If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
There are plenty of places around the globe where the private sector isn't burdened by regulation. Like Bangladesh, where under-regulated factory operations yield cheap clothing at the price of human life. Or China, where you can't ever be quite sure what you're eating and whether it will poison you.
While the pre-recession U.S. ignored growing structural imbalances in the real estate sector, financial markets, and external trade relations, the Philippine government is obsessed with emphasizing the boom in the stock markets, real estate and foreign exchange reserves.
Bernanke and most of his colleagues say they are fighting unemployment and see no inflation. They actually may be targeting stagflation: high unemployment and high inflation.
Why is David Stockman driving everyone crazy? The shoot-the-messenger frenzy that has greeted Sunday's New York Times op-ed by Ronald Reagan's former budget director leaves one searching for the message that has so unhinged his critics.
How can we explain why both under Bush and Obama, Wall Street has grown even larger -- so large that even Eric Holder admits they are too big to prosecute?
Isn't $3 trillion already on their books too much? Not really, when you look at what even Fed Chairman Bernanke's predecessor, wily Alan Greenspan (master of do what I say, not what I do), was able to engineer during his almost 20-year tenure. How did he do it?
To help high school students better understand the underlying economic issues I prepared a "mock debate" between Alan Greenspan and Paul Krugman.
The reality is that the large budget deficits of recent years are due to the economic downturn following the collapse of the housing bubble. But pointing out this fact makes one shrill; you have to say that the deficit is a huge problem to be a serious person in Washington.
CEO Math is what results after drinking an ideological Red Bull. Suitably buzzed, you then begin to do arithmetic to maximize short-term profits -- regardless of whether your math is legal, ethical, good for business in the long-term
The reality is that the current system of taxation created by Ronald Reagan and put on steroids by George W. Bush is working quite well for Pete Peterson and his fellow oligarchs.
Whether you like or dislike Federal Reserve policy, its policy record from World War II to the Bernanke Fed is generally related more to who was President rather than to who was Federal Reserve chairman.
I propose a simple maxim: Do not further the career of any man or women who is in any way influenced by Ayn Rand. It will spare us Paul Ryan, who made his interns read Atlas Shrugged.
Greenspan sprung to the aid of the Wall Street Mafia by proclaiming loud and clear there is no need to return to the Glass-Steagall Act and all it would imply in restricting the proprietary trading of banks: "Glass-Steagall was never a useful vehicle."
What on earth did this misanthropic woman write that was so appealing to her disciples and how could we have allowed them to use her warped creed to further their own political ends and enrich their cronies?
It was only a matter of time before it happened: Alan Greenspan has come to the defense of JPMorgan Chase. Yes, the Alan Greenspan, the same man who helped make it possible for banks like JPMorgan to get big enough to annihilate the financial system.
It's an uphill climb for Obama to even mildly criticize Mitt Romney for being a vulture capitalist given his lack of accomplishment in holding anyone on Wall Street accountable for the economic carnage they wreaked.
