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By craazyman, long time Naked Capitalism reader, peanut gallery commenter, Yves Smith fanboy, and Profeser of Contemporary Analysis at the University of Magonia
You can unpack yer bags ‘cause we’re not going on a guilt trip. I’m way too lazy for that. And I won’t grovel like a sycophant fawning over Yves’ triumphant greatness like she’s some financial Joan of Arc earth mother. Put a finger down my throat and make me vomit! She lives on Park Avenue, has a consulting business, gets interviewed on TV, and flies around the world to meetings and conferences. Does that sound like an earth mother to you? Besides, she hates suck-ups. She even told me that once to my face! And Lambert, he lives in a state called “Vacationland” and his job is being a landlord. Well dig that ditch! If you’re anything like me, people like them should be sending their extra money to people like us.
But I know a good deal when I see one. And NC probably saves me $15,000 per year in psychiatric bills because it tolerates my nonsense in the peanut gallery, and all you boneheads, including a lot of you Post authors, crack me up. That’s why I give a few hundred bucks a year, just to save $14,000. And If I can make money like that, why shouldn’t you? In fact, I’ve got a plan to raise $5 million dollars for NC ‘cause that might impress Yves and maybe she won’t ignore me or call me a suck up again. That hurts when you’re a fanboy. I almost cried.
I’ll deal with yuz one by one, and show you how you make money here like I do.
First, all you crazy women in the peanut gallery. God you crack me up. The way you wander lost in your hormonally imbalanced hysterical word fog, agonizing daily about melting polar ice caps, species extinction, economic collapse and complete global destruction. Are you completely crazy or do you just make this stuff up? What if you didn’t have the peanut gallery and had to show your comments to your husband instead, printing them out and shoving them into his face at breakfast?
“Here. Do you want to read what I wrote about Dodd-Frank, global warming, President Obama’s healthcare plan and a picture of a cute kitten?”
“That’s very well put,” he says from behind the newspaper.
“You haven’t read it!”
“Leave it on the table. I’ll try to read it later.”
Forget it. He married you ’cause you’re hot. If he wants deep thoughts he’ll go for a walk in the woods or read the Encyclopedia Britannica. You know it’s hopeless so you crumple up your screed, find a sofa and start crying into your palms at the cruelty of everything. But you don’t have to worry about that ’cause you’ve got the peanut gallery here. They not only read your nonsense, they write back and tell you how right you are! How much is that worth? I’d say, easily, $100 three times per year. Just like me, you could spend $15,000 on psychiatric counseling and medication alone. Either that or $300. That’s a 50-bagger in one year and you’re making money the first month!
And all you dudes who yack it up all day like men playing checkers in a park in Queens. What else would you be doing? Fishing? With your broad-brimmed Madras hat and white tube socks pulled to your knees, the blinding light on the water so bright it burns your vision to kaliediscopic black, colors that don’t exist in reality surging behind your sweat-closed eyes while you wonder pointlessly about life, love, being, time and eternity. Well faaaak that. Here you swagger your erudition like a long swinging Johnson full of testosterone. Overwrought women swoon and young men mind-stare gape-jawed at your potency. What’s that worth? I’d say at least $100 bucks a few times per year. What do you pay for stock tips by the way? Do the math while you’re fishing the Big River with the flies buzzing around your eyes, your line limp on the water, your face sweating the impossible sun.
