naked capitalism

Anonymous says:

http://thereformedbroker.com/2009/01/13/the-quesadilla-that-changed-my-mind-about-the-bailout/

quesadilla changed my mind about the bailout

Keenan says:

Yves: Is this some sort of subliminal ad ?

I see the picture and my brain unfortunately conjures up the sounds of an english accented voice yammering about insurance.

Stephen says:

Re Auto sales.

Addition of previously removed financing should boost sales. It was never as bad some said, cars people wouldnt buy. Pure rhetiric, people were buying them.

BUT….nobody should be fooled that this doesnt mean ther arent problems with cost structure, product offerings, overall pricing and the purchase and ownership experience. Much remains to be done.

However, that was the one justfication for a bailout or assistance, that the lack of a critical component that is normally available (credit to consumers and or suppliers) could be supplied on a temporary basis by the government till the private sector returned to its “normal” place.

Ideally he government backs out over time, the timing of green vehicles should be let to the marketplace. If government wishes to tax gasoline below a certain price level to encourage transition because it is considered “strategic” then thats how politics works.

By the way, the justification for the auo bailout was the same as the one for the financial bailout, extreme conditions that are not normally seen and lack of the normal repair mechanisms. The callenge will be gettign the government ot leave the field when conditions return, but doing so in a way that “the field” is n better and more robust shape than before. ie better regulation.

There still needs to be some kind of sould searching over compensation in the financial industry that drove some of this. Correction of the “timing problem” where you can boost profits in years 1-3, and obtain significant rewards, but lose it all in year 4, and suffer nothing worse than losing your job but keeping your 7, 8 or 9 figure bonus money.

It is an old problem whos answer I dont really know. I do know the answer starts at the compensation in the C Suite, they will take care of the rest.

Anonymous says:

One wonders how many birds of prey will die off after the rabbit,s mice, and rats are eradicated.

dearieme says:

The Thoma commenters seem to suggest, though not in so many words, that Mankiw is a Republican Krugman. That seems very cruel. Though, as one commenter implies, it might be very hard to understand the animosities if one doesn’t know who slept with whom, who plagiarised whose results, who knifed whom in committee, and so on. Still, none of us assumes (I conjecture) that economists are a particularly truthful crew.

Anonymous says:

Citibank just announced their restructuring.

D

john bougearel says:

What crap: Is there no end to the reach around (expropriation) into our pocketbooks? Like a dog on a pant leg, the Fed just won’t let go of the mantra to sink more good money into bad banks. They have no policy objective but those loaded with rotten, mistaken goals. The Fed chair is devoid of vision, blinded by this single-minded purpose that serves no good end for the taxpayer.

Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned that a fiscal stimulus won’t be enough and that the government may need to buy or guarantee banks’ tainted assets to revive growth.

“Fiscal actions are unlikely to promote a lasting recovery unless they are accompanied by strong measures to further stabilize and strengthen the financial system,” Bernanke said in a speech today at the London School of Economics. “More capital injections and guarantees may become necessary to ensure stability and the normalization of credit markets.”