You hear that implosion reverberating through financial markets? It's the sound of decades of conservative ideology collapsing. Last week revealed the myth of market fundamentalism: the notion associated with mainstream, Milton Freidman'esque economics, and amplified by anti-government conservatives who think that unfettered markets will provide society with the best outcomes. Such simplicity, such elegance...such nonsense. But for now, I'd like to focus on an even more important question: what next?
Obama needs to do precisely what he has not done thus far in debates -- connect with voters in a way that makes them feel like they know and share his values, and confident that he will keep them and their families safe.
It's not enough to talk about foreclosures. It's not enough to acknowledge the impact on ordinary people without addressing the root cause of the crisis: basic inequality.
In case it isn't obvious, those begging as they cling by their fingertips on the precipice are not in a position to be making any demands or calling any proposals "deal killer."
Paulson spent the past two weeks playing a game of chicken with firms like Lehman Brothers and AIG. Now he is playing even higher-stakes chicken with Congress and the economy.
"It just made us feel that in the end the Americans just looked after themselves and shafted us," one British executive at Lehman London told me. "All this talk of 'we are one bank' had amounted to nothing."
Lehman's demise was driven by timing. Its fiscal quarter ended on August 31, so it was compelled to report $7 billion in losses on mortgage backed securities sooner than other banks.
A wrong-headed idea has infiltrated into our thinking. The cure for terroristic deeds is not freedom, it is control.
These demands will be met with howls of outrage, a renting of pinstripes. It will require a Congress, lathered with Wall Street contributions, to insist on a deal that makes sense.
As the outlines of the "bailout" package come into focus, initially limiting the bailout to redeeming assets from American institutions, the fine hand of the influence peddlers are already all over the program.
I may be an economic special-needs person, but there's one fact about the current credit meltdown that seems to be escaping a lot of attention.
Do you think that Hank's friends and former associates will miss out on the bonanza? Please. Can you think of any financial, insurance, or investment firm that won't benefit from the River of Zeros?