And you, banksters, multi-million-dollar-a-year lever pullers working the Fed-supported-and-state-socialized-finanz-capital-toll-booth. You’d think you’d be the last boneheads on earth to send in some of your “hard earned” — bowaaha-haha-ahahahhahaha -sorry-I-can’t-stop-laughing — poker chips to Naked Capitalism, one of the few places that knows how little you really do and how to kick your sorry asses to Hoboken. Well think about this with your feet on your desk, nose in the air and head up your ass. When you’re dead you’ll have one chance, facing the Big Kahuna with your knees shaking and heels hanging over a cliff ledge 100 miles deep with flames flicking your butt waiting to roast you like an ant. When the Kahuna asks, “Why shouldn’t I give you one poke in the chest and send you on your way?” what is there to say? Everything you did in finance was to profit from someone else’s loss, and if you can create the loss, all the better. Except that time you and the guys got together and said “Just for a joke, let’s send some money to Yves Smith in case we ever need the karma, like a hedge.” Well, the bet works when an angel with a clipboard says, “Ummm, says here he did give money to Naked Capitalism once.” And the Big Kahuna says “Really? Well hell, step your sorry ass over there and have a seat.” What’s that worth? For guys like you, I’d say at least $50,000 each. That’s like me buying a $1 scratch-off lottery ticket. You might still get the push but you’ll have 3 minutes to make your case.
And you, economists, indoctrinated children of an immaculate deception, locked in your brain jail, BA, MA, PhD, the bars get higher, the window smaller and the darkness blacker with each year. All your equations and your equilibriums, your Newtonian money metaphors of particles and velocities spinning like the flailing arms of a psychotic galaxy into a knot of illucidity and tendentious incoherence so tangled you might as well cut it right out of the line and start from scratch. You might be conscious enough to recognize this situation as your “ultraviolet catastrophe” and have the dim intuition an intellectual revolution patiently awaits your halting speculations. You might not swallow Zimbabwean, ummm, I mean Modern Monetary Theory but at least there’s something there to jolt your somnambulence. And you’ll find it here often enough. By the way, how much did you have to pay Princeton, or Chicago or the “Mental Institute for Technocrats” for your 3-year drive through cranial car wash? 15 or 20 or 30 grand? Per year? How many of you even know what money is? I doubt there’s one. So fork over $100 bucks a few times a year for new horizons of revelation you can’t even imagine. And just drop out if you still can. You’ll have $29,000 left over for beer money and penny stocks.
And you, D.C. politicians and bureaucrats. You’d probly still think banks give away toasters if it wasn’t for Naked Capitalism and the stories it broke about the smoke and MERS non-mortgage backed securities, how synthetic CDOs (I’m still trying to figure those out) were worse the Lehman, on robosigning and the Bank of America whisteblower scoop. Think about it. One thin blonde alone in a New York apartment with two cats, a telephone and internet connection did more to ferret out financial fraud and mayhem for five straight years than the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Reserve combined. And youze guys in Washington are the ones in charge of Ahmurrica?
I know in my soul I couldn’t have done in 1 million years any of what Yves Smith and NC did. No way. First, I’m too lazy. Second, I’m too ignorant. And third, I wouldn’t know who to call or what to ask. I’d just stare at the phone ‘till I got so tired I’d go back to drinking red wine surfing Youtube for Adele songs (I’m her fanboy too, faaaaak she’s awesome). That would take about 5 minutes. I guess that’s what the Justice Department and the rest of yuze did too, except you porn surfers at the SEC. So put on your flag pin, recite the pledge of allegiance and bundle $5,000 up from small donations. You can expense it on your books for “patriotic consulting services rendered.” You’ve already made the profit on it.
And then there’s the “other” category — always useful when preparing financial statements! I’ll put $500,000 there. This is, for example, when the Institute for Nonsensical Economic Theorizing realizes its grants have done nothing but create stupendously irrelevant confusion and incomprehensible equations, and it tosses NC some cash like a Hail Mary into the End Zone, trying to put points on the board any way it can.
When I do some math in my head and add all this up I get roughly $5 million, which seems reasonable for a quick fundraiser. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes in over $10 million. Money is just an idea. Have yuz figured that out yet? And once an idea starts to move, it goes places you can’t imagine. That’s why you need to send in your money, because you can’t imagine it and neither can I. But they can. And they’ll keep making it real for you if you let them. It’s just good business. And you won’t be sucking up to anybody.
