Citigroup document admits we're living in a Plutonomy

[Wombaticus Rex]

Huh, good catch. Uploaded the wrong version. I will fix that today.

[Luther Blissett]

The yellow is interesting. I've been noticing that when I've pulled down some redacted documents with the standard black boxes, dropped them into photoshop, and adjusted the black input level all the way up to the white input level (or vice versa), I have sometimes been able to see some of the text behind the black bars. A primitive hack.

I have no idea what the mechanism is by which someone digitally redacts documents these days but I don't imagine that it's always robust. A software specifically designed for cybersecurity would probably thoroughly redact. However, if someone is just using photoshop or another image editing software, and the black boxes are only plain black and not rich black (rich black contains 100% of black plus a percentage of cyan, magenta, and yellow in order to darken it), then I could see them being susceptible to this simple input level trick.

[coffin_dodger]

here ya go, Semper

http://www.lust-for-life.org/Lust-For-Life/CitigroupImbalances_October2009/CitigroupImbalances_October2009.pdf

page 1

[semper occultus]

...thanks all...

[Twyla LaSarc]

I had a high school history teacher (who looked a lot and sounded a lot like George Carlin) who flat out told us high school kids in 1980 that we lived in what amounted to an oligarchy and plutocracy. I think it went over our heads at the time. I can't imagine any teacher would be free to talk about that sort of thing now.

Thanks for bumping this thread, I missed it the first time.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I've fixed the link in the original post -- here it is again:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/mxhgqywl8 ... Y-MEMO.pdf

I had both versions because the redactions are fascinating. Can you imagine if they'd redacted Ralph Peters?

[Searcher08]

I wonder where they have moved on to now?
The attitude of investment bankers often seems to be (externally) entitlement to do anything they want wherever and however they want and (internally) total contempt for the people who let them do it to them and they are totally unused to anyone having the personal power to call them on their bullshit.

[DrEvil]

The yellow is interesting. I've been noticing that when I've pulled down some redacted documents with the standard black boxes, dropped them into photoshop, and adjusted the black input level all the way up to the white input level (or vice versa), I have sometimes been able to see some of the text behind the black bars. A primitive hack.

I have no idea what the mechanism is by which someone digitally redacts documents these days but I don't imagine that it's always robust. A software specifically designed for cybersecurity would probably thoroughly redact. However, if someone is just using photoshop or another image editing software, and the black boxes are only plain black and not rich black (rich black contains 100% of black plus a percentage of cyan, magenta, and yellow in order to darken it), then I could see them being susceptible to this simple input level trick.

On some documents you can also just select the blacked out text, copy and paste into notepad, and tada!

[Wombaticus Rex]

I wonder where they have moved on to now?

Narendra Singh is at JPMorgan/Chase, and as for the other two....

March 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ajay Kapur, Citigroup Inc.'s New York-based chief global equity strategist, is returning to Hong Kong to set up a hedge fund called First Horse Capital.

Niall MacLeod and two other members of Kapur's team left Citigroup, the world's largest financial firm by market value, and will join First Horse. Robert Buckland will replace Kapur, who became chief equity strategist in 2004 and correctly predicted U.S. stocks would rise last year.

"I just thought that one should eat one's own cooking,'' said Kapur, 42, a holder of residency rights in Hong Kong. The results of investment models that Kapur and his team devised were "pretty good,'' he said from London.

Hilariously, his models were so "pretty good" that First Horse Capital shut down. Kapur got churned through the system again and is currently at UBS.

[Elvis]

The attitude of investment bankers often seems to be (externally) entitlement to do anything they want wherever and however they want and (internally) total contempt for the people who let them do it to them

That's just called "being smart," doncha know. And we're a bunch of crybabies. Like it's their fault we're not smart.

For you guys who wanna get rich, I bet there's a market for "Super-Rich Network"-- the TV channel featuring original programming exclusively for the very wealthiest. Limit subscriptions to just 600 and charge at least $25,000 a month.

