The Man Who Made Too Much
portfolio.com
The Man Who Made Too Much
1–10 of 51 posts
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#2What a whiny tone in the article... the man made money on people's downfall; why doesn't he repent? He must be punished!
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#3I don't see this person doing anything wrong. People are envious of someone else doing well.
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#4What a whiny tone in the article... the man made money on people's downfall; why doesn't he repent? He must be punished!
Agreed strongly:
One reason for this is that Paulson was able to recognize and act on the unimaginable—that the banks, which took on most of the subprime risk, had no clue what they were holding or how much it was worth.
More Paulsons and maybe the banks might have 'imagined' this possibility. How is it possible to be morally outraged with the irresponsible banks and Paulson.
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#5Ironic that he of all people ended up buying a house at the height of the bubble.
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#6I don't see this person doing anything wrong. People are envious of someone else doing well.
And short sellers are the defense of capitalism against bubbles. (Not always working --- but at least they have an incentive to pop bubbles.)
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#7I don't see this person doing anything wrong. People are envious of someone else doing well.
I don't care that much, but I can see why people might. He didn't create value. Like, when PG creates something, it adds a certain value to society. Even when PG puts money behind a firm like Disqus, he enables value to be added. This guy didn't create any value or enable value creation. He just saw a situation he could take advantage of.
The banks had created value, but not as much as everyone had thought and he took advantage of that. It's part of our system and that's fine and all, but it certainly isn't something I'm going to be all, "that's the way to do it!" He didn't do anything wrong. He played by the rules from what I know.
However, he really took advantage of something in a way that raises moral questions. Remember the valentine's episode of Futurama? Bender is selling roses and when he knows that Fry is over a barrel he hikes the price incredibly saying that demand just skyrocketed. Yeah, it's how our system works and I don't really disagree with your sentiment, but it still leaves me feeling a little gross about him as a person. Capitalism allows you to act without regard for morality so long as it's within the law and that's fair game. Doesn't mean we need to like the people who do act that way.
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#8What a whiny tone in the article... the man made money on people's downfall; why doesn't he repent? He must be punished!
Quite. If the downturn hadn't happened, people would have been happy enough to take his (and his investor's!) money.
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#9The article was interesting but I really didn't like the tone, it was almost as if the author was sneering at the man. He tried to make him seem all sheepish and quiet, then try to lay guilt on him for doing his job well, and then mocking him for making a bad housing investment.
Re: The Man Who Made Too Much
#10I don't see this person doing anything wrong. People are envious of someone else doing well.
I don't care that much, but I can see why people might. He didn't create value. Like, when PG creates something, it adds a certain value to society. Even when PG puts money behind a firm like Disqus, he enables value to be added. This guy didn't create any value or enable value creation. He just saw a situation he could take advantage of. The banks had created value, but not as much as everyone had thought and he too…
I'm not the trader type and I don't like the idea of such extreme income disparity, but to say that Paulson didn't create value is factually incorrect; he created it in the same way as the banks you mentioned did: by exposing and exploiting a market inefficiency and causing it to patch itself up.
The reasons behind his actions can make him a saint or an asshole, but the fact that people like him exist just reveal properties of an imperfect system. And he won't be the last.