So once again Wolfram and hart have been shown to be at the center of all things but for this episode we call them Goldman Sachs it seems. The financial crisis is well behind as Wall St and the politicians tell us and who amongst us would not believe them ( never mind that my 401 K is still stuck at 1 K :-) ). From the moment this nonsense started and everyone started blaming the folks who did not pay the loans back I personally felt something was very wrong with that picture. People not paying their loans back could not have caused this level of death doom despair and destruction, and of course now we all are way more familiar with CDS, CDO’s and my favourite the Synthetic CDO and then we have the Magnetaar trade ( Magnetaar is amazing definitely worth a post on its own )
But the attitude that amazes me the most is that “people should know what they are doing when it comes to investing your money after all its your money you should be careful about what your investment consultant does with it”. BUYER BEWARE!!!!.
What a charming idea, so lets think this through some more
1) You to the doctors office complaining about a mild pain in your left buttock hoping of course that the cute nurse will want to conduct an hands on investigation ( oh sorry wrong post ) ..so you go to the Doctors office complaining of a headache. The doctor prescribes a new drug incrediablekickbacksrus-azolex.
Unbeknownst to you you the makers of incrediablekickbacksrus-azolex are paying the doctor a commission for every drug he sells and one of the charming side effects of this drug is on weekends you would start sounding like William Hung. Naturally you are not pleased and you rush back to the office ( on Monday ) to rave and rant at the Doctor. However you are completely mollified when the doctor points out that “If you had taken the time to do a degree in clinical pharmacology coupled with some classes on Neuro chemical disorders and a smidgin of genetic variation disorders and of course a quick study of statistics to evaluate the results of the lab results of the clinical studios on the drug you almost certainly would have known that this was going to happen to you . BUYER BEWARE!!!. you chuckle thinking to yourself damn that doctor was right after all….
2) It is that time again , aka time to buy a new car. but this time you are prepared and so the process goes incredibly smoothly and you pat yourself on the back ( well in your head anyway ) and head out with your new pride and joy. Sadly what you did not know was that the car you bought was an absolute disaster because of course as it turns out there is only one place in town where you can get it serviced\fixed. Filled with the righteous anger of a Juvenal , you head back to the shop but thankfully a painful scene is averted as the dealer points out if you had only taken the time to do the mechanical Engg. degree( like your grand-dad suggested when you told him about computers )and had you super specialized in automotive construction and design and of course spent some time as an apprentice mechanic then this would clearly have never happened to you.. BUYER BEWARE!!!. you chuckle thinking to yourself damn that dealer was right after all….
3) I am thinking of painting the den( kindly stop giggling in the back .. what ?yes well technically the wife is thinking of painting again but we are of one mind , yes well I would rather lie in bed eating pizza and watching tv but this is awesome do it together fun time what? yes well .. oh shut up ) . So you head of the the holiest of the holy ( home depot of course ) and the nice friendly paint salesgirl ( blonde since you ask ) tells you about this incredible new paint product called “craptasticInc”. Apparently it will make your walls glow like nothing you have seen and cure world hunger etc etc. In your minds eye you can already see what a spectacular finish this will look like , 8 hours later the paint has damaged the walls and roof beyond repair your general contractor takes one look at the damage calls home and tells his kid not to worry and to start applying to the colleges after all ,” No no the fees won’t be a problem now”. You stare at the ruins of your dreams and hopes and head back to the store… damn chemical structural and materials management were the ones you did not study this time apparently ..BUYER BEWARE!!!!. you chuckle thinking to yourself damn that salesgirl was right after all….
By now I am sure the astute reader has noticed a trend while the vapid and concerned reader is amazed at how much bad luck I am having . I don't know anyone would agree with caveat emptor in any of the cases above so what is different with money. When I buy a product or SPECIALISED advice I pay for said product\service and as such am entitled to protection ( at least in a civilized society ) What is about money that makes otherwise sensible people say … “well its your money you should take care of it”. well its your health why blame the doctor and pharma if they poison you.
And the thing that blows my mind is Goldman saying “well the counterparties to this deal were banks to clearly they knew what they were doing and so we did not disclose the adversarial position we had on the deal with another client who oh by the way was also setting up the portfolio of what went into the Synthetic CDO” ( almost certainly most of this is legal , but well of course it is legal Goldman paid a lot of lobby money in the late nineties to get the law written for god’s sake )
Translation : Doctors are not entitled to any protection from fraudulent drugs and corrupt doctors
Closer-to-home-translation: I buy some software that installs a couple of root kits some malware etc but that's my fault since as a software person I clearly am supposed to know what I am doing. ( spelunk and grok the exe you lazy swine ).
I guess bottom line I don't understand the buyer beware attitude when it comes to investments…
Next Time : The magnetaar trade and damn why couldn't I have thought of that :-)
