A Partial Defence of Alessio Rastani
The Torygraph is all over Alessio Rastani and who can blame them for wanting to stick it to the pretentious Beeb over their seeming lack of quality control. Turns out that Rastani is a ‘talker not a trader’ with somewhat limited credentials on both counts. While his now famous opinions are highly questionable, this doesn’t exactly set Rastani apart from the vastly more credentialed talking heads routinely used by the Beeb and others to fill air time.
The sad fact is that a PhD from Oxbridge or an Ivy League school and a stellar career at the IMF and/or an investment bank more often than not yields a set of opinions and insights only slightly less dubious than those of Rastani.
posted on 28 September 2011 by skirchner
in Economics, Financial Markets, Media
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Comments
I agree he is basically no different from other talking heads. But I would go further and say that I don’t see any problem with what he said. It’s a bit overblown, but I wouldn’t call it dubious. The market is pretty much pricing in that Greece will default and bondholders will recover 50% or less of their money. Meanwhile, many respected forecasters are now predicting a US recession. In these circumstances, holding US dollars and bonds is not bad advice and people who don’t might lose a lot of their savings. He wasn’t holding himself out to be an economist or policy-maker, just a trader.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/30 at 08:34 AM
My CIS colleague Oliver Hartwich has said much the same:
http://www.incise.org.au/2011-09-28/the-wrong-man-with-the-right-answers/
Posted by skirchner on 09/30 at 03:04 PM