New York Stock Exchange « TheCenterLane.com

Getting It Right

October 29th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Oct, 29 2009

Comments Off

October 29, 2009

For some reason, a large number of people continue to rely on the advice of stock market prognosticators, long after those pundits have proven themselves unreliable, usually due to a string of erroneous predictions. The best example of this phenomenon is Jim Cramer of CNBC. On March 4, Jon Stewart featured a number of video clips wherein Cramer wasn’t just wrong — he was wildly wrong, often when due diligence on Cramer’s part would have resulted in a different forecast. Nevertheless, some individuals still follow Cramer’s investment advice.

This summer’s stock market rally made many of us feel foolish. John Carney of The Business Insider compiled a great presentation entitled “The Idiot-Maker Rally” which focused on 15 stock market gurus “who now look like fools” because they remained in denial about the rally, while those who ignored them made loads of money.

One guy who got it right was a gentleman named Jeremy Grantham. His asset management firm, GMO, is responsible for investing over $85 billion of its clients’ funds. On May 14, I discussed Mr. Grantham’s economic forecast from his Quarterly Letter, published at the end of this year’s first quarter. At that time, he predicted that in late 2009 or early 2010, there would be a stock market rally, bringing the Standard and Poor’s 500 index near the 1100 range. As you probably know, we saw that happen last week. Unfortunately, he was not particularly optimistic about what would follow:

A large rally here is far more likely to prove a last hurrah — a codicil on the great bullishness we have had since the early 90s or, even in some respects, since the early 80s. The rally, if it occurs, will set us up for a long, drawn-out disappointment not only in the economy, but also in the stock markets of the developed world.

Mr. Grantham’s Quarterly Letter for the third quarter of 2009 was recently published by his firm, GMO. This document is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the outlook for the stock market and our economy. Grantham is sticking with his prediction for “seven lean years” which he expects to commence at the conclusion of the current rally:

Price, however, does matter eventually, and what will stop this market (my blind guess is in the first few months of next year) is a combination of two factors. First, the disappointing economic and financial data that will begin to show the intractably long-term nature of some of our problems, particularly pressure on profit margins as the quick fix of short-term labor cuts fades away. Second, the slow gravitational pull of value as U.S. stocks reach +30-35% overpricing in the face of an extended difficult environment.

* * *

So, back to timing. It is hard for me to see what will stop the charge to risk-taking this year. With the near universality of the feeling of being left behind in reinvesting, it is nerve-wracking for us prudent investors to contemplate the odds of the market rushing past my earlier prediction of 1100. It can certainly happen.

Conversely, I have some modest hopes for a collective sensible resistance to the current Fed plot to have us all borrow and speculate again. I would still guess (a well informed guess, I hope) that before next year is out, the market will drop painfully from current levels. “Painfully” is arbitrarily deemed by me to start at -15%. My guess, though, is that the U.S.market will drop below fair value, which is a 22% decline (from the S&P 500 level of 1098 on October 19).

Scary as that may sound, Mr. Grantham does not believe that the S&P 500 will reach a new low, surpassing the Hadean level of 666 reached last March. On page 4 of the report, Grantham expressed his view that the current “fair value” of the S&P 500 “is now about 860”.

What I particularly enjoyed about the latest GMO Quarterly Letter was Grantham’s discussion of the factors that brought our economy to where it is today. In doing so, he targeted some of my favorite culprits: Alan Greenspan (who was pummeled on page 3), Larry Summers, Turbo Tim Geithner (who “sat in the very engine room of the USS Disaster and helped steer her onto the rocks”), Goldman Sachs and finally: Ben Bernanke — whose nomination to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman was treated with well-deserved outrage.

The report included a supplement (beginning at page 10) wherein Mr. Grantham discussed the imperative need to redesign our financial system:

A simpler, more manageable financial system is much more than a luxury. Without it we shall surely fail again.

* * *

I have no idea why the current administration, which came in on a promise of change, for heaven’s sake, is so determined to protect the status quo of the financial system at the expense of already weary taxpayers who are promised only somewhat better lifeboats. It is obvious to most that there was a more or less complete failure of our private financial system and its public overseers. The regulatory leaders in particular were all far too captured and cozy in their dealings with reckless and greedy financial enterprises.

Grantham’s suggested changes include forcing banks to spin off their “proprietary trading” operations, wherein a bank trades investments on behalf of its own account, usually in breach of the fiduciary duties it owes its customers. He also addressed the need to break up those financial institutions considered “too big to fail”. (As an aside, the British government has now taken steps to break up its banks that pose a systemic risk to the entire financial structure.) Grantham’s final point concerned the need for public oversight, to prevent the “regulatory capture” that has helped maintain this intolerable status quo.

Jeremy Grantham is a guy who gets it right. Our leaders need to pay more serious attention to him. If they don’t — we should vote them out of office.

Alan Greenspan, American capitalism, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, blog, centrist, CNBC, Commentary, Congress, conservative, crony capitalism, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, Dow Jones industrial average, economics, economists, equities markets, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Getting It Right, GMO, GMO Quarterly Letter, investment banks, Jeremy Grantham, Jim Cramer, John Burke, John Carney, John T Burke Jr, Jon Stewart, Larry Summers, liberal, NASDAQ 100 index, New York Stock Exchange, News, NYSE, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, Opinion, Political, Politics, President of the United States, proprietary trading, public oversight, regulatory capture, Republican, Republican Party, S&P 500 index, SEC, securities, Securities and Exchange Commission, seven lean years, socialized loss and privatized gain, Standard and Poors 500, stock markets, taxpayers, the banks, The Business Insider, the center lane, the economy, The Idiot-Maker Rally, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Turbo Tim Geithner, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street

Watching For Storm Clouds

October 26th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Oct, 26 2009

Comments Off

October 26, 2009

As the economy continues to flounder along, one need not look very far to find enthusiastic cheerleaders embracing any seemingly positive information to reinforce the belief that this catastrophic chapter in history is about to reach an end. Meanwhile, others are watching out for signs of more trouble. The recent celebrations over the return of the Dow Jones Industrial Average to the 10,000 level gave some sensible commentators the opportunity to point out that this may simply be evidence that we are experiencing an “asset bubble” which could burst at any moment.

October 21 brought the latest Quarterly Report from SIGTARP, the Special Investigator General for TARP, who is a gentleman named Neil Barofsky. Since the report is 256 pages long, it made more sense for Mr. Barofsky to submit to a few television interviews and simply explain to us, the latest results of his investigatory work. In a discussion with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on that date, Mr. Barofsky voiced his concern about the potential consequences that could arise because those bailed-out banks, considered “too big to fail” have continued to grow, due to government-approved mergers:

“These banks that were too big to fail are now bigger,” Barofsky said. “Government has sponsored and supported several mergers that made them larger and that guarantee, that implicit guarantee of moral hazard, the idea that the government is not going to let these banks fail, which was implicit a year ago, is now explicit, we’ve said it. So if anything, not only have there not been any meaningful regulatory reform to make it less likely, in a lot of ways, the government has made such problems more likely.

“Potentially we could be in more danger now than we were a year ago,” he added.

In comparing where the economy is now, as opposed to this time last year, we haven’t seen much in the way of increased lending by the oversized banks. In fact, we’ve only seen more hubris and bullying on their part. Julian Delasantellis expressed it this way in his October 22 essay for the Asia Times:

Now, a year later, things have turned out exactly as expected – except that the roles are reversed. The rulemakers have not disciplined the corrupted; it’s more accurate to say that the corrupted have abased the rulemakers. If the intention was that the big investment banks would settle down into a sort of quiet, reserved suburban lifestyle, the reality has been that they’ve acted more like former gangsters placed into the US government’s witness protection program, taking over the numbers racket on the Saturday pee-wee soccer fields.

* * *

Obviously, there can’t be any inflation, or any real long-term earnings growth for consumer and business-oriented banks for that matter, as long as the economic crisis continues to destroy capital faster than Obama can ask Bernanke to print it.

These issues are of little concern to operations such as Goldman and Morgan, with their trading strategies and profit profiles essentially divorced from the real economy. But down here on planetary level, as the little league baseball fields don’t get maintained because the businesses who funded the work go out of business after having their loans called, after elderly people with chest pains have to wait longer for one of the few ambulances on station after rescue service cutbacks, life is changing, changing for the long term, and it sure isn’t pretty.

“Proprietary trading” by banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, forms an important part of their business model. This practice involves trading by those banks, on their own accounts, rather than the accounts of customers. The possibility of earning lavish bonus payments helps to incentivize risk taking by the traders working on the “prop desks” of those institutions. Gillian Tett wrote a report for the Financial Times on October 22, wherein she discussed an e-mail she received from a recently-retired banker, who stays in touch with his former colleagues — all of whom remain actively trading the markets. Ms. Tett observed that this man was “feeling deeply shocked” when he shared his observations with her:

“Forget about the events of the past 12 months … the punters are back punting as aggressively as ever,” he wrote. “Highly leveraged short-term trades are back in vogue as players … jostle to load up on everything from Reits [real estate investment trusts] and commercial property, commodities, emerging markets and regular stocks and bonds.

