Mark Baum Monologues

We live in an era of fraud in America. Not just in banking, but in government, education, religion, food, even baseball… What bothers me isn’t that fraud is not nice. Or that fraud is mean. For fifteen thousand years, fraud and short sighted thinking have never, ever worked. Not once. Eventually you get caught, things go south. When the hell did we forget all that? I thought we were better than this, I really did.

And as fun as it is seeing pompous dumb Wall Streeters be wildly wrong, and you are *wrong*, sir. I just know that at the end of the day regular people are going to pay for all of this. Because they always, always do. That’s my two cents. Thank you.

I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.

The banks have given us 25% interest rates on credit cards. They have screwed us on student loans that we can never get out from under. Then this guy walks into my office and says those same banks got greedy, they lost track of the market, and I can profit off of their stupidity? Fuck, yeah, I want him to be right!

We’re going to wait and we’re going to wait and we’re going to wait until they feel the pain, until they start to bleed.

And I’m getting madder and madder and I ask this guy how he sleeps at night knowing he’s ripping off working people and he just leaves. He doesn’t say a word. He just walks away from the lunch. So am I fucked up or is he?

So mortgage bonds are dog shit. CDOs are dog shit wrapped in cat shit.

I can’t hate him. He is so transparent in his self interest that I kind of respect him.

Okay, look. If home prices don’t go up, you are not going to be able to refinance. And you’ll be stuck paying whatever your monthly payment is once it jumps up after your teaser rate expires. Your monthlies could go up two-, three-hundred percent.

Well, he’s a liar. Actually, in this particular case, James probably is wrong.

What do you mean “all” your loans? We’re talking about two loans on one house, right?

This guy’s whole business is built on ripping people off, how long can that last?

So let me get this straight. The bank calls you up. They give you the bonds they want to sell. They give you clients, they give you money to run your business, give you fat fees for doing so, but you represent the investors!

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