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Unrealistic Expectations

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April 22, 2010

Newsweek’s Daniel Gross is back at it again.  His cover story for Newsweek’s April 9 issue is another attempt to make a preemptive strike at writing history.  You may remember his cover story for the magazine’s July 25 issue, entitled:  “The Recession Is Over”.  During the eight months since the publication of that article, the sober-minded National Bureau of Economic Research, or NBER —  which is charged with making the determination that a recession has ended – has yet to make such a proclamation.

The most recent cover story by Daniel Gross, “The Comeback Country” has drawn plenty of criticism.  (The magazine cover used the headline “America’s Back” to introduce the piece.)  At The Huffington Post, Dan Dorfman discussed the article with Olivier Garret, the CEO of Casey Research, an economic and investment consulting firm.  Garret described the Newsweek cover story as “fantasy journalism” and he shared a number of observations with Dan Dorfman:

“You know when a magazine like Newsweek touts a bullish economic recovery on its cover, just the opposite is likely to be the case,” he says.  “It sees superficial signs of improvement, but it’s ignoring the big picture.”

*   *   *

Meanwhile, Garret sees additional signs of economic anguish.  Among them:  More foreclosures and delinquencies of real estate properties will plague construction spending; banks haven’t yet cleaned up their balance sheets; private debt is no longer going down as it did in 2009; both short and long term rates should be headed higher, and many companies, he says, tell him they’re reluctant to invest and hire.

He also sees some major corporate bankruptcies, worries about the country’s ability to repay its debt, looks for rising cost of capital, which should further slow the economy, and expects a spreading sovereign debt crisis.

*  *  *

Many economists are projecting GDP growth in the range of 3% to 4% in the first quarter and similar growth for the entire year.  Much too optimistic, Garret tells me.  His outlook (which would clobber the stock market if he’s right):  up 0.4%-0.5% in the first quarter after revisions and between 0% and 1% for all of 2010.

“Fantasy economies only work in the mind, not in real life,” he says.

Given his bleak economic outlook, Garret expects a major market adjustment, say about a 10% to 20% decline in stock prices over the next six months.  He figures it could be triggered by one event, such as as an extension of the sovereign debt crisis.

David Cottle of The Wall Street Journal had this reaction to the Newsweek article:

Therefore, when you see a cover such as Newsweek’s recent effort, yelling “America’s Back” in no uncertain terms, it’s quite tempting to stock up on bonds, cash, tinned goods and ammunition.

Now, in fairness to the author, Daniel Goss, he makes the good point that the U.S. economy is growing at a clip that has consistently surprised gloomy forecasters.  It is.  The turnaround we’ve seen since Lehman Brothers imploded has been remarkable, if not entirely satisfying, he says, and he is quite right.  At the very least, U.S. growth is all-too-predictably leaving the European version in the dust.  Goss is also pretty upfront about the corners of the U.S. economy that have so far failed to keep up:  job creation and the housing market being the most obvious.

However, the problem with all these ‘back to normal’ pieces, and Goss’s is only one of many creeping out as the sky resolutely fails to fall in, is that the ‘normal’ they want to go back to was, in reality, anything but.

The financial sector remains unreformed, the global economy remains dangerously unbalanced.  The perilous highways that brought us to 2007 have not been sealed off in favor of straighter, if slower, roads.  Of course it would be great for us all if America were ‘back’ and so we must hope Newsweek’s cover doesn’t join the ranks of those which cruel history renders unintentionally hilarious .

But back where?  That’s the real question.

Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center has turned to Americans themselves to find out just how “back” America really is.  This report from April 20 didn’t seem to resonate so well with the rosy picture painted by Daniel Gross:

Americans are united in the belief that the economy is in bad shape (92% give it a negative rating), and for many the repercussions are hitting close to home.  Fully 70% of Americans say they have faced one or more job or financial-related problems in the past year, up from 59% in February 2009.  Jobs have become difficult to find in local communities for 85% of Americans.  A majority now says that someone in their household has been without a job or looking for work (54%); just 39% said this in February 2009. Only a quarter reports receiving a pay raise or a better job in the past year (24%), while almost an equal number say they have been laid off or lost a job (21%).

As economic conditions continue to deteriorate for middle-class Americans, the first few months of 2009 are already looking like “the good old days”.   The “comeback” isn’t looking too good.



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Getting It Reich

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April 8, 2010

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, has been hitting more than a few home runs lately.   At a time when too many commentators remain in lock-step with their favorite political party, Reich pulls no punches when pointing out the flaws in the Obama administration’s agenda.  I particularly enjoyed his reaction to the performance of Larry Summers on ABC television’s This Week on April 4:

I’m in the “green room” at ABC News, waiting to join a roundtable panel discussion on ABC’s weekly Sunday news program, This Week.

*   *   *

Larry Summers was interviewed just before Greenspan. He said the economy is expanding, that the Administration is doing everything it can to bring jobs back, and that the regulatory reform bills moving on the Hill will prevent another financial crisis.

What?

*   *   *

If any three people are most responsible for the failure of financial regulation, they are Greenspan, Larry Summers, and my former colleague, Bob Rubin.

*   *   *

I dislike singling out individuals for blame or praise in a political system as complex as that of the United States but I worry the nation is not on the right economic road, and that these individuals — one of whom advises the President directly and the others who continue to exert substantial influence among policy makers — still don’t get it.

The direction financial reform is taking is not encouraging.  Both the bill that emerged from the House and the one emerging from the Senate are filled with loopholes that continue to allow reckless trading of derivatives.  Neither bill adequately prevents banks from becoming insolvent because of their reckless trades.  Neither limits the size of banks or busts up the big ones.  Neither resurrects the Glass-Steagall Act. Neither adequately regulates hedge funds.

More fundamentally, neither bill begins to rectify the basic distortion in the national economy whose rewards and incentives are grotesquely tipped toward Wall Street and financial entrepreneurialism, and away from Main Street and real entrepreneurialism.

Is it because our elected officials just don’t understand what needs to be done to prevent another repeat of the financial crisis – or is the unwillingness to take preventative action the result of pressure from lobbyists?  I think they’re just playing dumb while they line their pockets with all of that legalized graft. Meanwhile, Professor Reich continued to function as the only adult in the room, with this follow-up piece:

Needless to say, the danger of an even bigger cost in coming years continues to grow because we still don’t have a new law to prevent what happened from happening again.  In fact, now that they know for sure they’ll be bailed out, Wall Street banks – and those who lend to them or invest in them – have every incentive to take even bigger risks.  In effect, taxpayers are implicitly subsidizing them to do so.

