Here’s the full article by Simon Johnson that Joe at Business Insider referred to in the last post. One of the most outrageous aspects of the financial crisis fall-out is that we let this behavior go on and on after it became apparent, even to outsiders, that conflicts of interest, unethical activity, and perhaps out-and-out fraud, were the rules in government-financial sector marriages, no matter what the official explanations. - Ilene
At 9:30 pm on Sunday, September 21, 2008, Goldman Sachs was saved from imminent collapse by the announcement that the Federal Reserve would allow it to become a bank holding company – implying unfettered access to borrowing from the Fed and other forms of implicit government support, all of which subsequently proved most beneficial. Officials allowed Goldman to make such an unprecedented conversion in the name of global financial stability. (The blow-by-blow account is in Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail; this is confirmed in all substantial detail by Hank Paulson’s memoir.)
We now learn – from Der Spiegel last week and today’s NYT – that Goldman Sachs has not only helped or encouraged some European governments to hide a large part of their debts, but it also endeavored to do so for Greece as recently as last November. These actions are fundamentally destabilizing to the global financial system, as they undermine: the eurozone area; all attempts to bring greater transparency to government accounting; and the most basic principles that underlie well-functioning markets. When the data are all lies, the outcomes are all bad – see the subprime mortgage crisis for further detail.
A single rogue trader can bring down a bank – remember the case of Barings. But a single rogue bank can bring down the world’s financial system.
Goldman will dismiss this as “business as usual” and, to be sure, a few phone calls around Washington will help ensure that Goldman’s primary supervisor – now the Fed – looks the other way.
But the affair is now out of Ben Bernanke’s hands, and quite far from people who are easily swayed by the White House. It goes immediately to the European Commission, which has jurisdiction over eurozone budget issues. Faced with enormous pressure from those eurozone countries now on the hook for saving Greece, the Commission will surely launch a…
"The conventional wisdom is you can’t have back-to-back major financial crises. I think we’re going to push that, we’re going to have a look and see whether that’s true. And the next 12 months could really be exciting. People could be very positive, but we are setting ourselves up for an enormous catastrophe."
He thinks the catastrophe is likely to happen in emerging markets such as China where it looks like we’re following the same Japanese pattern of the 90′s.
The guiding myth underpinning the reconstruction of our dangerous banking system is: Financial innovation as-we-know-it is valuable and must be preserved. Anyone opposed to this approach is a populist, with or without a pitchfork.
Single-handedly, Paul Volcker has exploded this myth. Responding to a Wall Street insiders‘ Future of Finance “report“, he was quoted in the WSJ yesterday as saying: “Wake up gentlemen. I can only say that your response is inadequate.”
“[Financial engineering] moves around the rents in the financial system, but not only this, as it seems to have vastly increased them.”
“I have found very little evidence that vast amounts of innovation in financial markets in recent years have had a visible effect on the productivity of the economy”
and most important:
3. “I am probably going to win in the end”.
Volcker wants tough constraints on banks and their activities, separating the payments system – which must be protected and therefore tightly regulated – from other “extraneous” functions, which includes trading and managing money.
This is entirely reasonable – although we can surely argue about details, including whether a very large “regulated” bank would be able to escape the limits placed on its behavior and whether a very large “trading” bank could (without running the payments system) still cause massive damage.
But how can Mr. Volcker possibly prevail? Even President Obama was reduced, yesterday, to asking the banks nicely to lend more to small business – against which Jamie Dimon will presumably respond that such firms either (a) are not creditworthy (so give us a subsidy if you want such loans) or (b) don’t want to borrow (so give them a subsidy). (Some of the bankers, it seems, didn’t even try hard to attend – they just called it in.)
The reason for Volcker’s confidence in his victory is simple - he is moving the consensus. It’s not radicals against reasonable bankers. It’s the dean of American banking, with a bigger and better reputation than any other economic policymaker alive – and with a lot of people at his back – saying, very simply: Enough.