“Oh, I am sure the banks’ public relations people will talk about the subdued atmosphere in banking, but don’t you believe it,” he continued bitterly, noting that when money is virtually free — or, at least, at 0.5 per cent — traders feel stupid if they don’t leverage up.

“Any sense of control is being chucked out of the window. After the dotcom boom and bust it took a good few years for the market to get its collective mojo back [but] this time it has taken just a few months,” he added. He finished with a despairing question: “Was October 2008 just a dress rehearsal for the crash when this latest bubble bursts?”

* * *

Yet, if you talk at length to traders — or senior bankers — it seems that few truly believe that fundamentals alone explain this pattern. Instead, the real trigger is the amount of money that central bankers have poured into the system that is frantically seeking a home, because most banks simply do not want to use that cash to make loans. Hence, the fact that the prices of almost all risk assets are rallying — even as non-risky assets such as Treasuries bounce too.

Now, some western policymakers like to argue — or hope –that this striking rally could be beneficial, in a way, even if it is not initially based on fundamentals. After all, the argument goes, if markets rebound sharply, that should boost animal spirits in a way that could eventually seep through to the “real” economy.

On this interpretation, the current rally could turn out to be akin to the firelighter that one uses to start a blaze in a pile of damp wood.

* * *

So I, like my e-mail correspondent, am growing uneasy. Perhaps, the optimistic “firelighter-igniting-the-damp-wood” scenario will yet come to play; but we will probably not really know whether the optimists are correct for at least another six months.

Gillian Tett’s “give it six months” approach seems much more sober and rational than what we hear from many of the exuberant commentators appearing on television. Beyond that, she reminds us that our current situation involves a more important issue than the question of whether our economy can experience sustained growth: The continued use of leveraged risk-taking by TARP beneficiaries invites the possibility of a return to last year’s crisis-level conditions. As long as those banks know that the taxpayers will be back to bail them out again, there is every reason to assume that we are all headed for more trouble.

American capitalism, Asia Times, asset bubble, bad publicity, bank bailout, bank stocks, banking crisis, banking lobby, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, blog, centrist, CNN, Commentary, Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC, comprehensive bank bailout plan, conflict of interest, Congress, conservative, controlling the markets, credit default swaps, crony capitalism, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, Dow Jones industrial average, economic crisis, economics, economists, equities markets, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, financial crisis, financial institutions as too big to fail, financial reform, Financial Times, Gillian Tett, Goldman Sachs, government guarantees, Government Sachs, huge financial institutions, insolvent banks, investment banks, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, JP Morgan Chase, Julian Delasantellis, liberal, market manipulation, moral hazard, NASDAQ 100 index, Neil Barofsky, New York Stock Exchange, News, NYSE, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, Opinion, Political, Politics, President of the United States, proprietary trading, regulatory capture, Republican, Republican Party, S&P 500 index, SEC, SEC scandals, securities, Securities and Exchange Act, Securities and Exchange Commission, SIGTARP, socialized loss and privatized gain, Special Investigator General for TARP, Standard and Poors 500, stock markets, systemic risk, systemic risk regulator, TARP, TARP bailout, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, the banks, the center lane, the economy, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, toxic assets, transparency, Treasury Department, troubled assets, Troubled Assets Relief Program, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street lobbyists, Watching For Storm Clouds, wealth transfer, welfare for the rich, Wolf Blitzer, zombie banks

Offering Solutions

October 22nd, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Oct, 22 2009

Comments Off

October 22, 2009

Many of us are familiar with the old maxim asserting that “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” During the past year we’ve been exposed to plenty of hand-wringing by info-tainers from various mainstream media outlets decrying the financial crisis and our current economic predicament. Very few of these people ever seem to offer any significant insight on such interesting topics as: what really caused the meltdown, how to prevent it from happening again, whether any laws were broken that caused this catastrophe, whether any prosecutions might be warranted or how to solve our nation’s continuing economic ills, which seem to be immune to all the attempted cures. The painful thorn in the side of Goldman Sachs, Matt Taibbi, recently raised an important question, reminding people to again scrutinize the vapid media coverage of this pressing crisis:

It’s literally amazing to me that our press corps hasn’t yet managed to draw a distinction between good news on Wall Street for companies like Goldman, and good news in reality.

* * *

In fact the dichotomy between the economic health of ordinary people and the traditional “market indicators” is not merely a non-story, it is a sort of taboo — unmentionable in major news coverage.

That quote inspired Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism to write a superb essay about how “access journalism” has created a controlled press. What follows is just a small nugget of the great analysis in that piece:

So what do we have? A media that predominantly bases its stories on what it is fed because it has to. Ever-leaner staffing, compressed news cycles, and access journalism all conspire to drive reporters to focus on the “must cover” news, which is to a large degree influenced by the parties that initiate the story. And that means they are increasingly in an echo chamber, spending so much time with the influential sources they feel they must cover that they start to be swayed by them.

* * *

The message, quite overly, is: if you are pissed, you are in a minority. The country has moved on. Things are getting better, get with the program. Now I saw the polar opposite today. There is a group of varying sizes, depending on the topic, that e-mails among itself, mainly professional investors, analysts, economists (I’m usually on the periphery but sometimes chime in). I never saw such an angry, active, and large thread about the Goldman BS fest today. Now if people who have not suffered much, and are presumably benefitting from the market recovery are furious, it isn’t hard to imagine that what looks like complacency in the heartlands may simply be contained rage looking for an outlet.

Fortunately, one television news reporter has broken the silence concerning the impact on America’s middle class, caused by Wall Street’s massive Ponzi scam and our government’s response – which he calls “corporate communism”. I’m talking about MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan. On Wednesday’s edition of his program, Morning Meeting, he decried the fact that the taxpayers have been forced to subsidize the “parlor game” played by Goldman Sachs and other firms involved in proprietary trading on our coin. Mr. Ratigan then proceeded to offer a number of solutions available to ordinary people, who would like to fight back against those pampered institutions considered “too big to fail”. Some of these measures involve: moving accounts from one of those enshrined banks to a local bank or credit union; paying with cash whenever possible and contacting your lawmakers to insist upon financial reform.

My favorite lawmaker in the battle for financial reform is Congressman Alan Grayson, whose district happens to include Disney World. His fantastic interrogation of Federal Reserve general counsel, Scott Alvarez, about whether the Fed tries to manipulate the stock markets, was a great event. Grayson has now co-sponsored a “Financial Autopsy” amendment to the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency bill. This amendment is intended to accomplish the following:

– Requires the CFPA conduct a “Financial Autopsy” of each state’s bankruptcies and foreclosures (a scientific sampling), and identify financial products that systematically led to a large number of bankruptcies and foreclosures.
– Requires the CFPA report to Congress annually on the top financial products (the companies and individuals that originated the products) that caused consumer bankruptcies and foreclosures.
– Requires the CFPA take corrective action to eliminate or restrict those deceptive products to prevent future bankruptcies and corrections

– The bottom line is to highlight destructive products based on if they are making people “broke”.

From his website, The Market Ticker, Karl Denninger offered his own contributions to this amendment:

This sort of “feel good” legislative amendment will of course be resisted, but it simply isn’t enough. The basic principle of equity (better said as “fairness under the law”) puts forward the premise that one cannot cheat and be allowed to keep the fruits of one’s outrageous behavior.

So while I like the direction of this amendment, I would put forward the premise that the entirety of the gains “earned” from such toxic products, when found, are clawed back and distributed to the consumers so harmed, and that to the extent this does not fully compensate for that harm such a finding should give rise to a private, civil cause of action for the consumers who are bankrupted or foreclosed.

It’s nice to know that bloggers are no longer the only voices insisting on financial reform. Ed Wallace of Business Week recently warned against the consequences of unchecked speculation on oil futures:

Is today’s stock market divorced from economic reality? Probably. It is a certainty that oil is. We know that because those in the market are still putting out the same tired and incorrect logic that they used successfully last year to push oil to $147 a barrel while demand was plummeting.

Because oil is not carrying a market price that fairly reflects economic conditions and demand inventories, overpriced energy is siphoning off funds that could be used for corporate expansion, increased consumerism and, in time, the recreation of jobs in America.

Did you think that the “Enron Loophole” was closed by the enactment of the 2008 Farm Bill? It wasn’t. The Farm Bill simply gave more authority to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to regulate futures contracts that had been exempted by the loophole. In case you’re wondering about the person placed in charge of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission by President Obama — his name is Gary Gensler and he used to work for … You guessed it: Goldman Sachs.