*   *   *

But the only way to make sure no bank it too big to fail is to make sure no bank is too big.  If Congress and the White House fail to do this, you have every reason to believe it’s because Wall Street has paid them not to.

Reich’s recent criticism of the Federal Reserve was another sorely-needed antidote to Ben Bernanke’s recent rise to media-designated sainthood.  In an essay quoting Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Reich transcended the polarized political climate to focus on the fact that the mysterious Fed enjoys inappropriate authority:

The Fed has finally came clean.  It now admits it bailed out Bear Stearns – taking on tens of billions of dollars of the bank’s bad loans – in order to smooth Bear Stearns’ takeover by JP Morgan Chase.  The secret Fed bailout came months before Congress authorized the government to spend up to $700 billion of taxpayer dollars bailing out the banks, even months before Lehman Brothers collapsed.  The Fed also took on billions of dollars worth of AIG securities, also before the official government-sanctioned bailout.

The losses from those deals still total tens of billions, and taxpayers are ultimately on the hook.  But the public never knew.  There was no congressional oversight.  It was all done behind closed doors. And the New York Fed – then run by Tim Geithner – was very much in the center of the action.

*   *   *

The Fed has a big problem.  It acts in secret.  That makes it an odd duck in a democracy.  As long as it’s merely setting interest rates, its secrecy and political independence can be justified. But once it departs from that role and begins putting billions of dollars of taxpayer money at risk — choosing winners and losers in the capitalist system — its legitimacy is questionable.

You probably thought that Ron Paul was the only one who spoke that way about the Federal Reserve.  Fortunately, when people such as Robert Reich speak out concerning the huge economic and financial dysfunction afflicting America, there is a greater likelihood that those with the authority to implement the necessary reforms will do the right thing.  We can only hope.



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Seeing Reality With Gold Glasses

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March 8, 2010

The most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics concerning non-farm payrolls for the month of February has surprised most people and it has left a number of commentators feeling upbeat.  Reuters had reported that “The median forecast from the ten most accurate forecasters is for payrolls to fall by 70,000.”  Nevertheless, the BLS report disclosed a figure of approximately half that much.  Only 36,000 jobs had been lost and unemployment was holding at 9.7%.   One enthusiastic reaction to that news came from the Mad Hedge Fund Trader:

While the employment rate for those with no high school diploma is 16%, the kind of worker who lost their manufacturing jobs to China, the jobless rate for those with college degrees is only 4.5%.  This is proof that the dying sectors of the US economy are delivering the highest unemployment rates, and that America is clawing its way up the value chain in the global race for economic supremacy.  It is what America does best, creative destruction with a turbocharger.  There is a third influence here, which could be huge.  The BLS only contacts existing businesses for its survey.

*   *   *

The bottom line is that payroll figures are much better than they appear at first glance.

Prior to the release of that report, many commentators had been expressing their disappointment concerning the most recent economic indicators.  I discussed that subject on March 1.  On the following day, John Crudele of The New York Post focused on the dramatic drop in the Consumer Confidence Index, released by The Conference Board — a drop to 46 in February from January’s 56.5.  Here is the conclusion Mr. Crudele reached in assessing what most middle-class Americans understand about our current economic state:

Even with the stock market still bubbling and media trying its damnedest to convince us at least a million times a day that there’s an economic recovery, the American public isn’t buying it.

*   *   *

The economy has stabilized since then, helped greatly by the fact that some wealthy people feel wealthier because of an unbelievable snap back by the stock market during 2009.  (And by unbelievable in this context I mean that what happened shouldn’t be believed as either legitimate or sustainable.)

Don Luskin of The Wall Street Journal’s Smart Money blog articulated his dissatisfaction with the most recent economic indicators on February 26.  One week later, Luskin presented us with a very informative analysis for understanding the true value of one’s investments.  Luskin spelled it out this way:

Consider stocks priced not in money, but in gold.  In other words, instead of thinking of stocks as investments you make in order to increase your wealth in dollars, think of them as something to increase your wealth in gold.  After all, you don’t want to make money for its own sake — you want the money for what you can buy with it.  Gold is a symbol for all the things you might want to buy.

*   *   *

It’s easy to track stocks priced in gold because the price of the S&P 500 and the price of an ounce of gold vary closely with one another.  As of Thursday’s close, they were only about $10 apart, with the S&P 500 at 1123, and gold at about 1133.

How about a year ago, on the day of the bottom for stocks on March 9?  That day the S&P 500 closed at 676.53.  Gold closed at 920.85.  That means that one “unit” of the S&P could have bought 73% of an ounce of gold.

Today, with stocks and gold each having risen over the last year — but with stocks rising more — one “unit” of the S&P can buy 99% of an ounce of gold.  All we have to do is compare 73% a year ago to 99% now, and we can see that stocks, priced in gold, have risen 34.9%.

A 34.9% gain for stocks priced in gold is pretty good for a year’s work.  But it’s a far cry from the 69.1% that stocks have gained when they are priced in dollars.  Do you see what has happened here?  Stocks have made you lots of dollars.  But the dollar itself has fallen in value compared to the real and eternal value represented by gold.

Here’s the most troubling part.  The entire 34.9% gain made by stocks — priced in gold, that is — was achieved in just the first five weeks of rallying from the March 2009 bottom.  That means for most of the last year, since mid-April, while it has appeared that stocks have been furiously rallying, in reality they’ve just been sitting there.  All risk, no reward.

*   *   *

So why, then, did stocks — priced in dollars, not gold — continue so much higher?  Simple:  We experienced inflation-induced growth.  Throw enough stimulus money, an “extended period” of zero interest rates from the Fed, and a big dose of government debt at the economy, and you will get some growth — and, eventually, lots of inflation.

Luskin concluded the piece by explaining that if stocks move higher while gold moves lower, we will be seeing evidence of real growth.  On the other hand, if gold increases in value while stocks go down or simply get stuck where they are, there is no economic growth.