One of our favorites, and a voice of reason, is former IMF chief economist, Simon Johnson. Aside from offering good ideas that are summarily dismissed by the political elite and special interests he writes profusely (with a few partners) at the blog Baseline Scenario (which I also believe is summarily dismissed by the political elite and special interests). You should notice a theme here.
He also posted a blog entry on the subject Friday: Does Dubai Matter? Ask Ireland.
If you are not familiar with Johnson, he had an epic story in The Atlantic this spring which is a must read, titled "The Quiet Coup."
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets,and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
Below we have a 8 minute video where Johnson discusses the implications of Dubai on PBS Newshour. Of course, after viewing it – make sure to promptly ignore it and buy stocks on the open tomorrow morning, Christmas season sale! Just because you wasted the weekend shopping doesn’t mean Ben B was not busy printing more US dollars … he works 7 days a week, 24 hours… like Santa. Instead of a sleigh he has a helicopter… and delivers bundles of joy to bankers everywhere.
If you are old school, the full transcript is here.
On Wednesday, Dan Tarullo, a governor of the Federal Reserve and distinguished law school professor, dismissed breaking up big banks as “more a provocative idea than a proposal” and instead put almost all his eggs in the “creation by Congress of a special resolution procedure for systemically important financial firms”. He stressed: “We are hopeful that Congress will, in its legislative response to the crisis, include a resolution mechanism and an extension of regulation to all systemically important financial institutions” (full speech).
“There are those who claim that such proposals [involving breaking up the largest banks] are impractical. It is hard to see why. Existing prudential regulation makes distinctions between different types of banking activities when determining capital requirements. What does seem impractical, however, are the current arrangements. Anyone who proposed giving government guarantees to retail depositors and other creditors, and then suggested that such funding could be used to finance highly risky and speculative activities, would be thought rather unworldly. But that is where we now are.”
Tarullo’s speech actually framed today’s problem just right: “I would suggest … that the reform process cannot be judged a success unless it substantially reduces systemic risk generally and, in particular, the too-big-to-fail problem.” This is consistent with the tone of King’s remarks (even if less pointed than what Neal Barofsky said).
Tarullo also made some astute comments on how “too big to fail” emerged in its current specific form in the US and threatens us in a general form always.
“First, no matter what its general economic policy principles, a government faced with the possibility of a cascading financial crisis that could bring down its national economy tends to err on the side of intervention. Second, once a government has obviously extended the reach of its safety net, moral hazard problems are compounded, as market actors may expect similarly situated firms to be rescued in the future.” ….
“The fact that the largest financial firms will account for a significantly larger share of total industry assets after the crisis than they did before can only add to the
The US Chamber of Commerce is opposing the administration’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, on the grounds that it would hurt small business. Their argument is that this agency will extend the dead hand of government into every small business.
For the Chamber of Commerce, government is the enemy of small business and should always and everywhere be fought to a standstill. Chamber Senior Vice President (and former Fred Thompson campaign manager) Tom Collamore sees this as “advocacy on behalf of small businesses, job creators, and entrepreneurs” (quoted in the WSJ link above), and the Chamber has launched the “American Free Enterprise” campaign.
Somewhere, the Chamber’s senior leadership missed the plot. What brought on the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s? What has hurt, directly and indirectly, small business of all kinds to an unprecedented degree over the past 12 months? What is killing small and medium-sized banks at a rate not seen in nearly 80 years?
It’s the behavior of the financial sector, particularly big banks and their close allies – by consistently mistreating consumers. And the letter and spirit of the regulatory regime let them get away with it.
Some members of Congress honestly believe that consumers should have a free choice, unfettered by any kind of restriction, regarding the financial products they buy.
But spend time talking to any marketing professional or call them to testify before your committee – or just ask Mr. Collamore, who was previously at Altria. The state of knowledge regarding how to persuade people to buy stuff is impressive, the degree of potential manipulation for consumer preferences is simply stunning, and the “innovations” in this area are not slowing down.
The scope for taking advantage of consumers in subtle ways, or outright duping them, is probably higher for finance than for any other sector. For fairly obvious reasons, people are more likely to misunderstand credit than, say, furniture. Ambitious executives have therefore hammered hard on borrowers. And the implications – as you have seen and are still seeing – of systemic financial misbehavior are awful in terms of human impact and essentially without limit in terms of ultimate macroeconomic downside.
