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Tag Archives: financial crisis
Republican Leadership Likens Financial Crisis To An Ant
Now come on, isn’t this just a little too much? See President Obama refute John Boehner’s idea that the Financial Crisis was an “ant” and Financial Regulation is a “nuclear bomb.” Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. The President on the comment at Racine Memorial Hall in Racine, Wis., yesterday: The leader of the Republicans in the House said that financial reform was like — I’m quoting here – ‘using a nuclear weapon to target an ant.’ That’s what he said. He compared the financial crisis to an ant. This is the same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly 8 million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes, their life savings. He can’t be that out of touch … More >>
Nay On Brown-Kaufmann – A Vote For Wall Street Or Sound Policy?
I strongly disagree with Mike’s contention that Democrats who voted for Wall Street sold out by voting down the Brown–Kauffman amendment. I understand the frustration with a political system that seems beholden to special interest groups, especially those from Wall Street. However, I believe that voting down this amendment was a sound policy decision, not an act of fealty to the financial sector We need financial reform, but we need reform that is substantive and on point, not amendments aimed at scoring political points. Spinning off swap desks, auditing the Fed, capping the size of banks – these are good rallying cries for the populist crowd, but they don’t actually address the problems in our system. Our focus should be … More >>
Tagged Brown-Kaufman amendment, financial crisis, financial services reform, senate, too big too fail
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Incompetence And Stupidity, Not Greed
When the autopsy was performed on the corpse that was the 2008 financial crash, most in the political and financial intelligentsia ascribed its cause of death to greed, recklessness, and irresponsibility. The narrative was indeed convincing. For as complex a crisis as this one was, what better way to sell it to the masses than to promote that tried and true American narrative of a bunch of evil genius fat-cat bankers colluding with one another in order to enrich themselves at our expense? With this line of reasoning in hand, little qualification was necessary. The problem with this narrative, though, was that, although it was partially true – no one can deny that a perverse incentive structure, coupled with a lot … More >>
Democrats Vote For Wall Street, Show True Colors
Last night the Democrats voted down the Brown-Kaufman amendment to break up and cap the size of the TBTF banks. While Wall Street, their PR firms, and their economist allies have all cleverly thought of ways to get around the TBTF problem without having to do the unthinkable and break up the giant, behemoth banks (telling the public, for instance, that it’s not that they’re too big, it’s that they’re too interconnected) no one buys it. The reason we needed to bail out Wall Street is because they control 60 percent of our economy, and that if they went under, 60 percent of our economy would go under. This is beyond a disgrace. It truly shows the extent to which the … More >>
Tagged Brown-Kaufman amendment, financial crisis, financial services reform, senate, too big too fail
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What Goldman Really Did Wrong
Unsurprisingly, apologists for Goldman and Wall Street have been coming out of the woodwork in the last few days. Goldman CEO Loyd Blankfein himself was on Charlie Rose last week, arguing that Goldman is a “market maker” – and therefore it’s not a big deal that they were shorting the housing market while simultaneously telling people to buy. He’s actually kind of right… There are a lot of things that Goldman did during the collapse of the housing market that could be construed as immoral, insensitive, or dishonest, but might not be “against the rules”. We may think it’s disgusting, but Goldman does that sort of thing all the time, as does everyone else on Wall Street. It’s called hedging, … More >>
Tagged economic issues committee, economics, financial crisis, financial services reform, goldman sachs
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