Barry Ritholtz, Panhandler?

If you click on my buddy Barry Ritholtz's profile....you'll find a link to his Amazon Wish List right below his moniker.

Obviously, despite the millions he reaps from his asset management *skim biz* he's still looking for a little *tax-free* compensation from his servile flatterers!

Interestingly, I found the following book titles in the self-styled *non-partisan's* wishlist:

Climate Cover-Up - The Crusade To Deny Global Warming

Why Evolution Is True

Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and the Last Chance to Save Humanity

Hah! That last one was a doozy. The *Last Chance*???

There are probably a few more funny ones in there - it's just that I haven't time enough to pore through all 34 PAGES!

That's right. Barry took the time to select an ASTOUNDING 849 small-change items for his wishlist!

And y'all probably thought it was bad for my other pal, Perry Eidelbus, to have LEGO Batman on his wish list...

See also - Barry Ritholtz - Self-Unconscious, Dissembling PARTISAN.

Plateaued Blogs

One of the older blogs out there is Little Green Footballs. I used to peruse it many years ago. I believe its real coming out party was an exposé it did of the infamous Dan Rather documents - one that just about proved them a forgery.

Recently, when writing Dead Blogs, I decided for the first time in probably 4 years to check out LGF.

I must say I was surprised to see the term *wingnut* used so pervasively. From past, albeit ancient, experience I more expected to see that pejorative's polar opposite - *moonbat* - littering the content.

I also noticed the traffic on that site seemed to be only a little more than I remember it being 4 years ago - though I could be wrong. But I would have expected it to have risen substantially, as *blogs* in general have gained exponentially more traction in that time.

"What was going on here?" I wondered...

I had a notion, but wasn't interested enough to research the matter.

Then just now I saw this post - Charles Johnson: Why I Parted Ways With The Right - over on that coward Barry Ritholtz's site.

(Yeah, BR is a coward for a few reasons. Here, for example, he who claims to be a *both sides basher* is at it again, but only links to the dirty work of others. He outsources his clueless vitriol, like a real man! Also, Barry's a coward for what he did to me a few months ago. See here and here.)

From what I can tell, Charles Johnson has undertaken a personal crusade against *global warming deniers* and *religious* people - which is fine, and totally his perogative.



And it looks like he's taken to deleting unfriendly feedback. Perhaps Charles Johnson should go back and read his own posts on cognitive dissonance!

All this might explain why his site seems to have stagnated. A self-styled libertarian who believes Big Government has a mandate to protect that little, all-encompassing thing called *the environment*???

Well, it's certainly a niche demographic he's targeting! Good luck to him.

It really is a truism that the faster they (civilizatons, countries, companies, celebrities, blogs, etc.) rise, the sooner they fall...

Deflating Writers

First off, I don't care what anyone says, I am already a *published author*.

Heck over the course of 4.91 years, this is my 1,909th post!

But the downside is, as an author I fall neatly into the *non-profit* category. No annoying little ads on this pristine blog! No paid product reviews or advances. No Amazon.com wishlist. No *tip jar*.

Last year, I scanned the landscape of Moronic *published* authors, puffed out my chest, tooted my own horn, (scratched myself), and resolved to start writing a book or two.

And I did! I started more than a couple and they are still sitting there in my Google Docs - extremely far from completion. They all commenced with an enthusiastic burst - this is THE book! - but die, or idle anyway, with a whimper.

I never quite saw the economics, the profit-potential, of a book. Book writing, as a career, struck me as very similar to *professional golf* - many aspire to it because of the high visibility of success, but only a scant few of the best really earn.

People, especially econo-illiterate 'old coots' in the past have bid me to *practice all day long, become a pro golfer, they make millions(!)*. And my retort was always that I'd rather be the 5,000th best trader on the planet than the 50th best golfer - at least from a financial/lifestyle perspective.

Read my buddy Barry Ritholtz's post on - Bookonomics.

In it, he confirms my suspicions and offers an even bleaker profit outlook for the author manqué.

Barry Ritholtz - Dissembling, Self-Unconscious PARTISAN

So my buddy, that intellectual giant Barry Ritholtz...

He put up yet another unscholastic *rant* the other day. In it he accused the Wall Street Journal of being an organ of propaganda:

The politicalization of the WSJ has moved to a new and more risky phase. The paper is now in danger of being a money loser — not for its investors (tho that has already happened), but for those traders who read its content.

