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
Double-Standard? And How! If the U.S. government handled the housing crisis the same way it treated Wall Street after the 2008 financial crash (emphasis on “treat”), here’s what would have happened: 1. It would long ago have purchased — at inflated cost(!) — the homes of every underwater homeowner in the country; 2. It would then...Read More
To Open an Account or Not (That is the Question) My son’s Bar Mitzvah (Jewish confirmation, sort of) is rapidly approaching, which means that a slew of checks — many of them from out-of-state relatives — isn’t far behind. Opening a “kid” checking account for him certainly seems like the smart, responsible thing to do....Read More
Perils of Gargantuan Banks Not persuaded by my myriad argument(s) on these pages for breaking up Too Big to Fail (“TBTF”) banks? See, “Drug Dealers vs. Bankers: Top Ten Differences”; “Number of the Week: $600 Trillion”; “THAT’S Returning to the Private Sector?!?“; “The Scorpion and the Tortoise Defense“; “Who Pardoned Wall Street?”; “A Financial Gettysburg Address“;...Read More
Straw Horse? How About, Straw Herd?? “Long before Sanford Weill suggested last week that big banks should split up, Bank of America executives and directors considered the idea and then decided against it, said people close to the nation’s second-biggest bank by assets.” –“Bank Breakups: Not So Fast“; The Wall Street Journal (July 29, 2012)...Read More
One Examiner for Every $50 Billion(!?!) “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” –Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, and promoter of the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” * * * * * * “The...Read More
