If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Anyway, I never gave much thought to Goodfellas being a cinematic template for the kinds of schemes, scams and financial shenanigans pulled off by the Wall Street mob until recently.
I don't care if Greenberg wants to sue God. It is a free country and he can do what he wants. But I do care when someone tries to reverse the consequences of their own bad decisions by using up the resources of my government.
On March 19, Hank Greenberg, AIG's former CEO of 40 years and now head of Starr Companies, sat down with Bloomberg Television anchor Betty Liu at 92Y ...
Why don't more companies embrace trust as a tangible, learnable, and measurable asset? Because it requires four things that don't fit the business world's current obsession with instant gratification -- time, effort, diligence and character.
As a society we are the more than willing victims who love the adrenalin rush that comes with watching the Dow rise, or our home assessments go up, or our portfolios expand but then turn around and blame our predators when we get caught.
It appears that the big government hand that "fed" AIG slipped in a few doses of poison as well as sustenance, and then diverted some of that sustenance to AIG's big bank counterparties. To borrow a Taibbi term of art, sometimes it takes a vampire squid to beat a vampire squid.
The easing of regulations, which permitted financial institutions to become the behemoths they did, is partially responsible for this mess. But I say "partially" because that is only one part of the problem. The other part is the lack of personal accountability on Wall Street.
The Takings Clause made national news last week with the spectacle of AIG playing Hamlet in debating whether "to sue, or not to sue" the federal government over the terms of the company's bailout -- a rather backhanded way of thanking American taxpayers for keeping the company from bankruptcy in 2008.
TARP -- the infamous Troubled Assets Relief Program that bailed out Wall Street in 2008 -- is over. The Treasury Department announced it will be completing the sale of the remaining shares it owns of the banks and of General Motors. But in reality it's not over.
Wait, are we still talking about the Treasury Department minting a trillion-dollar coin to put off the debate on the debt ceiling for a little while l...
There is nothing virtuous about selfishness and there is nothing objective about Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy, which is little more than a sly attempt to whitewash her own flaws.
The issue of insider trading from information emanating from Treasury Secretary Paulson's office was a focus of ruminations from this corner some four years ago. But hard questions, perhaps until now, have been few and far between.
You can tell a lot about someone by the company they keep. When I see who Mitt Romney listens to on Social Security, as well as his plans to cut benefits, raise the retirement age, and turn much of it over to Wall Street, I am very troubled.
While the repeal of Glass-Steagall was certainly a part of making our system fragile to the point where it is at today, thinking that a simple solution like breaking up the banks will be the panacea that we seek is incredibly naïve.