It used to be that articles on the Market or specific companies or various finance stories were objective and reliable and free from bias. Sure, you could always count on money losing, bat-shit crazy nonsense in the editorial pages, but that was a special area of sequestered partisans, who due to their insanity cared not a whit about how much capital their lunatic ravings lost their readers.

Regular readers know that I despise political parties, believe partisans suffer brain damage.

So the Wall Street Journal responded to his post, and essentially toppled his jerry-rigged hypothesis. Though Barry, as he always does, remained strident in his whining - and posted a couple more times on the subject.

I don't want to get carried away by the details of this little incident. Heck, I found the Wall Street Journal useless for trading/investing 14 years ago when I was only 21! I've pretty much almost never read the thing - or Barrons.

I wanted to talk about Barry - a self-declared *non-partisan*.

He's full of $hit!

In the fog and crossfire of his incessant whining, it may in fact be hard to see. But it's been long clear that he's an outright apologist for Big Government and one of those well-defined *New York [you know whats]*. Furthermore, his *partisanship* is no more evident that in his blog's thoroughly politicized comment threads. Obviously, I'm not the only one he's censored from the echo-chamber of his forum. And it didn't used to be so, well, one-sided.

Barry's not a partisan?

Well then who authored this post on his blog?



Wingnuttery???

That's as much a partisan characterization, as great as a partisan admission as one can make!



Go search his non-partisan blogging for the inverse of that *term*.



I found nothing.

I don't care if he's bashed *both Bush and Obama* or asserts that he *despises political parties*....

The guy LOOKS and quacks like a duck. (And I'd wager that this bird is no fan of *religious people* either!)

See also:

A Fight Where No One Got Hurt

Barry Don't Know Logic

Marginalizing Barry Ritholtz

Barry Ritholtz We Beg You To Stick To Stocks

Barry Ritholtz Called Me An Idiot

Barry Ritholtz = Big Baby?

Click to enlarge pic, if necessary.

Hmmmm.....why is that innocuous comment (and another) I tried to post on Barry Ritholtz's blog this morning awaiting *moderation*???

Is he moderating all comments now, or just mine?

(Turns out, he never let them see the light of day.)

Well, consider what happened today.

Mr. Ritholtz, author of the most widely read financial blog on planet Earth dropped by MY BLOG and posted a comment. I responded in my customary Captious fashion....

And poof, all of a sudden I was apparently banned from his blog!

See the little exchange here - Complimenting Barry Ritholtz - Consistently Ignorant.

I do hope it's not a hard ban.

Because I kind of like the guy...

And if it is, then obviously, I'm going to have to make the baby a dedicated target!



Is it, or is it not pretty darn childish to come onto my blog, attack me, and then ban my innocuous, pertinent comments from one's own site?

See also:

A Fight Where No One Got Hurt

Barry Don't Know Logic

Marginalizing Barry Ritholtz

Barry Ritholtz We Beg You To Stick To Stocks

Barry Ritholtz Called Me An Idiot

Complimenting Barry Ritholtz - Consistently Ignorant

From my buddy Barry Ritholtz's recent post - Fed Reserve Endorses "Crony Communism" For Wealthy:

My pet theory is that all of the anger about Health Care Reform is misdirected rage at the corrupt Bailouts. I don’t want to get too Continental on you, but the conversation in Europe I encountered repeatedly was the sheer perplexity at why people are protesting health care coverage for all. One fund manager said to me in Berlin, "You give trillions to rogue bankers, yet you have 40 million uninsured American. Why is that?"

My answer: I haven’t the foggiest idea why.

He's right!

He really DOESN'T have the foggiest idea about healthcare economics.

Dear Barry Ritholtz,

The problem with having Big Government just health insure 40 million Americans...

Well, for a hint, just take a look at a look at freakin' Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA!

Fannie:

The company was carrying $198.3 billion(!) in non-performing loans in its guaranty book of business on September 30, up from $171.0 billion on June 30 and $119.2 billion at the end of 2008. The carrying value of foreclosed properties was $7.3 billion in the third quarter, $6.2 billion in the second and $6.6 billion in the same quarter last year.

Freddie:

Freddie Mac said it didn't need any additional federal aid for the second straight quarter as it reported a loss of $6.3 billion for the third quarter on Friday.

But the company said it expected to ask for more handouts from the U.S. Treasury in the future as rising unemployment and falling home prices continue to drive higher credit-related losses for both Freddie and its larger rival, Fannie Mae.

Together with Fannie Mae, which said on Thursday it would need a $15 billion capital injection, the tab for the U.S. government's bailout of both mortgage-finance giants has climbed over the past year to $112 billion, making it one of the costliest government interventions ever to stabilize housing and financial markets.