Unscrupulous Finance has brought us down and will do…
Perhaps the best introduction to this terrific article by (the other) George Washington is in the comment section. So why should we care about the crimes and the cover ups? Our freedom depends on our government enforcing and abiding by the law. It’s apparent that we are headed down the slippery slope Justice Louis Brandeis describes in Olmstead v. United States (1928):
"In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipotent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If government becomes a lawbreaker it breeds contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy."
We have the Federal government’s massive and flagrant display of lawlessness, and population somewhere on the way from apathy to dependency in the Fatal Sequence cycle of civilization. Not winning a combination if you ask me. – Ilene
William K. Black – professor of economics and the senior regulator during the S & L crisis – says that that the government’s entire strategy now – as during the S&L crisis – is to cover up how bad things are ("the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts").
Indeed, as I have previously documented, 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980′s during the "Latin American Crisis", and the government’s response was to cover up their insolvency.
There has been no honest examination of the crisis because it would embarrass C.E.O.s and politicians . . .
Instead, the Treasury and the Fed are urging us not to examine the crisis and to believe that all will soon be well.
PhD economist Dean Baker made a similar point, lambasting the Federal Reserve for blowing the bubble, and pointing out that those who caused the disaster are trying to shift the focus as fast as they can:
The current craze in DC policy circles is to create a "systematic risk regulator" to make sure that the country never
US Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) is talking to Bill Moyers about the state of the economy. She claims it’s a "Financial Coup D’Etat"
It’s a lengthy interview, about 20 minutes, but well worth a listen in entirety. The site has a complete transcript for those with limited time. Here is a partial transcript.
MICHAEL MOORE: We’re here to get the money back for the American People. Do you think it’s too harsh to call what has happened here a coup d’état? A financial coup d’état?
MARCY KAPTUR: That’s, no. Because I think that’s what’s happened. Um, a financial coup d’état?
BILL MOYERS: That’s the progressive Representative from Ohio, Marcy Kaptur, she’s with me now. She has a Masters from the University of Michigan, did graduate study at M.I.T. and still lives in the same house in the Toledo working class neighborhood where she grew up.
She’s in her 14th term in Congress, the longest-serving Democratic woman in the history of the House, and she’s an outspoken financial watchdog on three important Committees: Appropriations, Budget and Oversight and Government Reform.
Also with me is a familiar face to viewers of this broadcast. Simon Johnson is the former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. He now teaches Global Economics and Management at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management. He’s one of the founders of the website Baselinescenario.com. I check it out daily for Simon’s take on the economic and financial crisis.
It’s been a year since the great collapse and both my guests are well equipped to assess what’s happened since then. Welcome to you both.
MARCY KAPTUR: Thank you.
BILL MOYERS: Let’s look at this story that I just read from the Associated Press this week about how Treasury Secretary Geithner is on the phone several times a day with a select group of very powerful Wall Street bankers, especially Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs. He will talk to them when Members of Congress have to leave a message on the answering machine. And these are the bankers who helped bring on this calamity and who are now benefiting from it. What does that say to you? ….
A Huge Shift In Attitudes
Others have posted the link already but I wanted to get in a few comments.
Just over a year after economic calamity brought promises of reform to Washington, many now say that the recession is nearing an end. But is it business as usual for Wall Street, and have future financial crises been averted? Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson and US Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) join Bill Moyers for a report card on the bailouts, an update on the state of the U.S. economy, and to find out whether efforts of reform have been derailed.
Click here or on the image below to view the video clip
It looks like the G20 on Friday will emphasize its new “framework” for curing macroeconomic imbalances, rather than any substantive measures to regulate banks, derivatives, or any other primary cause of the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
This is appealing to the G20 leaders because their call to “rebalance” global growth will involve no immediate action and no changes in policy – other than in the “medium run” (watch for this phrase in the communiqué).
When exactly is the medium run?
That’s an easy one: it’s always just around the corner. Not today, of course; that would be short run. And not in 20 years; that’s the long run.
