More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
AIG's CEO is already relatively (I think last six months, pretty sure post-bailout) new, are you calling for the new guy's head too?
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
The issue is that the industries are not analogous. You cannot have an economy without a banking sector. You can without a domestically founded auto industry. Plus we have replaced the AIG CEO, not sure about other banks. We should certainly be taking a much harder line, but it's more complicated than GM.
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
AIG's CEO is already relatively (I think last six months, pretty sure post-bailout) new, are you calling for the new guy's head too?
Personally, I'm uniformly calling for the heads of every banker with a building on Wall Street, in every position, whether they're new or old. I'd rather be overzealous than let one of those cockroaches scurry away.
Harrier on
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
The issue is that the industries are not analogous. You cannot have an economy without a banking sector. You can without a domestically founded auto industry. Plus we have replaced the AIG CEO, not sure about other banks. We should certainly be taking a much harder line, but it's more complicated than GM.
Eh? Plenty of countries have done fine with nationalized banking, I'd say it on the whole has a much better record than nationalized manufacturing.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
AIG's CEO is already relatively (I think last six months, pretty sure post-bailout) new, are you calling for the new guy's head too?
I'd like to see the executives in charge of the finance division that fucked up so royally that we had to buy 80% of the company get sacked. The argument that things are so technical that no other person on earth would be capable of comprehending them is bullshit. Cemeteries are full of indispensable men, to paraphrase de Galle, for one. For two, they did not work in a bubble wholly removed from the outside world. There are other people at that company who can perform those jobs and do no worse. Hell, they may actually be competent. So we should stop rewarding horrific performance and let the lower tier of executives try their hand.
Do you just not understand the basic concept of our system of government or do you just like being overtly antagonistic?
Neither. I am merely pointing out that when the president tells a privately owned company "You have failed, move aside." then he should be willing to follow his own advice. If, and that is an if, the current administration is unable to solve the problems before it why should it continue to remain in office until hopefully removed in the next election. Hell we have already proven that incompetence is no barrier to public office.
I would much rather see an administration admit it was unable to solve the current problems, and step aside, rather than stay the course and make things even worse for the next guy. If he is unwilling to do so, then frankly STFU about who runs the company. If the shareholders want him out then the vote his ass out.
Your bailing them out, that is great. Then do it like a stockholder. I am curious to see who they replace him with, or if they just leave the company to work that part out.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
AIG's CEO is already relatively (I think last six months, pretty sure post-bailout) new, are you calling for the new guy's head too?
Personally, I'm uniformly calling for the heads of every banker with a building on Wall Street, in every position, whether they're new or old. I'd rather be overzealous than let one of those cockroaches scurry away.
I too prefer the path that results in as much due suffering for the rich as possible.
Too bad there's still that inculcated belief in every American that the wealthy are above the law. The Republicans are going to be howling over this like Obama took a shit on a church altar.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
AIG's CEO is already relatively (I think last six months, pretty sure post-bailout) new, are you calling for the new guy's head too?
I'd like to see the executives in charge of the finance division that fucked up so royally that we had to buy 80% of the company get sacked. The argument that things are so technical that no other person on earth would be capable of comprehending them is bullshit. Cemeteries are full of indispensable men, to paraphrase de Galle, for one. For two, they did not work in a bubble wholly removed from the outside world. There are other people at that company who can perform those jobs and do no worse. Hell, they may actually be competent. So we should stop rewarding horrific performance and let the lower tier of executives try their hand.
Right, those people I'm all for being fired. And ideally made to fight to death in pay per view gladiatorial games.
There's a limit to the good populism can do though. Especially blind, angry populism.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
edited March 2009
And while we're at it, I'll call for Tim Geithner's head too. His head and the head of every other neo-liberal in Obama's cabinet.
Harrier on
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
The issue is that the industries are not analogous. You cannot have an economy without a banking sector. You can without a domestically founded auto industry. Plus we have replaced the AIG CEO, not sure about other banks. We should certainly be taking a much harder line, but it's more complicated than GM.
Eh? Plenty of countries have done fine with nationalized banking, I'd say it on the whole has a much better record than nationalized manufacturing.