Luskin’s approach allows us to see through all that money-printing and excess liquidity Ben Bernanke has brought to the stock market, creating an illusion of increased value.

Everyone is hoping to see evidence of economic recovery as soon as possible.  Don Luskin has provided us with the “x-ray specs” for seeing through the hype to determine whether some of that evidence is real.



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A Wary Eye On The Indicators

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March 1, 2010

The past few days brought us some observations by a number of financial commentators, who expressed concern about how our economic recovery is coming along.  Although none of the following three are ready to start sounding alarms, they all seem to share a similar tone of discouragement.

Don Luskin of The Wall Street Journal ’s Smart Money blog began his February 26 piece with an explanation of how proud he used to be about the accuracy of his May, 2009 declaration that the recession had ended.  Although he still believes that he made the right call back then, the most recent economic indicators have muddied the picture:

I made my recession end call in May because of an entirely different set of statistics, designed to be predictive rather than merely to recognize what has already happened.  What worries me is that these statistics have all started to get a little worse recently.

Luskin explained that although initial unemployment claims reached their peak in early April, the four-week moving average has risen 7 percent from where it was a few weeks ago.

Over history, upticks like that have no predictive value.  There have been many of them, and very few have led to recessions.  Still, 7% is a big reversal.  In May when I got excited about the drop in claims, that drop was only about 4%!

Luskin found another disappointing trend in the fact that earnings expectations for the S&P 500 are now growing at a much slower pace than they were in April.  Two other trends concerned him as well.  The fact that the dollar has rallied ten percent in the last couple of months raises the question whether “the fear that gripped world markets in 2008 and 2009” could be returning.  Finally, the fact that the credit spread between Treasuries and “junk bonds” is now at six percent after having been below 5%, brings a little discomfort simply because of a move in the wrong direction.  Nevertheless, Luskin is still optimistic, although his perspective is tempered with realism:

So is the economic recovery over?  I don’t think so.  I think it’s just being tested.  None of the indicators I use to detect the onset of recession are giving signals.  But it’s haunting, nevertheless.  After the horrific global recession we went through, you’d think we ought to come roaring back. We’re back, but we’re not exactly roaring.

In Sunday’s Washington Post, Frank Ahrens wrote an article discussing three indicators that “spell trouble for the recovery”.  Here’s how he explained them:

— On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that January new-home sales dropped 11.2 percent from December, plunging to their lowest level in nearly 50 years.

— On Tuesday, the Conference Board reported that February consumer confidence fell sharply from January, driven down by the survey’s “present situation index” — how confident consumers feel right now — which hit its lowest mark since the 1983 recession.  On Friday, the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey also showed a falloff from January to February.

— On Thursday, the government’s report on new jobless claims filed during the previous week shot up 22,000, which was exactly opposite of what economists predicted.  Forecasters expected new jobless claims to drop by about 20,000.

Taken together, what do these reports tell us?

We’ve got a long way to go to get out of this economic mess, and we may be actually losing a little ground.

At the conclusion of that piece, Mr. Ahrens added that another factor holding back recovery is the current state of activity in the stock market.  Investors seem to be exhibiting caution, uncertainty and “a hard-to-shake sense that we haven’t hit bottom yet”.

As I frequently point out, one of my favorite financial gurus is Jeremy Grantham of GMO.  The February 26 issue of Bloomberg Business Week featured an article by Charles Stein concerning Grantham’s career.  In the section of the piece discussing Grantham’s current outlook, we see yet another view toward a very lean, slow recovery process:

Grantham’s favorite asset class today is high-quality U.S.stocks, companies defined by high, stable returns and low debt.  The allocation fund had 31 percent of its money in that category at year-end, sometimes called blue chips, according to the GMO Web site.  In the interview, he said he expects such stocks to return an average of 6.8 percent a year over the next seven years, compared with 1.3 percent for all large-cap U.S. stocks.

Emerging-market stocks may rise about 4 percent annually in the next seven years, as investor enthusiasm for economic growth in developing countries carries the stocks to unsustainable levels, Grantham said.

“Why not go along for the ride?” he said.  The MSCI Emerging Markets Index returned an average of 22 percent in the past seven years, compared with a gain of 5.5 percent by the S&P 500 index.

U.S.government bonds will return 1.1 percent a year over the seven-year period, according to the latest GMO forecast.  The Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Treasury Master Index rose 4.3 percent from 2003 through 2009.

Grantham said he expects a difficult, not disastrous, period for the economy and investments.

“It will feel like the 1970s,” he said. “One step forward, one step back.”

None of the three gentlemen whom I have quoted here are seeing visions of rainbows and unicorns in our economic future — at least not for the next few years.  Be sure to keep the opinions of these experts in mind if the cheerleading by some perma-bull, TV pundit motivates you to “get in on the ground floor of the next stock market rally”.  You could save yourself a lot of money and even more pain.



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Three New Books For March

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February 24, 2010

The month of March brings us three new books about the financial crisis.  The authors are not out to make apologies for anyone.  To the contrary, they point directly at the villains and expose the systemic flaws that were exploited by those who still may yet destroy the world economy.  All three of these books are available at the Amazon widget on the sidebar at the left side of this page.

Regular fans of the Naked Capitalism blog have been following the progress of Yves Smith on her new book, ECONned:  How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism.  It will be released on March 2.  Here is some information about the book from the product description at the Amazon website:

ECONned is the first book to examine the unquestioned role of economists as policy-makers, and how they helped create an unmitigated economic disaster.

Here, Yves Smith looks at how economists in key policy positions put doctrine before hard evidence, ignoring the deteriorating conditions and rising dangers that eventually led them, and us, off the cliff and into financial meltdown.  Intelligently written for the layman, Smith takes us on a terrifying investigation of the financial realm over the last twenty-five years of misrepresentations, naive interpretations of economic conditions, rationalizations of bad outcomes, and rejection of clear signs of growing instability.

