MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2011
The Rumpelstiltskin economy; spinning straw into gold till it doesn't work anymore
Jon Corzine has certainly had an illustrious career. CEO of Goldman Sachs in the nineties. Senator and then Governor of the Garden State till Chris Christie turfed him. Never quite made it onto the Forbes billionaire list but came close.
After Christie put the boots to him he ended up as the top dog at MF Global, one of those Rumpelstiltskin creations that don't actually do anything useful but manage to put their ownership group into 100 foot yachts and 6000 square foot upper east side apartments. MF Global declared bankruptcy today. The times they are a-changing.
But maybe not. Back in the '20's there was a Guelph boy who made it big in the major money centers of America, first Chicago, then Wall Street. His name was Arthur Cutten. The Cutten Club in Guelph bears his name to this day. Had that Rumpelstiltskin magic working for him. Made the cover of Time magazine in 1928. The local mythology has him making hundreds of millions while his competitors were doing their death dives from the towers of Wall street.
Had it all. The yachts. The fancy apartments. All because he had a knack for spinning money out of nothing.
Spent the rest of his life being hounded by the federal government. Died in the late thirties while under indictment for income tax evasion and other oversights. He's buried in the same cemetery in Guelph as my grandmother and my great grandmother. Just as dead as they are.
So there's really nothing new about all this derivatives and options and futures stuff. The Rumpelstiltskin economy. Real wealth comes from making stuff that works and doing useful things for other people. It will never come from being a more clever or crooked paper shuffler than the next guy.
That's been our downfall. We've been worshiping the crooked paper shufflers for far too long.
After Christie put the boots to him he ended up as the top dog at MF Global, one of those Rumpelstiltskin creations that don't actually do anything useful but manage to put their ownership group into 100 foot yachts and 6000 square foot upper east side apartments. MF Global declared bankruptcy today. The times they are a-changing.
But maybe not. Back in the '20's there was a Guelph boy who made it big in the major money centers of America, first Chicago, then Wall Street. His name was Arthur Cutten. The Cutten Club in Guelph bears his name to this day. Had that Rumpelstiltskin magic working for him. Made the cover of Time magazine in 1928. The local mythology has him making hundreds of millions while his competitors were doing their death dives from the towers of Wall street.
Had it all. The yachts. The fancy apartments. All because he had a knack for spinning money out of nothing.
Spent the rest of his life being hounded by the federal government. Died in the late thirties while under indictment for income tax evasion and other oversights. He's buried in the same cemetery in Guelph as my grandmother and my great grandmother. Just as dead as they are.
So there's really nothing new about all this derivatives and options and futures stuff. The Rumpelstiltskin economy. Real wealth comes from making stuff that works and doing useful things for other people. It will never come from being a more clever or crooked paper shuffler than the next guy.
That's been our downfall. We've been worshiping the crooked paper shufflers for far too long.
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