Charlie Rose

BVA  10/04/2011 10:11 PM Report

A question for every Republican presidential candidate:

"The Obama administration appears to have delayed (deferred, suspended, or slowed) prosecution and civil litigation against executives of banks, mortgage companies, and other financial entities presumably until the economy recovers sufficiently so as not to interfere with that recovery.

"Do you, sir, plan to reinstitute and/or reinvigorate these deferred investigations, prosecutions, and civil litigations against financial executives and entities implicated in causing the economic collapse when the economy recovers?"

robdverity  04/18/2011 04:35 PM Report

So once again S&P (Standard & Poor's) ratings have an ironic and undeserved influence on the mkts. Rated subprime mtgs as AAA to start the decline, now US Govt bonds as future potential risks to continue it.

All Republicans for damn sure.

What a screwed up culture.

JohnGelles  04/18/2011 04:20 AM Report

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/291969-1

As promised

JohnGelles  04/18/2011 04:17 AM Report

To: robdverity ref your: 04/17/2011 05:00 PM

We are all too GOOD to fail if we will borrow enough from Uncle Sam to pay our bills to keep the national economy on an even keel. Such loans would be capped at a high enough figure to accommodate the debts of taxpayers of median wealth (or even higher) to avoid severe inflationary effect.

To provide incentive for repayment of such loans, individuals who repaid installments due would be automatically eligible for lottery winnings with no additional cost therefor.

The point in all this liquidity is to maintain its benevolent effect on national wealth and purpose, as work by individuals and organizations created the actual output that supplied essential needs.

Divvying up the growth in output above median levels would reflect private property and contracts of employment. The socialist dream of equality and fairness can accommodate reasonable incentive differentials between ordinary workers and some whose contributions to output may be exceptional. So can the workings of a fully funded capitalism immune from fraud and criminal conspiracies.

We know we cannot create reform without grand-fathering in privilege that may be unique. Doing this while avoiding yet more corruption in the process is the task of ad hoc judges whose work can be transparent enough for the citizenry to have confidence in their nation if in the corridors of power dishonor remains rare and the culture is not diseased. In many times and places Mothers (and even Dads) guided youth from generation to generation to tread the straight and narrow in the common interest.

I do agree that good and evil coexist on earth. I agree we can fool ourselves and chose the wrong path and yet return from error. In a perfect world the Golden Rule would remain unbroken. But in this world, alliances among people who break that rule less frequently are made. And these are better than their enemies.

When the frequency of sin by two sides locked in war is nearly equal, the war should never have started. When one side is really rotten and the other really clean, war makes sense if not tragic nonetheless.

I have recently met on TV one Paul Johnson. He writes readable history and may be heard on CSPAN in a recent "Afterwards" long interview. I'll post the URL in a moment. Have you an opinion of the man. I believe he may be a worthy influence who has done well with the knotty matters here discussed.

pastrame  04/18/2011 12:50 AM Report

The immunity of the Wall Street execs actually means everything is in working order. Threatening the public with mass panic and economic collapse correctly loosened the Federal purse strings. Then as interest was collected on normal citizens, the bailout recipients reported record earnings and showed they were model banks. When in reality we watched these banks operate as if no crisis existed: foreclosing on military families, promising loan mods while giving optimistic forecasts on ARMs, rewarding their executives with bonuses, buying and consolidating (and eliminating competition). So when the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported that everyone is to blame (no one is at fault), over zealous SEC investigators were dismissed, and the IRS inspector general is identifying $500 million in homebuyer credit cheaters, it all means the world is still spinning and things are as it should be.

Money still rules.

Move along, there is nothing to see here. We can get back to the serious business of bending over and taking higher gas prices, tax cuts for the rich, and dismantling teacher's unions. Go on, go watch your football, buy bigger cars, suck down more fast food, drink more booze, and pop more pills. Leave the hard stuff to the grown-ups.

robdverity  04/17/2011 05:00 PM Report

John, you're obviously too good a person for this forum. Dividing (by proclamation?) the assets of "fully funded capitalism" is no doubt a form of socialism (in reality). Labels are not as definitive as actions.

Your idealism is touching however and its too bad human nature is not designed to accommodate enough of your ideas. Too Utopian for a system that eats its young for a profit.

JohnGelles  04/17/2011 04:28 AM Report

The systems explained below that solve problems directly are what you might call fully funded capitalism.

