Academic

TIM CAVANAUGH: Why Isn?t the Government Hiring Short Sellers? Former Paulson analyst Paolo Pelle?

By Glenn Reynolds

TIM CAVANAUGH: Why Isn’t the Government Hiring Short Sellers?

Former Paulson analyst Paolo Pellegrini — who is best known for providing information to the Securities and Exchange Commission and for somehow being rich — discovered where the biggest bubbles had grown and which were in the process of blowing up. His bets against these bubbles, of course, turned out to be right.

Pellegrini figured all this out using information that was readily available to anybody who was sufficiently motivated. You would think somewhere in the United States government there might be such motivated people. After all, we have an SEC, a Federal Reserve Bank, a Treasury Department, the formerly government sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Census Bureau, many data collection and analysis agencies, and too many congressional committees. All of these entities have the stability of the economy as part of their job description. Yet all of them combined could not manage your money as intelligently as one short seller from Rome managed John Paulson’s.

Read the whole thing.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on May 13, 2010 (boomark / email).