Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Redefines Chutzpah* (Again) “I believe that the root cause of every financial crisis, the root cause, is flawed government policies.” — Henry Paulson –Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Five Years After TARP, Misgivings on Bonuses“; The New York Times (8/26/2013) Surprise, surprise, Henry Paulson exonerates himself and the banking industry generally for its role...Read More
Waiting For Wall Street to “Pull an OJ” “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” –Joseph Welch, head counsel for the U.S. Army, to Senator Joseph McCarthy; Army-McCarthy Hearings (June 9, 1954) With that one, withering rebuke, Joseph Welch spelled the beginning of the end...Read More
Surowiecki: Wall Street Excess Due to Regulatory Failure “We need an attitudinal shift on the part of regulators, who need to recognize that their gentleman’s-club ethos is ill-suited to today’s financial world, and who need to be aggressive not just in punishing malfeasance but in preventing it from happening.” –James Surowiecki, “Bankers Gone Wild“; The...Read More
“What Would TR Do?” “It’s too soon to tell.” –Mao Tse Tung’s response, when asked (in 1947) about the consequences of the French Revolution. Just as perspective is needed to appreciate signal historical events, so, too, is distance required to assess great individuals. More than a century after Teddy Roosevelt successfully challenged the monopolists and concentrated financial...Read More
Wall Street: Tens of Billions Everyone Else: Trillions . . . in Debt If you are just joining The Crash of ’08 “in progress” (as it were), here’s where things stand: Wide swaths of the country are broke. Their houses are underwater, their jobs (if they have them) are under pressure, and their savings (if they have them)...Read More
Prescription: ‘Take 2 4 Aspirin’ Seeing as how the current approach doesn’t seem to be working out so well, I hereby propose a “do-over” in dealing with the aftermath of The Crash of ’08. Exactly what do I have in mind? Instead of: -Rewarding the perpetrators with bailouts; –Punishing savers with the double-barreled whammy of...Read More
