October 23, 2008

S&P ratings agency employee email: "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters"

Here's another gem from another just-surfaced email, this one from a Moody's employee:

"It seems to me that we had blinders on and never questioned the information we were given.. Combined, these errors make us look either incompetent at credit analysis, or like we sold our soul to the devil for revenue.''

Folks, the next few years will be spent uncovering the truth of what happened. The incompetence, the corruption, the bribery, the greed. And this will take place against the backdrop of a worldwide financial disaster.

I can't wait to see Angelo Mozilo's emails. And Michael Perry's. And Chris Dodd's. And Dick Fuld's. And Barney Frank's. And Alan Greenspan's. And Hank Paulson's.

They're going to make you sick.

And some of these bastards better go to jail.

23 comments:

Peahippo said...

Keith, NONE of them are going to jail.

Remember the brouhaha over the 2001 accounting scandals? They even caught up some brokers and analysts in their narrowly-cast web. Well, low-level guys are the BEST that were caught, and when I say "caught", I mean they were accused, fired, and brought into court ... just to have their prosecutions bog down and largely get dismissed because of the overall absurdity of it all.

The fact remains from those failed prosecutions that as long as our government avoids prosecuting the designers of this crash, then HARDLY ANYONE will see jail time at all.

It is like Abu Ghraib, but worse. At least in a military, discipline results in a fairly ardent prosecution process. (It's also true, sadly, that individual soldiers hardly have the means to defend themselves, which is entirely different than trying to prosecute a fairly wealthy and influential stock analyst.) But there will be NO JUSTICE AT ALL for those who designed this crash. Our culture worships money so strongly that we cannot bring ourselves to pursue these people ... and many of them are Jewish, let's not forget. You can't dismiss the J-factor in all this.

Anonymous said...

None of those guys are going to jail.

The only thing that's going to happen is that a lot of people will lose their life savings, our economy will be in shambles for years, and there will be a lot of finger pointing.

The S&P emails were actually pretty funny. Kinda reminds me of the Blodget emails - and look at Blodget today!

Anonymous said...

Greenspan is getting grilled in a hearing before a Committee on Oversight of Gov't Reform right now, trying to deny his role in the housing bubble. Same goes for Cox.

Will we see anything come of it? Despite the feigned outrage, I'm not holding my breath...

Anonymous said...

The cover story is always incompetence.

If only the intelligence wasn't faulty.

Disingenuous: a liar, masquerading as a dumbshit.

Anonymous said...

"And some of these bastards better go to jail."
Some? To jail?
Off with their heads! All of them.They are financial terorists and should be treated as such.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the Eurotards even had a clue.

Anonymous said...

'...we sold our soul to the devil for revenue.''

So let's identify the devil:

1) The devil is in the details.

2) The details have been shrouded in complexity.

3) The complexity is a derivative of attempts to evade regulation.

4) Regulation constrains ill-gotten gains.

5) Ill-gotten gains are the result of less regulation.

6) Less enforcement of regulations allows more ill-gotten gains.

7) The SEC is empowered to enforce regulations.

8) The SEC indirectly sanctioned ill-gotten gains through lax enforcement

9) The Bush Administration condoned the SEC's lax enforcement standards.

10) The Bush Administration is evil.

11) The devil is evil, too.

Anonymous said...

Jail? No way.

I want dead bodies. Lots and lots of dead bodies.

Public executions. Otherwise trust will not be reestablished for an entire generation.

I'm not kidding. I WANT DEAD BODIES!!

Anonymous said...

True. They're corrupt. But isn't the public too? The public demanded high yield returns! Buy a house and get rich! Sit on your ass and get rich! S&P, et al gave the public what they wanted.

There's an old saying: "It's hard to cheat an honest man"

Anonymous said...

Keith...you can not close this blog until I yell you 'you can close this blog'. hehe I understand that you got burnt out...but it's like you have won the division, the league and now you're going to quit after the first game of the World Series. Did you hear 'the maestro' today? He threw Friedman and Rand under the bus...LMAO.
Shiff, Santelli & Haynes were having a love-in today...it was strange not seeing him continually interrupted by the Faux goons.

Anonymous said...

There were several so-called watchdogs who failed us.
1) Appraisers
2) Ratings Agencies
3) Bank Examiners
4) SEC
5) Risk Managers of the IBs
6) Common sense of the ultimate buyers of the toxic waste.

Can someone please expand on this list?

Anonymous said...

to hell with perp walks - I sometimes believe that well placed lead (delivered via a portable, high velocity lead delivery system) is the only type of justice that some of these a-holes would understand.

Smug Bastard

Anonymous said...

