Actually, let's dissect volante99 allegedly saying it "so well," according to tobias.
volante99 Wrote:
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> Wow... this guy made a ton of money betting that
> Americans would lose their homes, and he believes
> that qualifies him to write a long diatribe on
> everything from Dick Fuld to the legality of
> marijuana.
- He was able to make those bets because there were idiots who didn't have the required knowledge or intelligence to accurately discern and correctly value how bad their positions was relative to Lahde's. The point about betting against people losing their homes is a related, but distinctly different one and is not pertinent.
- Lahde implies that these idiots who went to expensive prep schools, ivy league undergrad, and professional schools don't necessarily need to know the material - they only need to have a heartbeat to get the degree once they're entrance is secured. That's why we have total meltdown since getting to the top means a Harvard MBA instead of a deep understanding of finance. In a program like the CFA as opposed to, say, achieving an ivy league undegraduate degree in economics, you actually have to go against a blind cutoff and the general population, know the material sufficiently, and there is no "A for effort" - that's why Lahde was able to find idiots to take the other side of his trade.
- Dick Fuld was not an ivy leaguer. He went to U. Colorado (1969) for his undergraduate degree and NYU (1973) for his MBA. Although those institutions are excellent - with NYU (for the MBA) the more relevant one - they are generally not known as ivy league institutions. A quick google or wiki search would reveal these simple facts.
- His reference to marijuana was simply a knock on those gaming the system to best ensure their profits. At the core, this was a broader characterization of our system of government, which is populated and heavily influenced by "idiots" from ivy leagues (paraphrased from him), not necessarily the more specific point of marijuana legalization. This is the reason for the reference to George Soros, which of course isn't related to marijuana legalization.
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> I mean, you'd think he was the first person to
> make money betting against the market. Yes there
> is an aristocratic society in America that has
> more advantages in life. Thats capitalism, and
> he's a part of it. Get used to it
- His reference to the aristocracy was not tied to capitalism, but rather to people who get big jobs due to their educational credentials - which in turn were due to their wealthy parents. This behavior, Lahde says, was the reason he could find people stupid enough to take the other side of this trades.
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> Secondly, a lot of *normal* people work much
> harder then bankers and hedge fund managers and
> earn MUCH less.
- This goes off topic and is irrelevant.
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> These people don't have the luxury
> of just deciding to pack things up whenever
> they're feeling cynical about their industry. Why
> would you knock the very industry that allowed you
> that luxury?
- Irrelevant as well.
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> So, he made a ton of money doing what was probably
> extremely risky (800% gain? hello people).
- 800% gain does not necessarily imply his position was risky. For example, you can buy very far out-of-the-money call or put for pretty cheap and make a killing if the relevant probability distributions are much more kurtotic than the other side deems them to be.
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> This is
> no different than what all those "evil ivy league"
> bankers were doing, only he just happened to be on
> the right side of the fence. Big f-ing deal.
- You are implying his returns were due to his assuming the same level of risk as those people on the other side of his deal. This is incorrect. Refer to previous example.
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Thankfully(!), there are more people at your level of reasoning and reading comprehension ability, volante99, and in this case, one less person like Andrew Lahde, that I'm competing against as I make my living in the capital markets.