Charlie Rose

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hugofbt  03/31/2010 08:27 AM Report

All the economists say the same thing! Regulation, hedge an more innovation! Please, we wanna right solutions and less books about the same titles and suggetions. I think that the best idea is: more regulation and inovation to economists, to a better world.

NoPardonforMichaelMilken  08/06/2009 01:02 AM Report

Shalom,

First off, my best to Avigdor Lieberman during his forthcoming trial. With tyrants like that leading your nation, who needs enemies elsewhere?

Second, I have neither questioned Mr. Shiller's intelligence nor his industry. Any man who can con that many Yale undergrads, a notoriously lazy lot, into researching and even writing on his behalf has to have some skills.

Instead, along with Mr. Shiller's vanity, which is a byproduct of places like New Haven and AIPAC, I have chosen to raise sharp, valid concerns about Mr. Shiller's ethics, or blatant lack thereof, and his unwillingness to accept responsibility for serving as the trainer for the greatest band of domestic terrorists in American history.

That Mr. Shiller's pupils carried out their domestic terrorism on American soil with computer spreadsheets, Blackberries, pens, and, yes, expensive escort services, rather than with guns, bombs, or airplanes, offers solace to the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and the hundreds of millions of citizens who have unwillingly forfeited their savings as a result of the Gucci and Armani Guerrillas trained at the Shiller School of Absent Ethics.

If, as per Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and their minions, a doctor of another sort, the late-George Tiller, was in fact a killer of unborn children, I respectfully submit that Robert Shiller must henceforth be known as The Killer of the American Dream and All Ethics in High Finance.

So whine all you wish about Mr. Shiller's unfair treatment here. I will define him only by his chosen label and like another of your brethren, Bernard Madoff, I aspire only to the hope that Mr. Shiller suffers the same ignominy and personal loss as the once-hallowed, now-incarcerated Mr. Madoff.

Robert Shiller and Bernie Madoff deserve each other. If any justice exists in the world, which I highly doubt, perhaps we can throw them in the same cell block as Christopher Cox and Avidgor Lieberman.

myke  08/05/2009 02:43 PM Report

Robert Shiller is Alan Greenspan in leopard stripes advocating a better capitalism along with a stupid proof ejection system. Charlie, no thanks to you, your guest talked himself stupid.

ShalomFreedman  08/05/2009 12:45 PM Report

The discussion on this site continues to be both at a very low level intellectually, and largely irrelevant to what has been said on the program.

Robert Shiller is a person of enormous intelligence and industry. He is one of the few who saw the coming meltdown especially in the Housing Area.

However as a television interviewee he tends to be a bit dull, a bit preachy, a bit self- satisfied, and quite a bit humorless. His ticking off of his various book- titles and the subjects he addressed gave the feeling 'He is the best and the brightest, but also oh so vain'.

As to the substance he was pretty non- committal on most things but perhaps paradoxically also quite wise.

Yes the economy has seen the worst, and there are signs of a turnaround. But yes also it will take a long- time. Historically looking at the Great Depression Shiller indicates just how look and difficult it was before the Economy truly revived.

He seems to indicate that this time will not be different.

tartufe  08/03/2009 11:06 PM Report

". . . and the beacons of wise men." Thanks.

NoPardonforMichaelMilken  08/03/2009 03:40 AM Report

tartufe,

Yes, I don't want to burn D.C. to the ground. Ergo, I am not as patriotic as you and yours. Very logical. Try out a little Thomas Huxley, "Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools (and blogging anarchists, had the latter been around in the 18th century) and the beacons of wise men."

Steve,

Were I to examine your background, would I perhaps find a Yale degree and/or a business connection to The Shill? Skull & Bones do stick together.

That you accept The Shill's arrogance, refusal to admit that enhanced regulation is needed to govern the greed of the Wall Street trader, denial of the folly - long since proven - that is Efficient Market Theory, and phony glorification of the quant as some sort of capitalistic savant rather its use as little more than a tool to turn the investment into the back alley gamble is something of a pity. It's also expected, but it remains a pity nonetheless.

To The Shill, every woe of our capitalistic system post-2008 can be solved by the quant, by another book, by a theory in a classroom, by the fodder that is dinner at the club. People devolve, in The World of The Shill, to mere numbers on a page and greed and avarice to mathematical formulas that, despite thousands of years of experience, that can be controlled directly or massaged indirectly with the right amount of spin. (Paging Andrew Ross Sorkin! Paging Andrew Ross Sorkin! Your master awaits you!)

