Read this Op/Ed Piece Appearing in the New York Times. It's fantastic; POSSIBLY THE BEST WRITTEN AND REASONED PIECE I'VE READ IN YEARS: Sandy B. Lewis, an organic farmer, founded S B Lewis & Co., a brokerage house. William D. Cohan, a contributing editor at Fortune and former Wall Street banker, is the author of âHouse of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street.â "The storm is not over, not by a long shot. Huge structural flaws remain in the architecture of our financial system, and many of the fixes that the Obama administration has proposed will do little to address them and may make them worse." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07cohanWEB.html?_r=1
Is this called huzpah? This guy Lewis is part of the problem. .. and the original premise is suspect. Wall street doesn't just trade on (consumer) confidence...
.......................................................... ByLoSellHi.... This article is headed in the right direction.... The exchange is morphing....as it should be ....into an unbiased electronic name changer....BATS and Direct Edge....the third and fourth largest markets in the world.... All securities need to be seen and priced on the newer electronic highway....and be made available to the world....stocks, commodities, bonds.... The brokers of yesteryear before the internet and electronic trading was possible....made a fine living off of changing names on securities.... Now that business is largely defunct....and the IB firms are still trying to hold on to some semblance by front running via technology or whatever.....attaining insider info....and buying the lobbyists to keep themselves out of jail.... Albeit it is mostly re-allocations where daytrading is viable as long as direct access is .00020 etc...and the IBs are the re-allocators and do stay in business for the most part.... The IBs have also created spreads via the futures and cash vehicles....and other levered products "derivatives".... At the minimum....the new electronic highway should not be allowed to be played by dark pools etc....to the IBs advantage....There should be only one open highway for the world to trade on.... If grandma wants to enter an order for 100 shares , she should be paying 20 cents for it .... Banking and securities should be separated.....One is the capitalistic risk side....one is the "stability side"....ie very short term low risk debt.... Accounts should also shift to being universal....giving the ability of anyone to invest in treasuries or cds of any sovereign country at Central Bank rates....This would also serve as a stabilizer versus stupid political choices regarding deficits etc.... The captains of the ships should be rewarded for the best long term choices....and not every quarter.... Also all securities information should be in a Wiki format made available to the public....Decisions involving opinions are just that and should not be reflected in Wiki..... Managers of money pools should be listed on an exchange such that anyone could buy their management whereby the value is reflected in real time.....ie a $10 stock.... .................................................. The US securities business has evolved into a lobbied biased industry whereby Fascism is the name of the game....The best biases money can buy .....lead by promises of high paying employment via the govt./corp. revolving door of employment.... Thus the two party by advertising system has got to go....it is a joke.... The best solution for this side is to give the majority of power back to the states who would be supported ie by a 10% consumption tax....and the Fed could be supported by a 5% consumption tax....no individual or corporate taxes.... All taxes to be spent by public internet proxy state by state ....which would direct the Fed expenditures...etc... ............................................... Time to clean house..... Starting to smell big time....
Imo, Obama's approach is the confidence thesis to recovery. Hence the conflicting daily news and lopsided reactions of the market to economic reports. Panic and pessimisn hindered the recovery and was a secondary issue during the great depression. Will it work? I don't know but confidence in the market is important.