I want to work for this guy.
November 2008 Archives
Activists note that most of the candidates for top security posts voted
for the 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq or
otherwise supported launching the war.
Let me be the first to ask, are you all that surprised? Look forward to more "moral" military activity like we saw during both the Clinton and Bush administrations. It'll be financed by inflation and new bond issues.
"Change!"
FTA:
Obama ran his campaign around the idea the war was not legitimate, but it sends a very different message when you bring in people who supported the war from the beginning," said Kelly Dougherty, executive director of the 54-chapter Iraq Veterans Against the War.
The activists -- key members of the coalition that propelled Obama to the White House -- fear he is drifting from the antiwar moorings of his once-longshot presidential candidacy. Obama has eased the rigid timetable he had set for withdrawing troops from Iraq, and he appears to be leaning toward the center in his candidates to fill key national security posts.
Let me be the first to ask, are you all that surprised? Look forward to more "moral" military activity like we saw during both the Clinton and Bush administrations. It'll be financed by inflation and new bond issues.
"Change!"
FTA:
Obama ran his campaign around the idea the war was not legitimate, but it sends a very different message when you bring in people who supported the war from the beginning," said Kelly Dougherty, executive director of the 54-chapter Iraq Veterans Against the War.
The activists -- key members of the coalition that propelled Obama to the White House -- fear he is drifting from the antiwar moorings of his once-longshot presidential candidacy. Obama has eased the rigid timetable he had set for withdrawing troops from Iraq, and he appears to be leaning toward the center in his candidates to fill key national security posts.
Merrill economist David Rosenberg has got it right. We're in the beginning of what may be the Greater Depression, courtesy of cheap credit sponsored by Congress and the Fed.
http://blog.mises.org/archives/008981.asp
http://blog.mises.org/archives/008981.asp
This is a phenomenal article written by the author of Liar's Poker. The book has been on my shelf unread for a year now; clearly it's time to change that. I know it's mostly because I'm a huge finance nerd but this article had me laughing on every page...
FTA:
This was what they had been waiting for: total collapse. "The investment-banking industry is fucked," Eisman had told me a few weeks earlier. "These guys are only beginning to understand how fucked they are. It's like being a Scholastic, prior to Newton. Newton comes along, and one morning you wake up: 'Holy shit, I'm wrong!' " Now Lehman Brothers had vanished, Merrill had surrendered, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were just a week away from ceasing to be investment banks. The investment banks were not just fucked; they were extinct.
Not so for hedge fund managers who had seen it coming. "As we sat there, we were weirdly calm," Moses says. "We felt insulated from the whole market reality. It was an out-of-body experience. We just sat and watched the people pass and talked about what might happen next. How many of these people were going to lose their jobs. Who was going to rent these buildings after all the Wall Street firms collapsed." Eisman was appalled. "Look," he said. "I'm short. I don't want the country to go into a depression. I just want it to fucking deleverage." He had tried a thousand times in a thousand ways to explain how screwed up the business was, and no one wanted to hear it. "That Wall Street has gone down because of this is justice," he says. "They fucked people. They built a castle to rip people off. Not once in all these years have I come across a person inside a big Wall Street firm who was having a crisis of conscience."
FTA:
This was what they had been waiting for: total collapse. "The investment-banking industry is fucked," Eisman had told me a few weeks earlier. "These guys are only beginning to understand how fucked they are. It's like being a Scholastic, prior to Newton. Newton comes along, and one morning you wake up: 'Holy shit, I'm wrong!' " Now Lehman Brothers had vanished, Merrill had surrendered, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were just a week away from ceasing to be investment banks. The investment banks were not just fucked; they were extinct.
Not so for hedge fund managers who had seen it coming. "As we sat there, we were weirdly calm," Moses says. "We felt insulated from the whole market reality. It was an out-of-body experience. We just sat and watched the people pass and talked about what might happen next. How many of these people were going to lose their jobs. Who was going to rent these buildings after all the Wall Street firms collapsed." Eisman was appalled. "Look," he said. "I'm short. I don't want the country to go into a depression. I just want it to fucking deleverage." He had tried a thousand times in a thousand ways to explain how screwed up the business was, and no one wanted to hear it. "That Wall Street has gone down because of this is justice," he says. "They fucked people. They built a castle to rip people off. Not once in all these years have I come across a person inside a big Wall Street firm who was having a crisis of conscience."
"the only truth is the theoretical truth"
In opposition to the idea that parties telling of their suffering demonstrate truth. He seems to think we should step back and look analytically not at narrative, but at theory. I tend to agree.