Companies receiving TARP funds aren't just banks. AIG is an insurance company and legally cannot be wound down without new powers granted by Congress. This isn't an issue of people making bad loans and not having enough deposits to cover the losses. That's easy and the FDIC has been doing that a lot lately. If it were nothing more than that the problem would have been solved months ago.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
The issue is that the industries are not analogous. You cannot have an economy without a banking sector. You can without a domestically founded auto industry. Plus we have replaced the AIG CEO, not sure about other banks. We should certainly be taking a much harder line, but it's more complicated than GM.
While we certainly need a financial sector, we don't actually need Morgan Stanley (or AIG, or any other one company) to maintain that. And we didn't ask the AIG CEO to step aside, he resigned six months or so before we bailed them out. My problem isn't so much with him in particular (those he is a pretty huge douche, and deserves the old heave ho for how he handled the bonuses) it's the fact that there has been absolutely no turn over at the upper levels or boards of any of the companies we're sinking money into while the auto makers (who literally received a tenth the resources and done only a miniscule fraction of the damage) have been through the ringer and everyone involved has taken a hit.
It's not so much that I'm defending the auto industry, because they're pretty universally a bunch of morons, it's that I'm well past tired of the free ride the financial industry has been getting.
Do you just not understand the basic concept of our system of government or do you just like being overtly antagonistic?
Neither. I am merely pointing out that when the president tells a privately owned company "You have failed, move aside." then he should be willing to follow his own advice. If, and that is an if, the current administration is unable to solve the problems before it why should it continue to remain in office until hopefully removed in the next election. Hell we have already proven that incompetence is no barrier to public office.
I would much rather see an administration admit it was unable to solve the current problems, and step aside, rather than stay the course and make things even worse for the next guy. If he is unwilling to do so, then frankly STFU about who runs the company. If the shareholders want him out then the vote his ass out.
Your bailing them out, that is great. Then do it like a stockholder. I am curious to see who they replace him with, or if they just leave the company to work that part out.
Could you explain how China or whoever else would be capable of doing such a thing, though, because it doesn't seem possible in any sense of the word unlike the Federal Government bailing out private enterprise and is the only analogous way your posts make any sense.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
AIG's CEO is already relatively (I think last six months, pretty sure post-bailout) new, are you calling for the new guy's head too?
Personally, I'm uniformly calling for the heads of every banker with a building on Wall Street, in every position, whether they're new or old. I'd rather be overzealous than let one of those cockroaches scurry away.
I wouldn't go this far, but enough with the sloppy blowjobs for the financial sector already. The industry is very important, but that's exactly why it needs tougher treatment. I'm tired of politicians grabbing the auto industry by the balls then turning around and treating financial companies with kid gloves. (ok enough sex analogies).
And while we're at it, I'll call for Tim Geithner's head too. His head and the head of every other neo-liberal in Obama's cabinet.
Because he's trying to solve the problem responsibly? Yeah, fuck that guy!
Eh. I'm not sold on Geithner's pure motives.
Ditto, though I don't think he's the sole source of all that's crappy about the administrations dealings with the financial sector either. He's clearly pissed someone (or several someones) off and is getting railed in the press, but it can't be all him.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
The issue is that the industries are not analogous. You cannot have an economy without a banking sector. You can without a domestically founded auto industry. Plus we have replaced the AIG CEO, not sure about other banks. We should certainly be taking a much harder line, but it's more complicated than GM.
While we certainly need a financial sector, we don't actually need Morgan Stanley (or AIG, or any other one company) to maintain that. And we didn't ask the AIG CEO to step aside, he resigned six months or so before we bailed them out. My problem isn't so much with him in particular (those he is a pretty huge douche, and deserves the old heave ho for how he handled the bonuses) it's the fact that there has been absolutely no turn over at the upper levels or boards of any of the companies we're sinking money into while the auto makers (who literally received a tenth the resources and done only a miniscule fraction of the damage) have been through the ringer and everyone involved has taken a hit.
It's not so much that I'm defending the auto industry, because they're pretty universally a bunch of morons, it's that I'm well past tired of the free ride the financial industry has been getting.
