One Percent Versus The
Other Ninety Nine Percent
The rich versus the poor is the subject. Stiglitz talks the talk. Does he
walk the walk? Or does he have his snout in the trough like the rest?
Joseph Stiglitz - The financial crisis is the fruit of dishonesty
QUOTE
Houses of cards, chickens coming home to roost - pick
your cliché. The new low in the financial crisis, which has prompted
comparisons with the 1929 Wall Street crash, is the fruit of a pattern
of dishonesty on the part of financial institutions, and incompetence on
the part of policymakers. We had become accustomed to the hypocrisy. The banks
reject any suggestion they should face regulation, rebuff any move
towards anti-trust measures - yet when trouble strikes, all of a sudden
they demand state intervention: they must be bailed out; they are too
big, too important to be allowed to fail.
UNQUOTE
Stiglitz talks
the talk. Does he walk the walk? No. He was one of the policy makers with a
big mouth. He colluded with Clinton. He knows about dishonesty close up.
Trustworthy? Not for my money.
Our Words - Joseph
Stiglitz
QUOTE
The global economic crisis began in Thailand,
on July 2, 1997.............But the seeds of calamity had already been
planted. In the early '90s, East Asian countries had liberalized their
financial and capital markets...... These changes provoked a flood of
short-term capital--that is, the kind of capital that looks for the highest
return in the next day, week, or month, as opposed to long-term investment
in things like factories. In Thailand, this short-term capital helped fuel
an unsustainable real estate boom. And,... every real estate bubble
eventually bursts, often with disastrous consequences...... And, when
everybody tries to pull their money out at the same time, it causes an
economic problem. A big economic problem..........
But bad economics was only a symptom of the real problem:
secrecy. Smart people are more likely to do stupid things when they close
themselves off from outside criticism and advice. If there's one thing I've
learned in government, it's that openness is most essential in those realms
where expertise seems to matter most.
UNQUOTE
He talks the
talk. That's about it though. Pushing transparency in business is like
pushing against ethnic cleansing in Israel.
Joseph Stiglitz -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An anodyne biography.
How to prevent the next Wall Street crisis
QUOTE
Many seem taken aback by the depth and severity of the current financial
turmoil. I was among several economists who saw it coming and warned about
the risks. There is ample blame to be shared; but the purpose of parsing out
blame is to figure out how to make a recurrence less likely.....
One can say the Fed failed twice, both as a regulator and
in the conduct of monetary policy. Its flood of liquidity (money made
available to borrow at low interest rates) and lax regulations led to a
housing bubble. When the bubble broke, the excessively leveraged loans made
on the basis of overvalued assets went sour For all the new-fangled
financial instruments, this was just another one of those
financial crises based on excess leverage, or borrowing, and a pyramid
scheme...............
UNQUOTE
Given the prevalence of Jews in the
finance industry it is clear that Stiglitz is talking about his own. Packing
them off to Israel would make a difference. They might be reduced to honest
work.
Henry Paulson's
Shell Game
QUOTE
The champagne bottle corks were popping
as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced his trillion-dollar bailout
for the banks, buying up their toxic mortgages........ There is, however, an
alternative explanation for Wall Street's celebration: the banks realized
that they were about to get a free ride at taxpayers' expense. No private
firm was willing to buy these toxic mortgages at what the seller thought was
a reasonable price; they finally had found a sucker who would take them off
their hands--called the American taxpayer.
There are four fundamental problems with our financial system, and the Paulson proposal addresses only one. The first is that the financial institutions have all these toxic products--which they created--and since no one trusts anyone about their value, no one is willing to lend to anyone else. The Paulson approach solves this by passing the risk to us, the taxpayer--and for no return. The second problem is that there is a big and increasing hole in bank balance sheets--banks lent money to people beyond their ability to repay--and no financial alchemy will fix that...........
The third problem is that our economy has been
supercharged by a housing bubble which has now burst......... The fourth
problem is a lack of trust, a credibility gap. Regrettably, the way the
entire financial crisis has been handled has only made that gap larger.
UNQUOTE
In short the big boys walk laughing. We get screwed. Stiglitz
is still skating over his involvement.