In watching this exercise, let's not call it an interview for an interview contains probing questions and not the manner of hero worship displayed by the well-compensated Charlie, one half expected The Shill to break out in a Broadway show tune paying homage to the late-Milton Friedman and the glories of wholly unregulated economics.

Be rest assured, however, that The Shill will crank out another half dozen books extolling the virtues of excess leverage, the credit default swap, the $2 million executive bathroom, predatory lending, and the $125 million in two years Goldman Sachs CEO. What Wall Street, the Hamptons, the Vineyard, and Connecticut want and pay for, that's what they will get.

From The Shill and from his public relations man, Charlie Rose.

tartufe  08/02/2009 11:18 PM Report

Oops, the last two paragraphs are for NoPardon.

tartufe  08/02/2009 11:16 PM Report

Mr Brown your ad hominem charge is unfair and apparently based on cherry-picked selectivity. Try REMant and cello10 for starters and my first for objecting to issues (as well as the nefarious type that would promote them).

Anarchists (and revolutionists) are often more useful (patriotic) than some town boardman or councilman. Your viewpoints are rather naive against the real world of oligarchy funded lobbyists buying the venal whores of Congress, the Executive branch and the judiciary. You seem to think the system works as advertised. You're not as much of a reactionary as you like to portray.

To refute: government IS 'them,' the purchasers, the bribers, the oligarchs, via the lobbiest. A bit too preachy NoPardon.

doodahdaze  08/02/2009 10:53 PM Report

steve, I see no reason to try an attempt to debunk this

scholarly fellow's "ideas", because I don't see how anything that he said could possibly be 'his' ideas especially since I've heard it all before from everybody else's mouths. Everything he said all seemed to be pretty elementary. About "it's not really logic and reason, it's emotion... blah blah blah The lack of consumer confidence, the great depression... blah blah blah What's so wrong with derivatives, "insurance" blah blah blah..." To which I say, "yeah right. 'Insurance' FOR WHO?...

Quite frankly, this guy seems to be a bit out of touch, living in a privileged academia la la land, where money grows on trees and cops and professors hold hands and play skip to my loo.

stevebrownptc  08/02/2009 09:54 PM Report

How sad to watch the bloggers on this site attack the man rather than attempt to debunk his ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion. Pity that not enough of the bloggers actually tried to come up with logical arguments to add to the discussion in a meaningful way.

NoPardonforMichaelMilken  08/02/2009 06:15 PM Report

tartufe,

I have as much use for anarchists as I do for secessionists, Lou Dobbs, Avigdor Lieberman, too much ice in my iced coffee, and hemorrhoids.

That Charlie continues to bow at the Altar of His Offshore Bank Account and bring out the likes of Mr. Shiller to shill, as it were, for the Wall Street House is pathetic - predictable, but pathetic.

But neither is it more pathetic nor more predictable than the American populace sitting on its collective backside and allowing a well-paid flock of hacks (Yes, that would be you, Mr. Limbaugh, and you, Mr. O'Reilly, and you, Mr. Beck, and you both, Mr. and Mrs. James Carville of New Orleans and D.C.) to drone on about government as some outside, foreign entity that is an enemy of the state and its citizens.

Tommy J., Benny Franklin, and Jimmy Madison had this idea in the Constitution, U.S. of a participatory democracy, of our government being "of, by, and for the people." Government is us: the secessionist, the Conservative, the anarchist, the offshore bank account holder, the American Idol viewer, the latte sipper, the SEC college football junkie, etc.

You and I, we are government. Government is us.

So shut up and get off your butt. Stop whining. Get to a town board, city council, county or parish legislature meeting. Head out to the school board meeting, the planning or zoning board session. And vote on any and every race. Learn the issues. Yes, you'll have to do some work. Yes, you'll have to TiVo Jon & Kate Makes Me Regurgitate and Dancing for the Czars. Oh the suffering, the pain. You'll endure.

Get to work. Government is not some them. Government is you.

tartufe  08/01/2009 07:13 PM Report

Citi and the other predators are validating their macabre, putrefying ways and utter contempt and lack of remorse for their part in the abject misery for far too many, by paying Andrew Hall et al billions in blood and misery bonuses.

God bless everyone.

tartufe  08/01/2009 03:23 PM Report

NoPardon - being an admitted arm-chair anarchist (below), I applaud your comments. Too radical for most possibly (which unfortunately lets them dismiss it all), but being somewhat of the same bent my applause is loud and strong. Even if a fraction is true it's enough, and needs to be yelled from the roof tops.

