1. Capitalism... Who was the winner?

Rather interesting turn of events in the world today... I refer to my original post on the role of the firm... and the role of banks in the world... Banks are supposed to allocate money to firms that have good (cash generating) ideas.. instead these morons sit and productize money...

I am a simple guy and as I studied for the hardest exam in the world, only one law was really needed to to solve all the problems that came my way. Energy is conserved.

On wall street, I strongly believe that once a $1 bill is printed it can't vanish. Where did that $1 bill go? What I wanted to know was which smart-ass got the money.

I've started buying the FT Weekend edition. Its a great read and its also good for quality time with my better half, since one section is on how to make money and the other (the better half) is on where to spend it.

Anyway, thats when I heard the name David Einhorn for the first time.

When I first studied economics at IITM, the final exam was to write an essay on a financial event in the last decade. 90% of the class wrote about the Liberalization of the Indian economy. I guess that whole jing bang had completely escaped me... I wrote about Bearings Bank and my personal hero at the time, Nick Leeson. I was 17 and the only idiot who thought that a bank going down was a financial event of some magnitude.

So, Mr. Einhorn who is a hedge-fund manager at Greenlight Capital, apparently had the smarts or the patience to look at Lehman's balance sheet. He then went on to talk to the CFO and other Fuldian cronies and decided they were in the Structured Bullshit business.

This is the most sensible thought process I have heard from anyone on Wall Street.

And he is currently the owner of that missing $1 bill. There is really no value lost on Wall Street in my opinion. All the widows and orphans invested in Lehman and Bear, just gave their money to David.

The winner and my new hero.