Monthly Archives: October 2013

The “Hyper-meritocracy” – an Oxymoron Led by Criminal Morons

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Devin Smith | 34 comments

This column was prompted by William Galston’s review of Tyler Cowen’s new book Average is Over. Galston’s column worries about the huge, permanent underclass that Cowen envisions will grow in the United States. I write to challenge Cowen’s assumption that winners will prevail through a process of “hyper-meritocracy.” Cowen’s embrace of Social Darwinism assumes that the winners have a selective advantage that arises from “merit” – which Cowen conflates with the ability to create wealth. This is passing strange as we are still suffering from an orgy of wealth destruction led by the “winners.” The people who grew wealthiest were often the people must responsible for the largest destruction of wealth in history. In this first column I show that it is the most anti-meritocratic system. We do not live in a “winner-take-all” Nation. We increasingly live in a “cheater-take-all” system.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged hyper-meritocracy

Sorkin’s Paradox: Elite Bank Officers are “Worse” than “Repugnant” but Never Criminal

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Devin Smith | 9 comments

By William K. Black

This is the third installment in my Sorkin Saga. The saga was prompted by Andrew Ross Sorkin’s (ARS) video in which he “outed” himself as the leader of an undercover effort by the journalists of the New York Time’s “Dealbook” and CNBC to discover and “out” the “criminal element” among the elite bankers. Here is the key passage from his video.

“If there’s one question that I get just about more than any other, ‘So why didn’t anybody go to jail, and did nobody try?’ And there’s an answer to that too.

A lot of people had an incentive to try to find a way to bring not justice, but to put people away. Prosecutors, law enforcement, journalists; it would have been a better story. But for the last five years we’ve tried, all of us have tried, to find that criminal element. And while things happened that were upsetting and frustrating and unethical and immoral sadly, it may not have been criminal.”

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged Andrew Ross Sorkin, banksters, Great Financial Crisis, occupy wall street

Heisenderp

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Dan Kervick | 8 comments

By Dan Kervick

The Bitcoin phenomenon has always been an interesting concoction: part radical libertarian currency scheme inspired by the anti-government monetary musings of Ron Paul and Austrian school of economics; part black market drug exchange empowered by a hackertopian computer architecture providing anonymity to its aliased participants; and part speculative Ponzi-scheme-in-the-making based on a strange built-in deflationary coding that seems designed to make its early adopters filthy rich – if they can somehow succeed in getting enough other ~~suckers~~ Bitcoin enthusiasts to buy in.

The speculative dimension of Bitcoin has sometimes crashed up against its alt-monetary aspirations in comical ways, as was noted earlier today by John Carney:

Was talking to someone with large amount of bitcoins that he isn’t spending b/c “that would be giving away money.” #tulipmania

— John Carney (@carney) October 2, 2013

But now Bitcoin has really broken bad in a whole new direction, as federal prosecutors have indicted one of the Bitcoin marketplace’s star performers for a variety of crimes, including conspiracy to commit murder. The FBI claims to have unmasked and apprehended the man behind the Bitcoin-powered online drug market Silk Road. His name is Ross William Ulbricht, and the charges are rather amazing:

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The Divine Right of Bankers: Sorkin Proves Baroness Orczy Correct

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Devin Smith | 7 comments

By William K. Black

In yesterday’s column I discussed the fact that Andrew Ross Sorkin (ARS) of the New York Times and CNBC has unmasked himself in a video entitled “Two Myths and One Reality” as the scourge of Wall Street who had worked tirelessly for five years to find the “criminal element” that caused the financial crisis.

“If there’s one question that I get just about more than any other, ‘So why didn’t anybody go to jail, and did nobody try?’ And there’s an answer to that too.

A lot of people had an incentive to try to find a way to bring not justice, but to put people away. Prosecutors, law enforcement, journalists; it would have been a better story. But for the last five years we’ve tried, all of us have tried, to find that criminal element.”

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7 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged Andrew Ross Sorkin, banksters, Great Financial Crisis, occupy wall street

Andrew Ross Sorkin Unmasks as Leading Occupy Wall Street’s (Three Star Restaurants)

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Devin Smith | 17 comments

By William K. Black

Andrew Ross Sorkin (ARS), long believed to be the sycophants’ sycophant who composes his odes to elite bank CEOs from his perch at the New York Times and CNBC has unmasked himself in a video entitled “Two Myths and One Reality.”

“If there’s one question that I get just about more than any other, ‘So why didn’t anybody go to jail, and did nobody try?’ And there’s an answer to that too.

A lot of people had an incentive to try to find a way to bring not justice, but to put people away. Prosecutors, law enforcement, journalists; it would have been a better story. But for the last five years we’ve tried, all of us have tried, to find that criminal element.”

ARS revealed in his video that he has posed as the modern-day leader of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, the undercover group of English aristocrats, led by an English baronet (“one to command, and nineteen to obey”) who saved French aristocrats from the Great Terror. The twist is that ARS’ League is composed of financial journalists who pose as sycophants and that the modern-day French aristocrats are the elite bankers whose misconduct caused the Great Recession. The purpose of ARS’ deception was to lure the elite bankers into admitting their misconduct so that they could be held accountable rather than aiding French aristocrats’ efforts to escape accountability. ARS was the anti-Scarlet Pimpernel, the aristocrat posing as the friend of the aristocrats in order to “find that criminal element.”

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