They are not communism or socialism because they are based on private property and private enterprise. They have fully operational additional not-for-profit enterprise performed by government and others. They represent full employment of all capital and labor.

Some would say they are thinking outside the box. Others would say they would suck the motivating fear out of the systems we now have. To make sure such motivation was not harmed in any way, the new systems I propose would be gradually introduced to protect what we have -- not destroy it.

JohnGelles  04/17/2011 04:17 AM Report

Rescuing all who are too GOOD to fail (on account of the crimes of others) did not address medical expenses. That is because medical care deserves its own systematic treatment. I would have government keep away from a private sector medical system that served all who could afford it.

A second COMPLETE system of government clinics would cover the whole country more thoroughly than the U.S. Mail. No matter what you suffered from, the government system of clinics and specialized hospitals would care for you for free. The service, being as necessary as traffic lights, would be furnished free of charge. Where would the goods and services come from to provide the needs for the care givers working for the government health system (GHS) at good pay, and spending all that money they were paid? That's easy. It would come from the labor of all the people kept alive and in good health by the GHS.

So why would we have a second system for the rich that did not want to go to the government clinics and hospitals? Why not? We have more than enough people to be trained and serve in both systems. We have too many people now trying to earn a living by selling junk to others they do not even need.

JohnGelles  04/17/2011 04:00 AM Report

I will agree that very heavy fines and prison to punish criminal fraud and statutory offenses, after conviction and trial by jury imposed guilt as matters of fact, would do a lot of good in preventing future bad conduct. (My previous thought to move-on without these has been changed -- mostly by these comments).

Far more important, in my opinion, remains my desire to see protected every American (and other human beings, as well) from the curse and punishment of undeserved loss of job and income. This is an easy matter to accomplish:

..... Using a simple loan application and based on social security and income tax files, government could save the economic security of every citizen too GOOD to fail.

..... Applicants would inform the government, under oath, what the basis is for a loan to pay current bills -- to prevent economic suffering by families and individuals. These loans would be capped at a calculated maximum amount for the medium citizen at every age. (Medical expenses would not be included in this calculation).

..... Based on this rescue loan program, there would be no contraction of an economy brought about by the fraud and bad conduct of a few at the top. The millions of American on whose spending, to stay afloat, the nation's defense depends, would keep paying their bills that keep the rest of us alive.

If we assume many of these loans would not have been made by commercial lenders -- so what? They are not intended to make a profit for the lender. The lender is the whole economy. If too much is lent, production will expand and the economy will grow for the benefit of all.

If production and supply does not keep up with healthy needs to grow, that problem will be addressed and solved. It will be a lot easier to do this than to live through a depression that only invites gratuitous poverty, crime, corruption, disease and war.

robdverity  04/16/2011 05:36 PM Report

John - the Bernanke & Co. recession isn't over, so to say he prevented anything is wishful thinking. As Gretchen said the moral hazard thing is alive and well. Devalued real estate will take decades (the life of outstanding loans) to work thru. Too stringent (too late) credit req's will add to the immenent depression - or at least a double-dip recession. Too big to fail is a self promoting canard of the bonus babies that should be visiting regularly with Bernie Madoff. Their non-failure will merely extrude the pain out longer.

Ricardo-pearl repeated here: ". . . John Mack has no idea how pissed the average people are in Brazil regarding Wall Street and the cowboys who bet the farm and gambled everything in sight with leverage of 30 to 1 and some as high as 60 to 1 – and when the house of cards collapsed in Wall Street these clowns destroyed the stock markets around the world when they were forced to sell everything in sight to raise money to cover their margin calls and redemption from their shareholders."

REMant said it best, "Off with their heads."

Ricardo_Amaral  04/16/2011 03:16 AM Report

Wall Street has lost a lot credibility around the world, since the last scandals, and the collapse of the US financial system in 2008.

Here is an important place for the US government to start the clean up process of what is known as the septic system of the US financial system:

Goldman Sachs is it a Cancer or just a Parasite of the US financial system?

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=195957

.

Ricardo_Amaral  04/16/2011 03:15 AM Report

Here is what I posted as a comment on February 23, 2009 when John Mack was interviewed by Charlie Rose:

During the financial meltdown of 2008 the world financial markets learned a very expensive lesson that they are not going to forget for a long time: they can’t trust the cowboys from Wall Street.

