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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: The Big Picture | Farewell To Ben Stein. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

The Big Picture | Farewell To Ben Stein
by Decius at 1:04 pm EST, Jan 29, 2008

Its time to bid a not-so-fond adieu to the New York Times columns of Ben Stein.

No, he is not leaving the paper. Rather, we've reached the point where Stein's commentary has become detached from reality, so ridiculously fabricated, that it can no longer be read....

The final straw as far as I am concerned came this past weekend.

Rather than admit his error, Stein went a completely different way: He blamed the sell off on traders. (Can Their Wish Be the Market’s Command?) It was the last bit of idiocy from him anyone should tolerate.

Apropos to the subject of disagreeing with Ben Stein.


 
RE: The Big Picture | Farewell To Ben Stein
by noteworthy at 2:36 pm EST, Jan 29, 2008

Decius wrote:

Apropos to the subject of disagreeing with Ben Stein.

Thanks, although this doesn't look so good for flynn23 and dcode, who said:

uh this has been the way it's always worked. Hence the term "market maker".

And:

I've been saying this for years.


 
RE: The Big Picture | Farewell To Ben Stein
by noteworthy at 8:50 pm EST, Jan 29, 2008

It's time to bid a not-so-fond adieu to the New York Times columns of Ben Stein. ... Rather than admit his error, Stein went a completely different way: He blamed the sell off on traders. It was the last bit of idiocy from him anyone should tolerate.

Decius wrote:

Apropos to the subject of disagreeing with Ben Stein.

To clarify: I'm not taking Stein's side. Clearly Stein's comments are not to be taken without healthy helpings of salt; we've covered that in previous threads:

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed / Stein has lost it?

Ben Stein's final column

Bear in mind that Barry (Big Picture) Ritholtz is a hedge fund manager, so Stein's claims were in this sense directed at Ritholtz. (I noticed that Ritholtz links to an endorsement from Kudlow, Cramer's former co-host.)

I accept Ritholtz's criticism that Stein's views are a bit on the tinfoily side of things. Yet my recollection is that Cramer has made superficially similar claims in the past -- in the narrower sense I referred to earlier, of temporarily pushing a particular stock or sector up or down. I was and am incredulous about anyone's ability to "control" the market, which is why I found Stephen Mihm's prescriptions for a regulatory remedy to be naive.

I noticed that Paul Kedrosky is also complaining about Stein. In the process he makes a comment about liquidity which also relates to Mihm's silly "black box" story in the Globe.

My original point in highlighting the "disagreement" between the views of Stein and Mihm was to say only that one of them must be wrong. On further and wider rereading it has become increasingly apparent that in fact both of them are wrong about the market -- and Stein about much else.


 
 
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