50 comments
Comments are closed.
I contribute what I can with comments and cash. The ‘commentariat’ is an important and vital aspect of the political collage that is Nakedcapitalism.com. Many times the comment section contribute to an understanding of the issues brought up on the main pages.
The nature of the impact of this blog is not easily calculated. I start my daily news read here and seldom have time for any other sites.
Always a pleasure, hope you write a book someday, craazyman, and I just gave an hour’s pay, and now off to dig a ditch.
“Think about it. One thin blonde alone in a New York apartment with two cats, a telephone and internet connection did more to ferret out financial fraud and mayhem for five straight years than the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Reserve combined.”
Sold
You sound too much like my ex-husband trying to sound cool and interesting, craazyman. It’s a good thing I donate for other reasons, because I could not read your screed past the first paragraph. So let me guess, you are in your sixties and still think using bad spelling and bad humor are inherently funny because you are a so called old coot?
No, he’s younger than that and actually very presentable.
jeez, what a suck-up!
;)
Craazyman,
I don’t have a husband right now and I love your humor. Are you available?
haha. the days are sometimes as hard as the crows in the trees, but, yes, there is an opening there. I’m very normal in real life, actually, other than the intellectual eccentricities. craazyman is somebody I make up for fun.
You missed this great passage if you didn’t get past the first paragraph.
“And you, economists, indoctrinated children of an immaculate deception, locked in your brain jail, BA, MA, PhD, the bars get higher, the window smaller and the darkness blacker with each year. All your equations and your equilibriums, your Newtonian money metaphors of particles and velocities spinning like the flailing arms of a psychotic galaxy into a knot of illucidity and tendentious incoherence so tangled you might as well cut it right out of the line and start from scratch.”
my favorite paragraph too
Well, geez.
I haven’t chortled so hard in awhile; I’ll be chuckling over this for days.
But I hate to comment about that because, y’know, it’d make me sound like a suck-up. But this is priceless::
Given the dysfunction in DC at present,this is a masterful understatement.
“Smoke and MERS” is awesome. I tip my hat.
Clarity on banksters: “Everything you did in finance was to profit from someone else’s loss, and if you can create the loss, all the better.”
Loved everybody’s choices, they’re mine too.
h/ts
I’m buff, youthful and I work out hard. Think Brad Pitt before he got bloated from drinking. :)
If I ever have the pleasure of meeting you in person, I will bow in a gentlemanly way and kiss your hand in a polished gesture of well-mannered poise!
I think carolannie has the hots for you, Dad. But you’d better be careful. She might be one of those Lizard People.
You’ll go out on a date and she’ll put the ‘ole lip lock on your face and next thing ya know she swallows yer head whole. Could even happen on a first date.
Betcha she also thinks Wooden Allen and Joss Whedon are no good at writing dialog either. At least you’re trying.
After 30 some year in science, my tolerance of verbosity disappeared. If this is a joke, it’s way too long.
Let’s talk about $ contribution. Many of us will not lose sleep or meals with $1000 contribution. My bank account sends out money to at least a dozen organizations that need every penny they can put their hands on. The list include a local food bank, a local public radio station, anti-racism organizations, etc. We love all our kids equally and the monthly outlay isn’t low
Mental soundness is not a goal or a problem. NC is an important source for me. No I don’t agree with everything I read. No, I don’t like it when Elizabeth Warren is treated as a Republican. No, I don’t like it when Krugman is treated as an idiot. Still, I like Yves’ writing, Dayen’s knowledge and do fine skipping Lambert.
“After 30 some year in science” – ” I don’t like it when Krugman is treated as an idiot” – middle seaman
skippy…. the two are in conflict and Warren was a self proclaimed center right republican, something about timelines.
Oh, lighten up a bit, would you.
“After 30 some year in science, my tolerance of verbosity disappeared.”
Must be social “sciences”.
