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
Financial “Sword of Damocles”: Outstanding Derivatives Dwarf World Economy What’s the best evidence, post-crash, that meaningful financial reform has yet to occur? It’s not that those who helped orchestrate the debacle — corporations and individuals — have escaped accountability. It’s not that the largest banks, whose size and interconnectedness raised the spectre of contagion — and therefore...Read More
The Fannie and Freddie Sideshow What do you call two companies that have cumulatively lost tens of billions, are now wards of the state, and continue to receive multi-billion dollar government subsidies? If their names are “Fannie” and “Freddie,” the answer is: the world’s two biggest red herrings. Or, if you prefer, a sideshow to...Read More
Defective Designs — & Their Fallout Usually when a nuclear reactor is first shut down, an electric pump pulls heated water from the vessel to a heat exchanger, and cool water from a river or ocean is brought in to draw off that heat. But at the Japanese reactors, after losing electric power, that system could not...Read More
“Hurry, Bank of America, This Offer Expires Soon!” If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem. –John Paul Getty Why can’t a [debt restructuring process] be put in place to help the millions of American homeowners who for whatever personal reasons ” usually no...Read More
Qantas’ Pilots vs. Wall Street’sHere’s a thought, apropos of (almost) nothing: The cure to our economic woes has nothing to do with finding exactly the right monetary policy, or getting the Chinese to price the Yuan “fairly,” or bridging today’s yawning political chasms to reach necessary compromises. The first step is to seriously and completely...Read More