The medium run is perhaps in 3 years or perhaps in 5 years. It feels close enough not to be meaningless at the press conference, but it’s not close enough to be meaningful.
And – here’s the key – whatever you agree on for the medium-term, you know that the world will change, quite dramatically, 2 or 3 times before you get there. At that point you can say, quite reasonably: But the conditions today are quite different from what they were when we made this medium-term commitment, so we really need to rethink it.
Of course, having the IMF report back every year on progress towards these medium-term goals is equally pointless. This is what the IMF has been doing since 2006 and what it was preparing diligently to do just as the global crisis broke out.
Expectations for the G20 summit are low. But unless and until the leaders take any steps to address our pressing financial sector vulnerabilities, the summit is not worth its carbon footprint.
Remember what the financial experts said at the previous summit (April) and the one before that (November): we can’t fix the financial system in the height of the crisis. True enough, although the opportunity to break the power of the largest players was squandered in both the US and Europe.
So, now the crisis is over – as the G20 heads of government will affirm – where are their efforts to fix the financial system? Please don’t tell me, “that’s what we’re doing, in the
Improvement in first time unemployment claims is slowing. Actual, not seasonally manipulated data, including an adjustment for the usual weekly upward revision, shows that the year to year rate of change is on the cusp of a possible upside breakout, which would be good news for stock market bears if it happens.
Initial Unemployment Claims Chart- Click to enlarge
Here’s why it’s mind blowing. I’ve plotted it below on an inverse scale with the S&P 500 overlaid.
Unemployemt Claims and Stock Prices - Click to enlarge
Major US Markets including (NYSEARCA:DIA), (NYSEARCA:SPY), (NASDAQ:QQQ), and (NYSEARCA:IWM) dropped over 3% each on Italian bond fears and an increased worry that Europe will not be able to bail out its 4th largest economy. Furthermore, the iShares MCSI Italy Fund (NYSEARCA:EWI) wiped out over 9% today, further illustrating the dire situation in Italy and the European Union: ...
The second economic disappointment of the day comes from the Dallas Fed, which dropped from -2.0 to -11.4 on expectations of -9.0- this was the 4th consecutive negative print month. The report was, in a word, horrible, with just 2 of the 15 constituent indices posting an increase, and the bulk solidly in the red, led by Unfilled and New Orders which dropped 16.8 and 11.2, respectively: not good for economic growth. On the employment side there was nothing good either, with both employment and hours worked declining by -...
Bloomberg reports that Diana Containerships (NASDAQ: DCIX) files to offer stock up to $172.5M. Diana Containerships says that Diana shipping will also buy $20M of stock.
Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisVLOSTRONGBUYAn increasingly positive growth rate of past earnings, along with improving expectations for long term growth, make Valero a good prospect for high returns.KROSTRONGBUYKronos Worldwide has been gaining recognition from analysts as a good canditate for achieving higher than expected earnings along with higher overall projected valuation.SFIBUYiStar is one of the top candidates projected to achieve both higher than previously projected earnings in the short run and a higher earnings growth rate in the long run.AMATSTRONGBUYApplied Materials has been...
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February is now past, and the Biotech Porfolio is loaded with winners and a miss (PLX). MRK is down a bit, but I expect that trade to recover, and one could be more agressive and double down on it, or play another round at the Jan13 $30 options for roughly the same price. Below is the summary, and note the grey boxes are ones that did not fill. I am still a fan of BMRN, and like DEPO as well. Now let's look at a few others.
Table 1. PSW Biotech Plays Since January 2011
 
Our newest play is Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA), who is pursuing a three-part business model which includes complex generic equivalents in partnership with the Sandoz division of Novartis, proprietary compounds, and follow-on- biologics (FOB). It seems that this company is tied up in competition/litigation wit...
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The reason for Volcker’s confidence in his victory is simple - he is moving the consensus. It’s not radicals against reasonable bankers. It’s the dean of American banking, with a bigger and better reputation than any other economic policymaker alive – and with a lot of people at his back – saying, very simply: Enough.
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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