I qualify for membership of several of your above described categories Craazyman. Do I have to pay for a group membership ? Or can I get a bulk-buy discount ?
i’m in the checkers in the park category myself — that’s how I know what it’s like. fly fishing is/was my outlet, but haven’t done it for a while but it’s still there like home town waiting. I’d think pick the one with the highest donation and go for it.
Oh, and if you know where overwrought women hang out, please let me know. From what you’ve said, I’ve been barking up the wrong tree all these years.
How about auctioning off that video of Yves giving the smack down.
Skippy… Priceless~
Oh, again, it is “hard earned”. Have you ever tried sustaining genuinely-fake sounding corporate brown nosing for more than 5 minutes ? We just make it *look* easy. If you don’t have the right stuff, they cart you off to the funny farm within a decade. Or you give up the rat race and move to Cornwall. It amounts to the same thing.
Difference between “eclectic” and “eccentric”=30 years.
I been robbed! I don’t even play in the sandbox and get all dat juice and I still gave to keep Yves’s, Lambert’s, and Dave’s life-style pumped!?
He lives in NYC and an enterprising NC regular organized a holiday party in December. It was nice meeting readers but it was in a noisy bar, so it was not as conducive to conversation as I would have liked.
Were I not so insanely time pressed, it would be a good thing to do again, but probably in January, when the drinking venues are much less busy.
It’s a pleasure (knot) knowing you, Craazyman, you old (or new) coot with your puff and piffle that takes the long road around and winds up back at the beginning. I’ve met Verbosity and I’ve met Screed; you are Craazyman.
I contribute today to NC (but not because of you, sorry). Yves, I’m also grateful to you for your openness re blog finances.
You might like me in person! Keep in mind there’s a difference between character and author, like the actor you see on a soap opera magazine isn’t that character in real life! :)
If anybody’s pissed off, offended, upset, mind-bludgeoned or nauseated by this post — just send in money.
It’s not about you or me, or your ex-husband or how hot you are or how long the post is. Getting to $5 million was a hike. I’ll admit that.
So here’s an offer I will make right here and right now. If by 5 pm folks have sent in $500,000 — only 1/10th of my goal — I will ask Yves to DELETE THIS ENTIRE POST!
That’s right. Only $500,000 by 5 pm can DELTE THIS ENTIRE POST as if it had never been written or posted. My ego can handle it. It’s not about me. I dish it out here and I can certainly take it. It’s about supporting the good work done by NC.
Mr. Soros could do this by himself! Probbly one guilt-tortured banker or prop trader could do it. It shouldn’t be hard. Maybe somebody’s ex-husband was rolling in dough and a little rolled their way. Who knows?
What a relief it would be for everybody! This is something we can all rally around like one big team of allies and partners for progress. I’d be disappointed that $5 million didn’t get raised, but $500,000 would be an acceptable outcome.
Yes, you are an encouragement for someone’s ex to send in 100,000 (+/- zeros) simply out of sympathy for your style and your forbearance towards detractors.
I hope you are disappointed in your goal of 500,000 and that Yves will instead raise 650,000 by tonight so that your post will remain here until the electrical infrastructure fails or NYC blows up, whatever is less.
Here’s to all of the information and ideas that would not exist in one place without NC. And the total is greater than all of the parts, even the crazy parts. Yves and Lambert, thanks for the intellectual D-Day you produce everyday.
“An invading army can be resisted, an invading idea can not”.
Fernando Saenz y Vergara Tioxon
Here in Canada, I’m surrounded by people who come to me and ask why they should not liquidate their RRSPs and load up on condos.
This is one of the rare places where I don’t feel as if I am in the Twilight Zone… until I am called a neocon/neolib. LOL!
Way to go, Dad!
They can close the government – but not NC!
Also too, when can we see one of your Bigfoot photos for the “antidote” one of these days?
