Wednesday, November 17, 2010

What is it like to stare into the heart of darkness?---Jon Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera Extended Interview
www.thedailyshow.com
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Highlights of the exclusive interview with Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera, authors of 'All the Devils are here' :

Jon Stewart: Credit Default Swaps allow people to make bets on loans that have nothing to do with them. And my premise to you guys is that this was not a failure of people failing to understand the financial institutions, this was a failure of people  not understanding gambling. That the reason we fail is because the financial industry (are) bad gamblers.

Joe Nocera: Most of them are, as it turns out, Merril Lynch was a bad gambler, UBS was a bad gambler, there was only one good gambler in the whole deal, and that was Goldman Sachs, which figured out they were on the wrong side of the bet, and got on the right side of the bet in time. Of course, they did it by screwing all their own clients, but that's a whole other story.

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Jon Stewart: No bookie in the world would lay off all his bets one side without spreading a little bit of the risk, or lays out so much money that if the call comes, he can't pay it.

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Jon Stewart: A new theory on the Financial Crisis: It occurred because of an idiot shortage. If I'm the Fed, I just print more idiots.

So in today's parlance, gambling is actually innovation, and clients are actually idiots.



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