2008 Farm Bill, access journalism, American capitalism, bank stocks, banking crisis, banking lobby, Barack Obama, blog, Business Week, centrist, CFPA, Commentary, Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC, comprehensive bank bailout plan, conflict of interest, Congress, Congressman Alan Grayson, conservative, Consumer Financial Protection Agency, controlling the markets, corporate communism, crony capitalism, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, Dow Jones industrial average, Dylan Ratigan, economic crisis, economic meltdown, economics, economists, Ed Wallace, Enron loophole, equities markets, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Financial Autopsy amendment, financial crisis, financial institutions as too big to fail, financial meltdown, financial reform, Gary Gensler, Goldman Sachs, government guarantees, Government Sachs, huge financial institutions, info-tainers, insolvent banks, investment banks, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, Karl Denninger, liberal, market manipulation, Matt Taibbi, moral hazard, Morning Meeting, mortgage-backed securities, MSNBC, Naked Capitalism, NASDAQ 100 index, New York Stock Exchange, News, NYSE, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, Offering Solutions, oil futures, Opinion, Political, Politics, Ponzi scam, President of the United States, proprietary trading, regulatory capture, Republican, Republican Party, S&P 500 index, Scott Alvarez, SEC, SEC scandals, securities, Securities and Exchange Act, Securities and Exchange Commission, socialized loss and privatized gain, Standard and Poors 500, stock markets, systemic risk, systemic risk regulator, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, the banks, the center lane, the economy, The Market Ticker, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, transparency, Treasury Department, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street meltdown, wealth transfer, welfare for the rich, Yves Smith, zombie banks

Bait And Switch

October 19th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Oct, 19 2009

Comments Off

October 19, 2009

On Friday, October 16, Aaron Task interviewed Elizabeth Warren for his online TV show, Tech Ticker. In case you don’t remember, Ms. Warren is the Harvard law professor, appointed to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel which has attempted to trace the money thrown into the infamous slush fund known as TARP — the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Mr. Task questioned Professor Warren as to whether, after all this time, we can expect a full accounting as to where the TARP money went. Professor Warren responded: “No. I think there is no chance that we will get a full accounting of it.” She explained the reason for this is because former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson never asked for an explanation “on the front end” (when the TARP bailout program began) concerning what the recipients planned to do with this money, nor was any documentation of expenditures requested. As an aside, the folks at The New York Times were kind enough to put together this TARP scorecard, for keeping track of which institutions pay back the money they received. Of course, these amounts do not include all the loans, “backstopping” and other largesse provided to Wall Street by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Treasury. For that information, we can look to this Bailout Tally Report, prepared by Nomi Prins for her book: It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses,and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street.

During the interview with Aaron Task, Elizabeth Warren expressed particular concern over the fact that former Treasury Secretary Paulson failed to put any restrictions on the use of the TARP bailout funds prior to their dispersal, despite the explanation to the taxpayers that this money would be used to remove the “toxic assets” from the banks’ balance sheets. Worse yet, as she explained: “The toxic assets are still there, by and large” because the TARP money was used by the Wall Street banks to “make bets”. The bait-and-switch tactic used by Secretary Paulson was exposed by Professor Warren when she criticized how the banks used that money:

My biggest complaint would be: That was not how Secretary Paulsen described what was going to happen with American taxpayer dollars. . . . He said we are going to put money into the banks to increase lending — specifically to increase small business lending because that is the engine of our economy . . . I have a real problem when we describe to taxpayers their money will be taken and used one way and in fact it’s used another way.

Professor Warren also noted that nothing had been done to contain “systemic risk” after the financial crisis because those institutions requiring bailouts as they were considered “too big to fail” have grown even larger. This subject was addressed by Rolfe Winkler of Reuters, who questioned whether these institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, are really indispensable:

Many of us didn’t like it — we thought banks like Goldman should have been recapitalized the right way, by wiping out shareholders and forcing subordinated creditors to eat their share of losses. But that ship has sailed. We socialized the risk while privatizing the profit because we were told we had no other choice: The government had to guarantee the biggest banks’ liabilities because they were too unstable to survive bankruptcy or FDIC receivership.

If that’s true, why haven’t we seen any substantial reforms to reduce systemic risk? Congress is kicking around new resolution authority to help resolve failed systemically-important banks. But the goal should be reducing systemic risk to begin with. Yet serious reform of the derivatives market — something that would reduce its size significantly — is nowhere on the radar.

Indeed, Goldman’s trading results suggest that market is coming back with a vengeance. It’s playing in very risky markets with a capital structure that remains vulnerable yet is guaranteed by taxpayers.

* * *

Wall Street and its protectors at the Fed and Treasury tell us the bailout was necessary to protect the financial system, to protect Main Street. That may be. But Main Street still owns much of the risk while Wall Street gets all of the profit.

Elizabeth Warren’s reaction to the issue of what has been done with those profits — the huge, record-breaking bonuses paid to the people at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, was to describe the situation as so inappropriate as to leave her “speechless”. Fortunately this sentiment is shared by a number of people who are already taking action in the absence of any responsible government activity. The Gawker website has announced its initiation of what it calls the “Goldman Project” as a way of pushing back against this atrocity:

But what makes it eye-stabbingly, brain-searingly blood-boiling is the fact that Goldman’s employees are personally reaping the benefits of these subsidies to the tune of an average of $700,000 per staffer. Being unjustifiably wealthy in boom times is not enough — when market forces of their own creation brought their company low, they turned to the taxpayers both to rescue the firm and prop up their obscenely acquisitive lifestyles.

* * *

. . . we’re launching the Goldman Project, an ongoing attempt to track and publicize the multi-million second homes, $50,000 cars, $500 bottles of wine, and ostentatious living that we are subsidizing. And we need your help: Are you Facebook friends with a Goldmanite who just posted photos of his lavish bachelor party? Post them to our fancy new tag page, #GoldmanProject, or e-mail them to us. Are you a realtor who just sold a $4 million duplex a Goldman banker? Is your ex-boyfriend Goldman banker planning a year-end trip to Cabo to blow his bonus wad? Shoot us an e-mail. Likewise, if you catch any references to Goldman employees living large in the media, post them to #GoldmanProject to keep a running clipfile.

The folks at Gawker aren’t the only ones taking action. When the American Bankers Association holds its annual meeting in Chicago on October 25-26, it will be confronted with a (hopefully) large protest led by a coalition of labor, community and consumer groups, called the “Showdown in Chicago”. Visit their website and do whatever you can to help make this event a success. The arrogant influence peddlers in Washington need to get the message: Clean things up or get thrown out.

Aaron Task, AIG, American Bankers Association, American capitalism, American International Group, Bailout Tally Report, Bait And Switch, bank bailout, bank stocks, banking crisis, banking lobby, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, blog, centrist, Citigroup, Commentary, comprehensive bank bailout plan, conflict of interest, Congress, Congressional Oversight Panel, conservative, credit default swaps, crony capitalism, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, economic crisis, economics, economists, Elizabeth Warren, equities markets, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, financial crisis, financial institutions as too big to fail, financial reform, Gawker, Goldman Sachs, government guarantees, Government Sachs, Hank Paulson, Harvard Law School, Henry Paulson, influence peddlers, insolvent banks, investment banks, It Takes a Pillage -- Behind the Bailouts Bonuses and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, JP Morgan, liberal, lobbyists, moral hazard, New York Stock Exchange, News, Nomi Prins, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, opacity, Opinion, Political, Politics, President of the United States, regulatory capture, Republican, Republican Party, Reuters, revolving door, Rolfe Winkler, SEC, SEC scandals, securities, Securities and Exchange Act, Securities and Exchange Commission, self-dealing insiders, Showdown in Chicago, socialized loss and privatized gain, stock markets, systemic risk, systemic risk regulator, TARP, TARP bailout, TARP scorecard, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, Tech Ticker, the banks, the center lane, the economy, the Goldman Project, The New York Times, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, transparency, Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Troubled Assets Relief Program, Turbo Tim Geithner, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street lobbyists, Wall Street meltdown, wealth transfer, welfare for the rich

Simon Johnson In The Spotlight

October 12th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Oct, 12 2009

Comments Off

October 12, 2009

An ever-increasing number of people are paying close attention to a gentleman named Simon Johnson. Mr. Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, now works at MIT as Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Sloan School of Management. His Baseline Scenario website is focused on the financial and economic crises. At the Washington Post website, he runs a blog with James Kwak called The Hearing. Last spring, Johnson turned more than a few heads with his article from the May 2009 issue of The Atlantic, “The Quiet Coup”, in which he explained that what happened in America during last year’s financial crisis and what is currently happening with our economic predicament is “shockingly reminiscent” of events experienced during financial crises in emerging market nations (i.e. banana republics and proto-capitalist regimes).

On October 9, Joe Nocera of The New York Times began his column by asking Professor Johnson what he thought the Wall Street banks owed America after receiving trillions of dollars in bailouts. Johnson’s response turned to Wednesday’s upcoming fight before the House Financial Services Committee concerning the financial reforms proposed by the Obama administration:

“They can’t pay what they owe!” he began angrily. Then he paused, collected his thoughts and started over: “Tim Geithner saved them on terms extremely favorable to the banks. They should support all of his proposed reforms.”

