Tuesday Nov 11, 2008
Posted by Pinchas Landau
For over a year now, since the financial crisis really took off, I have kept a crude, hand-written slogan over my desk which says 'An economy based on people buying things they don't need with money they don't have'. It is my way of summarizing what went wrong with the US economy (and, indeed, that of the entire Anglo-Saxon world) and why and how we got into this extraordinary mess. It is also a much-needed lifeline to simple ideas and clear thinking, in the face of reams of pseudo-sophisticated garbage that I receive in the guise of research and plough through on a daily basis.
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About this blog
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Pinchas Landau is a Jerusalem-based analyst, columnist and blogger, covering global and Israeli economic, financial and geo-political developments.
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Recent Comments
bucket trucks: I like how you have presented the information in full detail. Keep up the great work and please stop by my site boom trucks sometime. Keep it up..
david philadelphia: Madoff was considered a genious who produced
higher returns than the traditional system even with the understanding that he may have been doing it illegally.
Many beleived he was acheiving high returns from insider information through his brokerage and market making business.
So investors were co-conspirotors in an illegal endevour who all got what they deserved in a Karma beleif environment.
Budapest, Hungary: The arguments raised in the blog are not applicable to all Madoff clients. All professional investors trusting him with their money deserve to be called stupid, senseless etc. for not doing their "due diligence". But charity organizations and other non-professional investors are usually not capable of performing such a review. They base their investment decisions on other factors. Madoff has been producing high returns in a developed market supervised by a competent, independent organization (SEC). Thinking that a Ponzi scheme would only be possible in less developed markets is not unreasonable
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