Category Archives: The Importance of Strategic Planning
Let Them Eat Credit
By most counts, the U.S. economy started growing in the middle of last year. For many Americans, though, it does not feel as if the Great Recession has ended—unemployment and underemployment are still alarmingly high, and job growth is weak. … Continue reading
Inexcusable Delay-Another reason for a change in Washington
Senate Leaves Credit-Starved Small Biz Hanging – Los Angeles Times Small businesses desperate for government help getting loans will have to wait at least until September before Congress moves on long-awaited legislation to pay for higher loan guarantees, lower fees … Continue reading
Bad Meat
MAD MEAT! How Securitized Lending Collapsed the Financial System, Eric Von Berg (a commercial property mortgage banker and was the President of the California Mortgage Bankers Association during the heat of the market who has been watching “Regulatory Reform” as … Continue reading
CBO Propaganda
I’ve seen some eye-poppin’, credulity-stretchin’ accounts in my time. The report “The Budgetary Impact and Subsidy Costs of the Federal Reserve’s Actions During the Financial Crisis,” just released by the Congressional Budget Office, ranks with the most extreme. It claims … Continue reading
Wall Street Big Fish Stink From The Head Down
Obama’s financial reform will fail because all the masters of the universe know how to do is make money. Wall Street’s Big Fish Stink From The Head Down – Robert Lenzner, Forbes
“Of Rats and Sinking Ships”
Larry Summers is reportedly leaving later this year, and Andrew Cockburn reports that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s acutely verbal Chief of Staff is said to be looking for other employment, preferably a high paying job on Wall Street with little work … Continue reading
Greenspan helps create the problem and then explains it?
Washington’s Blog Greenspan’s big defense is that the financial crisis was caused by a “once-in-a-century” event. Forget about the fact that the “once-in-a-century event” couldn’t have happened if Greenspan’s Fed hadn’t: Turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud Acted as … Continue reading
The Furrows of Algeria: The First Great Novel About Islamism
From the terrible Algerian slaughter, and its terrible silence, comes this small tale, told by an officer of the special forces who broke with “Le Pouvoir” of his own country and sought asylum in France. It is the autumn of … Continue reading
Does It Make Sense to Resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act?
In the present system, the more unrestricted the banks are, the more money they can generate “out of thin air,” and the more damage they can inflict upon the wealth-generation process. FULL ARTICLE by Frank Shostak
Why Obama is Now (finally) Getting Tough on Wall Street
Originally published at Robert Reich’s Blog For almost a year now, Democratic pollsters have been pointing out how much the public hates the bank bailout and despises Wall Street. But there was no reason for Democratic leaders in Congress or … Continue reading
Sic transit America?
Flagging: a US sailor stands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington If a week is a long time in politics, a decade is starting to look like an age in geopolitics. Comparing the America that … Continue reading
Bernanke Versus the Austrians
My essay in today’s American Spectator Online looks at why Ben Bernanke should not be confirmed to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Two planks in Bernanke’s recovery strategy: Expand the money supply like a banana republic … Continue reading
Obama’s Big Sellout
Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for … Continue reading
The Big Government Boss isn’t going away
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” said Timothy W. Long, the chief bank examiner for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. “At the height of the economic boom, to take an aggressive supervisory approach and tell people to stop … Continue reading
Did “Smart Guys” Destroy Wall Street?
I think Calvin Trillin–or at least his bar-room companion–is really on to something here: “The financial system nearly collapsed,” he said, “because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.” … I reflected on my own college class, of roughly the same … Continue reading
The Gold Standard and the Great Depression
Paul Krugman has concentrated his fire recently on those “thumping their chests” over the falling dollar. He has particular scorn for those recommending a return to the gold standard. In Krugman’s view, a simple look at the historical facts will … Continue reading
Thinking through central bank independence
I have a column in Financial Express today on the rationale for independence of the central bank, and how this is operationalised in democracies. The rationale for central bank independence The starting point of modern thinking on monetary policy is … Continue reading
Electric Car Race
A Wide Open Race for Industry Leadership Warren Buffett has invested in China’s BYD, but columnists Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang caution against putting too much faith in its early-mover advantage.
The Truth About Jobs That No One Wants To Tell You
Unemployment will almost certainly in double-digits next year — and may remain there for some time. And for every person who shows up as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey, you can bet there’s another either too … Continue reading
The growing debt bomb – Facing a one- to three-year countdown
By Richard W. Rahn Assume you had put much of your savings into U.S. government bonds and then you learned the following. In just the last eight months, the Congressional Budget Office estimates of the amount of additional federal debt … Continue reading
Operation Rollback: Wal-Mart’s World of Business
The expansion of international “supply chains” from Asian factories to American consumers has certainly created global trade imbalances and international currency flows that are not necessarily sustainable over the long run. A readjustment of the world economy, not a slackening … Continue reading
Zombie GM Stock is Proof Humans Are Not Rational
I have mentioned this in the past, but its one of those absurdities that refuses to die: “Whether it’s a matter of ignorance or greed, people are still buying General Motors stock, even though the company and the government have … Continue reading
An early warning?
the Global Macro EconoMonitor: Could an Early Warning System have Predicted the Crisis? by Mark Thoma Also: China in Global Economic Recovery by Danny Quah
Sic Transit Gloria America
As U.S. deficits increased, global investors edged away from the dollar into the German mark, the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc, the Euro, and more recently baskets of Asian currencies. Which brings us to today. Only goodwill (defined both as … Continue reading
The Committee to Defraud the World
To say now that ‘No one knew’ or ‘I was mistaken’ or ‘I was just doing as I was told’ is another in a series of lies and deceptions that have supported one of the greatest frauds in the history … Continue reading →