A total of 1,645 people made the 2014 billionaire list, representing combined wealth of $6.4 trillion. Of those, a record 268 were newcomers, surpassing 2008's 226 newcomers. One hundred people listed in 2013 failed to make the list. The number of women on the list rose to a record 172 in 2014.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World's_Billionaires

You'd have them fighting over subscriptions. Then raise rates. Suggested episodic series: "Goliath and David -- A fresh take on a classic legend."

Narendra Singh is at JPMorgan/Chase

I've been trying to persuade a friend to divest the $300,000 he's got in a JPMorgan/Chase account. But, "they've done very well for my dad" and "they've been very nice to me." Argh! I prepared a list of their crimes but all he said was he'd "think about it." Now, these memos (which I downloaded, thanks) might be the trick. He does have a conscience, but it's tough convincing people that they're lending their money to criminal organizations.

[Iamwhomiam]

I wonder where they have moved on to now?

Narendra Singh is at JPMorgan/Chase, and as for the other two....

March 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ajay Kapur, Citigroup Inc.'s New York-based chief global equity strategist, is returning to Hong Kong to set up a hedge fund called First Horse Capital.

Niall MacLeod and two other members of Kapur's team left Citigroup, the world's largest financial firm by market value, and will join First Horse. Robert Buckland will replace Kapur, who became chief equity strategist in 2004 and correctly predicted U.S. stocks would rise last year.

"I just thought that one should eat one's own cooking,'' said Kapur, 42, a holder of residency rights in Hong Kong. The results of investment models that Kapur and his team devised were "pretty good,'' he said from London.

Hilariously, his models were so "pretty good" that First Horse Capital shut down. Kapur got churned through the system again and is currently at UBS.

Interesting that it was Kapur who reincarnated the term Plutonomy in the 2005 Citibank report:

Ajay Kapur, global strategist at Citigroup, and his research team came up with the term “Plutonomy” in 2005 to describe a country that is defined by massive income and wealth inequality. According to their definition, the U.S. is a Plutonomy, along with the U.K., Canada and Australia.

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/01/08/plutonomics/

In 2008, the bankers made out better than bandits.

Maybe First Horse Capital collapsed because it became known (or was obvious) that Kapur, et al were hoping to similarly rip off Asian banking cartel's prime investors ala Wall Street 2008?

The timing of the report itself is curious in relationship to 2008's collapse.

Echoing Haig, but now in chorus, an early warning from Citibank announcing, "We're in control"

just as it ever was...

[Wombaticus Rex]

Maybe First Horse Capital collapsed because it became known (or was obvious) that Kapur, et al were hoping to similarly rip off Asian banking cartel's prime investors ala Wall Street 2008?

The timing of the report itself is curious in relationship to 2008's collapse.

It collapsed because Asian markets were becoming more transparent precisely when Kapur was insisting that their opacity was what made them such a lucrative frontier. That meant that better positioned/networked players in NYC - but especially London (prior HK cartels) - were able to eat his lunch without having to establish new funds or new offices "on the ground." The other major factor was that, as the Global Financial Crisis kept unwinding, "Emerging Markets" were seen as risky and they saw heavy fund outflows (investors getting cold feet & pulling their accounts) at the same time their profit margins were shrinking. That started to reverse a year later, but they couldn't wait it out.

It is important to note that US investors who took the advice -- the actual investment advice, not the sociology, ideology or demographic projections -- laid out in the Plutonomy memos would have weathered the Global Financial Crisis quite nicely. Luxury brands, products and service providers have seen mounting profits throughout the crisis.

The problem is that there's hardly any accessible equity at that altitude. It's just such an obvious play (bet on rich people getting richer) that it gets snapped up before the plebes even know it exists. See: any tech IPO in the past decade, esp. Facebook & Uber.

[Iamwhomiam]

It is important to note that US investors who took the advice -- the actual investment advice, not the sociology, ideology or demographic projections -- laid out in the Plutonomy memos would have weathered the Global Financial Crisis quite nicely. Luxury brands, products and service providers have seen mounting profits throughout the crisis.

