naked capitalism

Alexandra says:

There is no such thing as an 'independent' agency. Every agency has its power delegated to it by Congress which represents the people of the United States.
Currently those agencies and the Fed do not serve the people of the United States but some other interests, in fact they are unaccountable to and incontrollable by Congress.
Now, Larry Summers thinks that he can solve the problem if he was just made Fed chairman and given unlimited power.
Sounds dangerous to me.

Siggy says:

The Congress is us. As a political body we pretty much get what we want. The fact that much of what we get is mediocre is, in my view, reflective of how mediocre are society is. If we genuinely want something better we need to lose roughly 100 million people. And that's not just the oldies nor the illegals, that's across the cohort spectrum. As to Geithner, he is the product of a seriously flawed financial system. What he wants is the centralization of financial power and ultimately and elitist controlled economy. What has transpired, and is continuing, is that market participants have been largely absolved of personal responsibility, moreover lacking sound analysis and proofs, our financial system has been guided by an idealogue he believed in an efficient market. I am incredulous that and educated and erudite man could adhere to such a hypothesis in the face of mountainess evidence that unfettered markets do seek equilibrium points, they do not maintain those points and with patently obviously regularly oscillate around equilibrium points. Geithner should be asking for a new Glass-Steagell law coupled with a commitment by the Fed, the Treasury, the CFTC to enforce the laws now on the books. While Yves would readily abrogat a contract where she views it necessary to effect equity, such actions must be approached with great care. Trampled the established body of contract law as in the case of GM, Chrysler and AIG will not in the mid-term correct our problems. What lies in fron of is the mercantilist challenge of a nation that is running away from complet government control of production to one that is soon to be much like our system semi government management. The great lessonbefore us is that as a society intent on preserving personal liberty we cannot allow the profligate and fraudulent action of a narrow group of individual impair our financial system and the economy that it supports.

Anonymous says:

"The industry is already back to their pre-meltdown bonuses," said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "We need to make sure we don't slip back to risky behavior where the institutions have all the upside and the taxpayers have all the downside, which is why we need regulatory reform."

No shit, Sherlock. What did you think was going to happens when you throw a party and provide all the food, drugs, booze, and hookers?

The only real regulatory reform you need is not covering their losses. But this is coming from the same administration that wants everyone else to be fiscally conservative while they continue to spend like drunken frat boys. These goofs can't even get their own re-acquired pals Fannie and Freddie to shape up – mostly because they don't even WANT them to.

If people look to their leaders to set a behavioral examples, the only example Rahm Emmanuel has ever set in his life is how to be a complete asshole and gain power from it. Wall Street is your mirror, Rahm.

emca says:

The argument for a stronger Fed reminds me somewhat of the case of unitary executive privileges made in the recent (if distant) past. While the idea of centralizing decision seems an efficient and effective strategy going forward, in actuality, it depends, as Joseph Fielding remarked in his epic tale of human foibles, "Tom Jones", wholly on the abilities of the governing; to whit, why would you vest absolute authority with an absolute incompetent? Such authority has no innate attributes to insure wisdom, tack, insight or any other characteristics by which means this role is balanced.
In point of fact, very few have those salacious quirks to make this strategy work, and I certainly don't think Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, George Bush, Hank Paulson or a host of other assorted characters (and even – gasp – Barack (CAC)Obama) are in full (even in some cases partial) possession of those skills.

For the love of God and country, I don't think that our founding fathers embraced a representative form of government pattern after that of Britain, sans a "King" to have it abdicated at this time in fit of piecemeal, surface expediency. Washington (George)had the foresight to reject those who thought kingship was a good idea (perhaps because he saw first hand the antics of English George), we should continue his example. Giving more authority to fewer, if nothing else (let alone other questions of structural, systemic concentration of power), restricts or eliminates dissent and as the alternate viewpoint is sometimes the one verified by the actual , is a dangerous ambition.

Anonymous says:

The government is already picking who wins, and who loses, on a grand and arbitrary (to us, not to those holding power) scale.

Regulations are deck chairs at this point.

egominumus says:

Mostly drivel out of the complainertariat in the commnets section here, the whining goes each direction, long breathless noise about an the lack of action and the captivity of government institutions. And then a week later, the same crowd screeching away about Adminstration knocking heads at regulatory institutions. The chattering classes trully live on.

Obama for one, has poor political chops. The public mood is straight forward, according to them nothing much has been done to deal with the perpetrators, and both the cops in congress and the regulators were asleep at the switch, which means these turf wars garner NO! sympathy from them.

What Obama does not grasp, is that people want decisive action, that cracks skulls, and if he was to act, and use his political machine to deliver a simple narrative to the public, he would be succesfull at reforming the regulators and outmanouvering congress. Since the beggining of this crises, the public have watched the rules being bent to "fix" it, so regulators or congress, or complainers harping on about constiutional, rules is not cutting it.

Obama should call in the regulators, to the white house, read them, riot act, and FIRE Somebody, in that way o0nly a president can. He can tell them that if they want to take him oin, that's their perogative as independant regulators, but he will scorch thyem in the process. My contention is he should have done this right at the beggining. All the heads should have been told to fall in their swords, whilst the pitchforks were still sharp, and the messages would have been clear. Instead nobody has been accountable at all, anywhere.

That said I do think, the fed has been second only to the SEC as incompetent within this crises, if not more so.

Anonymous says:

Did anyone else notice that both of the regulators Geithner was probably aiming his swear words at were women?
_____________

The most polite thing that I can say about Geithner is a walking disaster whose policies are going to result in an absolute catastrophe.

Having said that, I don't think Schapiro and Bair are defenseless parties that don't understand politics. SOMEBODY leaked this story, and you can be sure it wasn't Geithner. This is just another round in the spin cycle.

Incidentally, FDIC is close to absolutely needing Geithner's approval soon. Maybe they shouldn't protest too loudly just yet.