In eConned (sic), author Yves Smith reveals:

–why the measures taken by the Obama Administration are mere palliatives and are unlikely to pave the way for a solid recovery

–how economists have come to play a profoundly anti-democratic role in policy

–how financial models and concepts that were discredited more than thirty years ago are still widely used by banks, regulators, and investors

–how management and employees of major financial firms looted them, enriching themselves and leaving the mess to taxpayers

–how financial regulation enabled predatory behavior by Wall Street towards investors

–how economics has no theory of financial systems, yet economists fearlessly prescribe how to manage them

Michael Lewis is the author of the wildly-popular book, Liar’s Poker, based on his experience as a bond trader for Solomon Brothers in the mid-80s.  His new book, The BigShort: Inside the Doomsday Machine, will be released on March 15.  Here is some of what Amazon’s product description says about it:

A brilliant account — character-rich and darkly humorous — of how the U.S. economy was driven over the cliff.

*   *   *

Michael Lewis’s splendid cast of characters includes villains, a few heroes, and a lot of people who look very, very foolish:  high government officials, including the watchdogs; heads of major investment banks (some overlap here with previous category); perhaps even the face in your mirror.  In this trenchant, raucous, irresistible narrative, Lewis writes of the goats and of the few who saw what the emperor was wearing, and gives them, most memorably, what they deserve.  He proves yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our times.

Our third author, Simon Johnson, recently co-authored an article for CenterPiece with Peter Boone entitled, “The Doomsday Cycle” which explains how “we have let a ‘doomsday cycle’ infiltrate our economic system”.  The essay contains a number of proposals for correcting this problem.  Here is one of them:

We believe that the best route to creating a safer system is to have very large and robust capital requirements, which are legislated and difficult to circumvent or revise.  If we triple core capital at major banks to15-25% of assets, and err on the side of requiring too much capital for derivatives and other complicated financial structures, we will create a much safer system with less scope for “gaming” the rules.

Simon Johnson is a professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.  From 2007-2008, he was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.  With James Kwak, he is the co-publisher of The Baseline Scenario website.  Johnson and Kwak have written a new book entitled, 13 Bankers:  The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.  Although this book won’t be released until March 30, the Amazon website has already quoted from reviews by the following people:  Bill Bradley, Robert Reich, Arianna Huffington, Bill Moyers, Alan Grayson, Brad Miller, Elizabeth Warren and others.  Professor Warren must be a Democrat, based on the affiliation of nearly everyone else who reviewed the book.

Here is some of what can be found in Amazon’s product description:

.  .  .  a wide-ranging, meticulous, and bracing account of recent U.S. financial history within the context of previous showdowns between American democracy and Big Finance: from Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson, from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  They convincingly show why our future is imperiled by the ideology of finance (finance is good, unregulated finance is better, unfettered finance run amok is best) and by Wall Street’s political control of government policy pertaining to it.

As these authors make the talk show circuit to promote their books during the coming weeks, the American public will hearing repeated pleas to demand that our elected officials take action to stop the mercenary financial behemoths from destroying the world.  Perhaps the message will finally hit home.

If you are interested in any of these three books, they’re available on the right side of this page.



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A Look Ahead

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December 7, 2009

As 2010 approaches, expect the usual bombardment of prognostications from the stars of the info-tainment industry, concerning everything from celebrity divorces to the nuclear ambitions of Iran.   Meanwhile, those of us preferring quality news reporting must increasingly rely on internet-based venues to seek out the views of more trustworthy sources on the many serious subjects confronting the world.  On October 29, I discussed the most recent GMO Quarterly Newsletter from financial wizard Jeremy Grantham and his expectation that the stock market will undergo a

“correction” or drop of approximately 20 percent next year.   Grantham’s paper inspired others to ponder the future of the troubled American economy and the overheated stock market.  Mark Hulbert, editor of The Hulbert Financial Digest, wrote a piece for the December 5 edition of The New York Times, picking up on Jeremy Grantham’s stock performance expectations.  Hulbert noted Grantham’s continuing emphasis on “high-quality, blue chip” stocks as the most likely to perform well in the coming year.  Grantham’s rationale is based on the fact that the recent stock market rally was excessively biased in favor of junk stocks, rather than the higher-quality “blue chips”, such as Wal-Mart.  Hulbert noted how Wal-mart shares gained only 14 percent since March 9, while the shares of the debt-laden electronics services firm, Sanmina-SCI, have risen more than 600 percent during that same period.  Hulbert pointed out that the conclusion to be reached from this information should be pretty obvious:

As an unintended consequence, Mr. Grantham said, high-quality stocks today are about as cheap as they have ever been relative to shares of firms with weaker finances.

It’s almost a certain bet that high-quality blue chips will outperform lower-quality stocks over the longer term,” he said.

My favorite reaction to Jeremy Grantham’s newsletter came from Paul Farrell of MarketWatch, who emphasized Grantham’s broader view for the economy as a whole, rather than taking a limited focus on stock performance.  Farrell targeted President Obama’s “predictably irrational” economic policies by presenting us with a handy outline of Grantham’s criticism of those policies.  Farrell prefaced his outline with this statement:

So please listen closely to his 14-point analysis of the rampant irrationality at the highest level of American government today, because what he is also predicting is another catastrophic meltdown dead ahead.

At the first point in the outline, Farrell made this observation:

If Grantham ever was a fan, he’s clearly disillusioned with the president.   His 14 points expose the extremely irrational behavior of Obama breaking promises by turning Washington over to Wall Street, a blunder that will trigger the Great Depression 2.

Farrell’s discussion included a reference to the latest article by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone, entitled “Obama’s Big Sellout”.  The Rolling Stone website described Taibbi’s latest essay in these terms:

In “Obama’s Big Sellout”, Matt Taibbi argues that President Obama has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway.  Rather than keeping his progressive campaign advisers on board, Taibbi says Obama gave key economic positions in the White House to the very people who caused the economic crisis in the first place.  Taibbi also points to the ties Obama’s appointees have to one main in particular:  Bob Rubin, the former Goldman Sachs co-chairman who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton.

Since the article is not available online yet, you will have to purchase the latest issue of Rolling Stone or wait patiently for the release of their next issue, at which time “Obama’s Big Sellout” should be online.  In the mean time, they have provided this brief video of Matt Taibbi’s discussion of the piece.

The new year will also bring us a new book by Danny Schecter, entitled The Crime of Our Time.  Mr. Schecter recently discussed this book in a live interview with Max Keiser.  (The interview begins at 16:55 into the video.)  In discussing the book, Schecter explained how “the financial industry essentially de-regulated its own marketplace.  They got rid of the laws that required disclosure and accountability …” and created a “shadow banking system”.  Shechter’s previous book, Plunder, has now become a film that will be released soon.  In Plunder, he described how the subprime mortgage crisis nearly destroyed the American economy.  The interview by Max Keiser contains a short clip from the upcoming film.  Danny also directed the movie based on (and named after) his 2006 book, In Debt We Trust, wherein he predicted the bursting of the credit bubble.

