Anybody watching Strategy Session on CNBC?

[Celebration]

Asher Edelmann is being interviewed and completely kicking ass. If there is a video later on this, I'll post in this thread.

Short version--he is a famous hedge fund manager who is completely supportive of OWS. He is trying to give them direction.

He says, THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED!!

Thank you. Overall, very favorable reporting, especially re: no prosecutions! Plus he explained in very simple terms the gift of zero interest rates to the banks by the Federal Reserve.

[Pirate Smile]

1. I just caught the end of it. Shocking to have some reporting like that on CNBC.

Good news.


The focus has definitely shifted. Yeah!

[TomClash]

2. Excuse me if I am skeptical . . .

. . . about anyone in the 1% helping OWS, particularly hedge fund managers.

[Celebration]

3. it does happen

just like there are 99% ers that support the 1%.

[TomClash]

9. Yes

But I'm still skeptical.

[Warpy]

6. Don't be

They didn't all sleep through their history classes.

Plutocrats who crash the economy have two choices: cede wealth peacefully through taxes or have the people with nothing left to lose take it from them violently, often along with their lives.

[AnneD]

7. I see...

we read the same history books.

[TomClash]

8. Maybe

But there is a third and fourth option - the ones used most historically - rig the game so neither happens or use force.

Hedge Fund managers usually live to make money. I'll wager he's rigging the game.

It would be better if you are right.

[edhopper]

10. There are quite a few people

in the financial community who understand the situation and know what is right.
Bill Gross of Pimco, Robert Shiller and Barry Ritholtz to name a few.

[TomClash]

11. Bill Gross????

Shiller and Ritholz don't run hedge funds and I like both of them. But Bill Gross????

I think I am going to be sick.

Yep, I am. :puke:

[edhopper]

12. Yes Bill Gross

Who recently wrote:

"But once an historical midpoint or range has been established, a relative equilibrium should be observed. Even conservatives must acknowledge that return on capital investment, and the liquid stocks and bonds that mimic it, are ultimately dependent on returns to labour in the form of jobs and real wage gains. If Main Street is unemployed and undercompensated, capital can only travel so far down prosperity road. Until recently, economic recovery has been relatively robust if one were a deployer of capital as opposed to the labourer who made that deployment possible. Near-zero per cent interest rates have allowed profit margins to widen even in the face of anemic end demand. As well, 'productivity' has remained high, but only because of layoffs and the production of goods and services with fewer people. While that is a benefit to capital, it obviously comes at a great cost to labour.


Long-term profits cannot ultimately grow unless they are partnered with near equal benefits for labour. Washington, London, Berlin and yes, even Beijing must accept this commonsensical reality alongside several other structural initiatives that seek to rebalance the global economy. The United States in particular requires an enhanced safety net of benefits for the unemployed unless and until it can produce enough jobs to return to our prior economic model, which suggested opportunity for all who were willing to grab for the brass ring – a ring that is now tarnished if not unavailable for the grasping."

Pro labor and pro corporate tax Bill Gross.

[TomClash]

13. Blah

Republican Bill Gross was taking the returns from Wall Street for years. Without the bailouts, Pimco would have been hemorrhaging.

Now he's for the 99%? A friend of labor. Yeah, right.

He gets it - now. I remember BG harping on deficits, union wages, etc.

I don't buy it.

[edhopper]

14. Fine,

be that way.

[TomClash]

15. Well to each his own

I've been wrong before. :shrug:

[edhopper]

16. How about this tweet he just posted

"Class warfare by the 99%? Of course, they’re fighting back after 30 years of being shot at."

The point is that there are those on Wall Street who get it.

[TomClash]

17. He didn't get it five years ago

when he wanted to buy CMBS 5 tranches out if they were offered.

My point is now he's yelling class war, but he and most other pension/hedge fund managers were all too ready to lap up dubious securities for higher returns.

You're right that there are those on Wall Street who get it. I certainly can't deny that. I just wouldn't trust most of them, including Gross, to act out of anything but self-interest.

Always be wary of the 1%.

[Celebration]

4. this is a recent post from his blog, no CNBC video yet

http://asheredelman.com/?p=215

If I were Chairman of the Fed right now, I would try to instruct the President, his advisors and Congress that monetary easing alone, or monetary policy alone, can never revive the economy. And that without fiscal intervention on the part of government, we will be a very long time before the consumer is able to revive his needs, and a very long time before our budget will, in any way, become balanced; that the foolishness of constricting a budget at this time, in the middle of a recession, is politically motivated, but absolute absurdity.

When you go to Reaganomics and you try to release money to the rich in the hope that it will trickle down to the others, we have proven time and time again that this is nonsense. It doesn’t trickle down anywhere! The man with a million-dollar income who makes another $100,000, is more likely to not to spend it. And if he invests, he generally invests it into a secondary investment, not a primary investment. He will create no jobs with it. He will create no consumption with it – normally! In contrast, the man who earns $30,000 a year, or right now nothing, and has some money added to that, will spend the additional money, because he needs to. And that will create velocity of money in the market place. And that will create the beginnings of a recovery.

What was interesting was that the CNBC anchors did not challenge him, really, except to say that the banks paid it all back, and what is that extra four hundred billion dollars he was talking about? That is when he noted that the taxpayers are paying interest on bonds it issues, but the bank is getting to borrow money free. So the four hundred billion is the difference by which the Fed is subsidizing the banks.

He also noted that the banks are speculating as much as ever, and that some are one bad trade away from failing, and that gambling has to be separated out from banking.

[pansypoo53219]

5. the house always wins.

and wall street skims a thicker slice for themselves. i invest in ebayables.