Janet Tavakoli Talks About Banks, Derivatives, And Financial Meth Labs (C-SPAN Video With Brian Lamb)

Ms. Tavakoli found our site recently and contacted me about Elizabeth Warren. We decided to present one of Janet's recent media appearances. It's a rather long clip but quite interesting nonetheless. It's from an April 19th interview on C-Span with Brian Lamb.

Janet Tavakoli is founder and president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a Chicago-based firm that provides consulting to financial institutions and institutional investors. . Her new book is called "Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street." Its the story of her meetings with Warren Buffet prior to the economic downturn and how that impacted the way she views investing. She is a former adjunct professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. She has also worked for Westdeutsche Landesbank in London, Bank One in Chicago, Merrill Lynch, PaineWebber, and Bear Stearns.

Comments

[James H]

Did you hear how many times she dropped the F-bomb? That's right, F-R-A-U-D.

This has been Karl Denninger's mantra for some time now -- that much of this happened because of fraud and those responsible should be prosecuted. Unfortunately we would have to start with our former Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson. We know for a fact that he helped perpetuate fraud on BAC shareholders, AND he was CEO of Goldman when they were involved in the securitization boom -- likely there was fraud committed then as well. Others of you would know better than I would.

[spideydouble]

This is the first time I have ever heard of Janet Tavakoli. After watching this, I just joined her fan club. Very measured and articulate.

[Ain't Bullshittin']

She sounds like a scorned wife. Like the financial community has turned it's back on her so she wrote a book "outing" them. Well that would be mainstream medias take on it...I for one believe she is making too many points that cannot be refuted. Most would label her as a "tin foil hat type" but few would profit from her truth telling. Put her with Elizabeth Warren....and Wall Street, Congress, Past & Current Presidents would have some serious problems. Are WOMEN the ONLY smart financial minds or just the only ones with any morality? You make the call......"creating value is the best way to invest"...No more truer words ever spoken.

[James]

@AB

Looks like the tide is starting to turn, the second derivative is turning positive, there are mustard seeds and green shoots all over the place (except in the real economy)... It looks like the tin foil hat types are starting to form a pretty sizable group: Tavakoli, Buiter, Stiglitz, Galbraith, Whalen, Rosner, Ritholtz, Blodget, Task, Simon Johnson, B. Ackman, W. Poole, Schiff, Hussman, A. Merk, W. Todd, J. Rogers, Krugman... I'm sure I'm leaving some people out. Oh...walstreetpro2 -- almost forgot about him. And Elizabeth Warren. Roubini. Jim Bunning has thought ALL of it was WRONG, dammit, from the very start. And he's said so to Paulson, Bernanke and to Geithner.

Anyway, there's a growing list of people who either advocate bankruptcy/restructuring or at the very least decry the taxpayer bailout of the banks' creditors. I've grown more hopeful in the last week than I've been in about 6 months. If only we could add Obama and his handlers to the group above. Then we'd be in business. We'll see. We might have to resort to pitchforks -- although a friend of mine tells me you can get Chinese-made machetes for just a couple bucks each ;-)

[Ain't Bullshittin']

Gasoline and a match seems to be a bigger bang for your buck......It is down to $1.85 a gallon in my area...so it may stretch your deflating dollar a little farther down here.