It was right at this point last year when Danny’s father died.  The event is easy for me to remember because my own father died one week later.  At that time, I was comforted by reading Danny’s eloquent piece about his father’s death.  Danny was kind enough to respond to the e-mail I had sent him since, as an old fan from his days at WBCN radio in Boston, during the early 1970s, my friends and I tried our best to provide Danny with any leads we came across.  These days, it’s good to see that Danny Schechter “The News Dissector” is still at it with the same vigor he demonstrated more than thirty-five years ago.  I look forward to his new book and the new film.



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Call Him The Dimon Dog

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November 16, 2009

It seems as though once an individual rises to a significant level of influence and authority, that person becomes “too big for straight talk”.  We’ve seen it happen with politicians, prominent business people and others caught-up in the “leadership” racket.  Influential people are well aware of the unforeseen consequences resulting from a candid, direct response to a simple question.  Mindful of those hazards, a rhetorical technique employing equivocation, qualification and obfuscation is cultivated in order to avoid responsibility for what could eventually become exposed as a brain fart.

Since last year’s financial crisis began, we have heard plenty of debate over the concept of “too big to fail” —  the idea that a bank is so large and interconnected with other important financial institutions that its failure could pose a threat to the entire financial system.  Recent efforts at financial reform have targeted the “too big to fail” (TBTF) concept, with differing approaches toward downsizing or breaking up those institutions with “systemic risk” potential.  Treasury Secretary “Turbo” Tim Geithner was the first to use doublespeak as a weapon against those attempting to eliminate TBTF status.  When he testified before the House Financial Services Committee on September 23 to explain his planned financial reform agenda, Geithner attempted to create the illusion that his plan would resolve the “too big to fail” problem:

First, we cannot allow firms to reap the benefits of explicit or implicit government subsidies without very strong government oversight.  We must substantially reduce the moral hazard created by the perception that these subsidies exist; address their corrosive effects on market discipline; and minimize their encouragement of risk-taking.

So, in other words … the government subsidies to those institutions will continue, but only if the recipients get “very strong government oversight”.  In his next sentence, Geithner expressed his belief that the moral hazard was created “by the perception that these subsidies exist” rather than the FACT that they exist.  At a subsequent House Financial Services Committee hearing on October 29, Geithner again tried to trick his audience into believing that the administration’s latest reform plan was opposed to TBTF status.  As Jim Kuhnhenn and Anne Flaherty reported for The Huffington Post, representatives from both sides of the isle saw right through Geithner’s smokescreen:

Others argue that by singling out financial firms important to the economy, the government could inevitably set itself up to bail them out, and that even dismantling rather than rescuing them would take taxpayer money.

“Apparently, the ‘too big to fail’ model is too hard to kill,” quipped Republican Rep. Ed Royce of California.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., called the bill “TARP on steroids,” referring to the government’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund.

On Friday the 13th, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, stole the spotlight in this debate with an opinion piece published by The Washington Post.  Dimon pretended to be opposed to the TBTF concept and quoted from his fellow double-talker, Turbo Tim.  Dimon then made this assertion:  “The term ‘too big to fail’ must be excised from our vocabulary.”  He followed with the qualification that ending TBTF “does not mean that we must somehow cap the size of financial-services firms.”  Dimon proceeded to argue against the creation of “artificial limits” on the size of financial institutions.  In other words:  Dimon would like to see Congress enact a law that could never be applied because it would contain no metric for its own applicability.

Criticism of Dimon’s Washington Post piece was immediate and widespread, especially considering the fact that his own JP Morgan is a TBTF All Star.  David Weidner explained it for MarketWatch this way:

In other words, Dimon favors a regulatory system for unwinding failing institutions — he believes no bank should be too big to fail — but doesn’t seem to like the global effort, endorsed by the G-20, to encourage smaller, less-connected institutions.  He wants to let big institutions be big.

The best criticism of Dimon’s article came from my blogging buddy, Adrienne Gonzalez, a/k/a  Jr Deputy Accountant.  She pointed out that the report for the first quarter of 2009 by the Office of the Currency Comptroller revealed that JP Morgan Chase holds 81 trillion dollars’ worth of derivatives contracts, putting it in first place on the OCC list of what she called “derivatives offenders”.  After quoting the passage in Dimon’s piece concerning the procedure for winding-down “a large financial institution”, Adrienne made this point:

Interesting and a great read but useless in practical application.  Does Dimon really believe this?  With $81 TRILLION in notional derivatives exposure, I don’t see how an FDIC for investment banks could possibly unwind such a tangled mess in an orderly fashion.  He’s joking, right?

For an interesting portrayal of The Dimon Dog, you might want to take a look at an article by Paul Barrett, entitled “I, Banker”.   It was actually a book review Barrett wrote for The New York Times concerning a biography of Dimon by Duff McDonald, entitled The Last Man Standing.  I haven’t read the book and after reading Barrett’s review, I have no intention of doing so — since Barrett made the book appear to be the work of a fawning sycophant in awe of Dimon.  In criticizing the book, Paul Barrett gave us some of his own useful insights about Dimon:

The Dimon of  “Last Man Standing” emerges as a brilliant but flawed winner, one whose long and psychologically tangled apprenticeship to another legendary money man, Sanford Weill, helped lay the groundwork for the crisis of 2008.  In recent days, Dimon’s conduct suggests he is someone who puts the interests of his company ahead of those of society at large, which will be surprising only to those who naively look to modern Wall Street for statesmanship.

*   *   *

JPMorgan under Dimon’s leadership allowed home buyers to borrow without having to prove their income.  The bank did business with sleazy mortgage brokers who would lend to anyone with a heartbeat.  These habits ended only in 2008, when it was too late.  McDonald lauds Dimon for cleverly unloading huge volumes of the toxic subprime mortgages JPMorgan originated.  But that’s like praising a corporate polluter for trucking his poisonous sludge into the next state.  It doesn’t solve the problem; it merely moves it elsewhere.