We've been raped and pillaged by supporters of Obama a la Citigroup (little Bobby Rubin, Larry Summers et al). Little Bobby and Sandy Weill of Citigroup lobbied (puchased) repeal of Glass-Steagall to assist the descent into aint-we-clever greed.

A culture that tolerates what the financial wise-guys have pulled deserves what it gets and deserves the moral hazards approaching (again) because the putrefaction and abscess is still within our system. Until it's excised it's inevitable. But, alas, no CEO or fiancial officer has even been investigated let alone incarcerated along with Madoff. Even though their devastation is many times Bernies.

Where are the anarchists when you need them?

NoPardonforMichaelMilken  08/01/2009 02:49 PM Report

Ladies and gentlemen,

Mr. Shiller has proudly admitted to training many of the financiers who gave you Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, The Blackstone Group, and a litany of hedge funds.

Mr. Shiller unleashed on his fellow Americans John Thain's multimillion-dollar bathroom, Goldman Sachs' multibillion-dollar employee bonuses, and the yawning gap between the Wall Street elites and the rest of America.

Robert Shiller represents little more than the Osama bin Laden of America, our nation's greatest domestic terrorist, and the proud perpetrators of crimes against his nation, his fellow citizens, and mankind as a whole.

Why, Charlie, would anyone want to read Mr. Shiller's propaganda? Why would anyone want to pay Mr. Shiller his/her hard-earned money to learn why he/she should be kept in their place and be grateful to be allowed to remain there? Mr. Shiller is a domestic terrorist. Nothing more. Nothing less.

NoPardonforMichaelMilken  08/01/2009 02:41 PM Report

Neuroeconomics, much like Efficient Market Theory, exists as little more than a canard and is proffered in nothing short of a Frank Luntzian effort to justify and make socially acceptable the blatant greed and lust for endless wealth at the expense of society, community, and one's fellow man that Wall Street and Robert Shiller take as their collective creed.

I do not trust Mr. Shiller. Warren Buffett thoroughly debunked Efficient Market Theory and its practitioners some 25 years ago during a 1984 debate at Columbia University. Neuroeconomics is nothing short of a pseudo-medical confidence game in which to perpetuate the folly of EMT.

One can only hope that Mr. Shiller suffers physically as much as the citizens and workers have financially courtesy of the actions of Mr. Shiller and his fellow Bonesmen and Ivy Leaguers who allowed EMT to destroy the national, state, local, and international economies.

NoPardonforMichaelMilken  08/01/2009 02:13 PM Report

Greatest Risk on Wall Street: Trusting an Ivy Leaguer, particularly a member of Skull & Bones, with your money.

Every Ivy League Silver Spoon Legacy Admission will steal your money. A lack of integrity and a complete devotion to perpetual greed are genetic with this brood.

Trust any Ivy Leaguer and you'll lose everything right down to your last penny.

doodahdaze  08/01/2009 09:33 AM Report

There's a fortune to be made, if only we would trust the Wizard of Oz again. .. (Beware!, revenge of the nerds; As if they haven't already gotten it)... thanks for the public education, economics (and all it's intricacies) 101 course.

youtube - 'Debt as Money'(and it's sequel) - much more interesting and ENLIGHTENING than this guy(more of the same blah,blah,blah).

tartufe  07/31/2009 09:15 PM Report

cello10 - my age and cowardice are the only things keeping from being a complete anarchist. My overweaned sense of equity and fairness (and unsophistication), makes me want to see the big bank wise-guys get what they deserve - not what they got (away with). As it is I root for the placard carriers from my arm chair when the media deigns to show them.

tartufe  07/31/2009 09:04 PM Report

And emotions (desires, wants etc) make mkts.

