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Interesting editorial in that the writer is very selective in what he/she chooses to hear.
For instance, the truth that Goldman Sachs, not governments, rules the world - and that the banks and their traders do not care about national economies.
What is the 'fiscal literacy' of the editorial writer?
1 October, 2011
Desire to cash in on hard times is heartless but logical
Alessio Rastani ruffled more than a few feathers when he was interviewed on BBC television this week.
The self-styled independent trader said he dreamed of another recession because of the money he could make from it.
Cue outrage from those who looked at his comments from the perspective of those who would lose jobs and homes in another global downturn.
Yet if Mr Rastani was culpable, it was surely only to accusations that his outlook was callous.
In effect, he was simply saying that the best time to be in any market is usually when most others are out.
In relation to the stockmarket, the time to be in is not, as an American epithet attests, when hotel bellboys are talking about shares. Money can far more easily be made when they go back to talking about baseball.
And, as Mr Rastani suggested, the 1930s Depression was not a disaster for everybody. For some, it presented that very opportunity.
A version of this leads people to seize the chance to take advantage of sale items offered by struggling retailers during a recession.
Yet when turmoil hits financial markets, people tend to become herd-like in their flight.
Perhaps this is because most have only a slight knowledge of such matters. All the more reason, therefore, to heed the frequent calls for more attention to be paid to cultivating a wider financial literacy.
The furore about the tenor, if not the tone, of Mr Rastani's remarks merely reinforced this.
Alessio Rastani is my hero.
ReplyDeleteThe guy has balls the size of a grapefruit.
The game is up, the cat is out of the bag, and you Traders and corporate big wigs can all stop pretending now because we're on to you.
"Alessio Deniers" will slither out of their hiding places to claim that his comments were just those of a "bad apple" and did not represent Wall Street where all the other traders work for the public good - blah blah. We know better.
It's one thing to know a fact in the abstract and quite another to know it in your gut. For example, we know "the government is not going to help us" in the abstract, but drop a couple of sky-scrapers on 3,000 of us and that brings it right home.
Alessio, you should go on a world "tell all" tour while we still have airplanes.