A Move Underway to Discredit "Trader" Alessio Rastani?

The Telegraph has an article today that attempts to discredit Alessio Rastani, the independent trader that is now famous for his interview with BBC where he pointedly states “Governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world”. Apparently, he has a company that is in the red and he says he does trading as a hobby. Rastani calls himself an “attention seeker”.

His comments that Goldman Sachs “rules the world” apparently have the elite in a twist. Damage control is in force. But, whether Alessio Rastani’s credentials as a “market expert” may have been implicitly implied, but exaggerated, it can still be argued that Goldman Sachs is at least part of a banking system that has way too much power over the political processes in the West. Likewise, his comment that “in less than a year millions of people will see their savings vanish”, is fairly accurate if the markets crash, which they are expected to do. State and federal pensions are extremely vulnerable since they are heavily invested into Wall Street. Personal 401k accounts could take massive hits also.

Here is what the Telegraph had to say (and the video of Rastani’s interview with BBC is re-posted Below).

BBC financial expert Alessio Rastani: ‘I’m an attention seeker not a trader’

by Jonathan Russell – September 27, 2011

He’s become the face of the global debt crisis and an internet sensation. The self-styled City trader who stripped away the jargon and bluster of the financial world and summed up our woes in just three minutes. “I go to bed every night dreaming of another recession,” Alessio Rastani explained in a BBC interview. “It’s an opportunity.”

The soundbites won Mr Rastani instant fame. He became a viral hit and was trending on Twitter. BBC business editor Robert Peston was among the fans. “A must watch if you want to understand the euro crisis and how markets work,” he told his army of 82,000 followers on Twitter on Tuesday.

The interview contained such gems as “Governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world [and] Goldman Sachs does not care about the rescue package.”

But on Tuesday night the BBC was left facing questions about just how qualified Mr Rastani is to speak about the markets.

In the interview Mr Rastani described himself as an independent trader. Elsewhere he claims he’s an “investment speaker”. Instead of operating from a plush office in Canary Wharf Mr Rastani works and lives with his partner Anita Eader in a £200,000 semi in Bexleyheath, south London. The house, complete with a mortgage from Royal Bank of Scotland, belongs to her not him.

He is a business owner, a 99pc shareholder in public speaking venture Santoro Projects. Its most recent accounts show cash in the bank of £985. After four years trading net assets are £10,048 – in the red.

How a man who has never been authorised by the Financial Services Authority and has no discernible history working for a City institution ended up being interviewed by the BBC remains a mystery.

The incongruity led to some commentators speculating Mr Rastani was a professional hoaxer. The BBC denied the allegation: “We’ve carried out detailed investigations and can’t find any evidence to suggest that the interview with Alessio Rastani was a hoax.”

However, the BBC declined to comment on what checks, if any, it had done prior to the interview.

Mr Rastani was a little more forthcoming.

“They approached me,” he told The Telegraph. “I’m an attention seeker. That is the main reason I speak. That is the reason I agreed to go on the BBC. Trading is a like a hobby. It is not a business. I am a talker. I talk a lot. I love the whole idea of public speaking.”

So he’s more of a talker than a trader. A man who doesn’t own the house he lives in, but can sum up the financial crisis in just three minutes – a knack that escapes many financial commentators.

“I agreed to go on because I’m attention seeker,” he said on Tuesday. “But I meant every word I said.”

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