The U.S. Treasury has agreed to provide as much as $200 billion in capital to each company by buying preferred stock that pays 10% dividends. Regulators took control of Fannie and Freddie through a legal process known as conservatorship 14 months ago

.

FHA:

Defaults spiked. About 24 percent of FHA loans were in default in 2007 and 20 percent in 2008, according to the agency. The agency's reserves kept tumbling.

As mortgages continue to sour, the Federal Housing Administration's reserve fund continues to deteriorate. That's not a big surprise. What might be a surprise is the fact that the FHA can get bailout money from the U.S. Treasury without seeking approval from Congress.

An automatic FHA bailout is part of the 1990 law under which the FHA turns over to the Treasury any excess money the agency collects in insurance premiums after it pays out its losses. This excess money goes into an FHA emergency reserve fund. Whenever the FHA needs money, it can draw from the reserve fund. The surprising thing is that there is no limit on the amount that can be withdrawn from the the reserve fund. All FHA loans are backed by the full faith and credit of the government, so if the FHA needs more than the amount of funds in the emergency reserve, it gets it, without the need for Congressional approval.

Meanwhile, Barry Ritholtz is musing among his Euro comrades, "What could possibly be wrong with merely granting everyone a house and a mortgage? With granting everyone a government job, a government pension, and a taxpayer-subsidized education????"

Amazingly, he complains aplenty about the broad daylight theivery on Wall Street - even wrote a book on the subject. Yet Barry hasn't the slightest idea that it's a government sanctioned and subsidized crime zone.

That's right, the stock exchanges, i-banks, and money management business are born of *public*, er regulated, securities' markets, the 401k income tax exemption, *fractional reserve* lending, the venal political connections of Goldman Sachs, etc.

I smacked the poop out of Ritholtz, and touched upon this very issue of his encyclopedic ignorance in - A Fight Where No One Got Hurt.

Only three minutes after publishing the blog post featured atop, Barry posted this addendum in the comment section:

Don’t get boggged down discussing Health Care — it isn’t my bailiwick, and I don’t have a professional interest in — but the Europeans are utterly perplexed by the debate.

The real issue is what will the Fed’s largesse and our collective refusal to hold people accountable for their actions lead to?

Hah!

Why doesn't he just say *I don't understand basic economics....it isn't my bailiwick*?

The sad thing is, on politicized Wall Street, economics is irrelevant. It's all who you know, self-marketing, momentum, and luck. And relatively speaking, in all honesty, Barry knows a heck of a lot more than most of the Morons out there allocating billions of soon-to-be-worthless dollars.

[Click that last link above "A Fight..." as it contains considerable overlap to this post.]

A Fight Where No One Got Hurt

First, visit - Itching For A Fight.

After screaming far and wide that he'd put $100,000 of his money against anyone in a narrowly-defined, subjective debate Barry Ritholtz has gone silent on the issue of Big Government's role in the *housing mess* - via subprime lending mandates and whatnot.

First, I jabbed him in the comments of his own blog.

And then afterwards I swung again on Steve Sailor's blog. Steve whacked him good as well and enjoyed the bonus of a direct response from Barry. Click here for the entire post with comments. Below I'm just going to copy Barry's feckless response to Steve, along with my *helpful* rejoinder:

Ritholtz said...

I think we are approaching this from two entirely different universes.

I am looking for cause and effect; I want to see data that supports or detracts from the proposition at hand. PROVE TO ME that X caused Y (including actual statistics).

Your proposal of Diversity causing the housing crash reads to me as a soft philosophical argument that is by definition unprovable -- and undisprovable.

At the very least, I see no proof in your writings. They are cogent arguments that leap from A to B to C -- but they lack the rigorous statistical evidence to demonstrate something convincingly to people who insist on hard data.

In my belief system, I use as few assumptions as possible. I try to avoid things that are unquantifiable. Statistical back testing is just on[sic] way to do that.

But even softer analyses such as war-gaming and alternative scenarios have to have some reasonable basis for proceeding. It cant be all assumptions, beliefs guesses
and hunches.

7/02/2009

My trenchant, and still unanswered, reply:

CaptiousNut said...

Barry Ritholtz deprecates counterarguments as *soft* and *philosophical*. He wants comers to statistically:

PROVE that X caused Y.

But what precisely are X and Y? And how exactly could one PROVE causation?

Here’s his own wording:

"Is the CRA significantly to blame for the credit crisis?

