Skip to main content

Hedgeye: The Principled One

There is so much good material waiting in the cue on the subjects of Greece, sovereign debt, and currency speculation, but here's the piece I want to share with you today.

It comes from Keith McCullough at Hedgeye and his post takes on the idea that, once again, "evil speculators" are somehow to blame for the fundamental economic problems of a country's own making.

An excerpt from, "The Principled One":

"The other George (Papandreou) is the Prime Minister of Greece. Since the Chinese told him to go fly his levered-up bureaucratic kite, Papandreou has been on a PR tour since Friday when he visited Germany.

Along the way, somehow he convinced France’s Nicholas Sarkozy that “speculators are creating malicious rumors” about his country. With some political wind from the left at his back, he took it up a notch ahead of meeting with Geithner today in Washington and called whoever he can’t see “unprincipled speculators.” George, you have to be kidding me. You have no idea what you don’t know.

First of all, hearing politicians talk about markets is like watching a southern belle try to ice fish. So I won’t waste time on ripping this poor guy a new one for using the word “speculator.” That would be too easy.

It is this concept of “principles” that really has my arthritic hockey knuckles hammering on the keyboard this morning. What, almighty Principled One, in God’s good name is “principled” about levering-up your country’s balance sheet to 100% debt to GDP and a 12.4% deficit to GDP ratio?..."

Go read the whole thing.

And let's not hold our breath waiting for lying politicians to make these false accusations and verbal attacks in the presence of such "unprincipled speculators". In an honest society, you might get a sock to the face or a challenge from your opponent for soiling their honor in such an underhanded way.

Related articles and posts:

1. Jim Rogers: Greece bankruptcy good for Euro - Finance Trends.

2. Greece presses US to crack down on "speculators" - Bloomberg.

3. Sorry, Greece, your crisis not caused by speculators - Clusterstock.

Popular posts from this blog

Seth Klarman: Margin of Safety (pdf)

Welcome, readers! Signup for free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . Update: PDF links removed due to DMCA notice. Please see our extensive Klarman book notes below. New visitors, please check the Finance Trends home page for all new posts. Here's something for anyone who has been trying to get a look at Seth Klarman's now famous, and out of print, 1991 investment book, Margin of Safety .  My knowledge of value investing is pretty much limited to what I've read in Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor (the book which originally popularized the investment concept of a "Margin of Safety"), so check out the wisdom from Seth Klarman and other investing greats in our related posts below. You can also go straight to Ronald Redfield's Margin of Safety book notes .    Related posts: 1. Seth Klarman interviews and Margin of Safety notes     2. Seth Klarman: Lessons from 2008 3. Investing Lessons from Sir John Templeton 4.

Slate profiles Victor Niederhoffer

Slate's recent profile of writer/speculator, Vic Niederhoffer has been getting some attention from traders and finance types in recent days. I thought we'd take a look at it here too, to offer up some possible educational value from Vic's experiences with trading and loss. Here's an excerpt from Slate's profile of Victor Niederhoffer : " I've enjoyed getting your e-mails. It sounds like you've thought a lot about being wrong. Well, the reason you contacted me, to call a spade a spade, is that I'm sort of infamous for having made a big, notorious, terrible error not once but twice in my market career. Let's talk about those errors. The first was your investment in the Thai baht, which pretty much wiped you out when the Thai stock market crashed in 1997. I made so many errors there it's pathetic. I made one of my favorite errors: "The mouse with one hole is quickly cornered." That is key. There are certain decisions you make in li

Moneyball: How the Red Sox Win Championships

Welcome, readers . T o get the first look at brand new posts (like the following piece) and to receive our exclusive email list updates, please subscribe to the Finance Trends Newsletter .   The Boston Red Sox won their fourth World Series title of t he 21st century this we ek. Having won their first Se ries in 86 years back in 200 4, the last decade-plus has marked a very strong return to form for one of baseball's oldest big league clubs. So how did they do it? Quick background: in late 2002, team own er and hedge fund manager, John W. Henry (with his partners ) bought the Boston Red Sox and its historic Fenway Park for a reported sum of $ 695 million. Henry and Co. quickly set out to find their ideal General Manager (GM) to help turn around their newly acquired, ailing ship. This brings us to one of my fav orite scenes from the 2011 film , Moneyball , in which John W. Henry (played by Ar liss Howard) attempts to woo Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (Brad Pi