Rush Limbaugh and his ilk like to accused progressives of starting a war against the rich. It's silly rhetoric. On the other hand, when I read things like this, I want to start a war against the rich: Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., defended the U.S. financial-company rescues of 2008 and told students that people in economic … Read More
Financial Reform To Pass
Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) signed on yesterday. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) signed on hours ago. That's 60, and it means that the financial regulation bill will pass the Senate without filibuster. It should be good news — installing Wall Street reforms to prevent another meltdown is the responsible sensible thing to do. Unfortunately, I fear the bill has been watered down … Read More
Suddenly, FinReg
Seems our lawmakers pulled a late nighter in Washington, and actually came up with a bipartisan bill to address abuses in the financial sector — the kind of abuses that led to the current crash and recession. It looks pretty comprehensive too. A strong bill — probably the toughest reform since FDR went after Wall Street following the Great Depression. What's … Read More
Should Taxpayers Pay For The Oil Spill?
Republican leaders think so. This is tremendously stupid politics. The public — particularly Republicans — are weary of taxpayer bailouts already. Now we want more? Oh, sure — count on Republicans to say, "Well, we bailed out the banks. So why not BP?" But that argument falls flat. The bailout of the banks was necessary to stem the economic downflow. … Read More
Is the Senate Financial Reform Bill Any Good?
Edmund Andrews, who used to cover these issues for the New York Times and now is at the Fiscal Times and blogging at Capital Gains and Games, says it’s very good indeed: Against that backdrop, it’s astonishing that the Senate bill actually became stronger as the process dragged on. The proposed consumer financial protection agency is stronger and I believe … Read More
Libertarian Ad Doesn’t Work
This ad is supposed to make you think that we're over-regulated as a society, but judging by the comments on YouTube, it actually makes you realize how important government regulation is and how much we take it for granted. All you need to do is change the tone of the background music, and the snarky nonsensical questions at the bottom, and this … Read More
Dig A Little Deeper, NYT
An article on the front page of today's New York Times contains quotes from various conservation groups indicating that perhaps the oil spill isn't as bad as people think it is. Example: Other experts said that while the potential for catastrophe remained, there were reasons to remain guardedly optimistic. “The sky is not falling,” said Quenton R. Dokken, a marine … Read More
Third Time A Charm? Don’t Bet On It
As I am writing this, the Senate is voting on financial reform legislation. This is the third time in three or four days that the Senate has held this vote, and each time, the Republicans have universally voted "no". Important to understand, however, is what the Senate is actually voting on. They are voting on merely whether to have a debate … Read More
Sh*tty Deal Or No Sh*tty Deal?
CSPAN's getting a little blue today: Language aside (and really, who gives a shit what language they use?), it's remarkable substantively. These Goldman Sachs guys are…. well…. shits. And apparently, they are getting their asses handed to them. John Cole blogs: I’m watching this on C-Span3 while I work, and this just does not feel like the normal dog and … Read More
Lesson Not Learned
WSJ: Wall Street On Track To Award Record Pay Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year — a record high that shows compensation is rebounding despite regulatory scrutiny of Wall Street's pay culture. Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can … Read More
The Other New FTC Rule
Earlier today, I mentioned a new FTC rule which, rather unusually, applied to bloggers: if you endorse or recommend something in exchange for payment (or a free sample), you must disclose the fact that your review was paid for. While I tend to frown on the regulation of bloggers (and the Internet in general), this regulation struck me as reasonable. The … Read More
The Lehman Crash: One Year Later
We may be seeing the hint of a whiff of the first signs that our economic woes are taking a turn for the better, but what about the long term? What about the reforms that Obama promised to ensure that Wall Street greed and bungling don't get us into another mess 5, 10, or 20 years down the road? For … Read More
The New Gilded Age
The first Gilded Age was a time in the late 19th-early 20th century. It was a time of huge ecnomic disparity. On the one end, you had masses of poor immigrants and farmers, huddled in tenement shacks, and ekeing out a living. Child labor, poor health — these were the earmarks ofOn the other end of the spectrum, you had … Read More
Financial Regulation
This subject is waaaay above my pay grade, but — shooting from the hip here — I think Obama needs to do at least these things: (1) Get rid of the alphabet soup of federal regulators. Just as our national defense and security was merged under the new Department of Homeland Security, many financial regulation departments can be merged/eliminated with … Read More
Metered Bandwidth Fail
A lot of people didn't know this, but Time Warner announced that it wanted to test the idea of metering bandwidth. What does that mean? Well, basically, the idea was to start charging more to Internet users who used more bandwidth. If you access/download songs or video (like YouTube), you would end up paying more for Internet service. It's what Time … Read More