No, we don't need Morgan Stanley or AIG or any one institution, but the ones we are bailing out constitute ~60% of the financial system. Meaning we can't just tell them to go fuck off and walk away from this thing intact. If it were the S&L crisis where it only accounted for ~10% of the industry then that'd be different, but it ain't. It is what it is, and we have to deal with that. We certainly need a harder line with those deserving it, but not everyone who was employed at AIG deserves it.
And while we're at it, I'll call for Tim Geithner's head too. His head and the head of every other neo-liberal in Obama's cabinet.
Because he's trying to solve the problem responsibly? Yeah, fuck that guy!
Eh. I'm not sold on Geithner's pure motives.
And I find the notion of a scurrilous cabal trying to pad the pockets of their friends laughable. If Geithner and Bernanke fail it will be because they misjudged the scope of the issue, the size of their solution, or the way things might play out. Not because they want to give sloppy blowjobs to the Captains of Wall Street.
Right but the American people have to kick him out. Which is my point. Should he not, hypothetically, at the point where he realizes hes failed step aside as opposed to waiting to be kicked to the curb like he requested this CEO do?
Except this analogy breaks down when you realize that, unlike a corporate CEO, there are very strict standards as to how a replacement may be chosen. It's not like a board gets to start searching for the most qualified person...you already know exactly who it will be.
And while we're at it, I'll call for Tim Geithner's head too. His head and the head of every other neo-liberal in Obama's cabinet.
... say what?
What exactly is a neoliberal supposed to be, and how in god's name is Geithner a liberal anything?
Asshats like Larry Summers. The people Clinton had in charge when we started down this fun and exciting path towards deregulation.
Alright, that makes more sense. You could go with Third Way, DLC, or maybe even blue dog depending on the circumstances; neoliberal just sounds like neocon and implies, at least to me, far far left wing to match the far far right wing.
And while we're at it, I'll call for Tim Geithner's head too. His head and the head of every other neo-liberal in Obama's cabinet.
Because he's trying to solve the problem responsibly? Yeah, fuck that guy!
Eh. I'm not sold on Geithner's pure motives.
And I find the notion of a scurrilous cabal trying to pad the pockets of their friends laughable.
Where the Christ have you been for the last eight years?
Watching the politics and the economy of the country. Yourself?
Apparently not with my head in a hole. Are you seriously so fucking naive as to think that elected officials don't largely undergo their work with the intention of scratching different backs after Halliburton's contract got dropped almost immediately after its CEO/Vice President of the U.S. went out of office?
I'm sure you can find a decent enough argument for Geithner's relevance without being deliberately obtuse.
And while we're at it, I'll call for Tim Geithner's head too. His head and the head of every other neo-liberal in Obama's cabinet.
Because he's trying to solve the problem responsibly? Yeah, fuck that guy!
Eh. I'm not sold on Geithner's pure motives.
And I find the notion of a scurrilous cabal trying to pad the pockets of their friends laughable.
Where the Christ have you been for the last eight years?
Watching the politics and the economy of the country. Yourself?
Apparently not with my head in a hole. Are you seriously so fucking naive as to think that elected officials don't largely undergo their work with the intention of scratching different backs after Halliburton's contract got dropped almost immediately after its CEO/Vice President of the U.S. went out of office?
I'm sure you can find a decent enough argument for Geithner's relevance without being deliberately obtuse.
You might want to stick your head into a book instead of that hole since you apparently don't know who the Treasury Secretary has been over recent history, what constitutes an appointed position and an elected position, and what sort of powers the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Board Chairman hold.
I'm sure you can find a decent enough argument against the most recent proposal without resorting to overwrought cynicism and baseless suggestions of blatant corruption.
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
edited March 2009
I don't think Geithner is evil, actually, but all of his moves so far have convinced me that he's utterly incapable of actually fixing the financial sector.
The biggest reason why is his continued insistence that we must preserve a privately owned banking system, and his unwillingness to alter that status quo even temporarily. Geithner actually has faith that Wall Street can fix itself. That is why he fails.
Harrier on
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
There's no such thing as too much cynicism or too few accusations of corruption in this government but we've apparently got no end of knock-kneed equivocation and pompous scoffing.
Either come out and say something substantial or don't, it's not difficult!
