Well, he didn't say that exactly, but in so many words. He thinks an economic forecast by Goldman economist Jan Hatzius is unreasonably pessimistic, and suggests that .."his document was mostly about selling fear. " and that the intent of the report was to support and promote the firm's overall bearish view on the market. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/business/02every.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Pretty aggressive public criticism of Goldman. They might put out a contract on him.
It will be interesting to see WHO actually has the most power over the markets...GS or the FED....:eek: my bet is GS...
Exactly how is the FACT... That the Securities Industry is controlled by a "bunch of crooks"... news. Didn't you see "Wall Street" 20 years ago?
Here is my humble hypothesis, even after talking to Goldman: Is it possible that Dr. Hatziusâs paper was a device to help along the goal of success at bearish trades in this sector and in the market generally? His firm says his paper, like all of its economistsâ work, was not written to support any larger short-trading strategy. But economists, like accountants, are artists. They have a tendency to paint what their patrons, who pay them, want to see. LOL!
The CNBC shills were screeching over this article this AM. Calling Stein only an actor, etc. The spin machine spins on...
To my old eyes, the recent unhappiness about mortgages and Goldmanâs connection with them are not examples of sterling conduct. It is bad enough to have been selling this stuff. It is far worse when the sellers were, in effect, simultaneously shorting the stuff they were selling, or making similar bets. Doesnât this bear some slight resemblance to Merrill selling tech stocks during the bubble while its analyst Henry Blodget was reportedly telling his friends what garbage they were? How different would it be from selling short the junky stock that your firm is underwriting? And if a top economist at Goldman Sachs was saying housing was in trouble, why did Goldman continue to underwrite junk mortgage issues into the market? HERE is a query, as we used to say in law school: Should Henry M. Paulson Jr., who formerly ran a firm that engaged in this kind of conduct, be serving as Treasury secretary? Should there not be some inquiry into what the invisible government of Goldman (and the rest of Wall Street) did to create this disaster, which has caught up with some Wall Street firms but not the nimble Goldman? Good points by Ben Stein!
I read the article and I all I could think was......."they gave this guy valuable print space for THIS!" Ben should stick with comedy.
Ben is much more astute than many know and probably knows more about economics than most here. http://www.benstein.com/bio.html Ben Stein (Benjamin J. Stein) was born November 25, 1944 in Washington, D.C., (He is the son of the economist and writer Herbert Stein) grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended Montgomery Blair High School. He graduated from Columbia University in 1966 with honors in economics. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1970 as valedictorian of his class by election of his classmates. He helped to found the Journal of Law and Social Policy while at Yale. He has worked as a poverty lawyer in New Haven and Washington, D.C., a trial lawyer in the field of trade regulation at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., a university adjunct at American University in Washington, D.C., at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. At American U. He taught about the political and social content of mass culture. He taught the same subject at UCSC, as well as about political and civil rights under the Constitution. At Pepperdine, he has taught about libel law and about securities law and ethical issues since 1986. In 1973 and 1974, he was a speech writer and lawyer for Richard Nixon at The White House and then for Gerald Ford. (He did NOT write the line, "I am not a crook.") He has been a columnist and editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal, a syndicated columnist for The Los Angeles Herald Examiner (R.I.P.) and King Features Syndicate, and a frequent contributor to Barrons, where his articles about the ethics of management buyouts and issues of fraud in the Milken Drexel junk bond scheme drew major national attention. He has been a regular columnist for Los Angeles Magazine, New York Magazine, E! Online, and most of all, has written a lengthy diary for ten years for The American Spectator. He also writes frequently for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, op. ed. and almost every other imaginable magazine. He has written and published sixteen books, seven novels, largely about life in Los Angeles, and nine nonfiction books, about finance and about ethical and social issue in finance, and also about the political and social content of mass culture. He has done pioneering work in uncovering the concealed messages of TV and in explaining how TV and movies get made. His titles include A License to Steal, Michael Milken and the Conspiracy to Bilk the Nation, The View From Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood Days, Hollywood Nights, DREEMZ, Financial Passages, and Ludes. His most recent book is the best selling humor self help book, How To Ruin Your Life. He has also been a longtime screenwriter, writing, among many other scripts (most of which were unmade ) the first draft of The Boost, a movie based on Ludes, and the outlines of the lengthy miniseries Amerika, and the acclaimed Murder in Mississippi. He was one of the creators of the well regarded comedy, Fernwood Tonight. He is also an extremely well known actor in movies, TV, and commercials. His part of the boring teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off was recently ranked as one of the fifty most famous scenes in American film. From 1997 to 2002, he was the host of the Comedy Central quiz show, "Win Ben Stein's Money." The show has won seven Emmies. He appears regularly on the Fox News Channel talking about finance. He lives with his wife, Alexandra Denman ( former lawyer,) his son, Tommy, four cats and two large dogs in Beverly Hills.