Max Keiser: Goldman Sachs, AIG and dark matter

[Update - April 16, 2009: My sincerest apology to Max Keiser for misspelling his last name. It's Keiser - not Geiser. At least I was consistent, because I even misspelled it in the title. That's been corrected now. I must have been subliminally thinking of "geyser" because Max can certainly erupt at times. Oh well, thanks Max for being a good sport about it, and also thanks for your comment. And thanks to Stacy for tweeting about this article.]
 
I know I can get rather dark and heavy with my posts sometimes (well, alright, most of the time) so I thought I'd throw something in to lighten it up - if dark humor can be considered light.

Here's a clip from my favorite economic guru, Max Keiser. He has a very entertaining way of presenting the latest economic news. This clip is from March 6, 2009 titled "Goldman Sachs, AIG and dark matter". It's a segment from his TV show "The Oracle". He tries to predict upcoming trends in the world. What does that remind you of? Hint: The initials are FNT.



This particular clip covers pretty much the same material I covered in my post titled "Welcome to the Wall St. jungle", except in a much more amusing way.

Max is accompanied on the show by his sometimes girlfriend, the lovely Stacy Herbert. Some say Stacy is the best thing about the show. Who could argue with that? But seriously she does keep Max grounded which is not an easy thing to do. There is also the comedian Andy Zaltzman who I'm sure if your British is very funny, but I just find his humor to be very odd. But then I've never been a big fan of dry British humor. I don't like Monty Python either - I know, I'm such a stiff.

The guest on this segment is Max Fraad Wolff who I found to be very amusing. If you had grown up with a name like that you would have developed a pretty keen sense of humor too, just to get back at all the other kids making fun of you. Here are a few great one liners from Max Wolff.

• AIG is the artist fromerly known as American International Group.
• ...a company [AIG] that doesn't have enough money, except for a few government handouts, to insure a dog house
•  They [AIG] thought they were selling flood insurance in the desert... all of the sudden they were selling flood insurance in a desert under 10 ft. of water.
•  [after a hilariously mad tirade by Max Keiser] Perhaps not everyone has the congent, calm, considered response that you do.
• The reason the banks got so powerful is because American jobs haven't paid enough for people to live middle class lives in 30 years and they've borrowed the difference. 

That last quote I think is tremendously insightful. If you watch Hollywood movies and look at how the American middle class is supposed to ideally live and compare that with the lifestyle that the median American family income actually affords, there is certainly a sizeable gap there. And of course were talking about a mythical nuclear family where both the husband and wife are out in the job market working for a living. Back in the 50's and 60's the average American household was able to make ends meet with just one source of income. And never mind the fact that a large percentage of households today are run by single parents.

Oh but this was supposed to be a lighthearted blog entry. Well just watch the clip and have a good chuckle at Max Keiser's antics.

Oh and Max and Stacy, no hard feelings that you didn't respond to my comments on your website. Maybe one of these days the two of you will stumble upon my site. And if you were to leave a comment, I'd be sure to respond - because I'm just that kind of guy. (Not like some people I know, grumble, grumble...)

P.S. If you're looking for "The Oracle" TV show, you're out of luck unless you receive the BBC. However, you can watch clips on the Max Keiser YouTube channel. I've provided a link below.

Links

• Max Keiser's website
• Max Keiser's YouTube channel 

Related Posts

• Welcome to the Wall St. jungle - Covers in detail the way the AIG bailout directly benefited Goldman Sachs.
• Wall Street's gigantic Ponzi scheme - Contains a hilarious clip of Max Keiser calling for a fatwa against "Hank" Paulson. This outburst reportedly got Max temporarily banned from Aljazeera.