Mr. Johnson continued, “What gets me is that the banks have continued to oppose consumer protection. How can they be opposed to consumer protection as defined by a man who is the most favorable Treasury Secretary they have had in a generation? If he has decided that this is what they need, what moral right do they have to oppose it? It is unconscionable.”

This week’s battle over financial reform has been brewing for quite a while. Back on May 31, Gretchen Morgenson and Dan Van Natta wrote a piece for The New York Times entitled, “In Crisis, Banks Dig In for Fight Against Rules”:

Hotly contested legislative wars are traditional fare in Washington, of course, and bills are often shaped by the push and pull of lobbyists — representing a cornucopia of special interests — working with politicians and government agencies.

What makes this fight different, say Wall Street critics and legislative leaders, is that financiers are aggressively seeking to fend off regulation of the very products and practices that directly contributed to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. In contrast, after the savings-and-loan debacle of the 1980s, the clout of the financial lobby diminished significantly.

In case you might be looking for a handy scorecard to see which members of Congress are being “lobbied” by the financial industry and to what extent those palms are being greased, The Wall Street Journal was kind enough to provide us with an interactive chart. Just slide the cursor next to the name of any member of the House Financial Services Committee and you will be able to see how much generosity that member received just during the first quarter of 2009 from an entity to be affected by this legislation. The bars next to the committee members’ names are color-coded, with different colors used to identify specific sources, whose names are displayed as you pass over that section of the bar. This thing is a wonderful invention. I call it “The Graft Graph”.

On October 9, Simon Johnson appeared with Representative Marcy Kaptur (D – Ohio) on the PBS program, Bill Moyers Journal. At one point during the interview, Professor Johnson expressed grave doubts about our government’s ability to implement financial reform:

And yet, the opportunity for real reform has already passed. And there is not going to be — not only is there not going to be change, but I’ll go further. I’ll say it’s going to be worse, what comes out of this, in terms of the financial system, its power, and what it can get away with.

* * *

BILL MOYERS: Why have we not had the reform that we all knew was being — was needed and being demanded a year ago?

SIMON JOHNSON: I think the opportunity — the short term opportunity was missed. There was an opportunity that the Obama Administration had. President Obama campaigned on a message of change. I voted for him. I supported him. And I believed in this message. And I thought that the time for change, for the financial sector, was absolutely upon us. This was abundantly apparent by the inauguration in January of this year.

SIMON JOHNSON: And Rahm Emanuel, the President’s Chief of Staff has a saying. He’s widely known for saying, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’. Well, the crisis is over, Bill. The crisis in the financial sector, not for people who own homes, but the crisis for the big banks is substantially over. And it was completely wasted. The Administration refused to break the power of the big banks, when they had the opportunity, earlier this year. And the regulatory reforms they are now pursuing will turn out to be, in my opinion, and I do follow this day to day, you know. These reforms will turn out to be essentially meaningless.

Sound familiar? If you change the topic to healthcare reform, you end up with the same bottom line: “These reforms will turn out to be essentially meaningless.” The inevitable watering down of both legislative efforts can be blamed on weak, compromised leadership. It’s one thing to make grand promises on the campaign trail — yet quite another to look a lobbyist in the eye and say: “Thanks, but no thanks.” Toward the end of the televised interview, Bill Moyers had this exchange with Representative Kaptur:

BILL MOYERS: How do we get Congress back? How do we get Congress to do what it’s supposed to do? Oversight. Real reform. Challenge the powers that be.

MARCY KAPTUR: We have to take the money out. We have to get rid of the constant fundraising that happens inside the Congress. Before political parties used to raise money; now individual members are raising money through the DCCC and the RCCC. It is absolutely corrupt.

As we all know, our system of legalized graft goes beyond the halls of Congress. During his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama received nearly $995,000 in contributions from the people at Goldman Sachs. The gang at 85 Broad Street is obviously getting its money’s worth.

85 Broad Street, American capitalism, bank bailout, banking crisis, Barack Obama, Baseline Scenario, Ben Bernanke, Bill Moyers Journal, blog, centrist, Commentary, comprehensive bank bailout plan, conflict of interest, Congress, conservative, crony capitalism, Dan Van Natta, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, derivatives crisis, economic crisis, economic meltdown, economics, economists, equities markets, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, financial crisis, financial reform, Financial Stability Plan, Goldman Sachs, government guarantees, Government Sachs, Gretchen Morgenson, Hank Paulson, healthcare reform, Henry Paulson, House Financial Services Committee, IMF, In Crisis Banks Dig In for Fight Against Rules, insolvent banks, interactive chart, International Monetary Fund, investment banks, James Kwak, Joe Nocera, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, legalized graft, liberal, lobbyists, MIT, moral hazard, mortgage-backed securities, never let a good crisis go to waste, New York Stock Exchange, News, NYSE, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, Ohio, one trillion dollars, Opinion, PBS, Political, Politics, President of the United States, Rahm Emanuel, regulatory capture, Representative Marcy Kaptur, Republican, Republican Party, SEC, SEC scandals, securities, Securities and Exchange Act, Securities and Exchange Commission, self-dealing insiders, Simon Johnson, Simon Johnson In The Spotlight, Sloan School of Management, socialized loss and privatized gain, stock markets, systemic risk, systemic risk regulator, TARP, TARP bailout, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, The Atlantic, the banks, the center lane, the economy, the graft graph, The Hearing, The New York Times, The Quiet Coup, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, toxic assets, transparency, Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Troubled Asset Relief Program, troubled assets, Turbo Tim Geithner, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street lobbyists, Wall Street meltdown, weak leadership, wealth transfer, welfare for the rich, zombie banks

The Next Big Fight

October 1st, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Oct, 01 2009

Comments Off

October 1, 2009

On Tuesday September 29, H. David Kotz, Inspector General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, issued two reports, recommending 58 changes to improve the way the agency investigates and enforces violations of securities laws, as a result of the SEC’s failure to investigate the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. The reports exposed a shocking degree of ineptitude at the SEC. On September 10, Mr. Kotz testified before the Senate Banking Committee. You can find the prepared testimony here. (I suggest starting at page 8.) Having read that testimony, I wasn’t too shocked at what Mr. Kotz had to say in Tuesday’s reports. Nevertheless, as Zachery Kouwe explained in The New York Times, the level of bureaucratic incompetence at the SEC was underestimated:

Many on Wall Street and in Washington were surprised that some of Mr. Kotz’s proposals, like recording interviews with witnesses and creating a database for tips and complaints, were not already part of the S.E.C.’s standard practice.

The extent of dysfunction at the SEC has been well-documented. Back on January 5, I wrote a piece entitled: “Clean-Up Time On Wall Street”, expressing my hope that the incoming Obama administration might initiate some serious financial reforms. I quoted from Steven Labaton’s New York Times report concerning other SEC scandals investigated by Mr. Kotz last year. My posting also included a quote from a Times piece by Michael Lewis (author of Liar’s Poker) and David Einhorn, which is particularly relevant to the recent disclosures by Inspector General Kotz:

Indeed, one of the great social benefits of the Madoff scandal may be to finally reveal the S.E.C. for what it has become.

Created to protect investors from financial predators, the commission has somehow evolved into a mechanism for protecting financial predators with political clout from investors.

This sentiment was echoed on Tuesday by Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture website:

The agency is supposed to be an investor’s advocate, the chief law enforcement agency for the markets. But that has hardly been how they have been managed, funded and operated in recent years.

Essentially the largest prosecutor’s office in the country, the SEC has been undercut at every turn: Their staffing was far too small to handle their jurisdiction — Wall Street and public Corporations. Their budgets have been sliced, and they were unable to keep up with the explosion in corporate criminality. Many key positions were left unfilled, and morale was severely damaged. A series of disastrous SEC chairs were appointed — to be “kinder and gentler.” Not only did they fail to maintain SEC funding (via fines), but they allowed the worst corporate offenders to go unpunished.

Gee, go figure that under those circumstances, they sucked at their jobs.

* * *

The bottom line of the SEC is this: If we are serious about corporate fraud, about violations of the SEC laws, about a level playing field, then we fund the agency adequately, hire enough lawyers to prosecute the crimes, and prevent Congress critters from interfering with the SEC doing its job.

To be blunt: So far, there is no evidence we are sincere about making the SEC a serious watchdog with teeth.

Congress sure hasn’t been. Staffing levels have been ignored, budgeting has been cut over the years. And it’s the sort of administrative issue that does not lend itself to bumper sticker aphorisms or tea party slogans.

Financial expert Janet Tavakoli explained in a presentation to the International Monetary Fund last week, that regulatory failures in the United States helped create an even larger Ponzi scam than the Madoff ruse — the massive racket involving the trading of residential mortgage-backed securities:

Wall Street disguised these toxic “investments” with new value-destroying securitizations and derivatives.

Meanwhile, collapsing mortgage lenders paid high dividends to shareholders (old investors) and interest on credit lines to Wall Street (old investors) with money raised from new investors in doomed securities. New money allowed Wall Street to temporarily hide losses and pay enormous bonuses. This is a classic Ponzi scheme.

