Category Archives: Social values

Mark Ames: Why Finance is Too Important to Leave to Larry Summers

By Mark Ames, author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine who writes regularly at The Exiled.

If you’ve been reading Naked Capitalism for any period of time without giving back in donations—and most of us have been hooked from the time we discovered Yves Smith’s powerful, sharp voice and brilliant mind—then you you’ve been getting away with murder. Naked Capitalism is that rare blog that makes you smarter. Smarter about a lot of things, but primarily about Yves’ area of expertise, finance.

By a quirk of historical bad-luck, the American Left has gone two generations without understanding finance, or even caring to understand. It was the hippies who decided half a century ago that finance was beneath them, so they happily ceded the entire field—finance, business, economics, money—otherwise known as “political power”—to the other side. Walking away from the finance struggle was like that hitchhiker handing the gun back to the Manson Family.

EU Leaders Threaten Greece With Expulsion From the Eurozone

If you had any doubts about the intent of the Eurobailouts, the latest news should settle them. The game plan was to severely limit Greek sovereignity and assert the primacy of creditor rights, even if they came at the expense of democracy. Greece, as we described in a post earlier today, threatened to blow up the bailout by having a referendum. That measure, even if it took place before year end, would create massive uncertainty and wreak havoc with other efforts (for instance, getting China to contribute cash to the levered EFSF, the bailout funding vehicle. As we’ve detailed in earlier posts, it is unworkable in the absence either of ECB backing or substantial outside funding).

The Eurocrats have decided to try to push Greece into line, threatening expulsion from the Euro (note, not the EU) if Greece does not back down.

Hubris Watch: US Bank CEO Sniffs About Breaking Rules When His Bank Has Huge Trustee Liability

One of the benefits of the Occupy movement is that it is flushing out some particularly egregious behavior among the top 1%.

A writer for the Minneapolis CityPages managed to worm his way into a presentation to the annual meeting of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce by US Bank’s CEO, Richard Davis. Even though Occupy Minnesota was protesting outside, Davis chose to ignore them. His speech made clear that the business community does not care about long-term self interest, let alone social responsibility. Housing and the foreclosure crisis were absent from the 2012 legislative priorities. But tax reform, which is code for shifting even more of the cost of government on to the small fry? Yeah, that’s a big deal.

Davis’ apparent lone comment on the public ire against the banks was dismissive:

Greece: The Debtor that Roared

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has managed to put the European crisis game of financial fakery into turmoil. Pretty much no informed commentator expected the latest gimmick-larded rescue package to work; there were simply too many points of failure. And even if this program had miraculously come to fruition, a later train wreck was still inevitable, since Germany was persisting in wanting two contradictory outcomes: running trade surpluses in Europe, and not lending more to its trade parters.

But no one anticipated that a long suffering debtor would revolt, which is what Papandreou’s announcement of a referendum on the punitive bailout amounts to.

Europe’s Plan To End the Debt Crisis – Putting The “Con” in “Confidence” Part 2

Yves here. Das’ understated comment on the latest Eurorescue scheme, “Implementation of the plan faces significant risks,” has been proven true by the events of the day, namely, the proposal by Greek prime minister George Papandreou for a referendum on the proposed rescue plan. Even though he secured unanimous approval of his cabinet, two members of his coalition, which has a thin hold on government, defected, and he faces a vote of no confidence on Friday. Mr. Market was not happy with this news. While the fall in equity markets was what got the headline, the enthusiasm there had been considerably overdone. Far more serious was the action in the debt markets. The spread between German bunds and Italian government debt hit 450 basis points. That put Italian borrowing rates at over 6%, which is an intolerable level relative to the country’s growth prospects.

We have more detail in a related post.

By Satyajit Das, derivatives expert and the author of Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives – Revised Edition (2006 and 2010)

Without Wings, Sans Prayers…

The initial market response to the EU proposal was positive, with major stock markets and bank shares rising sharply. Unlike equity markets, debt traders were cautious. On Friday 29 October, an Italian debt auction met with lack lustre demand falling short of the full amount offered for sale. The debt markets registered their doubts by pushing up 10 year interest rates on the bonds of both Italy (up 0.14% per annum to 6.01% per annum) and Spain (up 0.18% per cent to 5.49%). Greek rates remained high at 22.35% for 10 years while comparable Portuguese rates were 11.48% and Irish rates were 7.98%.

Implementation of the plan faces significant risks.