“Hands Off My Mortga . . . Oops! Never Mind!” As best I can tell, the tea party movement is angry about out-of-control government intrusion into people’s lives. Apparently, they’re not aware of the following factoid: There were $390 billion in new mortgage origination’s in the last quarter of 2009. Excluding home equity lines, Fannie...Read More
Volcker’s Clarion Call Imagine being able to consult Albert Einstein about a physics conundrum, or FDR or Lincoln about an existential national emergency (like the one we’re facing now, perhaps). Having Paul Volcker, the 82 year-old former Fed Chairman, still on the scene and available to advise and guide is truly a stroke of good...Read More
The Wall Street Journal’s Take on Wall Street President Barack Obama proposed new limits on the size and activities of the nation’s largest banks, pushing a more muscular approach toward regulation that yanked down bank stocks and raised the stakes in his campaign to show he’s tough on Wall Street. –“New Bank Rules Sink Stocks“;...Read More
I’m a huge fan of Nobel laureate (economics) Joseph Stiglitz. This paragraph is an example of why: Financial engineering did not create products that would help ordinary citizens manage the simple risk of home ownership – with the consequence that millions have lost their homes, and millions more are likely to do so. Instead, innovation...Read More
Revisionist History As historians know full well, Presidential reputations sometimes take decades to settle out, experiencing ups and downs in the meantime. For example, Harry Truman left office in 1953 quite unpopular. Over time, though, his stock gradually rose as society came to appreciate — after the fact — his straight-talking populism, common sense, and...Read More
Canadian De Tocqueville Does Finance The world’s concentrated financial sector has been grabbing more than its fair share of wealth because it has been able to and this must stop. “This is like looting,” said outspoken Boston money manager Jeremy Grantham. “This industry can grow to gobble up all the benefits of the real economy...Read More
