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October 10, 2008

Quote of the Day

quotation-icon.jpgEach day as I read The What’s explanations and referenced articles I could see the unthinkable WAS occurring. And let’s face it, who else on this blog was predicting the catastrophic collapse of the US banking system and the economy? The optimists were thoroughly delusional, eyes and brains neutralized by their own dreams and desires. Here’s a toast to the grand tradition of skepticism…and perhaps a well-informed logical pessimism as well.

— by Oxygen in I Told You So...




Posted by Brownstoner at 3:27 PM | Comments (26)
Categories: QOTD

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Comments

I doubt most people are in the mood for a toast, but i think i get your point!

Posted by: Fast Freddy at October 10, 2008 3:53 PM

It was not 'skepticism' nor 'pessimism' it was out right cynicism.

Anyway, if scream the world is going to end you WILL be EVENTUALLY be right. 'A broken watch is right....'
Right?

I mean I can say a boom is coming. :/

So no -the What has not more credibility that he had before. Giving him more is automatons dealing with defeatism.

Posted by: crimson at October 10, 2008 4:40 PM

posts about lehman seem particularly prescient

Posted by: parrotgirl at October 10, 2008 4:58 PM

Crimson --let me see if I have this straight. Someone claims as early as '07 (or before) that the i-banks are overlevered, going out of business, and taking the global economy with them --and you won't give them credit? Asinine. No wonder you've been slaughtered over the past three months. Good luck with that.

PS Shout out to The What. You called it, and practically to the day. A lot of mindless cheerleaders on this blog have finally and forever been shamed into silence.

Oops, but wait --I have this friend, she's in the arts, European, just sold her two bedroom on the UWS for eight million, and she really, really wants to blow it all on a house in Bed Stuy. Cash offer. No, really.

Posted by: Whuh at October 10, 2008 5:04 PM

I thought the what was lust a jerk from Lodi, NJ. Wasn't that the conventional wisdom on this blog?
Turns out, guess what, he nailed it.
He nailed it. The was is over. Reconstruction will begin any week now.

Posted by: sam at October 10, 2008 5:09 PM

overlevered?

You must be the What congratulating yourself on your excellence again. Classic.

Posted by: dittoburg at October 10, 2008 5:10 PM

Gotta give The What credit for butting heads with the kool-aid drinkers for so long. But what he said, and I'm down with it, is nothing you couldn't have read on thehousingbubbleblog or patrick.net, or in the forecasts of Nouriel Roubini, to name just a few sources.

But The War is just beginning! The Dow is down from 14K to 8K, when houses follow suit, regular people will be able to own the roof over their head again. So I'm watching, for the end of the run-of-the-mill million-dollar rowhouse in Brooklyn. You know it's coming, sure as the turnin' of the earth.

Posted by: cgwatcher at October 10, 2008 5:25 PM

The what is a millionaire now of course, based on all the shorting he did.

Posted by: dittoburg at October 10, 2008 5:27 PM

cqwatcher, gotta agree, those million plus prices for george-constanza-parents-type-houses in WT never seemed right.

Posted by: dittoburg at October 10, 2008 5:28 PM

Again, you fail to see the nose on your own face, fool. Information is various, variegated, and nearly unlimited. You could have read Roubini; or you could have watched Mad Money. The point is, The What was right. Not you; The What. Take your lumps like a grown-up. A real man/real woman would admit, the system was a bubble, inflated by hype. They wouldn't come on here an snivel one last time, as if they still held the high ground.

PS I'm not The What, fool; and I am flush, so if you have anything you need to sell for pennies on the dollar, let me know. Unless it's in Bed Stuy, Lefferts Manor, Windsor Terrace, or any other neighborhood given its name by a broker in the last five years. In the meantime, best of luck with that mortgage...wait for it...bitter owner.

Posted by: Whuh at October 10, 2008 6:01 PM

The Whuh What, some of us are very happy that house prices will come done so that we can now buy. What are you on?

Posted by: dittoburg at October 10, 2008 6:16 PM

Ditto,

Ya mean we can actually have hope of one day buying! Prices have a looong way to go still. But maybe we're not priced out forever anymore.

Posted by: cgwatcher at October 10, 2008 6:43 PM

Whuh we believe everyone knows our opinion on the What. We will say it again: he was abrasive and crazy but we agree wholeheartedly the guy was absolutely right. Infact suspiciously accurate with the specifics...Mea Culpa What but please try to be civil for everyones sake alright??

Crimson that whole nonsense about a broken watch is a ton of baloney. The What was right not just by pure statistical chance as you imply with that reasoning. Go ahead and search his postings...very specific stuff.

Posted by: pierre de taille at October 10, 2008 6:56 PM

Please - the What had various rantings on EVERYTHING. If you throw enough shit on the wall something is going to stick. And not like the credit crunch was a surprise. Every one knew the RE was going to retract - the question was how much.

So please I love the bandwagoning here. 3 months ago - you had 1 or 2 guys backing up the What - now you have half the people in Brownstoner as expert in global credit finance.

If a guy starts predicting all sort of boom economy coming are you guys going to get on that bandwagon too years from now?

Like I said, a broken clock.

Posted by: crimson at October 10, 2008 7:07 PM

LOL- if you think I get slaughtered. No one is safe from the market. No one. If you think you are then I finally understand why you think the What is right.

Bitter renter? People with money can't buy now and you think you guys are going bargain hunting? LOL. You are out of the game before the crash, you will be out during the recession and definitely during the boom.

Like they teach in macro eco 101 - only the rich profits from recessions and depressions.