Paul Barrett’s book review gave us a useful perspective on The Dimon Dog’s support of the administration’s financial reform agenda:

McDonald notes that the C.E.O. publicly endorses certain financial regulatory changes proposed by the Obama administration.  But critics point out that lobbyists employed by “Dimon and his team are actually stonewalling derivatives reform in order to protect the outsize margins the business generates” for JPMorgan.  The derivatives in question include “credit default swaps,” transactions akin to insurance policies that lenders can buy to buffer against loans that go bad.  In the wrong hands, credit derivatives become a form of gambling that can lead to ruin.  They need to be checked, and Dimon’s self-interested resistance isn’t helping matters.

Dimon may be the best of his breed, but when it comes to public-spirited leaders, today’s Wall Street isn’t a promising recruiting ground.

Well said!



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Awareness Abounds

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November 12, 2009

When I started this blog in April of 2008, my focus was on that year’s political campaigns and the exciting Presidential primary season.  At the time, I expressed my concern that the most prominent centrist in the race, John McCain, would continue pandering to the televangelist lobby after winning the nomination, when those efforts were no longer necessary.  He unfortunately followed that strategy and went on to say dumb things about the most pressing issue facing America in decades: the economy.  During the Presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, James Carville was credited with writing this statement on a sign in front of Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Little Rock:  “It’s the economy, stupid!”  That phrase quickly became the mantra of most politicians until the attacks of September 11, 2001 revealed that our efforts at national security were inadequate.  Since that time, we have over-compensated in that area.  Nevertheless, with the demise of Rudy Giuliani’s political career, the American public is not as jumpy about terrorism as it had been — despite the suspicious connections of the deranged psychiatrist at Fort Hood.  As the recent editorials by Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune and Vincent Carroll of The Denver Post demonstrate, the cerebral bat guano necessary to get the public fired-up for a vindictive rampage just isn’t there anymore.

President Obama’s failure to abide by the Carville maxim appears to be costing him points in the latest approval ratings.  The fact that the new President has surrounded himself with the same characters who helped create the financial crisis, has become a subject of criticism by commentators from across the political spectrum.  Since Obama’s Presidential campaign received nearly one million dollars in contributions from Goldman Sachs, he should have known we’d be watching.  CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino was recently interviewed by Aaron Task.  During that discussion, Gasparino explained that Jamie Dimon (the CEO of JP Morgan Chase and director of the New York Federal Reserve) has managed to dissuade the new President from paying serious attention to Paul Volcker (chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board) whose ideas for financial reform would prove inconvenient for those “too big to fail” financial institutions.  As long as JP Morgan’s “Dimon Dog” and Lloyd Bankfiend of Goldman Sachs have such firm control over the puppet strings of “Turbo” Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke, why pay attention to Paul Volcker?  The voting public (as well as most politicians) can’t understand most of these economic problems, anyway.  I seriously doubt that many of our elected officials could explain the difference between a credit default swap and a wife swap.

Once again, Dan Gerstein of Forbes.com has directed a water cannon of common sense on the malaise blaze that has been fueled by a plague of ignorance.  In his latest piece, Gerstein tossed aside that tattered, obsolete handbook referred to as “conventional wisdom” to take a hard look at the reality facing all incumbent, national politicians:

It’s the stupidity about the economy in Washington and on Wall Street that’s driving most voters berserk.  Indeed, the financial system is still out of whack and tens of millions of people are (or fear they soon could be) out of work, yet every day our political and economic leaders say and do knuckleheaded things that show they are unfailingly and imperviously out of touch with those realities.

Gerstein’s short essay is essential reading for a quick understanding of how and why America can’t seem to solve many of its pressing problems these days.  Gerstein has identified the responsible culprits as three groups:  the Democrats, the Republicans and the big banks — describing them as the “axis of cluelessness”:

We have gone long past “they don’t get it” territory.  It’s now unavoidably clear that they won’t get it — and we won’t get the responsible leadership and honest capitalism we want–until (as I have suggested before) we demand it.

Surprisingly, public awareness concerning the root cause of both the financial crisis and our ongoing economic predicament has escalated to a startling degree in recent weeks.  This past spring, if you wanted to find out about the nefarious activities transpiring at Goldman Sachs, you had to be familiar with Zero Hedge or GoldmanSachs666.com.  Today, you need look no further than Maureen Dowd’s column or the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live.  Everyone knows what the problem is.  Gordon Gekko’s 1987 proclamation that “greed is good” has not only become an acceptable fact of life, it has infected our laws and the opinions rendered by our highest courts.  We are now living with the consequences.

Fortunately, there are plenty of people in the American financial sector who are concerned about the well-being of our society.  A recent study by David Weild and Edward Kim (Capital Markets Advisors at Grant Thornton LLP) entitled “A wake-up call for America” has revealed the tragic consequences resulting from the fact that the United States, when compared with other developed countries, has fallen seriously behind in the number of companies listed on our stock exchanges.  Here’s some of what they had to say:

The United States has been engaged in a longstanding experiment to cut commission and trading costs.  What is lacking in this process is the understanding that higher transaction costs actually subsidized services that supported investors.  Lower transaction costs have ushered in the age of  “Casino Capitalism” by accommodating trading interests and enabling the growth of day traders and high-frequency trading.

The Great Depression in Listings was caused by a confluence of technological, legislative and regulatory events — termed The Great Delisting Machine — that started in 1996, before the 1997 peak year for U.S. listings.  We believe cost cutting advocates have gone overboard in a misguided attempt to benefit investors.  The result — investors, issuers and the economy have all been harmed.

The Grant Thornton study illustrates how and why “as many as 22 million” jobs have been lost since 1997, not to mention the destruction of retirement savings, forcing many people to come out of retirement and back to work.  Beyond that, smaller companies have found it more difficult to survive and business loans have become harder to obtain.

Aside from all the bad news, the report does offer solutions to this crisis:

The solutions offered will help get the U.S. back on track by creating high-quality jobs, driving economic growth, improving U.S. competitiveness, increasing the tax base, and decreasing the U.S. budget deficit — all while not costing the U.S. taxpayer a dime.

These solutions are easily adopted since they:

  • create new capital markets options while preserving current options,
  • expand choice for consumers and issuers,
  • preserve SEC oversight and disclosure, including Sarbanes-Oxley, in the public market solution, and
  • reserve private market participation only to “qualified” investors, thus protecting those investors that  need protection.