I found the article largely boorish, although appreciate that the author took a shot at it. Main problem is that in itself the article is unlikely to succeed as a fundraising appeal. Best part of the article is setting a $5M goal.
Suggestions to Yves: 1) with helpers, draft a plan to build an organization. Central to plan would be recognition that NC could easily scale up its activities, given successes so far. If NC is indeed at a growth inflection point, main constraint may be thinking too small. Central to plan would be delegation of logistical tasks to others, leaving yourself free for article-writing, conference-going, and high-level networking; 2) articulate to your readers a vision of what $5 million would be used for; 3) in your vision, include a budget for paid staff; 4) start with volunteers if you prefer or must, but get professionally competent fundraisers, and 5) consider how to leverage your readership. There are all kinds of skills and expertise in readership sympathetic to the great stuff you and your colleagues are doing.
Thanks for considering. :)
Craazyman, that is a nice description of me at the breakfast table handing over to my husband some financial information gleaned from NC!
Thank you for the excellent information that this site gives on a daily basis, Yves, Lambert, et al.
ha! If I didn’t have to run to a meeting with dead-eyed executives who only breath fire when manipulating earnings, I’d donate right now! As in years past, Yves will receive as much as I can reasonably afford for her expectional work and the nattering of her charming cohorts.
I’ve been reading this blog first thing almost daily since Oct 8 2010. I get a lot from the posts, the comments, and the links. I do hope politicians, bankers, business people, investors (we are all investors in one country or another), get some fraction of the understanding I have from this site. But even if only a few read this blog directly, the ideas expressed here are spreading far and wide. Truth does have an advantage over BS even when the BS has a lot of money behind it.
Naked Capitalism points out the defects, failures, absurdities of the present world economic and political systems as well as possible modifications and alternatives to our present systems. Change can only occur if enough people realize that the system is broken and there are possible fixes. In time as this knowledge spreads and is accepted by enough people changes will be made. Little changes, big changes.
So any contribution to Naked Capitalism may well have a much greater payoff for our future than any other investment we could make. Even more than crazyman can imagine. Contribute what you can. I’m sending a check today.
cue to the Back of the Bus Brigade to make Styrofoam *kissiekiss* sounds.
us kissasses gotta stick together.
Welp, my ex-husband told me that other men tell me I’m hot only because they want to get in me pants. But craazyman wants to get in my wallet.
Works for me.
Check is in the mail.
heehehehehehee
Epic. Faaaking hilarious.
I read this piece and couldn’t shake the image of James Brown having the cape laid on his shoulders and being pulled away from the mic for the third time.
Someday we ought to have a chat about the concept of sprezzatura.
If I weren’t a black-and-white cat I’d give money to NC!
No, wait!
I already have.
Awesome.
What a great example of failed pretentious snark that doesn’t work and will be a great link example to my colleagues in the world of fundraising of what not to do. You’re gonna wanna take this down.
Knowing how totally screwed up, stuck up and constipated the world of fundraising can be, your comment cannot beging to surprise me.
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So there are really people who can think of themselves as ‘professional fundraisers’, without breaking down and crying immediately after describing themselves this way? Why is that? Do they protect themselves by projecting a very serious attitude? I am curious if your derisive response is the consequence of a pedantic character, or by a time-honed fear that the people whom you hope will give you money won’t know humor when they see it? I would have thought that (professional) begging is all about creating a relationship with the person you hope will give you money.. Is this no longer possible now that fundraising has become professionalized, or is the problem merely that management theory books teach you that humor is disrespectful?
That aside, it is fascinating to see how many make-work jobs can exist in a “capitalist” world.
Boy, some of you really have no sense of humor.
I thought that joke about the husbands who don’t really want to listen to your social commentary was probably dead on. My college boyfriend always used to tell me “you think too much.”
Looks to me like somebody struck a nerve. I could be wrong, but I think you have to laugh at that.
There’s always another alternative. You could always not think too much.
Inorite? Sheesh.