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Showing posts with label regulation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label regulation. Show all posts
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Authorized Media: "Banks Dodged Bullet"
Read the BusinessWeek article here. Here's an excerpt:
"A deal reached by members of a House and Senate conference early this morning diluted provisions from the tougher Senate bill, limiting rather than prohibiting the ability of federally insured banks to trade derivatives and invest in hedge funds or private equity funds.Before we know it, election season will be upon us and we will be aswim in calls to support Democrat incumbents. Presumably, the Dems won't try to sell their (basically conservative) politics as "change" this time around. They'll sell their ticket as a bulwark against Tea-bagger reactionaries.Banks “dodged a bullet,” said Raj Date, executive director for Cambridge Winter Inc.’s center for financial institutions policy and a former Deutsche Bank AG executive. “This has to be a net positive.”
But what happened during the two years of massive Democrat House majorities, a supermajority in the Senate, and an initially popular young president who was talking about fundamental change?
We saw the reactivation of the US's Latin American military strong arm in 2008, escalation in Afghanistan, complete continuity with the Bush years in terms of treasury policy, quick surrender on the already compromised "public option", failure to repeal anti-union laws that prevent organization of workplaces, increased drone attacks on Pakistan, severe cuts to public services, spending freezes for everything except the defense budget, refusal to enact progressive reform on the GLBT-rights front, a U-turn on off-shore drilling and an embrace by Obama of "drill baby drill", deference to a for-profit oil company that has devastated the Gulf of Mexico, etc. Now we have, basically, a failure to even secure adequate window-dressing to cover the fact that serious regulatory reform will not be passed.
It is more clear to me than ever that all progressive and left-minded people in the US need to organize independently of the Democratic machine, build existing social movements, and start new ones. We need to follow the example of the Black freedom movement of the 1950s and 60s- and, as Sherry Wolf has recently put it, "make them do the right thing". Of course, the ultimate aim must be to eliminate a social system in which there is a "them" who need to be made to do what's in the interest of the vast majority of people.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Elizabeth Warren on the failures of the capitalist cycle
Amazing we're seeing this kind of thing on a comedy show. This recession has brought that critical eye to the free market back to the mainstream, and that's pretty cool, even if what she's recommending is very reformist in nature.
Warren is professor at Harvard Law, heading up congressional oversight of the bank bailout.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Elizabeth Warren Pt. 2 | ||||
| ||||
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Capping executive pay...What's the point?
The fact that someone's pay has to be capped at $500 grand right now, and that cut will potentially drive people away to new jobs, is infuriating. I won't lie about that. How is it possible people can be so rich, even while they've driven us into financial turmoil and have no reason to care? But what's the point of limiting them? That doesn't change the power they have and the lack of power we have. It won't save these banks and it won't save our economy and it certainly won't force these companies to make stimulative investments.
It's true that the institutions receiving and requesting TARP funds have been horrible at gauging just how patient the American people are going to be with elaborate company trips and massive bonuses. But you know, maybe it isn't that they're bad at gauging these things at all. Maybe they simply don't care. In this economic structure, we rely on them to save our economic asses, and they know we have to bail them out. At the end of the day, they know who they answer to, and it isn't us, as enraged as we become with their incredible wealth while we watch others suffer.
Let's nationalize these banks, as T suggests. I'm certain that if they were run by an organization with a public stake in seeing them succeed (that doesn't mean a big bubble, it means actual wealth creation, lending, and job stability for lots of Americans), the priorities would be different.
All these other petty "regulations" and condemnations are just shallow displays of a fairly low-level populism that one could just as easily see Sarah Palin promoting. This financial crisis and the failings of these financial institutions were not caused by greed or excessive salaries or anything else. They are caused by an ideology that says the free market knows best, for you and me, and that we should trust people who have no interest in serving the public or creating long-term stability or prosperity or loyalty even to the company they work for.
Pres. Obama shouldn't waste my time with pay caps. He really ought to make some substantive demands (like say, these TARP funds can't be used for anything except consumer lending). The stark inequality between my town and Wall Street is astounding, sickening, all those things. But limiting millionaires to a half a million doesn't put any money in struggling Americans' pockets. It might feel good to pretend we're forcing those with no perspective to live within our boundaries for awhile, but it's an entirely superficial sense of satisfaction, and we shouldn't forget that.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Unions are responsible for auto industry failures
This is one of my favorite of the outlandish statements repeated by conservatives as if it's common sense.
Let's talk about the shockingly absurd implications of it:
1-That the auto industry has failed because of some failure of low-level labor, rather than because of seriously poor corporate decision making. (note that no one is blaming the bank tellers for the problems of the financial sector)
2-That guaranteed higher-than-average wages, job security, and benefits hurt worker productivity.
3-That guaranteed low wages and no benefits would make people work harder.
4-That cutting benefits, job security, and wages, (killing the unions) would be worthwhile if it meant having a stronger auto industry in the United States--essentially that making an industry "competitive" is more important than empowering workers to live in reasonable conditions.
Obviously, all four implications are completely absurd, both logically, and as an indication of our social values. While I'm not sold on any kind of "bail out" for anyone without adequate federal regulation/control attached, I'm certain that anyone who suggests breaking up automotive unions is the solution to an ailing industry is really not a credible pundit.
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