The people calling for violence are going to have to get off the couch and start organizing vigilante groups. Who else is going to?

I don't think a Robespierre period is what we need so I won't be in that mob. I would like to see some more non-violet civil disobedience though (go to rallies and try to do as much shit disturbing as possible but 99% of the proles out there just look down and eat their shit sandwiches). Direct action will at least demonstrate that there are one or two brain cells functioning in the average citizen.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0QrGVEfRaY

As therapy, trying to deal with the diminishing 401K, I created the above animation.

Anonymous said...

"The people calling for violence are going to have to get off the couch and start organizing vigilante groups. Who else is going to?

I don't think a Robespierre period is what we need so I won't be in that mob. I would like to see some more non-violet civil disobedience though (go to rallies and try to do as much shit disturbing as possible but 99% of the proles out there just look down and eat their shit sandwiches). Direct action will at least demonstrate that there are one or two brain cells functioning in the average citizen."

All kidding aside about the lead, actually, all that is needed is for everyone to simultaneously change their 401k allocation to mutual fund cash only - no stocks, no bonds, no long term contractual obligations - all cash on short terms (90 days or less) and nothing but $ allocation for everyone. Take the hit and move completely out of stocks en masse (just like they did with buying up overpriced real estate on credit terms for years) and I guarantee many of these "captains of industry" would "see the light" very quickly. Cut off their easy money and watch the fireworks. You don't even have to march anywhere or get off the couch. These pricks will have a "come to Jesus" moment the split second they realize that all the lemmings woke up and are not playing into the game anymore.

Smug Bastard

Anonymous said...

"There's an old saying: "It's hard to cheat an honest man"
"

That is a saying that is pushed by cheaters who don't want competition, so they try to make their occupation look more difficult than it is. The whole business plan of a fraudster is to lie. And to lie about how hard it is to lie.

Honest men generally expect to be treated like they treat others: honestly, so don't see that they are being lied to.

The Credit rating agencies have government blessing. They are considered to be trustworthy. They are expected to take complicated accounting figures and turn them into a simple, accurate, easy to understand rating that people can go by. The people had no reason to think the trusted credit rating agencies would lie and didn't have the ability to double check the math in any case.

The credit rating agencies abused their position of trust for money - this was in a bloomberg article that S&P started handing out AAA ratings without bothering to even analyze the details back in 2001.

They were shills helping to sell the snake oil of the banks.

The "who among us is truly worthy" argument is nonsense.

Anonymous said...

And, that is what I did last June -- thanks to this blog.

I Moved all the retirement money out of stocks to the interest only money market fund. If everyone did so . . . that would clear out the market. Then we could all get back in.

Orlando

Anonymous said...

Yes and you really think that an Obama administration is going head start to get to the bottom of this let me tell you if they believed that McCain or any republican was responsible for this we would be having names named right now but it is their house that is responsible for this the houae of Dodd Frank Reid Pelosi and Obama is right on it keep dreaming and hope McCain wins because he will go after them, thanks for the fairy tale blog

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the Eurotards even had a clue.
-------------------------------

doubt it.

Anonymous said...

Yes and you really think that an Obama administration is going head start to get to the bottom of this let me tell you if they believed that McCain or any republican was responsible for this we would be having names named right now but it is their house that is responsible for this the houae of Dodd Frank Reid Pelosi and Obama is right on it keep dreaming and hope McCain wins because he will go after them, thanks for the fairy tale blog
-----------------------------------

yep, the dems won't go after their own. what ever happened to the 2 dems involved in the page boy scandal back in the 80s (at least i think it was the 80s)? Isn't one of them still in congress?

anything like that happens to a repub and the other repubs turn on them and run them out of DC.

Anonymous said...

Did someone mention jail?

"Wall Street Execs May Face Criminal Charges"
http://www.boom2bust.com/2008/10/23/wall-street-execs-may-face-criminal-charges/

Anonymous said...

Honest men generally expect to be treated like they treat others: honestly, so don't see that they are being lied to

True. But honest people generally don't strive to get something for nothing. Are not always looking to win the lottery or hit some payday so they can sit on their rear ends the rest of their lives. Honest people understand the value of work. And how corrupting sloth and easy riches are. That's why when you approach an honest man promising him the moon he will look at you with deep, deep suspicion.

Anonymous said...

anon @4:08,

You mean the one in 1983, which one republican and one democrat have sex with some 17 years old page (one a female and one a male)?

In which case neither of them are still around. Neither was expelled by their parties, either. The republican got his party nomination for the seat in the next election, but lost the vote. The Democrat didn't lose his elections and hence hung around until the late 90s. He's dead now so certainly not "still in congress".