Really good article...despite its length...very freaky
[Link Starts on page 5]
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?tid=true#page5
"It’s not easy to stand apart from mass hysteria—to believe that most of what’s in the financial news is wrong or distorted, to believe that most important financial people are either lying or deluded—without actually being insane."(pp.2)
"These [subprime] guys lied to infinity. What I learned from that experience was that Wall Street didn’t give a **** what it sold.” (pp.3)
"An insurance company backed Steve Eisman with $50 million, a paltry sum. “Basically, we tried to raise money and didn't really do it,” Eisman says."(pp.3)
“I didn’t understand how they were turning all this garbage into gold,” Eisman asks.(pp.5)
“They [the regulators] were just assuming home prices would keep going up.”(pp.5)
“With all due respect, sir,” Daniel told the C.E.O. deferentially as they left the meeting, “you’re delusional.” This wasn’t Fitch or even S&P. This was Moody’s, the aristocrats of the rating business, 20 percent owned by Warren Buffett. And the company’s C.E.O. was being told he was either a fool or a crook by one Vincent Daniel, from Queens.(pp.5)
"...I was like, This is allowed?” (pp.7)
"Eisman started out running a $60 million equity fund but was now short around $600 million of various *subprime-related securities. In the spring of 2007, the market strengthened. But, says Eisman, “credit quality always gets better in March and April. And the reason it always gets better in March and April is that people get their tax refunds. You would think people in the securitization world would know this. We just thought that was moronic.” (pp.7)
"The models don’t have any idea of what this world has become…. For the first time in their lives, people in the asset-backed-securitization world are actually having to think.”(pp.8)
“It’s laissez-faire until you get in deep ****.”(pp.9)