Forbes (April 9)
“Watching Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management hedge fund stumble triggers more traumatic memories than global finance veterans like to admit.” The parallels with “the 1998 blowup of Long-Term Capital Management and Hwang’s forced liquidation of more than $20 billion worth of stocks on March 26” are clear. “The underlying forces—heavily leveraged positions colliding with the hubristic belief that past crises can’t happen again—are essentially the same.”
Tags: 1998, Archegos, Blowup, Finance, Hedge-fund, Hubris, Hwang, Leveraged, Liquidation, LTCM, Stocks, Traumatic
USA Today (October 7)
The “superspreader” event in the Rose Garden will go down in history. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the “maskless Supreme Court nomination ceremony turned into a form of biological attack on the top echelons of U.S. government.” Symbolic of “America’s failing response to the novel coronavirus,” the event was “a sad brew of hubris and misapplied science.” White House officials and guests mistakenly thought “they could frolic in a kind of virus-free bubble, exempted from the preventative measures that have reshaped and constrained the lives of millions of average Americans.”
Tags: Biological attack, Bubble, Ceremony, COVID-19, Failing, Frolic, History, Hubris, Maskless, Nomination, Pandemic, Rose Garden, Superspreader, Supreme Court, U.S.
Bloomberg (October 4)
“The U.S. doesn’t deserve Asia’s money, not with half of its government in financial jihad mode…. The biggest economy has long taken its reserve-currency status for granted, but the events of recent days raise Washington’s hubris to entirely new levels…. The more the U.S. plays with fire with its Aaa rating, the more Asia will find an alternative.”
Tags: Aaa rating, Asia, Economy, Government, Hubris, Reserve currency, U.S., Washington
Financial Times (October 1)
Helmut Kohl, Jacques Delors and the other creators of the euro are at blame. “Their dream of leaving a legacy of a United Europe, with a single currency at its core, has turned into a nightmare.” They may have other achievements, but the euro was hubris. “When it came to the euro, they pursued their grand vision while ignoring the objections of those who questioned whether a single currency could work for such diverse economies. Today’s Europe is living with the consequences of their hubris.”
Tags: euro, Grand vision, Helmut Kohl, Hubris, Jacques Delors, Objections, Single currency
