I wonder to what extent any senior executives who would have been put in the docket, under oath whatever, would have produced phone records of conversations with government officials. I suspect there was a lot more involvement behind the scenes in our government. The core of the fraud in the financial crisis was mismarking sitions. And i think the market would have gotten an early warning that something was wrong here because all these guies were reporting record profits up through o seven.
Our guest this week is renowned short-seller Jim Chanos, founder, and president of Kynikos Associates. Over the course of his long and successful career, Jim has publicly bet against companies like Enron, which Barron’s deemed the “market call of the decade, if not the past 50 years.” While many know him for these famous shorts, fewer know that Jim is also a passionate historian, and is a firm believer in the notion that history can act as a useful guide for investors today. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss:
- How Jim started his career in finance
- The Mississippi Bubble
- How past financial frauds and manias can be useful for modern investors
- Tesla
- Lessons from the Great Financial Crisis
- Jim’s financial history course at Yale and Wisconsin
- Theranos
And much, much more… we hope you enjoy.