Let’s go term by term:

CRA = narrow, but treatable in debate.

significantly = vague and hardly mathematically defined.

blame = loaded, subjective term.

credit crisis = also amorphous and thoroughly subjective.

So Barry has the gall(or gap?) to stand before us and demand *actual statistics* to address his own fuzzier-than-a-Sicilian-backside question!!!

Mr. Ritholtz,

Economics is a SOCIAL SCIENCE. Macroeconomics is a JUNK SCIENCE. And political science is a misnomer!

(BTW, what exactly is the statistical, scientific basis of the term *wingnuttery* in your analyses? Mentally trapped in *binary*, huh? It must be a real intellectually superior universe that you hail from.)

It’s bad enough that you frame a subjective question and then rule out *cogent*, subjective responses...

But what kills me is you stickling for *causation* when you are a freakin’ quantitative trader. You so-called quants traffic in CORRELATIONS all day long and bet gobs of, well, other people’s money thereupon. So not only is your universe an unfit perspective for this debate – it’s unclear whether or not you understand your own livelihood.

Now, if Barry Ritholtz insists that the massive subsidization of our nation’s least creditworthy homebuyers had an insignificant effect on the overall housing market...

Then I guess Barry believes the subsidization of underperformers (via quotas and race-based financial aid) hasn’t significantly affected national academic standards or costs.

And I guess he believes that the subsidization of our most unhealthy (i.e. the aged via Medicare) hasn’t significantly affected healthcare in this country in terms of cost, efficiency, research direction, etc,...either.

Alright I was just kidding. I know he probably doesn’t have well-developed positions on those subjects - nor should he.

He really ought to limit himself to his wheelhouse – stockpicking; which he seems quite good at. Listening to him on wider socio-economic issues is like bearing a 22 year old Hollywood starlet on geopolitics.

The empirical fact is that the CORRELATION between Big Government and severe economic distortion remains the same as it's been throughout history - 100%.

7/07/2009

Now this is an important debate, an important battle to be fought.

It's just too bad that the prospects for real dialogue on this were, like most things Ritholtz,....all bluster.

I would have really liked to see someone like the sharp-tongued Don Luskin, neither a friend of mine nor Barry's, step up for a slugfest.

Alas, Luskin has been a housing bull the whole way down. This subject has proven beyond his ken.

"What about Mr. Mortgage?", I thought. And I even emailed him to ask but was *underwhelmed* to say the least. He replied:

Ritholtz is right -- the investment banks made this...then the commercials followed the IBs because their earnings were suffering. The cra was a small part.

Say what?

I respectfully pointed out to Mr. M. that:

PS - by the way, barry doesn't heap blame upon the investment banks as you say. he has them ranked 13-17 as culprits. you might want to revisit what he wrote because it's clear to me that he doesn't see the connections between the low end, middle end, and high end of the housing markets.

and i forgot that you at one time were contributing to his blog....

Anyway, enough on this subject for the moment.

But I do want y'all to check out a very well-written and informative piece on *political lending* by Zombietime - that photo-journalist from California.

Seriously, take the minute to click on it. What's chilling beyond the blog post's substance is how easily a non-financial layman can grasp the reality on housing better than pros in the business and on Wall Street.

Itching For A Fight

Barry Ritholtz is itching for a fight and I just may be game. He's decided to put up $10,000-$100,000 to debate anyone on, well, you can read his post - $100,000 CRA Challenge.

One dude named John Carney has accepted the bet but Barry, a man whose entire livelihood depends on trading/investing OPM (Other People's Money) has thus far, most hypocritically, refused to accept the challenge because Carney needed a *backer*.

Read my comments on that thread before Barry deletes them.

I'm going to ratchet up my antagonism on this matter. One, because it's warranted. And two, because I've got an smidgen of free time now.

Barry Ritholtz is by no means a formidable intellectual - and I'm amazed how much credence he's won from pure bluster.

Definitely check out - Barry Don't Know Logic - which has links to my other *Ritholtz* posts.

Barry Don't Know Logic

You young'uns probably don't know the Bo Knows slogan.

Here's Barry Ritholtz waxing illogical:

What a terrible sham the no "regulation cry" has been. It is really a vote for no rules against illegal and/or criminal behavior....

No rules against *illegal* behavior?

Barry, if it's illegal, by definition there has to be an extant *rule against* it!

The same holds for *criminal behavior*....only an existing law could deem it a crime.

Click that link above to read the rest of his weak-arse post. His attempts to capture the moral/intellectual high ground are utterly laughable. Again, he's great at reading the tape - and ought not to diversify.