These solutions would refocus a significant portion of Wall Street on rebuilding the U.S. economy.

The Grant Thornton website also has a page containing links to the appropriate legislators and a prepared message you can send, urging those legislators to take action to resolve this crisis.

Now is your chance to do something that can help address the many problems with our economy and our financial system.  The people at Grant Thornton were thoughtful enough to facilitate your participation in the resolution of this crisis.  Let the officials in Washington know what their bosses — the people — expect from them.



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Maria Cantwell In The Spotlight

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November 9, 2009

Meghan McCain’s recent lament in The Daily Beast struck me as rather strange.  She really should know better.  Ms. McCain expressed her frustration over mainstream media treatment of “two of the most prominent women in politics — Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin”.  Ms. McCain felt the coverage received by those two politicians has been so misogynistic that she has nearly given up on the possibility that she may ever see a woman get elected to the Presidency:

It seems to me the male-dominated media suffers from a Goldilocks Syndrome that keeps women from shattering the glass ceiling.  Worse, I fear it will prevent tomorrow’s female leaders from even seeking office.

Of course, if one can see no further than Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin when seeking female Presidential candidates, then despair is inevitable.  In the summer of 2008, after Ms.Clinton faced up to the reality that Barack Obama had won the Democratic nomination, we heard similar doubts expressed by many despondent female supporters of Hillary Clinton — that they would never see a female elected President within their own lifetimes.  At that point, I wrote apiece entitled “Women To Watch”, reminding readers that “there are a number of women presently in the Senate, who got there without having been married to a former President (whose surname could be relied upon for recognition purposes).”  One of those women, whom I discussed at that time, was Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington.  Maria Cantwell has been in the news quite a bit recently and the coverage has been favorable.  As I said in June of 2008, those holding out hope for a female Presidential candidate should keep an eye on her.

In our highly-partisan political climate, one rarely hears a national politician break from “party line” rhetoric and talking points while being interviewed by the news media or when writing commentary pieces for news publications and blogs.  Nevertheless, Senator Cantwell has taken the bold step of criticizing, not only the administration’s handling of the economic crisis, but the K Street payoff culture enlisting her fellow Democrats as enablers of the status quo.

On October 30, Senator Cantwell wrote a piece for The Huffington Post, decrying the fact that those financial institutions benefiting from the massive bailouts from TARP and the Federal Reserve “have resumed their old habit of using other people’s money to gamble with the same risky unregulated derivatives that led us into this crisis.”  The reason for the failure at every level of the federal government to even consider appropriate legislation or regulations to rein-in continuing irresponsible behavior by those institutions was candidly discussed by the Senator:

Look no further than the powerful lobbying arm of the financial services sector, which has spent at least $220 million this year lobbying Congress to stave off new rules to prevent another collapse.  That is over $500,000 in lobbying for every member of Congress, which might help explain why, to date, nothing has been fixed in our porous financial regulatory system.  Americans want to know when Congress will put an end to the Wall Street’s secret off-book gambling schemes and restore our capitalist system by requiring real transparency and true competition.

Senator Cantwell’s essay is essential reading, coming on the heels of a rebuke, by her fellow Democrats, against efforts at requiring transparency in the trading of credit default swaps:

Imposing full transparency and true competition will require moving derivative trades onto regulated exchanges.  That would mean full transparency of trading prices and volumes, reporting requirements for large trader positions, and adequate capital reserves to protect against a default.  The government needs full anti-fraud and anti-manipulation authority.  Giving regulators this power will ensure a transparent and competitive marketplace and will ensure that violators will go to jail.

On November 2, Senator Cantwell appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan.  At that time, Mr. Ratigan had just written a piece for The Business Insider, expressing his outrage about recent statements by Treasury Secretary “Turbo” Tim Geithner, supporting House bank reform legislation allowing credit default swaps to continue being traded in secret.  Since Senator Cantwell had previously discussed that subject with him on October 16, Mr. Ratigan focused on Geithner.  Ratigan noted Geithner’s endorsement of the proposed House “banking  reform” legislation on the previous day’s broadcast of Meet The Press — despite the bill’s “massive exemptions” allowing opacity in the trading of credit default swaps.  Ratigan then asked Senator Cantwell why Tim Geithner still has a job, to which she replied:

I’m not sure because David Gregory had him almost — trying to get a straight answer out of him.  What the Treasury Secretary basically said was:  yes, banks should take more risks and we should continue the loopholes — and that is really appalling because, right now, we know that lack of transparency has caused this problem with the U.S. economy and Wall Street is continuing, one year later, continuing the same kind of loopholes.  And so if the Treasury Secretary doesn’t come down hard against these loopholes and advocate foreclosing them, then we’re going to have a tough time closing them in Congress.  So the Treasury Secretary is dodging the issue.

Senator Cantwell sure isn’t dodging any issues.  Beyond that, she is demonstrating that she has more cajones than any of her male counterparts in the Senate.  So far, all of the publicity concerning her position on financial reform has been favorable.  After all, she is boldly standing up to the lobbyists, the Congress they own and a White House that received nearly a million dollars in campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs.

Back in Senator Cantwell’s home state of Washington, The Seattle Times praised her co-sponsorship of Senate Bill 823, the Net Operating Loss Carryback Act, which has already been passed by both houses of Congress.  This bill increases the corporate income tax refunds for businesses that were making money during the pre-2008 era but now operate at a loss.  As the Seattle Times editorial explained:

The national unemployment rate is still rising.  It has just gone double-digit for the first time in 26 years, and is at 10.2 percent.

This is not recovery.

The new law does not have taxpayers underwrite credit default swaps or any of the other alchemic creations of Wall Street investment banks.  It is not more aid and comfort for the nationalized and quasi-nationalized corporate giants; it specifically exempts Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and any company in which the Treasury has recently become an owner.

This law is for the businesses that suffer in the recession, not the ones that caused it.  It is one of the few things Congress has done that reaches directly to Main Street America. It is a big deal to many local businesses, including businesses here.

Congratulations, Senator Cantwell!

To Meghan McCain and other women remaining in doubt as to whether they will ever see a female sworn in as President:  Just keep watching Maria Cantwell as she continues to earn well-deserved respect.