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
The issue is that the industries are not analogous. You cannot have an economy without a banking sector. You can without a domestically founded auto industry. Plus we have replaced the AIG CEO, not sure about other banks. We should certainly be taking a much harder line, but it's more complicated than GM.
While we certainly need a financial sector, we don't actually need Morgan Stanley (or AIG, or any other one company) to maintain that. And we didn't ask the AIG CEO to step aside, he resigned six months or so before we bailed them out. My problem isn't so much with him in particular (those he is a pretty huge douche, and deserves the old heave ho for how he handled the bonuses) it's the fact that there has been absolutely no turn over at the upper levels or boards of any of the companies we're sinking money into while the auto makers (who literally received a tenth the resources and done only a miniscule fraction of the damage) have been through the ringer and everyone involved has taken a hit.
It's not so much that I'm defending the auto industry, because they're pretty universally a bunch of morons, it's that I'm well past tired of the free ride the financial industry has been getting.
No, we don't need Morgan Stanley or AIG or any one institution, but the ones we are bailing out constitute ~60% of the financial system. Meaning we can't just tell them to go fuck off and walk away from this thing intact. If it were the S&L crisis where it only accounted for ~10% of the industry then that'd be different, but it ain't. It is what it is, and we have to deal with that. We certainly need a harder line with those deserving it, but not everyone who was employed at AIG deserves it.
It's not as if the companies would implode and their capacity disappear if we stopped bending over backwards to dump cash into them while treating them like delicate flowers.
I can appreciate the fact that you can't just waltz in and level the place, but it's not as if Obama hasn't shown the ability to brush aside opposition when he's advocating sanity. I refuse to believe we couldn't have put every firm that got bailout money through at a bare minimum the same level of stringent oversight the auto companies got while Obama was getting the legal authorization the administration needs to nationalize anything that can't stand on it's own and isn't a straight bank. Instead we've dumped anywhere between 1-2 trillion dollars straight into shareholders bank accounts, we've made fuck all progress at actually clearing up the underlying causes of the crisis and most galling of all the fuck who literally drove us into the ground are still at the wheel and being paid 7 and 8 figures to stay there.
There's no such thing as too much cynicism or too few accusations of corruption in this government but we've apparently got no end of knock-kneed equivocation and pompous scoffing.
Either come out and say something substantial or don't, it's not difficult!
Apparently it is since you seem incapable of doing it yourself.
More to do with attitudes towards the wealthy in general, but you can see the extrapolation to those in administrative power in a financial capacity.
(God I hate the practise of blogs linking to blogs linking to blogs)
Ahh, I read that, but it's Yglesias, not Sullivan. I was never a huge fan of Sullivan, so I don't check him, and I thought he might have had something good to say on the subject. A nice read though, and relevant now.
More to the point, as much as I'm glad to see a harder line on failed companies that are basically a bottomless hole for federal money, this is a good first move but if it isn't followed up with similar actions at the financial banks I'm going to start having a real problem with the Obama administration.
GM and Chrysler are a mess, but both in terms of the resources they've sucked up and damaged they've done to the larger economy they're orders of magnitude better than almsot any of the major financial firms, yet they've had a harder time of it and been forced to make wildly more concessions than any of those firms. If the boards and executives at places like AIG are still in place three months from now when GM has been forced to renegotiate worker contracts and sack their leadership there's going to be a hell of a backlash and rightly so.
The issue is that the industries are not analogous. You cannot have an economy without a banking sector. You can without a domestically founded auto industry. Plus we have replaced the AIG CEO, not sure about other banks. We should certainly be taking a much harder line, but it's more complicated than GM.
While we certainly need a financial sector, we don't actually need Morgan Stanley (or AIG, or any other one company) to maintain that. And we didn't ask the AIG CEO to step aside, he resigned six months or so before we bailed them out. My problem isn't so much with him in particular (those he is a pretty huge douche, and deserves the old heave ho for how he handled the bonuses) it's the fact that there has been absolutely no turn over at the upper levels or boards of any of the companies we're sinking money into while the auto makers (who literally received a tenth the resources and done only a miniscule fraction of the damage) have been through the ringer and everyone involved has taken a hit.