RobertS  07/31/2009 06:45 PM Report

Robert Schiller appears to subscribe to Ludwig Von Misses. Misses stated that the study of the economy is the study of the human action. Mathematic models don't work because they don't take in account the emotional part of decisions. People don't act like Spoc or Data (Star Trek) we have emotions which influence all kinds of decisions.

cello10  07/31/2009 03:53 PM Report

I will briefly address tartufe's query:

Unless you are a complete anarchist, the revolution in the social sciences will have profound public policy implications. The impact is thus indirect: Buyer and seller can engage with-in an economic/monetary/market infrastructure far more compatible to needs of ordinary human beings than they do currently. Further, they will each be better educated during their transaction encounter. As this revolution develops, through the balance of the 21st century, the concept of "Gross Domestic Product" (GDP) will be replaced a more quality of life concept, "Total Cultural Output" (TCO). Such a concept embraces both material and spiritual values, enhancing rather than assaulting the dignity of the human being. _Cameron L Stewart

tartufe  07/31/2009 03:32 PM Report

cello10, you and REMant sure like to overload my capacity for comprehension. But with your last paragraph, "When the social sciences are fully revolutionized - as Kroeber, Chomsky, and Schiller all hope for - perhaps we can begin to reconcile rational economic thought with the psychology of human behavior, and better understand the limitations of traditional, rational, scientific thinking.", what will a willing seller use to entice a willing buyer with if all is reconciled? Does perceived value reach a (psychological) stalemate? Doesn't (at least) one have to be a little insane?

tartufe  07/31/2009 03:00 PM Report

REMant - If I were better equipped, I think I might agree with you. Not in your class, but do agree with this re a rational market, ". . . stop fussing with it and preventing actions from having consequences."

One significant natural cosequence is being thwarted by the pols by their prosecuting NOT ONE of the perpetrators of the financial collapse. Madoff is the (unorthodox and somewhat surprising) exception that proves the rule. The putrefaction has not been excised and systemic gangrene is evidenced by the continued espousal of business-as-usual with steroids by Shiller and his too-clever-by-fractions ilk.

The too big to fail myth has successfully obscured EXACTLY what should have been allowed in a TRUE laissez faire mode. The failure of each institution would have exposed their over leveraged excesses and ipso facto make them subject to critical investigations by the FBI, SEC, FR et al and Congress (yet their complicit and need an internal purge as well). Serious Madoff-type jail terms should have been meted out. They collapsed the world economy for cris sake. Meted out abject misery and retired to tax-free havens in the Bahamas on their luxury yachts. Instead of rooming with Bernie.

And our prisons are full of petty larceny felons. How long can such a culture endure. Shiller types that promote 'innovative-(clever)paper-swapping' over products adds to the gap. Paper trading/swapping means fewer mouse traps. Leveraged or not.

cello10  07/31/2009 02:59 PM Report

Robert Schiller clearly belongs in the camp of social science people who argue against scientific/rationalist fundamentalism in the economics profession. Schiller is not the first to make this argument.

The problem Schiller poses traces back to the philosopher David Hume, who first postulated Hume's fork, declaring that all knowledge was either a relation of ideas or a statement of physically observable fact. In a famous quotation Hume states:

"If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

Lord Kelvin furthered the cause of scientific rationalism when he stated that unless you could quantify something your knowledge about it was "a meager and unsatisfactory kind".

The stunning advances in physics during the first part of the 20th century inspired those in the social sciences to duplicate a similar mathematical preciseness. Perhaps one of the earliest voices of protest against this trend was the American Anthropologist Alfred Kroeber at UC Berkeley.

In a series of papers written in the American Anthropologist, Kroeber lamented this unfortunate trend to insist on quantifying, rationalizing, and mathematically modeling everything. He went on to develop his "Super Organic Theory", which was the first to posit that the reality of our world takes place at different levels of complexity. The first, the realm of physics, was the most basic. The next level, slightly more complex, was the level of chemistry. The next level after, even more complex, was the level of the “organic”, that is biology. An even higher, more complex level, existed at the level of the psychological, or the individual human being. The most complex realm of all was the level of society, which Kroeber called "The Super Organic".

The point of making these distinctions was partly to claim that society has a reality and driving force that transcends individual people and individual behavior. However, another implication was that the precise mathematical formulations so useful for physics were less than ideal for quantifying and expressing laws about social behavior. Kroeber also felt that history had a unique place in academic study and should be set apart from purely scientific investigation.

When John Maynard Keynes wrote his famous "General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money" its mathematical rigor did much to further its acceptance in academic circles. However, Keynes also had a keen appreciation of history and was a gambler at heart in the world of high finance. Paul Samuelson at MIT took up Keyne's mantle upon his death, expanding much of the mathematical rigor, but possessing none of Keyne's intuitive, gut insight.

Keyne's harshest critic was Friedrich Von Hayek. However, the popularity of Hayek’s book, "The Road to Serfdom", published in 1944, along with a complete lack of mathematical justification to his ideas, caused Von Heyek to be labeled as a "crackpot" in academic circles. The Ludwig Von Mises school of economics - of which Hayek was a part - was considered a philosophy not a science. Hence monetarist thinking could not gain traction in the world of academia.