"It's not that we don't have answers. It's that we don't have the right questions."
Around 45:00 he starts advocating a systemic change, and although I don't agree with his conclusion (Marxism) I do appreciate getting broad changes on the table.
In opposition to the idea that parties telling of their suffering demonstrate truth. He seems to think we should step back and look analytically not at narrative, but at theory. I tend to agree.
"It's not that we don't have answers. It's that we don't have the right questions."
Around 45:00 he starts advocating a systemic change, and although I don't agree with his conclusion (Marxism) I do appreciate getting broad changes on the table.
I'll be attending the Crain's Forty Under 40 event hosted next Monday at Landerhaven in Mayfield (ahh... home!) I wanted to congratulate a couple individuals on this year's list. Dave Dunstan of Western Reserve Partners is a former boss of mine; he was the lead banker on a deal I was intimately involved with during my summer tenure at the firm. Dave is a wonderful guy, always positive and smiling, and it's a pleasure to see him get recognition from the broader Cleveland business community. Todd Federman is the executive director of Northcoast Angel Fund and was a judge at the 2007 Entrepreneurship Educational Consortium event that spawned my first major venture, Fresh Fork Market. Todd is at Weatherhead sporadically for VC and entrepreneurship related events, educating students about opportunities in the Cleveland area.
Congrats Dave and Todd!
Congrats Dave and Todd!
Most economists have trouble giving a good economic reason for the existence of the Fed. The particularly ballsy ones will actually say that its existence is damaging to our country's economy and personal liberties, allowing politicians to plunge U.S. citizens further and further into debt without restraint. Today, economist and libertarian theorist Llewellyn Rockwell described the enormous social benefit we would realize from the elimination of our very own central bank:
Abolishing the Fed would put a huge brake on the planning state. Without the ability to expand the money supply at will, the federal government would become about as threatening as state or local government. That is to say, the federal government would still be an intolerable imposition on life, liberty, and property; but we wouldn't be worrying about hyperinflation, large-scale bubbles in specific sectors, crazy business cycles, trillion-dollar bailouts, controls that reach into every nook and cranny of our lives, a cradle-to-grave welfare state, or a global empire that invades any and every country at will, and makes America the enemy to whole regions of the world.
Abolishing the Fed would put a huge brake on the planning state. Without the ability to expand the money supply at will, the federal government would become about as threatening as state or local government. That is to say, the federal government would still be an intolerable imposition on life, liberty, and property; but we wouldn't be worrying about hyperinflation, large-scale bubbles in specific sectors, crazy business cycles, trillion-dollar bailouts, controls that reach into every nook and cranny of our lives, a cradle-to-grave welfare state, or a global empire that invades any and every country at will, and makes America the enemy to whole regions of the world.
That's
only the beginning of what the end of the Fed would mean. It would
dramatically change the political culture in this country.
Bureaucracies would tumble. Trade would stabilize. The investment-risk
calculus would accord with the free market. The Left could no longer
live out its pipe dreams of socialist utopia at our expense. The Right
would have to give up its wacky notion of a world police state. The
power ambitions of whole sectors of society would be scaled back.
- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. "End the Central Bank"
Read more at the Mises Institute blog
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to
meet the nation's challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand
national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will
create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools,
as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps.
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing
a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and
high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.
Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs
available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting
youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
-Change.gov
I'm looking forward to my kids serving a government-approved community service group as part of their government-approved education. It will prepare them for the sort of bureaucracy they can expect when they get out of school and apply for jobs at the government-owned National Bank of America, National Healthcare System of America, etc.
Before anyone jumps on me for sounding radical on this issue, let me defend how even the "Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year" is an ultimately statist policy. If I'm a typical American that does not want to put 100 hours of state-approved public service in during my college career, I can choose to not participate and forego my $4,000. The problem: schools in general will all begin incorporating this $4,000/year as a given for their students. We can expect to see tuition increase significantly over a 5-10 year period given this additional educational subsidy. As that happens, students from low to upper-middle income families will be economically forced into participating in a program like this.
What looks like a helpful bonus is actually a fascist burden on our youth. Everyone embraces this feel-good policy while they may have been against mandatory state service without monetary reward. Programs like this are the chains of statism, vessels for controlling the thoughts and actions of citizens. Those concerned about our educational system, health system, etc. should take action into their own hands and donate or volunteer. As soon as we force people to serve, service loses its moral foundation. Service becomes slavery.