Posted by: crimson at October 10, 2008 7:10 PM

One need to be an expert in global finance to know that usury always fails in the end, especially when your nation has limited natural resources necessary to maintain modern industrial civilization.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 10, 2008 7:25 PM

dittoburg I have made a killing on shorting this market. And I have been writing exactly what I was doing on this site. The What deserves credit for speaking what he believed to be the truth while others blasted him. But he didn't make a penny. So while he was willing to talk he wasn't willing to put money on his beliefs.

Posted by: HOBOKENROCKS at October 10, 2008 7:42 PM

ok, so does this mean that if I start posting endless purile rants about how things are gonna get better, how the stock market will climb up again, how housing will recover and so on. For the next three years ad nauseum. When the economy does recover and there is stability, I will be lauded by sycophants and toadies as prescient?

Point is, the "optimists" were only angered by the extreme rhetoric of a loon.
Nobody here seriously thought there would be no end to the
"irrational exuberance".
What we still do not see is the widespread housing foreclosures and the people walking the streets and the whole Mel Gibson on the dark highway scene out of Mad Max that was common to these threads until recently.

Don't overstate things folks. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Economics is understood to be cyclical. Guess which way the market will start to move next? hummmmmmmmm.

Posted by: Legion at October 10, 2008 7:51 PM

the What's demeanor lost the audience, not what he was saying. some of what he was saying about the socio-demographics of purchasing in various neighborhoods was relevant here but was lost most of the time. the financial world is not my thing, and personally, I never knew if the financial content of his posts were valid or not, but I agreed with the demographic analysis of many of his points.

i have been buying and selling in Brooklyn since the mid-90's, and my initial impressions of buying in Brooklyn never changed in the past twelve years. I didn't want to buy in the areas that the What railed against even when they were ridiculously cheap. I looked at $150K apartments in turner towers for instance and $450K houses in Clinton Hill and Fort Greene and Boerem Hill and other neighborhoods that incorporated predominantly african american ghettos and/or projects and thought that time was against me then and still think it. ie: that the shift would never occur to being a truly safe neighborhood for me. I didn't even care about the financial implications.

back in the '90's, i had a black friend who went in with a couple of family members to buy a building in Fort Greene as an investment (rental apts.), and they got sick of the problems of the neighborhood, and sold. at the time I thought if black people don't want to deal with the area, I for sure can't (i'm white).

the What's repeated rant was that you are a A**hat (a term i would never use because it's rude and alienating) to spend a lot of money in these areas because you are a minority if you are upper middle class and especially if you are white, and if real estate collapses, your actual safety and your financial stability are threatened. his perspective was right on, but his delivery was terrible. i used to wish that the What could change his aggressive and hostile posts so that some of his information could help buyers, but no dice. sure there will be people out there could have used his advice.

i came to this site to learn something and to teach others the things that i learned. i've been slightly shocked at the opinions tossed out -many that are totally uniformed from either lack of personal experience or from actual facts. i still hope that people on this site can open their minds to insight when posted and learn, but i'm not sure that it will happen.


Posted by: wine lover at October 10, 2008 9:25 PM

wine lover:
you should write when you have less vino in you. I can't get through your post. Who are you imitating, Tolstoy? Keep it under 600 pages OK?

Posted by: Inigo at October 10, 2008 10:09 PM

Am loving the revisionism. The What was ridiculed not for his tone, not for his (obvious) oddities, but mostly because all you doubters thought he was wrong. You don't think being an equities naysayer in 1928 gets you any points for foresight? Then you're a jackass. The What called the what, the when, the why, and the how. And you know what? I love him for it. And you know what else? I think you people are 40% poorer than you were three weeks ago for not listening to him. And you haven't even started to eat it on your over-mortgaged house. Every single one of you creepy little bubble economy leaches who will now need to find real work --you know you would have been on here calling him out, had he been wrong. So man up.

PS Ha --go ahead and call a recovery. Go back and look --bear market rallies all the way down, down, down throughout the early thirties. Of course, since you know from macro, equities, swaptions, I'm sure you've gone all in. Right? Jackass.

Posted by: Whuh at October 10, 2008 11:57 PM

Whuh is not only bitter but angry.
You don't mean 40% poorer - you meant 40% less wealthy. And sulk it more. Like I said 3 months ago in Curbed and here, it is always the low and middle class that get hits the hardest during recessions. Yeah they may down grade their living, but they will be down grading to YOUR apartment - since you will lose your job and won't be able to afford your rent. Next stop 'the projects'. Misery loves company.

Then from there - you and the What will champion the next big thing like rebound.


Posted by: crimson at October 11, 2008 2:28 AM

My next stop is the pjs? That is too funny. If only I could set you straight, poor, poor fool. I am enjoying a nice Gros Freres et Soeur, right now. You? Fool.

Posted by: Whuh at October 11, 2008 9:13 PM

Barf....

It's not like What was debating with a panel of Nobel laureates. Lets' face it. It doesn't take much to win a macroeconomic forecasting debate among the Brownstoner commentariat.

By the way, a lot of people were forecasting it (Warren Buffet, for starters). They just weren't hanging around the Brownstoner forums.

By the way, what are these prescient forecasts What made? I recall him linking to newspaper articles, ranting and raving every time the DJIA dropped, etc. That's more consistent with being a bitter real estate have-not/barnburner than financial seer.

Posted by: new2 at October 11, 2008 10:27 PM

Not to spend more time than necessary on the subject but some posters made some valid points.
The local assclown and his toadies were up and down these pages swearing on a meltdown for 2 to three years. Now we have a couple of these sycophants back here with selective memory, touting this cellar dweller as the messiah of money markets.
Again, what does it take to say an up market is coming down again? especially when it is understood as cyclical in nature?

Posted by: Legion at October 11, 2008 11:07 PM

Cellar dweller.

The poetry.

Posted by: dittoburg at October 13, 2008 8:25 AM

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