Milton Friedman, with his immense talent for mathematical modeling, took Von Heyek's philosophy and gave it mathematical rigor. It came at a time when the Keynesian vision began to sputter, during the “Stagflation” phenomena of the mid 1970’s. Suddenly, monetarist thinking began to acquire credibility.

Milton Friedman’s entrance into the field of economics furthered a trend that Alfred Kroeber had condemned half a century earlier. Not only did Friedman try to make economics as precise a field as physics, he insisted that it must be so. Adding insult to injury, Friedman continued a Ludwig Von Mises tradition, in which rational deduction and reasoning trumped historical experience. Thus all economic laws could be deduced “a priori”. Friedman’s mathematical models were elegant and convincing but they were based on assumptions that flew in the face of historical and contemporary experience, particularly The Great Depression. Thus began a series of disastrous, monetarist experiments, first in third world countries and then in the developed nations.

Noam Chomsky once stated in a conversation with David Barsamian that everything that has been done in the social sciences should be scrapped and we should start all over. In Chomsky’s view, too much of the social sciences were divorced from the reality of political economy. Great literature has more to teach us about human behavior than the social sciences ever will.

While Schiller may disprove the excessive reliance on rationality by counter example, this does not necessarily create a more suitable theory. Physics got us into this philosophical mess and physics will have to get us out.

The current trend in physics has been to cross the bridge of world culture and look for ideas in eastern thought – particularly Buddhism – to explain the paradoxes that arise when experimental result contradicts known physical laws. When this state of knowledge advances far enough, religion, science, art, culture, and economics will have a more common, solidified ground on which to share than they now do currently. The great Chinese Buddhist teacher Tien Tai, codified Buddhist teachings into the theory of “Ichinen Sanzen”, which overcomes the limitations of western philosophy and religion.

When the social sciences are fully revolutionized - as Kroeber, Chomsky, and Schiller all hope for - perhaps we can begin to reconcile rational economic thought with the psychology of human behavior, and better understand the limitations of traditional, rational, scientific thinking.

mabraham  07/31/2009 02:59 PM Report

It is rare to have the opportunity to make an effort to listen and enjoy it. What a relief from the well rehearsed and pedantic "book tour banter" most authors come up with.

It was about the ideas, not about selling more copies of his latest publication.

Thank you.

Nancy_MI  07/31/2009 02:48 PM Report

I have never been more embarressed for Charlie than I was when I watched a portion of his interivew with Robert Shiller. The guy was one of the weirdest and freakiest human beings ever. One could not miss the weird body language this man had, his head was almost constantly looking down while his eyes looked upward. I was appalled by his description and support regarding darivatives. This guy was a blatant liar. He's working with the Federal Reserve and he's completely in the pockets of those who are running down and controlling this country. I consider Shiller to be a member of the team public enemy number one.

REMant  07/31/2009 01:19 PM Report

ANOTHER Keynesian... "Animal spirits" is taken directly from Keynes' General Theory. Lionel Robbins destroyed this position before it was even published. If Shiller wants to create a better capitalism, he could just go back to the Gold Standard, or better, end bank's ability to manufacture credit out of thin air. It was ppl like Shiller going back to the turn of the last century who've created all of the business downturns we've experienced since then, including this one and the Depression. He understands nothing, and the whole bunch of them never has understood anything.

Let me quote Robbins in 1934: "Is not the restoration of capitalism the restoration of the causes of depression? If the analysis of this essay is correct, the answer is unequivocal. The conditions of recovery which have been stated do indeed involve the restoration of what has been called capitalism. But the slump was not due to these conditions. On the contrary, it was due to their negation. It was due to monetary mismanagement and State intervention operating in a milieu in which the essential strength of capitalism had already been sapped by war and by policy. Ever since the outbreak of war in 1914, the whole tendency of policy has been away from that system, which in spite of the persistence of feudal obstacles and the unprecedented multiplication of the people, produced that enormous increase of wealth per head which was characteristic of the period in which it was dominant. Whether that increase will be resumed, or whether, after perhaps some recovery, we shall be plunged anew into depression and the chaos of planning and restrictionism-that is the issue which depends on our willingness to reverse this tendency." In this he was joining Jacob Viner and F. A. Hayek, and also Marshall, Edgeworth, Taussig, Hawtrey, Robertson, Pigou, etc.