-Change.gov
I'm looking forward to my kids serving a government-approved community service group as part of their government-approved education. It will prepare them for the sort of bureaucracy they can expect when they get out of school and apply for jobs at the government-owned National Bank of America, National Healthcare System of America, etc.
Before anyone jumps on me for sounding radical on this issue, let me defend how even the "Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year" is an ultimately statist policy. If I'm a typical American that does not want to put 100 hours of state-approved public service in during my college career, I can choose to not participate and forego my $4,000. The problem: schools in general will all begin incorporating this $4,000/year as a given for their students. We can expect to see tuition increase significantly over a 5-10 year period given this additional educational subsidy. As that happens, students from low to upper-middle income families will be economically forced into participating in a program like this.
What looks like a helpful bonus is actually a fascist burden on our youth. Everyone embraces this feel-good policy while they may have been against mandatory state service without monetary reward. Programs like this are the chains of statism, vessels for controlling the thoughts and actions of citizens. Those concerned about our educational system, health system, etc. should take action into their own hands and donate or volunteer. As soon as we force people to serve, service loses its moral foundation. Service becomes slavery.
The Cato Institute published an article today considering the potential unconstitutionality of the bank bailout. In sum: how does the Constitution give the federal government power to purchase distressed assets, invest in private institutions, or delegate legislative authority to the executive branch (ie. Mr. Paulson)? This is more than a stretch from the power to "regulate interstate commerce" granted by our guiding document. I know that there's a long history of judicial rulings that have led up to our current laxity, but it does seem a bit over the top.
Find the whole article here
Find the whole article here
Today's WSJ Deal Journal had a great article on bank executive compensation.
FTA:
Here in the U.S., the American Bankers Association (Deal Journal Trivia: the phone number is 1-800-BANKERS) wrote to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson Thursday, objecting to the government's plan to forcibly inject capital into many banks and the demand that banks change their bonus structures. "At this point, there is great anxiety about whether or not to sign up....this is not a program the banking industry sought," ABA president Edward Yingling wrote. "Many banks would be interested in [voluntary participation], but not if they are going to run the risk of being labeled-falsely-as needing government support, or of appearing to be asking for a handout, or being subjected to additional unknown government requirements or restrictions in the future-restrictions that could have the perverse effect of discouraging private investment in banks."
...
Of course, the U.S. government has a far uglier budget than any U.S. bank, with a deficit expected to more than double to $407 billion this year from last year's $161 billion. It also is the home of $640 toilet seats and $1 trillion in missing transactions. No bank in the U.S. has been as irresponsible as that. So who is in a better position to push the banks into more responsible performance-the government or the free markets?
This is an interesting twist on the bailout bill. Here we have banks coming back and saying, "well, the bailout sounded like a great idea in the beginning, but now that we realize we're not going to get money for nothing out of it, we'll be OK on our own." I view this as a real kick in the teeth to Paulson and the Treasury's perspective on the potential collapse of our financial system were we to not take action. It turns out that the expected scenario is true; companies want money, and if they can take billions from taxpayers they will do it.
Corporatism at work. Keep taxpayer money out of bank coffers.
FTA:
Here in the U.S., the American Bankers Association (Deal Journal Trivia: the phone number is 1-800-BANKERS) wrote to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson Thursday, objecting to the government's plan to forcibly inject capital into many banks and the demand that banks change their bonus structures. "At this point, there is great anxiety about whether or not to sign up....this is not a program the banking industry sought," ABA president Edward Yingling wrote. "Many banks would be interested in [voluntary participation], but not if they are going to run the risk of being labeled-falsely-as needing government support, or of appearing to be asking for a handout, or being subjected to additional unknown government requirements or restrictions in the future-restrictions that could have the perverse effect of discouraging private investment in banks."
...
Of course, the U.S. government has a far uglier budget than any U.S. bank, with a deficit expected to more than double to $407 billion this year from last year's $161 billion. It also is the home of $640 toilet seats and $1 trillion in missing transactions. No bank in the U.S. has been as irresponsible as that. So who is in a better position to push the banks into more responsible performance-the government or the free markets?
This is an interesting twist on the bailout bill. Here we have banks coming back and saying, "well, the bailout sounded like a great idea in the beginning, but now that we realize we're not going to get money for nothing out of it, we'll be OK on our own." I view this as a real kick in the teeth to Paulson and the Treasury's perspective on the potential collapse of our financial system were we to not take action. It turns out that the expected scenario is true; companies want money, and if they can take billions from taxpayers they will do it.
Corporatism at work. Keep taxpayer money out of bank coffers.