It's not so much that I'm defending the auto industry, because they're pretty universally a bunch of morons, it's that I'm well past tired of the free ride the financial industry has been getting.
No, we don't need Morgan Stanley or AIG or any one institution, but the ones we are bailing out constitute ~60% of the financial system. Meaning we can't just tell them to go fuck off and walk away from this thing intact. If it were the S&L crisis where it only accounted for ~10% of the industry then that'd be different, but it ain't. It is what it is, and we have to deal with that. We certainly need a harder line with those deserving it, but not everyone who was employed at AIG deserves it.
It's not as if the company would implode and their capacity disappear if we stopped bending over backwards to dump cash into them while treating them like delicate flowers.
I can appreciate the fact that you can't just waltz in and level the place, but it's not as if Obama hasn't shown the ability to brush aside opposition when he's advocating sanity. I refuse to believe we couldn't have put every firm that got bailout money through at a bare minimum the same level of stringent oversight the auto companies got while Obama was getting the legal authorization the administration needs to nationalize anything that can't stand on it's own and isn't a straight bank. Instead we've dumped anywhere between 1-2 trillion dollars straight into shareholders bank accounts, we've made fuck all progress at actually clearing up the underlying causes of the crisis and most galling of all the fuck who literally drove us into the ground are still at the wheel and being paid 7 and 8 figures to stay there.
They are presently working towards getting that legal authorization which would enable a lot of that stuff. We haven't had a new government for that long, after all, and the stimulus package took up most of the initial push/eyes at the outset.
I don't think Geithner is evil, actually, but all of his moves so far have convinced me that he's utterly incapable of actually fixing the financial sector.
The biggest reason why is his continued insistence that we must preserve a privately owned banking system, and his unwillingness to alter that status quo even temporarily. Geithner actually has faith that Wall Street can fix itself. That is why he fails.
And Nationalization is always a last option. I don't see the horror in trying to exhaust other routes before we just pull the trigger. Particularly since they haven't even implemented his plan yet which entails stress tests to discover which banks are truly insolvent and just get nationalized anyway though a fairly open and set process rather than just seemingly randomly boarding up windows.
They are presently working towards getting that legal authorization which would enable a lot of that stuff. We haven't had a new government for that long, after all, and the stimulus package took up most of the initial push/eyes at the outset.
As I said, I can appreciate restructuring was never possible on day 1. My complaint, and I think that of a lot of people, was that as opposed to oversight for all intents and purposes the financial sector was handed a blank check and a pat on the back. Clearly there was only so much that could be done, but just as clearly not everything that could be done was even tried let alone done well.
We should have been so far up the ass of each and every person involved they should have thought they were puppets at a cheap ventriloquists show. It would be the right thing to do not just form a moral point of view, but form a practical one. Not just nationalization, because it's isn't an either or between nationalization and limitless funds, but rigorous accounting, stringent control of bailout funds, clear and public demands for accountability, new regulations; the list is pretty endless and has almost entirely gone untouched (regulations are supposedly coming at some point).
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
I don't think Geithner is evil, actually, but all of his moves so far have convinced me that he's utterly incapable of actually fixing the financial sector.
The biggest reason why is his continued insistence that we must preserve a privately owned banking system, and his unwillingness to alter that status quo even temporarily. Geithner actually has faith that Wall Street can fix itself. That is why he fails.
And Nationalization is always a last option. I don't see the horror in trying to exhaust other routes before we just pull the trigger. Particularly since they haven't even implemented his plan yet which entails stress tests to discover which banks are truly insolvent and just get nationalized anyway though a fairly open and set process rather than just seemingly randomly boarding up windows.
Because trying it Geithner's way first is going to waste a whole bunch of money?
I have yet to read of any serious economist who thinks Geithner's plan is a good idea. It's going to fail, and when it fails, we're just going to take the big banks into receivership. We're going to nationalize one way or the other, so we might as well do it now and save taxpayers a lot of grief.
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AIG's CEO is already relatively (I think last six months, pretty sure post-bailout) new, are you calling for the new guy's head too?
The issue is that the industries are not analogous. You cannot have an economy without a banking sector. You can without a domestically founded auto industry. Plus we have replaced the AIG CEO, not sure about other banks. We should certainly be taking a much harder line, but it's more complicated than GM.
