Posted on by Martin Rayner

Dreaming of Recession

Well, here’s something rather unusual… Appearing earlier today on BBC, Alessio Rastani, an independent stock trader, confessed to a stunned interviewer that, like most of his colleagues on Wall Street (or in the City of London), they “don’t really care that much” how world leaders claim they’re going to fix the economy as their job is simply to make money from the situation. Quite to the contrary, Rastani admitted that he’d been dreaming of a market collapse for three years. “I go to bed every night, I dream of another recession,” he said.

As if that bit of candour wasn’t sufficiently amazing, Rastani went on to claim that Goldman Sachs rules the world not governments and that Goldman Sachs “don’t care about this rescue package” (i.e., the proposed plan to leverage the EU’s €440bn bail-out fund to €2 trillion to cope with the impending debt crisis in Italy and Spain) because they know “the market is toast… the stock market is finished.”

Rastani dryly concluded by warning viewers to act quickly because “In less than twelve months, my prediction is, the savings of millions of people are going to vanish.”

Update: Is Rastani a fake or a legitimate asshole? Debate and links about this in the comments.

15 Replies to “Dreaming of Recession”

  3. He’s just rolled the dice — big time — with his career. Grandstanding of this sort usually ends badly. Next stop: ridicule.

  5. I can’t say that I was in the least bit shocked by what this guy was saying, more just that he was being so candid on television about how callous, self-serving and utterly unconcerned the investment community (for lack of a better term) is when it comes to the economic consequences of their actions. These are the sort of things one perhaps thinks and knows to be true, but doesn’t actually dare say in public. It would be like a politician admitting that, in truth, they serve the interests of their influential friends and financial donors in hopes of eventually feathering their own nests and don’t really give a rat’s ass about the ignorant rabble they supposedly represent…

  6. I think he’s genuine, he may even mean well by his candor. If you working in the markets and closely following the trends (following the money) all day, every day as an obsessive behaviour, it may be that you come to believe that such information is common knowledge. Maybe it is common knowledge among traders. He doesn’t work for an institution so he has no job to lose, no reason to lie. He did have an opportunity to get famous on the BBC so that may have been his pitch for his new book. I bet he gets that book deal now. Right out of Kevin O’Leary’s play book.

  7. Speaking of which, I see that O’Leary has a new book out. I’m looking forward to reading that. I think the guy is an absolute hoot.

    As for Rastani, I agree with you and would likely do the same in his position. You really have to check your conscience and moral compass at the door in that business.

  9. Don’t ever get on the wrong side of the Daily Mail. 😉

    I tend to agree with the guy on Twitter who said “‘It doesn’t matter if it was Alessio Rastani or The Yes Men. What he said reflects how traders really think.”

  10. I tend to agree with the guy on Twitter who said “‘It doesn’t matter if it was Alessio Rastani or The Yes Men. What he said reflects how traders really think.”

    I trust that is an evidenced-based opinion? C’mon, Red, the next thing you’ll be telling us is that Monty Python spoke a higher truth.

  11. Having read a good number of business-related books and accounts of financial dealings over the years, I’m confident that my assertion has plenty of evidential corroboration. Do you have any proof that would disabuse me of the notion?

    And yes, Monty Python did speak a higher truth… It’s called surrealism.

  12. It would seem that some would argue with their own shadows, RT.

    I imagine some of us were shocked by what he was saying, so it was perhaps useful that he said what he said, in case anyone had any sympathy for these actors, but really, it was grandstanding in a way I thought was a bit atypical of most traders, etc., who may be uber realists, but not so sanctimonious as to wish for the opportunity to gleefully say “I told you so” all the while families, without the means to play the game as he would think they should, are uprooted.

  13. This guy is a complete and utter asshole. I love how the end time commenters that pop up on youtube (i.e. 9/11 truthers, Ron Paultards) calling this guy a hero. Wanting to buy this guy a ‘beer’ and we ‘better get ready’ with no response on how to ‘get ready’. What a farce!

  14. Not an asshole so much as a little man who wishes to become famous. He apparently pretends to be a trader in his spare time, but his full-time job is attention seeker. That said, his view that severe economic downturns are to be looked forward to as times of opportunity is quite accurate. It’s just never spoken so bluntly in public.

  15. Don’t ever get on the wrong side of the Daily Mail.

    Indeed! I realize they are only slightly above the Sun on the sleaze-o-meter, but the article itself is quite accurate in exposing Rastani as little more than a common garden-variety egoist. He’s certainly not the master of the universe he pretended to be on that BBC interview.

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