Columists

2010-01-10T15:26:00.001-05:00

Columnists

David Aaronovitch

Janet Albrechtsen

Eric Alterman

Anne Applebaum

Timothy Garton Ash

Michael Bassett

Bruce Bawer

Alex Beam

James Bowman

Robert Boynton

Samuel Brittan

David Brooks

Jon Carroll

Noam Chomsky

Alexander Cockburn

Joe Conason

Clive Crook

Meghan Daum

Miranda Devine

E. J. Dionne Jr.

Michael Dirda

Maureen Dowd

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Suzanne Fields

Daniel Finkelstein

Robert Fisk

Thomas Friedman

Robert Fulford

Frank Furedi

Malcolm Gladwell

Ellen Goodman

Victor Davis Hanson

Johann Hari

Nat Hentoff

Christopher Hitchens

David Horowitz

Jeff Jacoby

Clive James

Robert Kagan

Mickey Kaus

Roger Kimball

Michael Kinsley

Joe Klein

Martin Kramer

Morton Kondracke

Chas Krauthammer

Paul Krugman

Howard Kurtz

Norman Lebrecht

James Lileks

Tod Lindberg

Salim Mansour

Mark Morford

Maureen Mullarkey

Robert Novak

Brendan O’Neill

Camille Paglia

John Allen Paulos

William Pfaff

Melanie Phillips

Daniel Pipes

Katha Pollitt

Virginia Postrel

William Powers

Dorothy Rabinowitz

Jonathan Rauch

Carlin Romano

Milt Rosenberg

Roger Sandall

Sam Smith

Thomas Sowell

Mark Steyn

Andrew Sullivan

John Tierney

Tunku Varadarajan

Shankar Vedantam

David Warren

Margaret Wente

George Will

Keith Windschuttle

Jonathan Yardley

2010-01-08T14:08:00.000-05:00

Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy - - - Murray N. Rothbard
Murray Rothbard's 1984 analysis of modern American history as a great power struggle between economic elites, between the House of Morgan and the Rockefeller interests, culminates in the following conclusion: "the financial power elite can sleep well at night regardless of who wins in 1984."

By the time you get there, the conclusion seems understated indeed, for what we have here is a sweeping and compressed history of 20th century politics from a power elite point of view. It represents a small and highly specialized sample of Rothbard's vast historical knowledge coming together with a lifetime devoted to methodological individualism in the social sciences. It appeared first in 1984, in the thick of the Reagan years, in a small financial publication called World Market Perspective. It was printed for a larger audience in by the Center for Libertarian Studies in 1995, and appears in 2005 online for the first time.

2009-06-15T14:30:00.000-04:00

Pragmatic Capitalist
A seasonal peak in yields? Excellent data out of David Rosenberg which matches with my unwind of the �bond trade of the year� || This may sound uncanny, but in four of the past five years, we saw the yield on the 10-year Treasury note hit the peak right in June, and while the experts each time were lamenting about inflation, fiscal policy, growth and beta-assets, not to mention the oft-called-for end of the secular bull market in bonds, the second quarter selloff that culminated in a classic blow off in June proved to be a great buying opportunity.

� June 14th, 2004: 4.89%. The 10-year note closed the year at 4.24%.
� June 26th, 2006: 5.25%. The 10-year note closed the year at 4.71%.
� June 12th, 2007: 5.26%. The 10-year note closed the year at 4.04%.
� June 13th, 2008: 4.27%: The 10-year note closed the year at 2.25%.

2009-04-16T19:39:00.001-04:00

Breakup of the USA- - - Georgraphy KK
No US president has ever died under the same flag that he was born under.

That is, the borders of the United States has constantly shifted even in modern times. The last state was added in 1959 (after Obama was born) and more could be added still. Americans are comfortable ADDING states, but it might not take much to subtract one. The outcome of the US Civil War has biased Americans to disbelieving in subtraction, but that might change.

2009-04-16T08:27:00.002-04:00

Global Research�- - -�Global Research
War, Oil and Gas Pipelines: Turkey is Washington�s Geopolitical Pivot
KR: F. William Engdahl joins Stratfor in seeing Turkey's importance -- The Kurds are toast (again? still?)

2009-03-28T21:17:00.001-04:00

Geithnerism Must Go - - - William Greider in The Nation
If Wall Street gets its way, the new 'reforms' will consolidate power and ratify a corporate state--a grotesque hybrid that combines the worst aspects of socialism and capitalism.

When Banks Rob People - - - CounterPoint
Prediction: If Geithner is granted these special powers by the braindead Congress, the country will undergo the greatest period of bank consolidation in its 230 year history. This is a blatant power grab by a shifty character who has risen to his present pay-grade by nosing his way up the political stepladder. Congress had better get its act together and put an end to this nonsense or the nation will continue its fast-paced metamorphosis into a feudal oligarchy run by the Bank Mafia and Wall Street racketeers. The first step, is to give Geithner, Summers and any other of the Rubin-clones a full-body bacon-rub followed by a few brisk dunks in the shark tank. Then, hose down Treasury and bring in a whole new team.

2009-03-12T18:24:00.001-04:00

Fixing the Fed, by William Greider - - - The Nation
People everywhere grasp that there is something morally wrong about bailing out the malefactors who caused this catastrophe. Yet we are told we have no choice. Unless taxpayers assume the losses for the largest financial institutions by buying their rotten assets, the banking industry will not resume normal lending and, therefore, the economy cannot recover.

