Opting Out of the Big Bank Fiasco and Moving Toward Self Sufficiency The Rolling Stone March 2009 issue had an article by Matt Taibbi called Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle in which he likens the financial crisis bailout to a street con and makes a very good case of it, taking us step by step through the con game led by Goldman Sachs. In the article he makes a case that the big banks aren’t just pocketing the trillions that were given them to rescue the economy, but that they are engineering another crash so that they can continue to feed at the trough. There is one paragraph that is such a concise summary, it is worth quoting: “Take massive sums of money from the government, sit on it until the government starts printing trillions of dollars in a desperate attempt to restart the economy, buy even more toxic assets to sell back to the government at even more inflated prices,- and then, when all else fails, start driving toward the cliff again with a frank and open endorsement of bubble economies”. He goes on to say, that” con artists have a word for the inability of victims to accept that they have been scammed. The call it the “true believer” syndrome.” It is time to quit believing that someone else- the government, the banks- are going to take care of you and will have your best interests at heart. It is time to wake up, smell the coffee and take [...]
Ponzi scheme
Opting Out of Serfdom
Day to Day Living in the New Paradigm In my last two blogs I talked at length about predatory lending and the debt economy getting us into trouble as a nation and as individuals. We need to step out of the culture of easy money and magical thinking that allowed Ponzi schemes like Bernie Madoff- but not just him. If you look at the whole bubble created by the debt system, you could say the whole of the state of Florida was a Ponzi scheme (look at the details of their real estate bubble). You could say all hedgefunds and therefore the fund managers were a Ponzi scheme. You could say the whole country (supported by Greenspan and the Bush Administration) has been living a national Ponzi scheme. Maybe ( and I believe) the whole world economy has been a Ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff was just the starting bell in this horserace. I have an acquaintance here in Marin County who thought he was a multimillionaire. He had a thriving tax preparation business. Then he got into the investment business so his tax clients could invest in pension plans. And then he invested his own earnings in Florida real estate. The whole thing (except his tax practice- as taxes, like death, are inevitable) has fallen like a deck of cards. Now he is deeply suffering from his delusion and is having great difficulty in accepting that. There are many people who are in the same boat and they are [...]
Madoff as Teacher not Devil
Madoff’s Lesson For Us My friends, Matt and Geneen, lost all their retirement savings in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. Instead of being victims, they have used the experience in very constructive ways for themselves. I am not talking out of school here, because they have each publicized their plight in their own ways: together as a couple on the Today show, author Geneen in an article in the Huffington Post (What I Gained By Losing in Madoff) and award-winning inspirational speaker Matt in Youtube (What Bernie Madoff Couldn’t Steal From Me) . One of the common ingredients in their stories is their willingness to take responsibility – not only for what happened- but ongoingly. As Matt says, Bernie Madoff stole money from them, but it was up to them to ensure that he didn’t steal the rest of their lives. Too often we stay locked in the past and try and change it. We obsess about how it should have been, or how it could have been if…..Those who are focusing on Bernie Madoff and what should have happened to him (nothing you can do to him will bring back your wealth), or, trying to find out where the money is (wake-up, it’s GONE), or how the government should pay them back because it was the SEC who messed up (Hey, where’s my bailout!) are staying in the past, are ultimately not taking responsibility for their lives. There is a new paradigm shift, and that shift requires each of us to [...]