Still Around and Making a Lot of Sense

Back when bankers were riding high, Martin (is that guy still around) Mayer looked pretty much like an old fuddy duddy. Not that banks are imploding, Martin (is that guy still around?) may be coming back into fashion. Via Yves Smith, here’s a wonderful interview of Mayer from Institutional Risk Analytics, in which he is sober and tactful enough not to say “I told you so”—but to give the reader plenty of leeway to figure it out for himself. Here’s a money quote:

… there are a certain number of tested Wall Street scams that have been forbidden by regulation. If you can find a way to use technology to revive one of these scams, then you are an innovator and you get paid extremely well for the five years these techniques work, and then you go away.

Makes me remember my friend Bernie who said there were two ways to make partner at his hubba hubba Wall Street firm in the old days: one was to invent a new security, and nobody remembered what the other one was.