Christopher Whalen Fri 2010-09-17 19:31 EDT

The key to the future of finance is now emerging

Christopher Whalen

Basel III is entirely irrelevant to the economic situation and even to the banks. Through things like minimum capital levels, the Basel II rules provided the illusion of intelligent design in the regulation of banking and finance. In fact, Basel II made the subprime crisis possible and the subsequent bailout inevitable [by enabling off-balance sheet finance and OTC derivatives]...Part of the reason for my undisguised contempt for the Basel III process comes from caution regarding the benefits of regulating markets...But a large portion of my criticism for Basel III and the entire Basel framework is even more basic, namely the notion that any form of a priori regulation, public or private, can prevent people from doing stupid things...The key premise of Basel III is that the use of minimum capital guidelines and other strictures will somehow enable regulators to prevent a crises before it occurs. The only trouble is that regulators have no objective measures for compliance with Basel II/III, much less predicting market breaks...As in past decades and crises right through to 2008, the regulators will be the last to know about a problem...

Christopher Whalen; Emergency; finance; future; Key.

Phil's Favorites - By Ilene Thu 2010-08-19 15:58 EDT

Time for a New, New Deal?

Phil of Phil's Stock World

...The Big Lie being told by the right is that we can solve our problems by cutting spending and (ROFL) lowering taxes...Of course, let's keep in mind that the $1.5Tn the government spends directly employs 2.7M people and millions more indirectly so, for every person you cut, make sure you add back $20,000 a year for unemployment benefits and administration (or are we going to throw them all on the street?)...the real glove-across-your-face insult to your intelligence comes when they try to tell you that giving tax breaks to the rich and to corporations will help...US Corporations only paid a grand total of $138Bn in taxes in 2009 (6.5% of all taxes collected)...US Corporations have done nothing but outsource America's future for decades and it is time for the bottom 99% of the income earners (those earning less than $250,000 a year) to wake up and smell the class warfare that is being waged against them. How can we even begin to entertain the idea of cutting government and cutting government spending when the sum total contribution of Big Business America represents a rounding error in our national budget?...When private business fails to expand, when the budgets cannot be balanced because 25% of the population is unable to make income tax contributions due to loss of jobs and homes -- then a wise man knows when it is time to step in and let the Government fill the void. Not with more bailouts to the rich who, like Reagan's deficit ``are big enough to care for themselves'' but with bold programs that invest in the future of this country and utilize the skills and labor of this country and make America strong and independent...

Ilene; new; new deal; Phil's Favorites; Time.

Fri 2010-05-14 15:21 EDT

Of ideology, recession, and policy paralysis >> The Berkeley Blog

Richard Abrams

...The current financial calamity does not ``threaten the key ideas'' that have dominated economic policy in the United States and abroad for the past 35 years or so. By all empirical evidence it absolutely shreds the economic theology that prevailed and unhappily still underlies the effectiveness of the resistance to any meaningful remedial action by bankers, by other purveyors of financial services, and by their congressional and media agents...Every time I see or hear the phrase ``free market,'' I have mixed feelings -- a mix of anger and exasperation. Why? Because there is no such thing as a ``free market;'' there has never been any such thing, and never will be. What's more: it is hard to believe that those otherwise intelligent people who prattle about ``the free market'' don't know that...

Berkeley Blog; ideology; policy paralysis; Recession.

naked capitalism Fri 2010-03-19 16:42 EDT

Indefensible Men

From the December 2009 issue of The Baffler (no online version of this article available). For those not familiar with The Baffler, this is the revival of a magazine of business and culture edited by Thomas Frank that had previously been published from 1988 to 2007. This issue was called ``Margin Call'' and included articles by Matt Taibbi, Naomi Klein, Michael Lind. I believe readers will find this piece to be relevant. Enjoy! Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold. Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society

Indefensible Men; naked capitalism.