Eh? Plenty of countries have done fine with nationalized banking, I'd say it on the whole has a much better record than nationalized manufacturing.
I'd like to see the executives in charge of the finance division that fucked up so royally that we had to buy 80% of the company get sacked. The argument that things are so technical that no other person on earth would be capable of comprehending them is bullshit. Cemeteries are full of indispensable men, to paraphrase de Galle, for one. For two, they did not work in a bubble wholly removed from the outside world. There are other people at that company who can perform those jobs and do no worse. Hell, they may actually be competent. So we should stop rewarding horrific performance and let the lower tier of executives try their hand.
Neither. I am merely pointing out that when the president tells a privately owned company "You have failed, move aside." then he should be willing to follow his own advice. If, and that is an if, the current administration is unable to solve the problems before it why should it continue to remain in office until hopefully removed in the next election. Hell we have already proven that incompetence is no barrier to public office.
I would much rather see an administration admit it was unable to solve the current problems, and step aside, rather than stay the course and make things even worse for the next guy. If he is unwilling to do so, then frankly STFU about who runs the company. If the shareholders want him out then the vote his ass out.
Your bailing them out, that is great. Then do it like a stockholder. I am curious to see who they replace him with, or if they just leave the company to work that part out.
I too prefer the path that results in as much due suffering for the rich as possible.
Too bad there's still that inculcated belief in every American that the wealthy are above the law. The Republicans are going to be howling over this like Obama took a shit on a church altar.
Right, those people I'm all for being fired. And ideally made to fight to death in pay per view gladiatorial games.
There's a limit to the good populism can do though. Especially blind, angry populism.
Companies receiving TARP funds aren't just banks. AIG is an insurance company and legally cannot be wound down without new powers granted by Congress. This isn't an issue of people making bad loans and not having enough deposits to cover the losses. That's easy and the FDIC has been doing that a lot lately. If it were nothing more than that the problem would have been solved months ago.
While we certainly need a financial sector, we don't actually need Morgan Stanley (or AIG, or any other one company) to maintain that. And we didn't ask the AIG CEO to step aside, he resigned six months or so before we bailed them out. My problem isn't so much with him in particular (those he is a pretty huge douche, and deserves the old heave ho for how he handled the bonuses) it's the fact that there has been absolutely no turn over at the upper levels or boards of any of the companies we're sinking money into while the auto makers (who literally received a tenth the resources and done only a miniscule fraction of the damage) have been through the ringer and everyone involved has taken a hit.
It's not so much that I'm defending the auto industry, because they're pretty universally a bunch of morons, it's that I'm well past tired of the free ride the financial industry has been getting.
It's not a privately owned company anymore. Also,
I wouldn't go this far, but enough with the sloppy blowjobs for the financial sector already. The industry is very important, but that's exactly why it needs tougher treatment. I'm tired of politicians grabbing the auto industry by the balls then turning around and treating financial companies with kid gloves. (ok enough sex analogies).
Because he's trying to solve the problem responsibly? Yeah, fuck that guy!
Eh. I'm not sold on Geithner's pure motives.
... say what?
What exactly is a neoliberal supposed to be, and how in god's name is Geithner a liberal anything?
Ditto, though I don't think he's the sole source of all that's crappy about the administrations dealings with the financial sector either. He's clearly pissed someone (or several someones) off and is getting railed in the press, but it can't be all him.
No, we don't need Morgan Stanley or AIG or any one institution, but the ones we are bailing out constitute ~60% of the financial system. Meaning we can't just tell them to go fuck off and walk away from this thing intact. If it were the S&L crisis where it only accounted for ~10% of the industry then that'd be different, but it ain't. It is what it is, and we have to deal with that. We certainly need a harder line with those deserving it, but not everyone who was employed at AIG deserves it.
Asshats like Larry Summers. The people Clinton had in charge when we started down this fun and exciting path towards deregulation.
And I find the notion of a scurrilous cabal trying to pad the pockets of their friends laughable. If Geithner and Bernanke fail it will be because they misjudged the scope of the issue, the size of their solution, or the way things might play out. Not because they want to give sloppy blowjobs to the Captains of Wall Street.
