Charlie Rose

pater_leo  08/29/2009 08:25 AM Report

The problem of Global Crisis is more deep !

Stafford Beer wrote in the early 90th

“Soviet communism accepted its own demise; Western capitalism has not accepted it yet” - http://ototsky.mgn.ru/vsm/ .

The time for implementation the VSM of Stafford Beer has come ! - http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/it/presentations/paradiso2009m.htm

I am ready to follow a discussion by the email -

leonid.ototsky@gmail.com

MPCalifornia  02/19/2009 06:50 PM Report

Same arguments are being made by the panel members since the crisis started, which any average joe with can conclude himself.

Why is it the panel members can't talk about specifics? -- Charlie Rose should be asking more probing questions

- What happened to the last bailout?

- Why are we not seeing results? Is it because of Washington politics and irresponsible behavior continuing on Wall Street?

- How is the accountability being measured? Is there accountability at all?

- What do the experts think about the plan of action (I mean specifics...list down things to be done and discuss the approach)

Everybody understands that banks should start lending and money flowing in the system for the economy to be back.....but how do we get there?

Slim  02/13/2009 02:24 PM Report

I must really be getting old. I've just about had all the inane opinions from the really smart guys that I can stand. Do you think Charlie, that maybe you can query some average guys who actually produce something of value, and posess that rarely expressed commodity, common sense, on your program? Maybe you could also dredge up, from heaven knows where, a political, economic, social scion who also happens to be Black. Do you think that maybe they might actually have some different insights into these immense problems and their possible solutions? Maybe you hadn't noticed, but I think our new President might be one. Lastly, maybe it's time to give this constant, minescule critique of every Obama breath a break. It smacks of the overt racism this nation has prematurely assumed was conquered with this last election.

tartufe  02/12/2009 10:57 PM Report

Damn! WShaw for Sec. of Treas. So eloquent and spot on. I wish I'd said it.

When the bailout hits $3.0 trillion that's equivalent to $10,000 per capita, or $25,000 to say $40,000 per family. A home down payment, car - anything but taxes to bailout the predators that created the mess.

Convenient store robbery = 5 to 10. Billions from the treasury with political accomplices = millions in rewards.

The Washington-Wall Street putrescence is stinking up the nation. They have ruined a damn promising experiment while it lasted. As they say in the banana republics, VIVA LA CORRUPCION!

WShaw  02/12/2009 08:11 PM Report

I'm not Joe the plumber, I'm Winston the boat captain, bald eagle field researcher, and photojournalist and I live here along the rock bound coast of Maine in not so sunny anymore Bar Harbor. A long time fan of your generally excellent interview show I had the great misfortune to take in your show with Sorkin, Norris, and Nocera last night and it got me so worked up I hardly got a wink of sleep.

Let me see if I've got this right. A bunch of supposedly Best & Brightest financial Whiz Kids created the biggest mess on Wall Street and in the banking industry in the history of this country (if not in the history of this World) all in the name of lining their own pockets and the pockets of their investors with Big Bucks with not a thought given to the ultimate effect their actions would have upon their fellow citizens. They did this not for a few weeks, or a few months, but for years.

Recently the house of cards collapsed and down came Humpty Dumpty from the infamous Wall Street Wall!

As All The King's Horses and All The King's Men begin the difficult (if not totally impossible) job of putting ole Humpty Dumpty back together again talk turns to what should be done with the guys who pushed him off the wall in the first place.

According to your guest Sorkin there is little point in punishing those responsible for ole Humpty's fall because we have to rely upon them to fix things. And given that we have to motivate them to pick up the mess they created in their greed we shouldn't in any way attempt to punish them for their misdeeds or, worse yet according to Sorkin, make any attempt to limit the profits that they can reap for doing the job.

As today's kids might say:

"Not!"

Charlie, I have a sense of humor and all but this is just a bit too much don't you think? I mean given the fact that the lust for profits created the problem in the first place does it seem reasonable to you to expect the same clowns (and clowns is exactly what they are) to see the error of their ways and fix things right up as long as they are allowed to reap obscene profits in the process?

All of this reeks more than a little from the stench of entitlement that has allowed the supposedly Best & Brightest folks to get their hands around the throat of this once great nation. When all is said and done the mess we are in right now is the direct result of a mindset in which short term personal goals take precedence over everything else. Expecting that same mindset to get Humpty back together again is a bit like expecting bankers driven only by a desire for profits to use Bail Out money to improve the lot of the average American. One wonders if ole George W thought they were going to take the $750,000,000,000 and use it to open Soup Kitchens and Retraining Facilities?

And my solution to all this?

Funny you should ask, but here's what I'd do if I were Obama.

1) Convene a panel, group, Grand Jury, committee, whatever, and get to the bottom of what has taken place. Or at least deep enough down in the horseshit pile to find the truly rotten apples.

2) Charge them with whatever violations of the law that can most easily be proven and put them on trial.

3) At the sentencing hearing give them two options:

A) Do nothing and you go to jail. Plus your entire estate will be confiscated by the court, liquidated, and the money used ... drum roll please ... to fund Soup Kitchens.

B) Work actively to completely repair (or at least attempt to) the damage you've done for a modest salary $50,000 a year has a nice ring to it don't you think?) and 2 years taken off their jail sentence.

My guess is that it's not going to take much head scratching on their part to decide which is the wiser of the two courses to take.

quito  02/11/2009 01:54 PM Report

Interesting, informative, but not deep enough! We hit the wall, we fell into the ditch, we went over the cliff. The sooner we realize, the sooner we can start thinking fresh. Restoring the old won't work. We have to start from scratch to design a new way to live together, including everyone and everything. It's easy if we take our heads out from where they are stuck.