Fri 2010-03-12 08:51 EST

AlterNet: The Business Roundtable: The Most Powerful Corporate Business Club Most Americans Have Never Heard of

David DeGraw, Amped Status

...At the center of this group is the Business Roundtable, an organization representing Fortune 500 CEOs that is also interlocked with several lead elite organizations. Most Americans have never heard of the Business Roundtable. However, in my analysis, it is the most influential and powerful Economic Elite organization...The Business Roundtable is the most powerful activist organization in the United States. Their leaders regularly lobby members of Congress behind closed doors and often meet privately with the President and his administration. Any legislation that affects Roundtable members has almost zero possibility of passing without their support...look at healthcare and financial reform, along with the military budget. The healthcare reform bill devolved into what amounts to an insurance industry bailout and was drastically altered by Roundtable lobbyists...Almost every aspect of financial reform has been D.O.A. thanks to Roundtable lobbyists...The drastic rise in military spending is also a result of Roundtable lobbyists pushing the interests of large military companies...the Business Roundtable, Chamber of Commerce and the American Bankers Association - along with the Federal Reserve, a secretive quasi-government private institution, form the center of the Economic Elite's power structure...The Economic Elite dominate US intelligence and military operations. Other than the obvious geo-strategic reasons, the never-ending and ever-expanding War on Terror's objective is to drain the US population of more resources and further rob US taxpayers, while using our tax money to create a private military that is more powerful than the US military...

AlterNet; American; Business Roundtable; Heard; Powerful Corporate Business Club.

Taibblog Mon 2010-01-04 18:02 EST

There's always room for Goldman Sachs (at the SEC)

Matt Taibbi

The Securities and Exchange Commission hired a 29-year-old former employee in Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s business intelligence unit as the first chief operating officer in the agency's enforcement division, according to people familiar with the decision. via SEC unit hires ex-Goldman Sachs worker as chief operating officer -- latimes.com.

Goldman Sachs; room; s; SEC; Taibblog.

Mon 2010-01-04 17:56 EST

Salon.com | Another Goldman executive named to key government post as its profits skyrocket

Glenn Greenwald

A Goldman Sachs executive has been named the first chief operating officer of the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division. The market watchdog says Adam Storch, vice president in Goldman Sachs' Business Intelligence Group, is assuming the new position of managing executive of the SEC division.

com; Goldman executive named; key government post; profits skyrocket; Salon.

Taibblog Sun 2009-09-20 09:51 EDT

Will Obama listen to ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker's warnings?

Matt Taibbi

So former Fed chief Paul Volcker yesterday was spouting off about how nuts it is that certain ``too big to fail'' commercial banks that receive mountains of public money are allowed to run around acting like high-risk hedge funds...This would be meaningful if the Economic Recovery Board that Volcker runs for Obama were actually a chief policymaking center for the president. But the reality is that the Volcker group is a kind of show-pony the Obama administration kept on as a way to give consolation jobs to the more progressive economic advisers who led them through the campaign season, people like University of Chicago professor Austan Goolsbee...Obama did a bit of a bait-and-switch, hiring progressives to run his campaign and jettisoning them once he got into office. I hear about this phenomenon from different corners of the policymaking universe, from health care to defense and intelligence spending. But my sense is that the switch was most violent in the realm of economic policy...

ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker's warnings; Obama listen; Taibblog.

Jesse's Café Américain Sun 2009-08-30 11:59 EDT

US Equity Markets Look Dangerously Wobbly As Insiders Sell In Record Numbers

Jesse

"Investors Intelligence's latest survey of advisory services showed an impressive 51% bullish and a meager 19% bearish...the spread hasn't been that wide since November 2007." Alan Abelson, Barrons, Aug. 29, 2009Next week we move into September, the riskiest month of the year for financial markets, with the federals escalating preparations for a flu pandemic, while Congress considers legislation... ``selling by corporate insiders in August has surged to $6.1 billion, the highest amount since May 2008. The ratio of insider selling to insider buying hit 30.6, the highest level since TrimTabs began tracking the data in 2004.''

Equity Markets Look Dangerously Wobbly; Insider sell; Jesse's Café Américain; record number.

Fri 2008-11-07 00:00 EST

We have successfully transformed credit risk into solvency risk

by Euro Intelligence Adivsors

solvency risks; successfully transformed credit risk.

Fri 2008-02-15 00:00 EST

Money Matters: World Elite Rats Destroy U.S. Sovereignty

by Elaine Meinel Supkis; in comments: "people can't credit a handful of intelligent and very directed and motivated people who desire to launch a war...The 'leaders' mill around, hoping for excuses to draw the sword and attack. But the sort of people who launched the 9/11 attacks were classic in their organization and the way they carried out their plans. The US contribution was to ignore them, not interfere with them and to let them do as the attackers wished. The DESIRE of Bush for an attack was very great."

money matters; World Elite Rats Destroy U.S. Sovereignty.

Thu 2001-11-15 00:00 EST

CRMDaily: Real-time CRM Industry News from Around the World

Austin, Texas, Firm Looks for Commercial Success in Artificial Intelligence

CRMDaily; Real-time CRM Industry News; world.