* * *

Had regulators done their jobs, they would have shut down Wall Street’s financial meth labs, and the Ponzi scheme would have quickly choked to death from lack of monetary oxygen.

After the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980’s, there were more than 1,000 felony indictments of senior officers. Recent fraud is much more widespread and costly. The consequences are much greater. Congress needs to fund investigations. Regulators need to get tough on crime.

As Simon Johnson and James Kwak explained in The Washington Post, the upcoming battle over financial reform will be hard-fought by the banking industry and its lobbyists:

The next couple of months will be crucial in determining the shape of the financial system for decades to come. And so far, the signs are not encouraging.

* * *

Even back in April, the industry was able to kill Obama’s request for legislation allowing bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages. Five months of profits later, the big banks are only stronger. Is Obama up for this fight?

Our new President must know by now, that sinking a three-point shot is much easier than the juggling act he has undertaken with health care reform, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as his recent quest to help Chicago win the bid for the 2016 Olympics. If Mr. Obama can’t beat the health insurance lobby with both the Senate and Congress under Democratic control — how will the voters feel if he drops another ball in the fight for financial reform? Thanks to Harry Truman, the American public knows where “the buck stops”. The previously-quoted Washington Post commentary looked even further back in history to explain this burden of leadership:

During the reign of Louis XIV, when the common people complained of some oppressive government policy, they would say, “If only the king knew . . . .” Occasionally people will make similar statements about Barack Obama, blaming the policies they don’t like on his lieutenants.

But Barack Obama, like Louis XIV before him, knows exactly what is going on. Now is the time for him to show what his priorities are and how hard he is willing to fight for them. Elections have consequences, people used to say. This election brought in a popular Democratic president with reasonably large majorities in both houses of Congress. The financial crisis exposed the worst side of the financial services industry to the bright light of day. If we cannot get meaningful financial regulatory reform this year, we can’t blame it all on the banking lobby.

Let the games begin!

2016 Olympics in Chicago, AIG, American capitalism, American International Group, bank bailout, banking crisis, banking lobby, Barack Obama, Barry Ritholtz, Ben Bernanke, Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, blog, centrist, Clean-Up Time On Wall Street, Commentary, Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC, comprehensive bank bailout plan, conflict of interest, Congress, conservative, credit default swaps, crony capitalism, David Einhorn, David Kotz, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, derivatives crisis, economic crisis, economic meltdown, economics, economists, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, financial crisis, financial reform, government guarantees, Hank Paulson, Harry Truman, Henry Paulson, IMF, insolvent banks, Inspector General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, International Monetary Fund, investment banks, James Kwak, Janet Tavakoli, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, Liar's Poker, liberal, lobbyists, Louis XIV, Michael Lewis, moral hazard, mortgage-backed securities, New York Stock Exchange, News, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, Opinion, Political, Politics, President of the United States, regulatory capture, Republican, Republican Party, SEC, SEC scandals, securities, Securities and Exchange Act, Securities and Exchange Commission, Senate Banking Committee, Simon Johnson, socialized loss and privatized gain, Steven Labaton, stock markets, systemic risk, TARP, TARP bailout, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, the banks, The Big Picture, the center lane, the economy, The New York Times, The Next Big Fight, The Washington Post, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, toxic assets, transparency, Treasury Department, Troubled Asset Relief Program, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street lobbyists, wealth transfer, welfare for the rich, Zachery Kouwe, zombie banks

Spread The Word

September 29th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Sep, 29 2009

Comments Off

September 29, 2009

I’ve seen quite a few articles and broadcasts from “mainstream” news sources during the past few weeks that have actually made me feel encouraged about the public’s response to the financial crisis and our current economic predicament. Six months ago, the dirty picture of what caused last year’s near-meltdown and what has continued to prevent the necessary reforms, was something one could find only by reading a relatively small number of blogs. Michael Panzner wrote a book entitled Financial Armageddon in 2006, predicting what many “experts” later described as unforeseeable. Mr. Panzner now has a blog called Financial Armageddon (as well as another: When Giants Fall). At his Financial Armageddon website, Mr. Panzner has helped ease the pain of the economic catastrophe with a little humor by educating his readers on some novel measurements of our recession level — such as the increased use of hair dye and “The Hot Waitress Index”. (He ran another great posting about the increasing number of disastrous experiences for people who tried to save money by cutting their own hair.) Meanwhile, Matt Taibbi has continued to serve as a gadfly against crony capitalism. Zero Hedge keeps us regularly apprised of the suspicious activities in the equities and futures markets, which are of no apparent concern to regulatory officials. Some bloggers, including Jr Deputy Accountant, have criticized the manic money-printing and other inappropriate activities at the Federal Reserve — which resists all efforts at oversight and transparency. One no longer experiences the stigma of “conspiracy theorist” by accepting the view that our financial and economic problems were caused primarily by regulatory failure.

On September 23, Dan Gerstein wrote a piece for Forbes, about the impressive, 25-page article concerning last year’s financial crisis, written by James Stewart for The New Yorker, entitled: “Eight Days”. At the outset, Mr. Gerstein noted how the New Yorker article provided the reader with some shocking insight on someone we all thought we knew pretty well:

But the biggest eye-opener was that the most incisive and damning questions raised by any of our leaders during this existential crisis came from none other than the era’s top free-market cheerleader in Washington, George W. Bush.

* * *

Paulson and Bernanke alerted Bush that AIG was about to fail, warned of the massive ripple effect AIG going bust would have on the global economy, and explained why the Fed could not intervene with an insurance company to stop this systemic threat. In response, Bush asked “How have we come to the point where we can’t let an institution fail without affecting the whole economy?”

The question raised by President Bush is still tragically apt, since nothing has been accomplished in the past year to break up or downsize those institutions considered “too big to fail”. Mr. Gerstein’s experience from reading the New Yorker article helped reinforce the understanding that our current situation is not only the result of regulatory failure, but it’s also a by-product of something called “regulatory capture” — wherein the regulators are beholden to those whom they are supposed to regulate:

Once disaster was averted and the system stabilized, Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke had no excuse for not laying down the law to Wall Street — figuratively and literally — in the ensuing weeks. By that I mean restructuring the deals we struck with the banks to get far better returns for taxpayers and rewriting the rules governing the financial system to prevent them from ever thinking they could gamble risk-free with our money again.

* * *

There’s no apparent sense of apartness or independence between regulator and regulated. To the contrary, there’s a power imbalance in the wrong direction, with the regulators dependent on and even at the mercy of the regulated. What does it say about the integrity and even the sanity of this system when the doctors have to ask the inmates how to restructure their treatments?

I was particularly impressed by Dan Gerstein’s closing remarks in the Forbes piece. It was encouraging to see another commentary in a mainstream media source, consistent with the ranting I did here, here and here. Mr. Gerstein expressed dismay at the lack of attention given to the unpleasant truth that we live in a plutocracy which won’t be changed until the people demand it:

That’s why I was so disappointed to find Stewart’s epic article buried in the elite pages of the New Yorker. It should have been serialized on the front pages of every newspaper in the country last week, so every American would be reminded in full detail of just how warped and rigged our financial system has been — and why it still is. Maybe then it might sink in that getting mad won’t get us even in the power struggle with the financial elites for control of our economy, and that change won’t happen until taxpayers demand it. You want public accountability for Wall Street? Let’s start with an accountable public.

Each time an article such as Dan Gerstein’s “Too Close For Comfort” gets widespread exposure, we move one step closer to the point where we have an informed, accountable public. It’s unfortunate that his commentary was buried in the elite pages of Forbes. That’s why I have it here. Spread the word.

AIG, American capitalism, American International Group, bank bailout, banking crisis, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, blog, centrist, Commentary, Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC, comprehensive bank bailout plan, conflict of interest, Congress, conservative, credit default swaps, crony capitalism, Dan Gerstein, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, derivatives crisis, economic crisis, economic meltdown, economics, economists, Eight Days, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Financial Armageddon, financial crisis, financial meltdown, financial reform, Forbes, George W Bush, government guarantees, Hank Paulson, Henry Paulson, huge financial institutions, insolvent banks, investment banks, James Stewart, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, Jr Deputy Accountant, liberal, liquidity provider of last resort, Matt Taibbi, Michael Panzner, money printing, moral hazard, New York Stock Exchange, News, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, Opinion, Political, Politics, President of the United States, regulatory capture, Republican, Republican Party, SEC, Securities and Exchange Act, Securities and Exchange Commission, socialized loss and privatized gain, Spread The Word, stock markets, systemic risk, TARP, TARP bailout, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, the banks, the center lane, the economy, The Hot Waitress Index, The New Yorker, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, Too Close For Comfort, transparency, Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Turbo Tim Geithner, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street lobbyists, Wall Street meltdown, wealth transfer, welfare for the rich, When Giants Fall, Zero Hedge, zombie banks

Turning Over A Rock

September 24th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Sep, 24 2009

Comments Off

September 24, 2009

Last year’s financial crisis and our current economic crisis have exposed some pretty ugly things to an unsuspecting public. As news reporters dig and as witnesses are called to testify, these investigations are turning over a very large rock, revealing all the colonies of maggots and fungus infestations, just below ground level, out of our usual view. The voters are learning more about the sleaziness that takes place on Wall Street and in the halls of Congress. Hopefully, they will become motivated to demand some changes.

