The Economist’s Buttonwood Gathering, a conference bringing together global regulators and bankers to discuss and debate new ideas and develop a new set of guidelines moving forward, has just taken place in New York. Michael Panzer, writer of the Financial Armageddon blog and author of “Financial Armageddon: Protect Your Future from Economic Collapse”, was in attendance and has kindly shared some of the more interesting quotes on his blog, as reported below.

Secretary Tim Geithner, United States Department of the Treasury:

“Generally, we did not do enough.” (Referring to the failure to address growing concerns over excessive risk-taking in the period leading up to the financial crisis.) [Editor's note: understatement of the year?]

Stephen Roach, Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia:

Those who are looking for a “V”-shaped recovery are in for “a rude awakening.”

“The imbalances going into the crisis were large to begin with.

By Robert Folsom

Editor’s Note: The following article discusses Robert Prechter’s view of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. For more information, download this free 10-page issue of Prechter’s Elliott Wave Theorist.

When a maverick idea becomes vindicated, there’s a good story to tell. It usually involves a person (or small group of people) who courageously challenge the orthodoxy of the day — and, over time, the unorthodox yet better idea prevails.

A “good story” of this sort has surfaced during the current financial crisis. A chapter of the story appeared in a recent New York Times article, “Poking Holes in a Theory on Markets.” The theory in question is the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), which the article suggested is so hazardous that it “is more or less responsible for the financial crisis.” This quote tells you most of what you need to know:
“In the last decade, the efficient market hypothesis, which had …

While the stock market indices are floundering with multi-year lows, “nationalization” was the key word spooking investor sentiment during the past few days.

Also on the video front, “hot-under-the-collar” discussions, featuring James Galbraith, Sheila Bair, Marc Gaber, Nouriel Roubini, Nassim Taleb and Richard Bove, took place on whether or not to nationalize large US banks.

David Reilly (Bloomberg) added the following perspective: “The nationalization debate is a smoke screen. We’ve already nationalized the big banks. Let’s just accept it and move on”. From across the pond, David Fuller said: “Politically … this is a case of [even more] damned if you do [than] damned if you don’t.”

In lighter vein, this week’s compilation

Real Estate:  It’s Up?, It’s Down?  It’s ……?

This week’s real estate price data is another example of why long-term investors should not be moved by short-term data or headlines.  Long-term investors should pay attention to long-term trends and ignore the daily fluctuations in the news for the most part.

Consider these two quotes, one from S&P Shiller-Case (via CNN) and the other from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversite (via WSJ):