ShalomFreedman  02/11/2009 01:16 PM Report

Perhaps it is because of the nature of the subject which is not a very pleasant one, but I found this discussion choppy, fragmented and annoying. Everyone seems to agree on the idea that no one knows for certain what will work, including whether or not the Obama stimulus package will. Everyone too seems to have a kind of vague general liking for and respect for President Obama. The general idea of the discussion seems to be; We do not know whether or not what we are doing is right, but doing something is certainly better than doing nothing.

tartufe  02/10/2009 11:03 PM Report

REMant - Well said. Particularly, "Credit, like confidence, is something that is conferred by legitimate public trust based on fact, not whipped up by propaganda and hype. We will have credit, when we have credit, and not before, whether Bernanke, Geithner, Rivlin, Obama, Oprah Winfrey, or anyone else likes it."

When it gets to $3.0 trillion, that's $10,000 per capita; $25,000 +/- per family. Down payment on a home. A car. Trinkets galore. But alas the financial wise-guys would have to pare a foot or two off their yachts docked in tax free havens in the Bahamas.

REMant  02/10/2009 10:12 PM Report

Actually this really shook my confidence in the NYT for the first half hour, because I had heard some of these ppl make much more sense in the past. The question is not WHAT should be done, but what CAN be done, as Norris eventually said, when he remarked that confidence is not a matter of willpower, but results. That is the nub of the issue. Beyond this, a correct analysis of the cause of the problem, and what a good outcome should be. The president, admin and Congress show a similar confusion. No one wants to admit that this is a matter of bankruptcy, of not living up to one's credit, and they are all running around asking for more, when they should be tightening their belts and working smarter. If there is no credit, there is no credit, and most likely, there shouldn't be any credit. Credit, like confidence, is something that is conferred by legitimate public trust based on fact, not whipped up by propaganda and hype. We will have credit, when we have credit, and not before, whether Bernanke, Geithner, Rivlin, Obama, Oprah Winfrey, or anyone else likes it. IMHO ppl should never have credit until there is the savings to support it. If we just print money, prices will not just go up this time, but production will contract further by discouraging savings and investment. The Soviet Union had lots of money when it collapsed. Part of the reason why the financial sector is in trouble is because they were trying to make money off insurance, rather than concentrating on fundamentals such as these.

The president mentioned that in this case the govt is the last resource, but, unless the govt is going to produce something, its resources are limited to the fact that ppl trust it more than most businesses to invest their money, or in dire circumstances, it could use its taxing power to that end. I think the observation that this presidency may well be pre-occupied so much between this and Afghanistan, that you will hardly know we had an election, no matter what Obama says back on the stump. More especially so if it continues on this path. I think hearings into causes, would help the American ppl as well as the lawmakers, understand the issues better, and that legislation to actually fix problems - and I don't just mean banking regulation, etc - would go a long way to making a real difference. In this I would include passing healthcare and tax reform ASAP. What I have in mind is a managed healthcare system and a flat-tax, and devious soul that I am, I'd put them in the same bill. If the govt wants to lend money then it should start a bank and go into business, instead of telling the banks what they ought to do. That's what they do in Sweden when they don't like the way the private sector is doing something. But they shouldn't go around talking about jump-starting this or that, because while they may be able to supply a little juice to the battery, they apparently haven't noticed that the gas tank is empty.

NB- I wrote my observations on the news conf in comments posted yesterday on Friday's interview with Brooks.

tartufe  02/10/2009 05:39 PM Report

Conventional wisdom(?) accepted by these guys is so in-the-box, and so egregiously wrong. Not letting the big banks fail (particularly Citigroup et al) is guaranteeing the moral hazard and sends the wrong message here and abroad. Our system corrupted the world system - with impunity, thus leaving open that it probably will again, thereby delaying to destroying any chance of restoring confidence. Here and abroad.

The big banks and probably hedge funds are doubtless the primary holders and initiators of the gimmicky financial instruments (a la Credit Default Swaps, Securitised Debt etc), and consequently the very ones that created the fiasco and thus should likewise be very ones that suffer its consequences.

The network of the nations (less than mega or big) banks can and should handle letters of credit and commercial paper associated with moving commodities and shipments. The honorable part of banking in short.

Credit card banking on the other hand practiced primarily by the mega-banks (again Citigroup et al) have a history of duplicitous political collusion of lobbying through advantageous and enabling confiscatory legislation: making health and unemployment related bankruptcies more difficult, overriding states usury laws, interest increases for missed payments (anywhere), repeal of Glass-Steagall, on and on. (Think Citigroup’s Sandy Weill, Robert Rubin et al) An oligarchy of vampires. Their laissez faire (true) capitalistic natural demise would be cathartic and a cleansing purge of an egregious culture consumed with an entitlement greed so outsized it capsized the world’s economy.

And we’re rewarding them with bailouts, with doubtless ineffectual oversight. The rampant corruption will be monumental, a la Halliburton, Black Water, on and on . . . .

Finally, if the cost of the bailout is estimated in trillions to avert trillions of cost to the economy, where’s the advantage? It’s a wash! Other than the elite financial wise-guys that got us here to begin with are bailed out at our and our progeny’s expense - in taxes and banana republic-style inflation.

Democracy for sale is a democracy in peril. Venality and political whoredom has won.

Alas and alack! If that doesn’t ultimately result in anarchy (taxpayer or otherwise), nothing will.