A recent report by American Public Media’s Steve Henn revealed how the law prohibiting “insider trading” (i.e. acting on confidential corporate information when making a transaction involving that company’s publicly-traded stock) does not apply to members of Congress. Remember how Martha Stewart went to prison? Well, if she had been representing Connecticut in Congress, she might have been able to interpose the defense that she was inspired to sell her ImClone stock based on information she acquired in the exercise of her official duties. Mr. Henn’s report discussed the investment transactions made by some Senators after having been informed by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, that our financial system was on the verge of a meltdown. After quoting GOP House Minority Leader John Boehner’s public acknowledgement last September that:

We clearly have an unprecedented crisis in our financial system. . . .

On behalf of the American people our job is to put our partisan differences aside and to work together to help solve this crisis.

Mr. Henn proceeded to explain how swift Senatorial action resulted in a bipartisan exercise of greed:

The next day, according to personal financial disclosures, Boehner cashed out of a fund designed to profit from inflation. Since he sold, it’s lost more than half its value.

Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, who was also at that meeting sold more than $40,000 in mutual funds and reinvested it all with Warren Buffett.

Durbin said like millions of others he was worried about his retirement. Boehner says his stock broker acted alone without even talking to him. Both lawmakers say they didn’t benefit from any special tips.

But over time members of Congress do much better than the rest of us when playing the stock market.

* * *

The value of information that flows from the inner workings of Washington isn’t lost on Wall Street professionals.

Michael Bagley is a former congressional staffer who now runs the OSINT Group. Bagley sells access and research. His clients are hedge funds, and he makes it his business to mine Congress and the rest of Washington for tips.

MICHAEL Bagley: The power center of finance has moved from Wall Street to Washington.

His firm is just one recent entry into Washington’s newest growth industry.

CRAIG HOLMAN: It’s called political intelligence.

Craig Holman is at Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog. Holman believes lobbyists shouldn’t be allowed to sell tips to hedge funds and members of Congress shouldn’t trade on non-public information. But right now it’s legal.

HOLMAN: It’s absolutely incredible, but the Securities and Exchange Act does not apply to members of Congress, congressional staff or even lobbyists.

That law bans corporate insiders, from executives to their bankers and lawyers, from trading on inside information. But it doesn’t apply to political intelligence. That makes this business lucrative. Bagley says firms can charge hedge funds $25,000 a month just to follow a hot issue.

BAGLEY: So information is a commodity in Washington.

Inside information on dozens of issues, from bank capitol requirements to new student loan rules, can move markets. Consumer advocate Craig Holman is backing a bill called the STOCK Act. Introduced in the House, it would force political-intelligence firms to disclose their clients and it would ban lawmakers, staffers, and lobbyists from profiting on non-public knowledge.

Mr. Henn’s report went on to raise concern over the fact that there is nothing to stop members of Congress from acting on such information to the detriment of their constituents in favor of their own portfolios.

In his prepared testimony before the House Financial Services Committee this morning, former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker made this observation:

I understand, and share, concern that the financial crisis has revealed weaknesses in our regulatory and supervisory agencies as well as in the activities of private financial institutions. There has been criticism of the Federal Reserve itself, and even proposals to remove responsibilities other than monetary policy, strictly defined, from the Fed.

Mr. Volcker discussed a number of suggestions for regulatory changes to prevent a repeat of last year’s crisis. He criticized Treasury Secretary “Turbo” Tim Geithner’s approach toward what amounts to simply baby-sitting for those financial institutions considered “too big to fail”. Here is some of Mr. Volcker’s discussion on that point:

However well justified in terms of dealing with the extreme threats to the financial system in the midst of crisis, the emergency actions of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and ultimately the Congress to protect the viability of particular institutions – their bond holders and to some extent even their stockholders – have inevitably left an indelible mark on attitudes and behavior patterns of market participants.

Will not the pattern of protection for the largest banks and their holding companies tend to encourage greater risk-taking, including active participation in volatile capital markets, especially when compensation practices so greatly reward short-term success?

Are community or regional banks to be deemed “too small to save”, raising questions of competitive viability?

* * *

What all this amounts to is an unintended and unanticipated extension of the official “safety net”, an arrangement designed decades ago to protect the stability of the commercial banking system. The obvious danger is that with the passage of time, risk-taking will be encouraged and efforts at prudential restraint will be resisted. Ultimately, the possibility of further crises – even greater crises – will increase.

This concern is often discussed as the “moral hazard” issue. William Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City published an excellent paper concerning this issue on September 10. He made some great suggestions as to how to deal with these “Systemically Dangerous Institutions”:

Historically, “too big to fail” was a misnomer – large, insolvent banks and S&Ls were placed in receivership and their “risk capital” (shareholders and subordinated debtholders) received nothing. That treatment is fair, minimizes the costs to the taxpayers, and minimizes “moral hazard.” “Too big to fail” meant only that they were not placed in liquidating receiverships (akin to a Chapter 7 “liquidating” bankruptcy). In this crisis, however, regulators have twisted the term into immunity. Massive insolvent banks are not placed in receivership, their senior managers are left in place, and the taxpayers secretly subsidize their risk capital. This policy is indefensible. It is also unlawful. It violates the Prompt Corrective Action law. If it is continued it will cause future crises and recurrent scandals.

* * *

Under the current regulatory system banks that are too big to fail pose a clear and present danger to the economy. They are not national assets. A bank that is too big to fail is too big to operate safely and too big to regulate. It poses a systemic risk. These banks are not “systemically important”, they are “systemically dangerous.” They are ticking time bombs – except that many of them have already exploded.

Mr. Black then listed twenty areas of reform where these institutions would face additional regulatory compliance and restrictions on their activities, including a ban on “all new speculative investments”. Paul Volcker took that issue a step further with his criticism of “proprietary trading” by these institutions, which often can result in conflicts of interest with customers, since these banks are trading on their own accounts while in a position to act on the confidential investing strategies of their clients.

Paul Volcker made a point of emphasizing the need to clarify the overlapping jurisdictions of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). On September 18, David Corn wrote a piece about the CFTC, describing it as:

… a somewhat obscure federal agency, but an important one. Its mission is to protect consumers and investors by preventing misconduct in futures trading that could distort the prices of agricultural and energy commodities. In 2000, the CFTC wanted to regulate credit default swaps — complicated and privately traded financial instruments that helped grease the way to the subprime meltdown — but Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, then the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Fed chair Alan Greenspan and Clinton administration officials (including Lawrence Summers, now President Obama’s top economic adviser) blocked that effort. Had the CFTC been allowed to police swaps, the housing finance crisis that begot the economic crash of last year might not have been as bad. So the CFTC is a critical agency. And under Obama’s proposal for more robust financial regulation — which he talked about during a Wall Street visit on Monday — the CFTC would have greater responsibility to make sure no one was gaming the financial system. Consequently, the composition of the CFTC is more significant than ever.

Mr. Corn expressed his concern over the fact that the Obama administration had nominated Scott O’Malia, a Republican Senate aide, to be a commissioner on the CTFC:

For the past seven years, he’s been a GOP staffer in the Senate. But before that he was a lobbyist for Mirant, an Atlanta-based electricity company. According to House and Senate records, while at Mirant O’Malia was registered to lobby for greater deregulation at a time when his company was exploiting the then-ongoing deregulation of the energy market to bilk consumers. Remember the Enron-driven electricity crisis in California of 2001, when Enron and other companies were manipulating the state’s deregulated electricity markets, causing prices to go sky-high, creating rolling black-outs and triggering a statewide emergency? Mirant was one of those other companies. According to state investigators, Mirant deliberately held back power to force prices up.

After the crisis, Mirant was investigated by various federal and local agencies and became the target of a number of lawsuits. It ultimately agreed to pay California about half a billion dollars to settle claims it had screwed the state’s residents. It also was fined $12.5 million — by the CFTC! — for attempting to manipulate natural gas prices.

Mr. O’Malia had previously been nominated for this position by President George W. Bush. Nevertheless, Washington Senator Maria Cantwell helped block the nomination. As a result, David Corn was understandably shocked when O’Malia was re-nominated for this same position by the Obama administration:

Yet Obama has brought it back. Why would a president who craves change in Washington and who wants the CFTC to be a tougher watchdog do that?

The answer to that question is another question: Does President Obama really want the CFTC to be a tougher watchdog or just another “lap dog” like the SEC?

After all the promises of the needed regulatory “clean-up” to prevent another financial crisis, can we really trust our current leadership to accomplish anything toward that goal?