This is a false dilemma. Other choices are available. Throwing more public money at essentially insolvent banks is like giving blood transfusions to a corpse and hoping for Lazarus--or, as banking analyst Christopher Whalen puts it, pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

Here is a very different way to understand the problem: to restore the broken financial system, Washington has to fix the Federal Reserve. Though this is not widely understood, the central bank has lost its ability to govern the credit system--the nation's overall lending and borrowing. (more)

2009-03-09T12:21:00.002-04:00

Some Causes of the Systemic Financial Collapse
The Federal Reserve did not guard/regulate the banking system prudently
- Permitted leverage ratios to expand
- Permitted off-balance sheets to expand
- Eligibility standands in the reverse repo market were relaxed to unsound levels

Rating agencies -- you know the story of this failure all too well

Accounting standards and audits became untrustworthy -- even before Enron

Financial press sold out its honor for access to sources
- Press treated Greenspan like a god.

Solutions to early bond market scandals set horrible examples for the future
- The Drysdale failure in 1882 was swept under the carpet; no lasting reforms
- Michael Milken showed the Street how to stuff bonds by corrupting portfolio buyers
- Failure of Long-Term Capital Management did not result in curbs for Bear Stearns
- Punishment for Wall Street crimes was and is light. No stigma or outrage by public
- The Wall Street Journal treats Milken like a hero, not a crook

Politicians sold out -- Congress in on the take to Wall Street lobbies
- Rubin and Clinton removed the Glass-Steagall protections

2009-03-09T12:20:00.002-04:00

Here are 12 deregulatory steps to financial meltdown - - - Common Dreams
1. The repeal of Glass-Steagall
2. Off-the-books accounting for banks
3. CFTC blocked from regulating derivatives
4. Formal financial derivative deregulation: the Commodities Futures Modernization Act
5. SEC removes capital limits on investment banks and the voluntary regulation regime
6. Basel II weakening of capital reserve requirements for banks
7. No predatory lending enforcement
8. Federal preemption of state enforcement against predatory lending
9. Blocking the courthouse doors: Assignee Liability Escape
10. Fannie and Freddie enter subprime
11. Merger mania
12. Credit rating agency failure

For a reform agenda - how about reversing the decisions in the list above
OptionARM cites Bloomberg on Mar 9: Volcker Urges Dividing Investment Banks, Commercial Banks || Volcker was never comfortable with loosening restrictions imposed by Glass-Steagall. In 1987, when the Federal Reserve Board voted to ease bank restrictions, he was opposed: �Volcker is unconvinced, and expresses his fear that lenders will recklessly lower loan standards in pursuit of lucrative securities offerings and market bad loans to the public.�

2009-03-09T00:57:00.000-04:00

Ben Bernanke in February 2008
�Among the largest banks, the capital ratios remain good and I don't anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large, internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system."

Try as he may, Helicopter Ben will not be able to overtake Greenspan as the biggest villian of the global meltdown.

2008-12-30T06:05:00.000-05:00

Wall Street Traffic Light - - - John K Harris
Very Bearish New Year

From the history in both tables, the prudent action called for is: use a wealth preservation strategy of exiting the S&P 500 by the end of 2008 and, before re-entering, wait for a year-to-date decline in 2009 of, say, at least 15%. If history repeats itself, the investor who follows this strategy will become �the poster child for sell low, and buy lower.�

2008-10-10T08:01:00.001-04:00

Anti-War - - - The Great Game in the Caucasus: Bad Moves by Uncle Sam
Mostly about Turkey's pivotal role

2008-10-10T07:59:00.000-04:00

Dissident Voice and Global Research - - - Dissident Voice - - - Global Research & William Engdahl
America's Silk Road Strategy: The Trans-Eurasian Security System (Aug 22)

The Silk Road Strategy (SRS) constitutes an essential building block of US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. The SRS was formulated as a bill presented to the US Congress in 1999. It called for the creation of an energy and transport corridor network linking Western Europe to Central Asia and eventually to the Far East.

The Silk Road Strategy is defined as a "trans-Eurasian security system". The SRS calls for the "militarization of the Eurasian corridor" as an integral part of the "Great Game". The stated objective, as formulated under the proposed March 1999 Silk Road Strategy Act, is to develop America's business empire along an extensive geographical corridor. While the 1999 SRS legislation (HR 3196) was adopted by the House of Representatives, it never became law. Despite this legislative setback, the Silk Road Strategy became, under the Bush Administration, the de facto basis of US-NATO interventionism, largely with a view to integrating the former Soviet republics of the South Caucasus and Central Asia into the US sphere of influence.

2008-04-01T01:32:00.001-04:00

Bernanke's History
Reuters on March 17: In a speech about Japan's economic dilemmas in May 2003, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, then a Fed governor, suggested that the government might be willing, at the request of the central bank, to exchange government debt for asset-backed commercial paper of the same maturity. "The net effect would be that the fiscal authority would assume the credit risk flowing from the nonstandard monetary policy action," he said.

Greenspan's History: Lest We Forget
Speaking in Boca Raton, Fla., in March 1999, Alan Greenspan, then the Fed chairman, told the Futures Industry Association, a Wall Street trade group, that �these instruments enhance the ability to differentiate risk and allocate it to those investors most able and willing to take it.� Although Mr. Greenspan acknowledged that the �possibility of increased systemic risk does appear to be an issue that requires fuller understanding,� he argued that new regulations �would be a major mistake.� �Regulatory risk measurement schemes,� he added, �are simpler and much less accurate than banks� risk measurement models.�

2008-03-08T05:30:00.000-05:00

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