Where the Christ have you been for the last eight years?
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Watching the politics and the economy of the country. Yourself?
Except this analogy breaks down when you realize that, unlike a corporate CEO, there are very strict standards as to how a replacement may be chosen. It's not like a board gets to start searching for the most qualified person...you already know exactly who it will be.
Alright, that makes more sense. You could go with Third Way, DLC, or maybe even blue dog depending on the circumstances; neoliberal just sounds like neocon and implies, at least to me, far far left wing to match the far far right wing.
Apparently not with my head in a hole. Are you seriously so fucking naive as to think that elected officials don't largely undergo their work with the intention of scratching different backs after Halliburton's contract got dropped almost immediately after its CEO/Vice President of the U.S. went out of office?
I'm sure you can find a decent enough argument for Geithner's relevance without being deliberately obtuse.
If you have a link, I'd be interested in seeing it.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/03/the_rotten_crowd_gap.php
More to do with attitudes towards the wealthy in general, but you can see the extrapolation to those in administrative power in a financial capacity.
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You might want to stick your head into a book instead of that hole since you apparently don't know who the Treasury Secretary has been over recent history, what constitutes an appointed position and an elected position, and what sort of powers the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Board Chairman hold.
I'm sure you can find a decent enough argument against the most recent proposal without resorting to overwrought cynicism and baseless suggestions of blatant corruption.
The biggest reason why is his continued insistence that we must preserve a privately owned banking system, and his unwillingness to alter that status quo even temporarily. Geithner actually has faith that Wall Street can fix itself. That is why he fails.
Either come out and say something substantial or don't, it's not difficult!
It's not as if the companies would implode and their capacity disappear if we stopped bending over backwards to dump cash into them while treating them like delicate flowers.
I can appreciate the fact that you can't just waltz in and level the place, but it's not as if Obama hasn't shown the ability to brush aside opposition when he's advocating sanity. I refuse to believe we couldn't have put every firm that got bailout money through at a bare minimum the same level of stringent oversight the auto companies got while Obama was getting the legal authorization the administration needs to nationalize anything that can't stand on it's own and isn't a straight bank. Instead we've dumped anywhere between 1-2 trillion dollars straight into shareholders bank accounts, we've made fuck all progress at actually clearing up the underlying causes of the crisis and most galling of all the fuck who literally drove us into the ground are still at the wheel and being paid 7 and 8 figures to stay there.
Apparently it is since you seem incapable of doing it yourself.
Ahh, I read that, but it's Yglesias, not Sullivan. I was never a huge fan of Sullivan, so I don't check him, and I thought he might have had something good to say on the subject. A nice read though, and relevant now.
e - mainly harrier's reasons
They are presently working towards getting that legal authorization which would enable a lot of that stuff. We haven't had a new government for that long, after all, and the stimulus package took up most of the initial push/eyes at the outset.
And Nationalization is always a last option. I don't see the horror in trying to exhaust other routes before we just pull the trigger. Particularly since they haven't even implemented his plan yet which entails stress tests to discover which banks are truly insolvent and just get nationalized anyway though a fairly open and set process rather than just seemingly randomly boarding up windows.
As I said, I can appreciate restructuring was never possible on day 1. My complaint, and I think that of a lot of people, was that as opposed to oversight for all intents and purposes the financial sector was handed a blank check and a pat on the back. Clearly there was only so much that could be done, but just as clearly not everything that could be done was even tried let alone done well.
We should have been so far up the ass of each and every person involved they should have thought they were puppets at a cheap ventriloquists show. It would be the right thing to do not just form a moral point of view, but form a practical one. Not just nationalization, because it's isn't an either or between nationalization and limitless funds, but rigorous accounting, stringent control of bailout funds, clear and public demands for accountability, new regulations; the list is pretty endless and has almost entirely gone untouched (regulations are supposedly coming at some point).
I have yet to read of any serious economist who thinks Geithner's plan is a good idea. It's going to fail, and when it fails, we're just going to take the big banks into receivership. We're going to nationalize one way or the other, so we might as well do it now and save taxpayers a lot of grief.