AIG, American capitalism, American International Group, American Public Media, another lap dog like the SEC, banking crisis, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, blog, centrist, Commentary, Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC, comprehensive bank bailout plan, Congress, conservative, Craig Holman, credit default swaps, crony capitalism, David Corn, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, Dick Durbin, economic crisis, economic meltdown, economics, economists, Enron, equities markets, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, financial crisis, financial reform, George W Bush, government guarantees, Hank Paulson, House Financial Services Committee, ImClone, insider trading, investment banks, John Boehner, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, liberal, Maria Cantwell, Martha Stewart, Michael Bagley, Mirant, money printing, moral hazard, New York Stock Exchange, News, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, Opinion, OSINT Group, Paul Volcker, Political, Politics, President of the United States, Prompt Corrective Action law, proprietary trading, Public Citizen, regulatory capture, Republican, Republican Party, Scott O'Malia, SEC, securities, Securities and Exchange Act, Securities and Exchange Commission, socialized loss and privatized gain, Steve Henn, STOCK Act, stock markets, systemic risk, Systemically Dangerous Institutions, TARP, TARP bailout, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, the banks, the center lane, the economy, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, transparency, Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Turbo Tim Geithner, Turning Over A Rock, United States Senate, United States Treasury, University of Missouri Kansas City, Wall Street, Wall Street lobbyists, Wall Street meltdown, Warren Buffett, wealth transfer, William Black

The Broken Promise

September 21st, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Sep, 21 2009

Comments Off

September 21, 2009

We expect those politicians aiming for re-election, to make a point of keeping their campaign promises. Many elected officials break those promises and manage to win another term anyway. That fact might explain the reasoning used by so many pols who decide to go the latter route — they believe they can get away with it. Nevertheless, many leaders who break their campaign promises often face crushing defeat on the next Election Day. A good example of this situation arose during the Presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, who assured America: “Read my lips: No new taxes!” in his acceptance speech (written by Peggy Noonan) at the 1988 Republican National Convention. Although he didn’t enact any new taxes during his sole term in office, he also promised the voters that he would not raise existing taxes after telling everyone to read his lips. When he broke that promise after becoming President, he was confronted with the “read my lips” quote by everyone from Pat Buchanan to Bill Clinton.

Back on July 15, 2008 and throughout the Presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised the voters that if he were elected, there would be “no more trickle-down economics”. Nevertheless, his administration’s continuing bailouts of the banking sector have become the worst examples of trickle-down economics in American history — not just because of their massive size and scope, but because they will probably fail to achieve their intended result. Although the Treasury Department is starting to “come clean” to Congressional Oversight chair Elizabeth Warren, we can’t even be sure about the amount of money infused into the financial sector by one means or another because of the lack of transparency and accountability at the Federal Reserve. (I seem to remember the word “transparency” being used by Candidate Obama.) Although we are all well-aware of the $750 billion TARP slush fund that benefited the banks to some degree, speculation as to the amount given (or “loaned”) to the banks by the Federal Reserve runs from $2 trillion to as high as $6 trillion. So far, the Fed has managed to thwart efforts by some news organizations to learn the ugly truth. As Pat Choate reported for The Huffington Post:

Bloomberg News filed a federal lawsuit in November 2008 in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan) challenging that stonewalling and won the case. Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska on August 24 ruled that the Fed had “improperly withheld agency records” giving it a week to disclose daily reports on its loans to banks and other financial institutions.

Three days later, Federal Reserve lawyers asked the courts for a delay so that they could make an expedited appeal of her decision. Several major banks, operating through an organization named “The Clearing House,” filed a supporting brief with the appeals court, claiming that the Federal Reserve had provided its members emergency funds under an agreement not to identify the recipients or the loan terms.

The Clearing House brief described its members as, “[T]he most important participants in the international banking and payments systems and among the world’s largest intermediaries in interbank funds transfers.” They include ABN Amro Bank, N.V. (Dutch), Bank of America, The Bank of New York Mellon, Citibank, Deutsche Bank Trust (Germany), JP MorganChase Bank, UBS (Switzerland), and Wells Fargo.

* * *

Why are the Fed and the banks fighting so hard to keep the loan details secret? Congress and taxpayers cannot know until they have the information the Federal Reserve is keeping from them, but several plausible explanations exist.

One is that the Fed has taken a great deal of worthless collateral and is propping up failed companies and banks. A second is that the information will make the issue of paying out huge Wall Street bonuses in 2009 politically radioactive, particularly if it turns out the payments are dependent on these federal loans.

Finally, the Federal Reserve probably does not want that information to be part of the forthcoming Senate hearings on the re-confirmation of Ben Bernanke, current Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

President Obama’s failure to keep his campaign promise of “no more trickle-down economics” is rooted in his decision to rely on the very same individuals who caused the financial crisis — to somehow cure the nation’s economic ills. These people (Larry Summers, “Turbo” Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke) have convinced Mr. Obama that “trickle-down economics” (i.e. bailing out the banks, rather than distressed businesses or the taxpayers themselves) would be the best solution.

On Saturday, Australian economist Steve Keen published a fantastic report from his website, explaining how the “money multiplier” myth, fed to Obama by the very people who caused the crisis, was the wrong paradigm to be starting from in attempting to save the economy. Here’s some of what Professor Keen had to say:

While economic outsiders like myself, Michael Hudson, Niall Ferguson and Nassim Taleb argue that the only way to restart the economic engine is to clear it of debt, the government response, has been to attempt to replace the now defunct private debt economic turbocharger with a public one.

In the immediate term, the stupendous size of the stimulus has worked, so that debt in total is still boosting aggregate demand. But what will happen when the government stops turbocharging the economy, and waits anxiously for the private system to once again splutter into life?

I am afraid that all it will do is splutter.

This is especially so since, following the advice of neoclassical economists, Obama has got not a bang but a whimper out of the many bucks he has thrown at the financial system.

In explaining his recovery program in April, PresidentObama noted that:

“there are a lot of Americans who understandably think that government money would be better spent going directly to families and businesses instead of banks – ‘where’s our bailout?,’ they ask”.

He justified giving the money to the lenders, rather than to the debtors, on the basis of “the multiplier effect” from bank lending:

the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth. (page 3 of the speech)

This argument comes straight out of the neoclassical economics textbook. Fortunately, due to the clear manner in which Obama enunciates it, the flaw in this textbook argument is vividly apparent in his speech.

This “multiplier effect” will only work if American families and businesses are willing to take on yet more debt: “a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans”.

So the only way the roughly US$1 trillion of money that the Federal Reserve has injected into the banks will result in additional spending is if American families and businesses take out another US$8-10 trillion in loans.

* *   *

If the money multiplier was going to “ride to the rescue”, private debt would need to rise from its current level of US$41.5 trillion to about US$50 trillion, and this ratio would rise to about 375% — more than twice the level that ushered in the Great Depression.

This is a rescue? It’s a “hair of the dog” cure: having booze for breakfast to overcome the feelings of a hangover from last night’s binge. It is the road to debt alcoholism, not the road to teetotalism and recovery.

Fortunately, it’s a “cure” that is also highly unlikely to work, because the model of money creation that Obama’s economic advisers have sold him was shown to be empirically false over three decades ago.

*    *    *

I’ve recently developed a genuinely monetary, credit-driven model of the economy, and one of its first insights is that Obama has been sold a pup on the right way to stimulate the economy: he would have got far more bang for his buck by giving the stimulus to the debtors rather than the creditors.

* * *

The model shows that you get far more “bang for your buck” by giving the money to firms, rather than banks. Unemployment falls in both case below the level that would have applied in the absence of the stimulus, but the reduction in unemployment is far greater when the firms get the stimulus, not the banks: unemployment peaks at over 18 percent without the stimulus, just over 13 percent with the stimulus going to the banks, but under11 percent with the stimulus being given to the firms.

*    * *

So giving the stimulus to the debtors is a more potent way of reducing the impact of a credit crunch — the opposite of the advice given to Obama by his neoclassical advisers.

This could also be one reason that the Australian experience has been better than the USA’s: the stimulus in Australia has emphasized funding the public rather than the banks (and the model shows the same impact from giving money to the workers as from giving it to the firms — and for the same reason, that workers have to spend, so that the money injected into the economy circulates more rapidly.

*    * *

Obama has been sold a pup by neoclassical economics: not only did neoclassical theory help cause the crisis, by championing the growth of private debt and the asset bubbles it financed; it also is undermining efforts to reduce the severity of the crisis.

This is unfortunately the good news: the bad news is that this model only considers an economy undergoing a “credit crunch”, and not also one suffering from a serious debt overhang that only a direct reduction in debt can tackle. That is our actual problem, and while a stimulus will work for awhile, the drag from debt-deleveraging is still present. The economy will therefore lapse back into recession soon after the stimulus is removed.

You can be sure that if we head into a “double-dip” recession as Professor Keen expects, the President will never hear the end of it. If only Mr. Obama had stuck with his campaign promise of “no more trickle-down economics”, we wouldn’t have so many people wishing they lived in Australia.

