The UK’s Prospect magazine – a genial, well-edited left-liberal take, by American standards, on politics – offers its list of the 25 leading public intellectuals offering commentary and sage advice in the financial crisis (in some cases action, too – Ben Bernanke is included). The list is full of worthy commentators, and I wouldn’t disinvite […]
Archive | Financial Crisis
Threat of Greek Sovereign Bankruptcy and Possible Consequences for the Eurozone
Der Spiegel has an informative story on the possibility that a Eurozone country might default on its sovereign debt, with economic, political, and legal consequences that could be anything from serious to dire. The country is Greece: Greece has already accumulated a mountain of debt that will be difficult if not impossible to pay off. […]
In (Limited) Praise of Right-Wing Populism
I am no fan of populism of either the left or right-wing variety. In my view, most populist movements exploit voter ignorance and irrationality to promote policies that tend to do far more harm than good. That said, I have been pleasantly surprised by the right-wing populist reaction to the economic crisis and Obama’s policies. […]
Goldman Sachs and Its Small Business Fund Ploy
I am a fan of Goldman Sachs. It is one of the few individual stocks I own, running against all my standard corporate finance professor ‘buy index funds!!’ instincts. Although we have had a surfeit of bankers and a surfeit of talent in financial engineering rather than, say, robotics, it is very scary to see […]
Bush Continues His Uncanny Imitation of Herbert Hoover
In this January post, I noted some of the uncanny parallels between George W. Bush and Herbert Hoover: Both were president during a time of economic crisis; both presided over vast expansions of government that helped cause the crisis or at least make it worse than it might have been otherwise; finally both were (inaccurately) […]
Reading While Traveling, Hard Copy and No Internet
By Kenneth Anderson on November 14, 2009 4:29 pm in Academia, Counter-Terrorism Policy, Economy, Finance, Financial Crisis, Freedom of Speech, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Legal Professor, Legal Scholarship, Robotics, Targeted Killing, Terrorism
I’ve been traveling recently, and so have been away from posting. One of the enforced virtues of traveling – one of the few virtues of traveling for me these days – is the plane flight with no internet. And if the big guy in front of me reclines his seat, as he always does, I […]
A New Soros Initiative on the Economics Profession?
By Kenneth Anderson on October 30, 2009 1:49 pm in Academia, Economy, Finance, Financial Crisis, Legal Profession, Legal Professor, Regulation
Michael Hersh describes a new $50 million George Soros initative to try and remake the economics profession so to reclaim it from “free market fundamentalists.” The fund will be run by Robert Johnson, formerly a managing director of Soros Fund Management; it hopes to raise $200 million in matching funds. (H/T Instapundit; also Mark N […]
”When GM Took Federal Dollars, They Lost Some of Their Autonomy”
Does government interference inevitably follow government ownership of private companies? It sure seems that way. As a WSJ article reports: “Companies in hock to Washington now have the equivalent of 535 new board members — 100 U.S. senators and 435 House members.” Specifically, the story reports on efforts by various lawmakers to inflence the business […]
Rating Agencies Doing Fine, Thanks
The Lex column in the Financial Times reports that the rating agencies – Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s – are doing financially just fine and, well, even better than fine: McGraw Hill this week showed the ratings business is on the increase … Its Standard & Poor’s credit ratings agency, which accounts for the vast […]
McDonald’s Out of Iceland
Just when you thought the global financial crisis was subsiding, with returns to growth in most leading economies, including the US, Europe, China, etc., we have a counter-indicator. The Financial Times reports today that McDonald’s is closing its three outlets in Iceland, citing the difficult economic environment: Iceland edged further towards the margins of the global […]
Market Discipline? What Market Discipline?
By Kenneth Anderson on October 26, 2009 3:57 pm in Economy, Finance, Financial Crisis, Proposed Legislation, Regulation
The New York Times reports that Congress and the administration might soon reach some kind of view on legislation for addressing “too big to fail” institutions. Off the table is Paul Volker’s proposal to re-establish some line between commercial banking and proprietary trading – some updated Glass-Steagall demarcation. On the table is the Treasury’s proposal […]
Dividing Financial Institutions into Utilities and Casinos?
One proposal for addressing too big to fail, or to systemically interconnected to fail, among financial institutions is to separate out the proprietary trading and other “casino” activities from the “utilities” business of commercial banking with the public. In some ways (not all) it is a revival of the Glass-Steagall approach. Paul Volker has urged […]
Peter Wallison on the Role of Government in Causing the Mortgage Crisis
In a recent post, I discussed how the Federal Housing Administration’s subsidization of dubious mortgage loans is repeating one of the key errors that helped cause the financial crisis of 2008. In this Wall Street Journal op ed, Peter Wallison (who presciently warned of the danger posed by these policies back in 2005) summarizes the […]
Repeating the Mistakes of the Mortgage Crisis
The Federal Housing Administration seems intent on repeating one of the key policy errors that played a major role in causing last year’s financial crisis. One of the main causes of the mortgage crisis that led to the broader financial crisis of 2008 was government subsidization of risky mortgages for people who were unlikely to […]