Hope 2.0

In light of recent political events, including the fact that "we stand on the verge of passing a giant boon to health insurance companies and calling it 'reform,'" Arianna Huffington is advocating for an empathy-driven system shattering Hope 2.0, inspired by the civil rights movement of the 1960's:

One year ago, Hope was about crossing our fingers and electing leaders that we thought would enact real change. Hope 2.0 is about using the lessons of Dr. King to create the conditions that give them no other choice.

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Simon Johnson finds tax-the-banks solution laughable

Barack Obama recently announced that the way to prevent future economic collapses is to put a new tax the big banks. For me, this was just one more in a long line of dreadful responses out of the White House. Who does he think is going to ultimately pay that tax? Further, how could a tax possibly keep big Wall Street banks from taking reckless gambles, and how is it that having a pool of tax money would mean that Washington DC wouldn't again jump in to "save the banks" with huge doses of tax dollars during the next cataclysmic crash? As long as there are banks that are "too big to fail," the federal government will jump in a most co-dependent of ways. I just read an FT.com article by economist Simon Johnson, who reassured me that my instincts were on target.

This week, the US Treasury pulled its latest rabbit out of the hat: a tax on the liabilities of large banks. The Obama administration argues that, by penalising large institutions with such taxes, we can limit their future risk-taking. This logic is deeply flawed. Why would higher funding costs mean you gamble less? If you know Tim Geithner is waiting to bail you out, you may gamble more heavily in order to pay the tax. The UK “reforms” look equally unpromising.
Johnson also spells out what IS needed:
First, we must sharply raise capital requirements at leveraged institutions, so shareholders rather than regulators play the leading role in making sure their money is used sensibly. This means tripling capital requirements so banks hold at least 20-25 per cent of assets in core capital. Second, we need to end the political need to bail out every institution that fails. This can be helped by putting strict limits on the size of institutions, and forcing our largest banks, including the likes of Goldman Sachs and Barclays, to become much smaller.
For reasons I truly don't understand, Obama is refusing to stand up and use his magnificent eloquence to make a case for meaningful financial reform. This has been a slow-motion train wreck for the past year, and he's about to allow the chance to create a CFPA slip away. He needs to join Elizabeth Warren in an almost constant assault on these highly monied amoral corporations (and their enablers in Congress) that it's time for real reform. As Warren (who IS out there fighting a good fight) says, "The problem is that a strong CFPA directly threatens the banks' ability to sell confusing, deceptive, fee-heavy financial products that generate huge profits, Warren said."

Continue ReadingSimon Johnson finds tax-the-banks solution laughable

Banks: We’ve paid you back, so we’ll now be on our way . . .

The big banks are taking the position that they have paid back most of money they received from taxpayers, so that they can go back to business as usual. Think Progress reminds us that paying back the TARP funds was the tip of the iceberg, and that the big banks are heavily in debt to taxpayers:

While most banks have already paid back their portions of TARP, as White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee told CNBC, the government has not charged the banks for the huge emergency guarantees provided to them by the FDIC, nor for allowing investment banks to convert to deposit banks, which gave them access to loans from the Federal Reserve. Moreover, the entire sector has benefited from taxpayer help. The government has provided financial firms with trillions of dollars in low-interest loans and outright equity purchases through programs like the Federal Reserve's Discount Window and loan guarantees, and they also benefited from the bailout of AIG. TARP represents only a small portion of the total support for the financial sector, so even firms that did not receive funds under the program -- or have already paid back their portion -- owe taxpayers.
This Think Progress post is link rich, in case you'd like to dig in deeper.

Continue ReadingBanks: We’ve paid you back, so we’ll now be on our way . . .

Wall Street, redux

Chris Hedges pulls no punches at Truthdig when he discusses what's wrong with Wall Street banks:

These deeply stunted and maladjusted individuals, from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to Robert Rubin to Lawrence Summers to the heads of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America, hold the fate of the nation in their hands. They have access to trillions of taxpayer dollars and are looting the U.S. Treasury to sustain reckless speculation. The financial and corporate system alone validates them. It defines them. It must be served. This is why e-mails from the New York Fed to AIG, telling the bailed-out insurer not to make public the overpaying of Wall Street firms with taxpayer money, were sent when Geithner was in charge of the government agency. These criminals sold the public investments they knew to be trash. They used campaign contributions and lobbyists to turn elected officials into stooges and gut oversight and regulation. They took over retirement savings and pensions and wiped them out. And then they seized some $13 trillion in taxpayer money so they could lend it to us with interest. It is circular theft. This is why we will endure another catastrophic financial collapse. This is why firms like Goldman Sachs are more dangerous to the nation than al-Qaida.

These corporations don't make anything. They don't produce anything. They gamble and bet and speculate. And when they lose vast sums they raid the U.S. Treasury so they can go back and do it again. . . . The foundation has not changed. The regulations are bullshit. The old assets are still crap.

Why does any of this matter? Because dollars are fungible, and so are tax dollars. They are not pre-marked for specific uses such as paying someone tens of millions of dollars in a "bonus" that is unwittingly financed by taxpayers. Those dollars that are being wasted on Wall Street banks could be going to critically important purposes, such as developing new methods of producing energy, researching new medicines, retraining workers. Or they could be providing better nutrition to people in need, including children. Of course, those dollars would be better used than they are currently being used even if they merely remained in the possession of the workers who earned them, rather than taxing those workers and then handing those dollars to too-big-to-fail banks.

Continue ReadingWall Street, redux