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The Weakest Link

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November 2, 2009

Everything was supposed to be getting “back to normal” by now.  Since late July, we’ve been hearing that the recession is over.  When the Gross Domestic Product number for the third quarter was released on Thursday, we again heard the ejaculations of enthusiasm from those insisting that the recession has ended.  Investors were willing to overlook the most recent estimate that another 531,000 jobs were lost during the month of October, so the stock market got a boost.  Nevertheless, as was widely reported, the Cash for Clunkers program added 1.66 percent to the 3.5 percent Gross Domestic Product annualized rate increase.  Since Cash for Clunkers was a short-lived event, something else will be necessary to fill its place, stimulating economic activity.  Once that sobering aspect of the story was absorbed, Friday morning’s news informed us that consumer spending had dropped for the first time in five months.  The Associated Press provided this report:

Economists worry that the recovery could falter in coming months if households cut back on spending to cope with rising unemployment, heavy debt loads and tight credit conditions.

“With incomes so soft, increased spending will be a struggle,” Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S.economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note to clients.

The Commerce Department said Friday that spending dropped 0.5% in September, the first decline in five months.  Personal incomes were unchanged as workers contend with rising unemployment.  Wages and salaries fell 0.2%, erasing a 0.2% gain in August.

Another report showed that employers face little pressure to raise pay, even as the economy recovers.  The weak labor market makes it difficult for people with jobs to demand higher pay and benefits.

*   *   *

. . .  some economists believe that consumer spending will slow sharply in the current quarter, lowering GDP growth to perhaps 1.5%.  Analysts said the risk of a double-dip recession cannot be ruled out over the next year.

With unemployment as bad as it is, those who have jobs need to be mindful of the Sword of Damocles, as it hangs perilously over their heads.  As the AP report indicated, employers are now in an ideal position to exploit their work force.  Worse yet, as Mish pointed out:

Personal income decreased $15.5 billion (0.5 percent), while real disposable personal income decreased 3.4 percent, in contrast to an increase of 3.8 percent last quarter. Those are horrible numbers.

The war on the American consumer finally bit Wall Street in the ass on Friday when the S&P 500 index took a 2.8 percent nosedive.  When mass layoffs become the magic solution to make dismal corporate earnings reports appear positive, when the consumer is treated as a chump by regulatory agencies, lobbyists and government leaders, the consumer stops fulfilling the designated role of consuming.  When that happens, the economy stands still.  As Renae Merle reported for The Washington Post:

“The government handed the ball off to the consumer and the consumer fell on it,” said Robert G. Smith, chairman of Smith Affiliated Capital in New York. “This is a function of there being no jobs and wages going lower.”

The sell-off on the stock market also reflected a report released Friday showing a decline in consumer sentiment this month, analysts said.  The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index fell to 70.6 in October, compared with 73.5 in September.

Rich Miller of Bloomberg News discussed the resulting apprehension experienced by investors:

Only 31 percent of respondents to a poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers in the U.S., Europe and Asia see investment opportunities, down from 35 percent in the previous survey in July.  Almost 40 percent in the latest quarterly survey, the Bloomberg Global Poll, say they are still hunkering down.  U.S. investors are even more cautious, with more than 50 percent saying they are in a defensive crouch.

*   *   *

Worldwide, investors and analysts now view the U.S. as the weak link in the global economy, with its markets seen as among the riskiest by a plurality of those surveyed.  One in four respondents expects an unemployment rate of 11 percent or more a year from now, compared with a U.S. administration forecast of 9.7 percent.  The jobless rate now is 9.8 percent, a 26-year high.

Even before the release of “good news” on Thursday followed by Friday’s bad news, stock analysts who base their trading decisions primarily on reading charts, could detect indications of continuing market decline, as Michael Kahn explained for Barron’s last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s response to the economic crisis continues to generate criticism from across the political spectrum while breeding dissent from within.  As I said last month, the administration’s current strategy is a clear breach of candidate Obama’s campaign promise of “no more trickle-down economics”.  The widespread opposition to the administration’s proposed legislation to regulate (read that: placate) large financial companies was discussed by Stephen Labaton for The New York Times:

Senior regulators and some lawmakers clashed once again with the Obama administration on Thursday, finding fault with central elements of the White House’s latest plan to unwind large financial companies when their troubles imperil the financial system.

The Times article focused on criticism of the administration’s plan, expressed by Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.  As Mr.Labaton noted, shortly after Mr. Obama was elected President, Turbo Tim Geithner began an unsuccessful campaign to have Ms. Bair replaced.

On Friday, economist James K. Galbraith was interviewed by Bill Moyers.  Here’s what Professor Galbraith had to say about the Obama administration’s response to the economic crisis:

They made a start, and certainly in the stimulus package, there were important initiatives.  But the stimulus package is framed as a stimulus, as something which is temporary, which will go away after a couple of years.  And that is not the way to proceed here.  The overwhelming emphasis, in the administration’s program, I think, has been to return things to a condition of normalcy, to use a 1920s word, that prevailed five and ten years ago.  That is to say, we’re back to a world in which Wall Street and the major banks are leading, and setting the path–

*   *   *

. . . they’ve largely been preoccupied with keeping the existing system from collapsing.  And the government is powerful.  It has substantially succeeded at that, but you really have to think about, do you want to have a financial sector dominated by a small number of very large institutions, very difficult to manage, practically impossible to regulate, and ruled by, essentially, the same people and the same culture that caused the crisis in the first place.

BILL MOYERS:  Well, that’s what we’re getting, because after all of the mergers, shakedowns, losses of the last year, you have five monster financial institutions really driving the system, right?

JAMES GALBRAITH:  And they’re highly profitable, and they are already paying, in some cases, extraordinary bonuses.  And you have an enormous problem, as the public sees very clearly that a very small number of people really have been kept afloat by public action .  And yet there is no visible benefit to people who are looking for jobs or people who are looking to try and save their houses or to somehow get out of a catastrophic personal debt situation that they’re in.

This is just another illustration of how “trickle down economics” doesn’t work.  President Obama knows better.  He told us that he would not follow that path.  Yet, here we are:  a country viewed as the weak link in the global economy because the well-being of those institutions considered “too big to fail” is the paramount concern of this administration.



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