"Acting in the best interests of clients ...SEEMS LIKE AN INTERESTING IDEA" Its almost comical the amount of wiggling thats going on. It'd put a recently landed tuna on the deck of a Boston Whaler to shame.
Isn't this the real problem? I mean ... isn't this the problem with big government and corrupt institutions in the first place? Laws of a true republic and "representation with taxation" keep things in check and accountable.
I understand your take here, but theres a meta-perspective to it. Who do you fault the bribed or the briber? Where does the real power lie? If some politician doesn't do corporates dealings then they'll simply fund the one who will. The idea of there not being a dimes worth of difference between the parties has its roots in that influence. Money doesn't come to rest with government, the debt does, but the benefits rest in coffers owned by corporate; if you follow quarterlies its in the billions ...a quarter. Even where entitlements are concerned it comes to rest in the same places. Government is just the clearing house.
Been hearing a lot of soundbites about gs selling cdo's to clients that were "designed to fail". Paulson was a client, too. He paid gs fifteen mill. If they had put a bunch of pristine loans in the deal, would the marxists be upset that gs transacted with a client (paulson), to help him get short and the cdo was "designed to succeed"? Would gs have been screwing it's client? Guess what. gs had clients on both sides of the deal. One long and one short. One of them was going to lose. And they were both institutional clients who claimed to be experts in subprime loans. Maybe gs will finally wake up to who their friends are.
Indeed. Then man cannot govern without corruption. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Where and how are the checks and balances input. I believe exactly as our founding Fathers had established.
This is a show trial designed to shift the blame from where it belongs, eg, on congress, the Fed, FNM/FRE and the mortgage industry, to the evil derivatives industry and Wall Street. The same Wall Street that contributed far more heavily to obama than to McCain. Maybe one good thing can come out of all this, although I doubt it. It is outrageous for banks and quasi-insurers like AIG to play with huge leverage, pocket billions, then turn to the taxpayer for a bailout when things go wrong. The obvious solution is to separate the government guaranteed part of banking, ie deposit-taking, checking, business and personal loans, from the rest. Apply stringent capitalization tests to this part. Let the rest do what it wants, subject to market discipline. An important part of that discipline however is the freedom to fail. I know this will never happen,at least not with the people we have running our government. As an alternative, I think at a minimum the top execs of any institution that took government bailout funds or that failed should be fired and barred for life from the industry. The heads of FNM/FRE shuld be prosecuted and bonuses clawed back. Top people at the Fed, FDIC and other regulatory bodies must also be shown the door. That includes most prominently Geithner, who was head of the NY Fed when this disaster took place. Like the captain of a Navy ship that runs aground, he must be forced to take responsibility. As things stand now, the epople whowere most responsible and who profited the most have barely suffered any consequences. That is unacceptable, both from a political and a moral standpoint. I don't believe Goldman did anything particularly wrong in this Paulson affair, but they took TARP funds, so Blankfein must walk the plank with a few other execs.