Scott Laronge

Long before I became a stockbroker, I was interested in the markets.  And thankfully I had a grandfather who grew up during the Great Depression and worked as an engineer.  When he retired, he focused his energies on learning the stockmarket.  He sent me a letter when I was a kid once, and I eventually photocopied it and hung it up at my cube.  It said “When you buy a stock, you buy it because you think it is going up in value.  But remember that you’re buying it from someone that doesn’t.”

This seems to be a lesson that Senator Levin is missing due to his Goldman Sachs hearings.  This isn’t even a caveat emptor situation, there were plenty of people that thought the housing market is going up.  And trying to blame GS for finding a way to sell that product is misguided.  But that it’s a Congressional matter that someone lost money when someone else made it is absurd.  I sure as hell hope the guy that bought my first house doesn’t have some political friends, because I don’t fell like testifying why I sold my house at the peak to someone else that was willing to buy it.