Charlie Rose

drhaluska  03/12/2009 09:22 AM Report

It is nice to see another expert from Wall Street on the program, and the interview was informative, but what grabs me the most from most of these guys who have so much experience is the fact that they all agree on the same thing..., give us more money, the bailout package is not enough. It seems that the government can not provide a stimulus or bailout package that is ever going to be big enough. It is the same cry that is heard by the stereotypical drug addict in a movie, just give us the money and then leave us alone. When the times are good, leave them to their own devices and the market and Wall Street guys will take care of themselves. But when they are suffering and cannot tell which way is up, the only solution they can find is: bail us out with as much money as possible so we and our buddies can stay in business. The situation, and these people who are the experts, are becoming more sickening to listen to day by day. It is a fine pickle that we have gotten ourselves into here. Which way is up?

ShalomFreedman  03/11/2009 06:31 AM Report

Biggs has , excuse this, a very big reputation as Wall Street long- term maven. I found his comments on the situation in the Roosevelt regime interesting. Perhaps any student of Economics would know this stuff but I did not know that a Roosevelt imposed tax caused a vertical market move in 37-38. I also found Biggs word of promotion on GE encouraging. After all what the U.S. economy needs among other things now is a restoration of confidence. And this guy is saying it's not all garbage, but in fact American companies are of real value. GE is the only surviving company on the original Dow and is in a sense a symbol of American industry as a whole. I also learned from him why the imposition of higher capitol gains tax now is probably a mistake. I had thought that President Obama's call for taxing the upper five percent of Americans was simply the right thing to do. Apparently it depends on the way this is done. Biggs is not particularly articulate and a number of times Charlie Rose made his points for him in asking the questions. But he seemed a competent, no- nonsense person. I think Charlie Rose might have asked him about his own Hedge Fund and how much it has lost in all this.

tartufe  03/10/2009 03:49 PM Report

I'd a said what REMant said had I the smarts.

Jawboning for GE? Should there've been a public disclosure about here? GE at once epitomizes and disappoints re USA type capitalism. Producing saleable, even useful - imagine, products wasn't enough for the bottom-line quarter-at-a-time possessed CEOs of our age. They had to dilute physical production with financial gimcrack production, and joined the short-cut scammers a la Citigroup et al.

Can any of the flying public take comfort in traveling in an airplane powered by engines built by a company with a corporate mindset of corner-cutting to bottom-line enhancement by OVER indulging in sleazy financial instruments?

If, say, leaving out a heat-resistant safety plate in their engines would enhance the bottom line margin even a half per cent, how do you think they would decide?

GE, Citigroup et al the egregiously greedy financial maggot's stock prices are settling in the poetic moral low-ground where the natural laws of equity and decency dictate.

Citigroup and the other big banks and hedge funds need to be given free rein or even pushed to fail. If, as some have forecast, five years of pain is in the offing anyway, why keep the predatory maggots infesting the lesser thugs?

Appropriate investigations, arrests and proportional fines and incarceration would be encouraging and a sign we're finally getting it right. Fat chance.

REMant  03/10/2009 11:20 AM Report

He is right, he is no economist. He is no philosopher or sociologist either, nor much of an historian. He IS a typical Wall Streeter, whose whole idea of the economy is the price level of stocks. He is what has been called since the '30s - a term I have also used - an inflationist. What he believes in is not democracy, but as he said, capitalist democracy, in other words a democracy which equates inflation with wealth. Thus his comment that the Fed should have jumped sooner and more massively to keep up the level of inflation. But it is only wealth temporarily and only for some people, like himself, until it becomes wealth for no one, as is the case now. His complaint about the proposed level of capital gains taxation is a good illustration. I see no reason, at all, BTW, for venture vultures to be gobbling up promising cos or for stock jobbers to be making money on IPOs. His attitude is that scientists and engineers work for money like he and his ilk do, but nothing could be further from the truth. Inflation, in any case, does not comport with talk about correcting the distribution of wealth. Poor ppl do not own stocks. On the "toxic assets" question, I doubt they are entirely what is keeping those banks with them from lending, but I am glad if they are at present keeping them from lending money that would not be coming from depositor's savings and/or is merely more manufactured credit. The longer they are kept from that, I think, the better off the People will be, and the worse off Mr Biggs, etc will be. And the wealth destruction occurred when it was improperly invested by ppl like him, not by those who now are trying to hang onto what little they have. I was pleased to hear Shelby and McCain taking the proper attitude towards their value Sunday, but, personally, ppl like this make me wish we had some Brown Shirts around to put the fear of God into them. However, I'll accept what I take for Charlie's apology for him.