True, above and below. Many I know fared well.

The problem is that there's hardly any accessible equity at that altitude. It's just such an obvious play (bet on rich people getting richer) that it gets snapped up before the plebes even know it exists. See: any tech IPO in the past decade, esp. Facebook & Uber.

Thank you for sharing your insight.

The other major factor was that, as the Global Financial Crisis kept unwinding, "Emerging Markets" were seen as risky and they saw heavy fund outflows (investors getting cold feet & pulling their accounts) at the same time their profit margins were shrinking. That started to reverse a year later, but they couldn't wait it out.

One must wonder if this (fund outflow) was due to purposeful manipulation. To scare investors away due to an announced unreasonable risk so others may then take advantage their uncertainty affords.

Games at all levels.

[Wombaticus Rex]

One must wonder if this (fund outflow) was due to purposeful manipulation. To scare investors away due to an announced unreasonable risk so others may then take advantage their uncertainty affords.

Games at all levels.

That, my friend, is a fascinating question. I don't think I understand the resonance field enough to figure out what the mechanism behind that would be. I will be ruminating on that.

Two big grey areas I don't understand are 1) the tug-of-war between collusion vs. conflict between private equity powerhouses and central banks, and 2) the kayfabe system of guys like Bill Gross, Warren Buffett or Jeremy Grantham.

We can always safely assume that people who manage billions of dollars of investment capital for a living are "talking their book" when they offer advice, commentary, or opinions of any stripe. They're not going to tell reporters, investors or Congress what they know & believe, they're going on public record saying what they want people to think & do.

Goldman Sachs is notorious for this, and it's evolved into a fascinating "double bind" war of attrition. Everything that applies to psyops, public relations, and intelligence wars counts double when it comes to making money. Goldman Sachs publishes investment reports and market advice all the time. They know cynics around the world will assume they're just baiting suckers, so you can't use G$ as a simple "contrary indicator" -- such as Thomas Friedman, or Hillary Clinton, or Sorcha Fall -- someone you always know is just fucking wrong. So G$ will also divulge a lot of actual insights and solid analysis, just to keep us guessing and parsing the signal. (They usually share their most counter-intuitive stuff, too, thus making it even harder to evaluate.)

And in a noise machine full of players as sophisticated as that, I just don't have enough solid ground to even guess.

Which is probably the whole point, yeah?

[JackRiddler]

One must wonder if this (fund outflow) was due to purposeful manipulation. To scare investors away due to an announced unreasonable risk so others may then take advantage their uncertainty affords.

Games at all levels.

That, my friend, is a fascinating question. I don't think I understand the resonance field enough to figure out what the mechanism behind that would be. I will be ruminating on that.

Two big grey areas I don't understand are 1) the tug-of-war between collusion vs. conflict between private equity powerhouses and central banks, and 2) the kayfabe system of guys like Bill Gross, Warren Buffett or Jeremy Grantham.

We can always safely assume that people who manage billions of dollars of investment capital for a living are "talking their book" when they offer advice, commentary, or opinions of any stripe. They're not going to tell reporters, investors or Congress what they know & believe, they're going on public record saying what they want people to think & do.

Goldman Sachs is notorious for this, and it's evolved into a fascinating "double bind" war of attrition. Everything that applies to psyops, public relations, and intelligence wars counts double when it comes to making money. Goldman Sachs publishes investment reports and market advice all the time. They know cynics around the world will assume they're just baiting suckers, so you can't use G$ as a simple "contrary indicator" -- such as Thomas Friedman, or Hillary Clinton, or Sorcha Fall -- someone you always know is just fucking wrong. So G$ will also divulge a lot of actual insights and solid analysis, just to keep us guessing and parsing the signal. (They usually share their most counter-intuitive stuff, too, thus making it even harder to evaluate.)

And in a noise machine full of players as sophisticated as that, I just don't have enough solid ground to even guess.

Which is probably the whole point, yeah?

Brilliant stuff, much appreciated.