1988 Republican National Convention, ABN Amro Bank, American capitalism, Australia, bank bailout, bank stocks, banking crisis, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Bill Clinton, blog, Bloomberg news, campaign promises, centrist, Citibank, Commentary, comprehensive bank bailout plan, conflict of interest, Congress, conservative, credit default swaps, crony capitalism, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, Deutsche Bank Trust, economic crisis, economics, economists, Elizabeth Warren, equities markets, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, financial crisis, financial institutions as too big to fail, financial meltdown, financial reform, George H W Bush, government guarantees, hair of the dog, insolvent banks, investment banks, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Judge Loretta Preska, Larry Summers, liberal, liquidity provider of last resort, Michael Hudson, money printing, moral hazard, mortgage-backed securities, Nassim Taleb, neoclassical economics, New York Stock Exchange, News, Niall Ferguson, no more trickle down economics, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, one trillion dollars, Opinion, Pat Buchanan, Pat Choate, Peggy Noonan, Political, Politics, President of the United States, Read my lips No new taxes, Republican, Republican Party, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, socialized loss and privatized gain, Steve Keen, stock markets, stress tests, systemic risk, systemic risk regulator, TARP, TARP bailout, taxpayer subsidies to investment banks, taxpayers, The Bank of New York Mellon, the banks, The Broken Promise, the center lane, The Clearing House, the economy, The Huffington Post, the money multiplier myth, The White House, thecenterlane, too big to fail, toxic assets, Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Turbo Tim Geithner, UBS, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street meltdown, wealth transfer, welfare for the rich, Wells Fargo, zombie banks

The Window Of Opportunity Is Closing

September 17th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

Sep, 17 2009

Comments Off

September 17, 2009

In my last posting, I predicted that President Obama’s speech on financial reform would be “fine-sounding, yet empty”. As it turned out, many commentators have described the speech as just that. There weren’t many particulars discussed at all. As Caroline Baum reported for Bloomberg News:

At times he sounded more like a parent scolding a disobedient child than a president proposing a new regulatory framework.

“We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis,” Obama said in a speech at Federal Hall in New York City. (“You will not stay out until 2 a.m. again.”)

* * *

Obama warned “those on Wall Street” against taking “risks without regard for consequences,” expecting the American taxpayer to foot the bill. But his words rang hollow.

* * *

But you can’t, with words alone, alter the perception — now more entrenched than ever — that the government won’t allow large institutions to fail.

How do you convince bankers they will pay for their risk-taking when they’ve watched the government prop up banks, investment banks, insurance companies, auto companies and housing finance agencies?

They learn by example. The system of privatized profits and socialized losses has suited them fine until now.

Although the President had originally voiced support for expanding the authority of the Federal Reserve to include the role of “systemic risk regulator”, Ms. Baum noted that Allan Meltzer, professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University, believes that Mr. Obama has backed away from that ill-conceived notion:

“The Senate Banking Committee doesn’t want to give the Fed more power,” Meltzer said. “I’ve never seen such unanimity, and I’ve been testifying before the committee since 1962.”

Ms. Baum took that criticism a step further with her observation that the mission undertaken by any systemic risk regulator would not likely fare well:

Bankers Outfox Regulators

It is fantasy to believe a new, bigger, better regulator will ferret out problems before they grow to system-sinking size. Those being regulated are always one-step ahead of the regulator, finding new cracks or loopholes in the regulatory fabric to exploit. When the Basel II accord imposed higher risk- based capital requirements on international banks, banks moved assets off the balance sheet.

What’s more, regulators tend to identify with those they regulate, a phenomenon known as “regulatory capture,” making it highly unlikely that a new regulator would succeed where previous ones have failed.

At this point in the economic crisis, with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s recent declaration that the recession is “very likely over”, there is concern that President Obama’s incipient attempt at enacting financial reform may already be too late. A number of commentators have elaborated on this theme. At Credit Writedowns, Edward Harrison made this observation:

If you are looking for reform in the financial sector, the moment has passed. And only to the degree that the underlying weaknesses in the global financial system are made manifest and threaten the economy will we see any appetite for reform amongst politicians. So, as I see it, the Obama administration has missed the opportunity for reform.

More important, the following point by Mr. Harrison has been expressed in several recent essays:

Irrespective, I believe the need for reform is clear. Those gloom & doom economists were right because the economic model which brought us to the brink of disaster in 2008 is the same one we have at present and that necessarily means another crisis will come.

At MSN’s MoneyCentral, Michael Brush shared that same fear in a piece entitled, “Why a meltdown could happen again”:

Some observers say it’s OK that a year has gone by without reform; we don’t want to get it wrong. But the political reality is that as the urgency passes, it’s harder to pass reforms.

“We have lulled ourselves into the mind-set that we are out of the woods, when we aren’t,” says Cornelius Hurley, the director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University School of Law. “I don’t think time is our friend here. We risk losing the sense of urgency so that nothing happens.”

* * *

Douglas Elliott, a former JPMorgan investment banker now with the Brookings Institution, thinks the unofficial deadline for financial-sector reform is now October 2010 — right before the next congressional elections.

That leaves lawmakers a full year to get the job done.

But given all the details they have to work out — and the declining sense of urgency as stocks keep ticking higher — you have to wonder how much progress they’ll make.

On the other hand, back at Credit Writedowns, Edward Harrison voiced skepticism that such a deadline would be met:

You are kidding yourself if you think real reform is coming to the financial sector before the mid-term elections, especially with healthcare, two wars and the need to ensure recovery still on politicians’ plates. Obama could go for real reform in 2011 — or in a second term in 2013. But, unless economic crisis is at our door, there isn’t a convincing argument which says reform is necessary.

At The Washington Post, Brady Dennis discussed the Pecora Commission of the early 1930s, which investigated the causes of the Great Depression, and ultimately provided a basis for reforms of Wall Street and the banking industry. Mr. Dennis pointed out how the success of the Pecora Commission was rooted in the fact that populist outrage provided the fuel to help mobilize reform efforts, and he contrasted that situation with where we are now:

“Pecora’s success was his ability to crystallize the anger that a lot of Americans were feeling toward Wall Street,” said Michael Perino, a law professor at St. John’s University and author of an upcoming book about the hearings. “He was able to create a clamor for reform.”

But Pecora also realized that such clamor was fleeting

* * *

“We’ve passed the moment when there’s this palpable anger directed at the financial community,” Perino said of the current crisis. “When you leave the immediate vicinity of the crisis, as you get farther and farther away in time, the urgency fades.”

Unfortunately, we appear to be at a point where it is too late to develop regulations against many of the excesses that led to last year’s financial crisis. Beyond that, many people who allowed the breakdown to occur (Bernanke, Geithner, et al.) are still in charge and the players who gamed the system with complex financial instruments are back at it again, with new derivatives — even some based on life insurance policies. Perhaps another harbinger of doom can be seen in this recent Bloomberg article: “Credit Swaps Lose Crisis Stigma as Confidence Returns”. Nevertheless, from our current perspective, some of us don’t have that much confidence in our financial system or our leadership.

AIG, Allan Meltzer, American capitalism, American International Group, bad publicity, Bankers Outfox Regulators, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, blog, Bloomberg news, Boston University School of Law, Brady Dennis, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Mellon University, Caroline Baum, centrist, Commentary, conflict of interest, Congress, conservative, Cornelius Hurley, credit default swaps, Credit Swaps Lose Crisis Stigma, Credit Writedowns, crony capitalism, Democrat, Democratic Party, Democrats, Douglas Elliott, economic crisis, economics, Edward Harrison, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Hall, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, financial crisis, financial institutions as too big to fail, financial reform, government guarantees, investment banks, John Burke, John T Burke Jr, liberal, lobbyists, Michael Brush, Michael Perino, MoneyCentral, moral hazard, msn, New York Stock Exchange, News, NYSE, Obama Administration, Obama Presidency, Opinion, Pecora Commission, Political, Politics, President of the United States, regulatory capture, Republican, Republican Party, SEC, securities, Securities and Exchange Commission, Senate Banking Committee, socialized loss and privatized gain, St Johns University, stock markets, systemic risk regulator, taxpayers, the banks, the center lane, the economy, The Washington Post, The White House, The Window Of Opportunity Is Closing, thecenterlane, too big to fail, transparency, Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Turbo Tim Geithner, United States Senate, United States Treasury, Wall Street, Wall Street lobbyists, welfare for the rich, Why a meltdown could happen again

TheCenterLane.com

© 2008 – 2024 John T. Burke, Jr.

Getting It Right

Watching For Storm Clouds

Offering Solutions

Bait And Switch

Simon Johnson In The Spotlight

The Next Big Fight

Spread The Word

Turning Over A Rock

The Broken Promise

The Window Of Opportunity Is Closing

Tip Jar

Recent Posts

Stock Market

Blogroll

Archives

About TheCenterLane.com