and incompetence is a hallmark too.

Here are a few must-read if you want to follow what’s going on, but be warned, this will elevate your blood pressure quite drastically:

Andrew Lahde, recently famous hedgie, closed its fund with a 866% return. Here’s an extract from his last letter to investors:

The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.

Go read the Epicurian Dealmaker’s pov. An insider take on what’s happening here. Extract of the finesse piece:

With both Congress and the New York Attorney General’s office crawling up the asses of major Wall Street firms with flashlights, Roto-rooters, and cattle prods looking for juicy little sound bites on excessive compensation for the Senate floor and the nightly news, it will be a long time indeed before investment bankers regain control of their compensation processes. If ever.

But something much more serious is at stake here. Here’s Barry on the $140B handed out illegally by the Treasury to banks under the form of tax breaks. Steve Randy Waldman follows suit:

But, today I am white-hot mad over AIG, and I need to vent. Yves Smith has done a beautiful job of describing the ridiculous awfulness of today’s “restructuring”. More importantly, she uses words with the appropriate intensity and valence: “banana republic”, “looting”, “Mussolini-Style Corporatism”.

Barry closes the loop today with this post. Are we witnessing the end of Wall Street as we know it, as Michael Lewis suggests? I still doubt it, but I would be happy to be wrong.

| PRINT