Good lord, if this is true, it’s absolutely fucking hysterical, but I have my doubts: Reuters, CNBC, Forbes, the Washington Post and the Guardian have all reported inconclusive speculation in the last few hours that the “candid” (some might say “sociopath”) Wall Street trader, Alessio Rastani, who told BBC News:  “I dream of another recession,” might be member of the genius satirical activists, The Yes Men!

Rastani’s statement, “The governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world,” has caused his shocking BBC News appearance to become a viral video sensation in the past 24 hours. An BBC internal investigation has concluded that Rastani is who he says he is, a real trader, but not everyone is buying it:

FORBES: Have you heard of the Yes Men?

AR: Heard of it before? Not quite sure why they’re calling me that. I have no idea where that came from.

FORBES: Because there’s a video of you posing as a Dow Chemical spokesman [She’s totally off-base here, obviously].

AR: What? A Dow Chemical spokesman? Have you seen this video? That can’t be right. I’ve never spoken to Dow Chemical before in my life. Maybe it’s a fake. Are you sure about this? Honestly, listen, I’ve no idea where that came from. That interview yesterday was one of the first ones I did live.

I don’t know why they think it’s a hoax. No, I am a trader absolutely. I have trader friends who could back that up. One of my mentors is a bestselling author and trader. Everyone knows me.

Here’s the problem: The speculation seems to be that Alessio Rastani is, in fact, the Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum. I know Andy personally—Disinformation published the Yes Men book—so unless Andy has had extensive plastic surgery or gotten into a time machine since I’ve last seen him, I can assure that he’s not Alessio Rastani. Rastani also has a blog, several YouTube videos about trading, he’s on Twitter and has been for two years, etc. IF this is a hoax, it’s either one concocted with a very, very long fuse, or else the Yes Men hired a real stock broker to say the same nihilistic, “fuck the little guy” things that brokers say amongst themselves all the time,

I’ll repeat that: I’m not saying that the Yes Men didn’t hire this guy to say what he said on BBC News—I have no knowledge of this—but the speculation that he’s Andy Bichlbaum is absolutely NOT true.

Still, the fact that this is being speculated about as a Yes Men media prank is simply delicious! I’m sure they’ll keep quiet about this as long as possible. Why not milk it, especially if it’s a freebie, you know? Not sure if I want it to be a hoax or not. Probably not, which means I’m rooting for Rastani to actually be the sociopathic stock broker he represented himself as on the BBC News channel…
 

Just that people think it is is hysterical in and of itself. :-D

If I was a conspiracy-minded person (I am) I’d think Forbes asked that question to confuse the issue, as the guy blew the lid off how a lot of Wall St. thinks. And DM is sort of helping that along.

Forbes interview via ABC News. Feels kinda, dunno, off.
http://abcn.ws/oleYDs

@Henry

She was being an idiot. No conspiracy there.

“Much truth is said in jest.”  - Yiddish proverb

I don’t see anything even remotely sociopathic about this guy.  His job is to make money and he’s describing how he does that in the current situation.  He is also giving some advice that should probably be listened to.  If more people got up and spoke this way in front of a camera we’d be in much better shape right now.

Even if he’s a fake he should still be listened to because he makes absolutely perfect sense.

“Anybody can make money from this”

No.  You have to have money to make money, so anyone living hand-to-mouth is out of luck when it comes to investments.

Unless he means “robbing self-absorbed stock traders”, then yes, anyone CAN make money from this.

and oh, do they milk it
lot of sore tits

http://oi51.tinypic.com/o8gi7m.jpg

I spent the last 17 years in the hedge fund world doing back office IT. This guy is not a psycho, he’s absolutely honest and is trying to help. I think it’s good advice, I am keeping some cash in my IRA available if everything goes south. He may be too pessimistic but it’s good advice. All traders look at downturns as buying opportunities, to buy low and sell high you have to buy low. I don’t think that he thought he was saying anything controversial.

I’m with Sue Young. His views may be a bit on the extreme side of pessimism, but they’re not so far-fetched as to be impossible. As for “making money” from an ugly situation…what’s wrong with that, if you can do it. Not a “sociopath”...just a trader.

Actually, it reminds me of Peter Schiff warning of a Real Estate bubble in 2006, and of Jim Cramer ranting “they know nothing!” during the Lehman crisis in 2008. Just truth telling about unpopular possibilities.

@Richard - you’re right, but still think it’s important to emphasize that what this guy’s saying is deadly serious.

@Frank What’s wrong with war profiteering?  That’s what you’re asking.

a hoax??, a sociopath???
maybe this guy has this unique moment of honesty in his whole life, hes telling the thing like it is, and to me hes less a sociopath than the whole bunch of bankers, politics, etc that act this way but keep it secret

but its not gonna be long until he says that he was “misinterpreted”