Economists have been sticking their noses into all manner of social science and policy analysis for decades now with absolutely disasterous results. As someone with a credentials in psychology, myself, let me say he is no better a psychologist. Traditonal free-market economists have never said that the mkt IS automatically rational anyway, but that the only way for it to be rational, is to stop fussing with it and preventing actions from having consequences. This is the equivalent of of the Legal Realist movement against the same free-market positions taken by the 19th century Supreme Court. But it is one thing to say that certain things are not God-given, and another to say that therefore, anything goes. In fact, it is the Keynesians, who are the real practioners of laissez-faire, the case Robbins develops. A case, further, as Kevin Phillips says, of the arsonists putting on firehats. Greenspan was no more of a Republican than Reagan. (The book can be found online here: http://www.mises.org/books/depression-robbins.pdf) On the other hand, the objective of free-market economics is the development of trust and self-reliance, not the stimulation of animal spirits, nor one, in some defintion, without the other.

Any damn fool should have known what was going to happen with real estate in 2001 as interest rates were not raised, as well as with events in the late 90's as money poured into "tech" stocks. I did and I'm sure many, many others did, because it has all happened many times before. The conceptual problem ppl have is simply that they take high prices for wealth, when in fact since money is only debt, they indicate the opposite. The only wealth gain is relative, like the first ppl out of a Ponzi scheme. As for "indexing inequality:" hasn't he heard of a negative income tax?

He also suffers from what my father use to call diarrhea of the mouth. This on top of Bernanke's weaseling on The News Hour, ought to have ppl wondering what kind of education our leaders are receiving.

Paulp_Nonfiction  07/31/2009 01:05 PM Report

Dear Mr. Rose:

I really enjoyed your interview with Mr. Shiller. Your show,Sir, is unique in that you get to invite the brightest people in their respective field.

It is my opinion that what really happened with the economy is that it had been "giffenized". I guess some people really thought that there would be no end in sight to the housing market thus controverting the general theory of demand: that demand would increase as the price increased, thus the attempt at "giffenizing" the housing market. It was an attempt at making housing a necessity without any substitution effect. But what happened is that price increases produced negative income effects and the whole paradigm became unsustainable.

The best giffenization example would be higher education: Many people are prepared to pay large sums of money (no matter how expensive) to have a good education so as price increases, demand still remains strong. But contrary to the housing market, an education remains valuable whereas as we have all witnessed a home or house can lose value quite unexpectedly.

Oddly enough our companies would gain by using the Giffen paradigm trying to make products that people simply cannot do without: A sure way of monopolising a market with smash products.

Terrific show! I enjoyed every minute. Great insight from Mr. Shiller.

Kudos to you and your terrific team!

Sincerely,

Paulp non-fiction

tartufe  07/31/2009 12:59 PM Report

Somebody please arrest this flim-flam man now. Capitalism was just capsized by his “Animal Spirits,” a.k.a., EGREGIOUS GREED. A turd by any other name is still crap.

He’s interested in financial gimmickry rather venture capital investment or straight honest investment in useful products and IT, rather than esoteric PAPER. Cited CDSs (Credit Default Swaps) as if they were real insurance - which they are not. They intentionally avoided the word to avoid insurance reserve requirements. Now this Prof. Harold Hill flim flammer touts CDSs as if they are a fresh new needed innovation.

Pushed hedging as if it were a panacea for the financial chaos. Thirty to fifty to one leveraging with OPM contributed heavily to the collapse. Hedge funds short selling and exaggerated leveraging distorts orderly investment. Getting rich quick is probably not healthy for the market or the individual or institution. Values are skewed and distorted.

His innovation quest and so-called ‘scientific approach’ was tried once, resulting in grade school arithmetic denied. Subprime means less than (way less) prime. NINJA loans being made because of esoteric bundling into Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO’s) sold to gullible others, supposedly hedged by CDSs. Leveraged far-from-collateralized BS mostly of course, thus the ultimate collapse.

Now this asshole comes along wanting to recreate the MORAL HAZARD right on the heels of the first episode of esoteric gimcrack gimmickry.

He along with the first set of financial wise-guys should be jailed poste haste, for crimes against humanity, decency and common sense.

Not so sure Charlie shouldn’t accompany him as an accomplice for helping him peddle his mislabeled book and casino approach to investing. He's the biggest risk to be evaluated; investigated probably more apt.