The stock markets in China, India, Russia, and Brazil collapse almost overnight and in a matter of months their stock markets were down from 60 to 70 percent – with the compliments of the cowboys from the United States – hedge funds, major US banks, pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies, private equity firms and so on…

Trillions of US dollars in stock market value disappeared from stock exchanges from around the world as the implosion of the US domestic financial markets forced the cowboys to sell anything in sight to raise money for them to meet margin calls and shareholders redemption.

I would suggest that countries such as Brazil should try to keep the hot money out of the Brazilian financial markets by imposing severe penalties if the hot money tries to move out of Brazil before a certain period of time.

The rest of the world is not as stupid as Mr. Mack and other Wall Street bosses think – and the rest of the world will adjust accordingly – if they don’t adjust then they deserve to be taken for a ride once again.

I speak with a lot of people in Brazil on a regular basis and I get a feedback from a number of sources – John Mack has no idea how pissed the average people are in Brazil regarding Wall Street and the cowboys who bet the farm and gambled everything in sight with leverage of 30 to 1 and some as high as 60 to 1 – and when the house of cards collapsed in Wall Street these clowns destroyed the stock markets around the world when they were forced to sell everything in sight to raise money to cover their margin calls and redemption from their shareholders.

For all practical purposes Wall Street died a sudden death during 2008, and the US financial market has been changed in a profound way – basically what was known as Wall Street does not exist anymore – what we have today is just a shadow of the old system and even this left over of the old system I am not sure how they are going to survive in the future.

Most Americans still are in denial, but the economic system that they had for over 100 years is gone and I have no idea how the new economic system of the United States works today and in the future.

.

JohnGelles  04/16/2011 02:59 AM Report

Gretchen Morgenson is right -- there was criminal fraud that may escape the law because the authorities were not determined to prevent the sort of profiteering that was founded on such fraud.

In the panic of the rescue, the top echelon of government was anxious to avoid outcomes closer to those in the thirties than we could stand today. The whole nation was spared -- and almost all of us want to MOVE ON. The criminals among us were more like us than not. Profiteering was and is so common, we hope to reduce it without criminal trials. And, as Gretchen said, the evidence required for indictment and conviction is not that easy to assemble.

I do not like the fact that Bernanke's critical role in preventing a worse depression is not celebrated in these comments. His trillion dollar money printing quantitative easing tipped the scales in favor of less not more chance that massive unemployment might have been our fate.

It seems to me that Bernanke and Gelles are the only voices around that want money to be appreciated as being at the root of all our troubles. Not spending -- but failure to spend enough.

robdverity  04/15/2011 07:02 PM Report

Regulating the regulators perhaps the place to start. The SEC et al. Then congress itself. And particularly the rating agencies: Moody's, Std & Poor's, Fitch etc. (they could have stopped the whole scam in its tracks.

robdverity  04/15/2011 05:29 PM Report

None are indicted nor imprisoned as the system's venality is corrupt from the top down. Sec of Treas. himself, Hank Paulson, pulled the biggest heist on the system with the bailout of his cronies. He's since retired to the Bahamas (Tax-free no doubt) on an island we bought for him. Too-big-to-fail is bad policy as it becomes a never-ending threat - as is the case right now. In other words they should have failed - for posterity. There survival doesn't appear to have averted a world-wide crisis.

Exploiting the initial objective of enhancing and broadening the "American Dream," Robert Rubin and Sandy Weill of Citigroup (one of the sleaziest orgns extant) PURCHASED the repeal of Glass-Steagall assisting mightily the race to the bottom.

The fact that they repaid their bailout is farcical. The true cost is not the bailout but the extended foreclosures throughout the US, world caused by their egregious greed.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS INDEED!!!

REMant  04/15/2011 11:27 AM Report

Off with their heads! Well, actually I suspect it's because we don't think fundamentally it was their fault. While I don't agree, of course, with the Keynesian economic presumptions - we shouldn't have "saved the system" and the TARP is being paid back through depreciation and inflation - if you don't basically think there's anything wrong with Keynesianism, you aren't likely going to be very discerning about anything else. Bernanke was even reappointed, and others were heads of quasi-govt entities. At a lower level tho I'm sure there are ppl who broke distinct statutes who will eventually be scapegoated as Gretchen apparently intends. But as the philosopher-possum Pogo remarked, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."