See also:

Marginalizing Barry Ritholtz,

Barry Ritholtz We Beg You To Stick To Stocks,

and Barry Ritholtz Called Me An Idiot.

Barry Ritholtz - We Beg You To Stick To Stocks

Barry Ritholtz put up an inane post today - Global Warming? What Evidence Do You Have?.

He wrote:

I’m no expert, but a century worth of data shows the change in global temperatures...

Then he posted a bunch of 100 year-old and even shorter temperature charts I guess to boost his *claim*.

But what, isn't the Earth something like 4.5 billion years old?

I wonder how highly Barry would esteem a scientist pontificating on the stock market from an hour's worth of price action?

Methinks Barry knows stocks and nothing else. C'mon Barry respond to this post as you did with my last one - Marginalizing Barry Ritholtz.

Marginalizing Barry Ritholtz

Everyone has their weak points.

While I enjoy and profit from Barry's The Big Picture - today's most popular financial blog - he is horribly off his rocker on one subject.

In a recent post, Market Failure, Mortgage Style, Barry enthusiastically displays his ignorance on the matter.

When discussing free markets versus regulation, one of the basic tenets of laissez-faire economics is that human beings are rational, self-interested actors. This turns out to be a faulty premise. Humans can be illogical, irrational, and overly focused on the short term to the detriment of long-term performance results.

The current housing and credit crises was caused by many factors, but the primary ones have to be the Greenspan Federal Reserve which had abdicated its regulatory responsibility to supervise banks, and a banking industry which forgot what lending standards were for. The securitization process, corrupt ratings agencies, and a lack of Wall Street due diligence are the next level. A false belief that Housing Prices never decline also gets some blame. At the real estate level, Appraisal fraud, buyer foolishness, and financial ignorance also contributed.

The normal operations of the marketplace simply failed to work. Where markets fail to prevent recklessness, irresponsibility and behaviors that inflicts significant damage on the broader economy, some form of limited government preventative regulation is called for.

First of all, "market failure" is a doubly subjective notion.

What precisely is a market? Many would argue that real estate - as it's burdened with property taxes, zoning restrictions, and whatnot is hardly a freely functioning market. Meanwhile, others (e.g. the New York Times and perhaps Barry) don't think there's enough regulation. Such a wide spectrum of opinion precludes talking about the real estate market scientifically.

And what constitutes a "failure"? I scarcely think the incidence of large price fluctuations defines a failure. Nor do I think the existence of fraud, mania, or people getting booted out of their the bank's homes is a viable definition. Heck, if fraud is a sufficient condition then Barry rightfully should be fulminating on government failure - as I pointed out on Barry's blog thread:



So how much time do you want to waste debating a a rickety theoretical assertion?

Here's a snippet from The Market Failure Myth:

The term "market failure" came into frequent use by economists during the 20th century. During the 1930s, economists like Joan Robinson and Abba Lerner succeeded in focusing the attention of their colleagues on imperfections in market prices.[i] Deviations from optimal prices in markets were responsible for failures to direct resources to their most highly valued uses. Thus, markets supposedly fail on efficiency grounds.

By focusing on efficiency in the use of scarce resources and failures in markets to do so, interventionist-minded economists try to show that their concerns are utilitarian and scientific. There is nothing inherently wrong with having such concerns. Ludwig von Mises demonstrated the importance of distinguishing between value-free economic analysis of how to attain ends in and normative discussion of what ends we should attain. It is, however, important to also distinguish between those with genuine concerns of this kind and those who instead only appear to have them.

Make sure you read that whole article.

The fact of the matter is, "market failure" is an intellectual ruse. Historically, it's been a Trojan horse for elites to impose their fashionable notions (fairness, optimality, efficiency, justice, etc.) on the lumpen masses. Or, at least minimally, it's their scam for gainful employment as "policy makers". Just think Greg Mankiw and his Pigou Club Manifesto.

In that case (carbon taxation), the "market failures" are pollution, global warming, congestion, and terrorism. And the "fashionable notions" are Bigger Government, eco-paganism, pacifism,...

Now Barry Ritholtz is most definitely not looking for a government consulting gig, nor is he out to sculpt utopia.

I just think he's a bit of a whiner. Anyone can look back in hindsight and say that X, Y, and Z should have been done. The neat thing about theoretical time travel is that prescriptions don't have any negative side effects!



Now that I have made an argument that Barry's blog post FAILED, I want to point one one more thing:

Whatever label you want to put on today's mortgage/housing market, it certainly isn't failing for this renting, bank-shorting, cash-rich blogger!