That’s Obama’s caricature of Republicans, whereas under his enlightened leadership, those selfish malefactors are under strict regulatory control. Note then today’s New York Times story saying that when regulators were looking askance at MF Global, the influence of Jon Corzine, Democratic poobah, was sufficient to call them off. So much for the regulatory state. Combine this with Solyndra and you get regulation and corruption to spare!
"Letting Wall Street write its own rules."
Darn me if that doesn't come under the heading of "freedom." You know, that thing we (including liberals) constantly say we cherish and fight for.
Don't let the Lefty/socialist cohort define the terms. It's not axiomatic that the government should regulate anything -- it's the government which needs to prove the need to do so.
Freedom is the DEFAULT mode. By formulating this phrase, it's clear Obama doesn't see it that way.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is particularly disturbing since the firm mixed customer and propriety accounts while being an exchange member. The mechanisms for preventing such a thing are straightforward, well understood and have been in place for decades. If that can be circumvented politically we are in deep poop.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCorzine has said he won't accept an exit package--we'll see about that. But Bloomberg says he made 25 mil over the last two years in "fees from the company." Not bad for costing the 3,000 worker bees at MF Global their jobs. Here is the Bloomberg link: External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Take off glasses, look concerned."
I don't believe that stage directions should be read aloud, nor that requests should be ignored and then printed verbatim :P
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"That’s Obama’s caricature of Republicans, whereas under his enlightened leadership, those selfish malefactors are under strict regulatory control."
Actually, he never claimed they were; why would he? The GOP (along with some Democrats) has done everything it possibly can to prevent Obama from making any changes that would bring wall street under greater control. They have fought to keep any regulations from going into place. They won't allow laws that have been passed to be executed; they refuse to confirm his nominees.
The entire premise for this post is a farce, and one that ignores the significant role the GOP is playing in preventing Obama from enacting stronger regulations on these groups. I don't see how anyone could have written this with a straight face.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLay out a rational, fact-based case that there needs to be more regulation. It's not automatic. Let's see it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe case is very simple:
- Businesses will act in whatever fashion they can do so in order to maximize profits as much as possible - regardless of any damage this does to entities outside of their business.
- Those who are not associated with those businesses have a compelling interest in limiting the amount of damage done to themselves through business activity which doesn't profit them in any way.
- The last decade has shown that Wall Street has grown to such a large entity, with tremendous amounts of money flying around very, very quickly, that the external problems associated with their normal business are enough to seriously impact our, and the world's, economy.
- Therefore, the sensible thing to do is to create regulations which will allow Wall Street to continue to do business at the level they like, but protect the rest of us from the fallout.
It's not a difficult concept - and I think the argument that more regulation ISN'T needed would be an extremely difficult case to make, considering the amount of derivatives flying around out there, and the abundant evidence that disruptions in these markets (which WILL happen periodically) screw the rest of our society.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWouldn't it just be easier to let those businesses know that if they fail, they, you know...fail?
No implicit government backing. No favored status. No bailouts. This doesn't require more regulation. It requires less.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is actually untrue. If you wish to see gov't NOT BE ALLOWED to bail companies out, you have to RESTRAIN gov't from being allowed to do so. Regulations aren't just for private businesses... they also govern what activities gov't can take.
Your proposed solution also doesn't solve the problem of the massive economic damage that is done when these large financial services companies fail. And when they are coupled with banks - as is common due to, you guessed it, the removal of common-sense regulations preventing this - the FDIC is going to have to pick up the pieces. Where do you think that money is going to come from?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOur government no longer honors the constraints that have been placed on it by either the Constitution or legislation. Look at the Solyndra deal -- half a billion dollars to a company that had been circling the drain for more than a year. In violation of existing law, that loan was restructured very late in the game to allow private investors to recover their investment ahead of the US taxpayers in the case of default. And that's only one example. It's because of government meddling that our economy was and continues to be compromised
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWay to move the goal posts. So all this talk of "regulating Wall Street" implies a regulation of government? Well, the regulation of government is what conservatives constantly yearn for and liberals constantly battle against. You really can't have it both ways, Fish.
Your proposed solution also doesn't solve the problem of the massive economic damage that is done when these large financial services companies fail.
You miss the point entirely. Without the government's implicit bailout guarantees and favored status treatment, fewer companies will fail because they won't be taking ridiculous and unwarranted risks in the first place. There's a cause-and-effect here that you apparently can't see.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Your proposed solution also doesn't solve the problem of the massive economic damage that is done when these large financial services companies fail" You assume there is economic damage. That is an assumption.
However, one person's loss can be another's gain. If the "too big to fail" had been allowed to fail, other banks - you know, the ones who did not make bad investment decisions - would have swooped in, bought the operations for pennies on the dollar, allowing many, many investors, at all levels, to make great gains on the investment.
Unfortuantely, too many people in the Obama and Bush administrations were previous employees at the "too big to fail" banks, and decided for us all we could not live with such consequences. After all, they had investments to protect!
Solution? 1. No such thing as "too big to fail". Let them fall and fail, and allow new investors to pickup the pieces on the cheap in bankruptcy court. 2. Never again allow the government to force banks to make loans to unworthy recipients. 3. Make sure the following people are put on trial and (hopefully) jailed: Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat doesn't lay out anything. It's simply a bundle of assumptions, with no effort to discern whether or not they're actually borne out in the real world.
I asked for facts. If you want to make the case the more regulation is needed, you first need to explain what current regulations are, why they're insufficient, and give concrete facts to show this.
THEN, you need to identify the exact problems as they exist and suggest what regulations would solve or alleviate these problems.
As I said, facts. Not assumptions. As it is, you're just giving me a Thomas Nast cartoon.
As for "harder" to make a case that there doesn't need to be more regulation, in a free society, that's the default mode. The government should intervene *only* when it's *shown* to be necessary. You, of course, haven't done this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"That doesn't lay out anything. It's simply a bundle of assumptions, with no effort to discern whether or not they're actually borne out in the real world."
None of those are assumptions; they are assertions based on easily observable evidence. And they are all plainly true - note that you don't even argue that any of the points I made were untrue.
It's not my job to lay out a deeply-researched, well-sourced case of why the sky is blue, to some random poster in an NRO thread. I could care less about your ridiculous evasion of actual discussion of the situation we find ourselves in.
"As for "harder" to make a case that there doesn't need to be more regulation, in a free society, that's the default mode. "
Prove it. With, yaknow, facts. Because the truth is that this has never been the case, and you're simply making this up because it sounds cute.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOK, Fish, seeing as you've had two full bites at the apple here, I think it's safe to conclude that you simply can't show the need for more regulation. You can't even state what the current level of regulation is. All you can muster is "of course there needs to be more, because, well, of course there needs to be more." That is the sum total of your "argument."
At a minimum, you should at least be able to take a stab at defining an area in need of more regulation, but you don't even do that.
So, I guess, for you, Fish, there's no level of regulation which is too much, because your entire "argument" is actually a conclusion -- "of course there should be more." Thus, there can always be more, and thus, there is no "too much regulation." If you disagree with this, if you say I'm unfairly characterizing you, then what's the level of regulation after which is too much, and if you can't even show what the current level of regulation is, how do you know it hasn't been reached? (I, of course, given your non-responses thus far, have no expectation that you'll answer these questions thoughtfully.)
All you're really doing is saying "how can you say the sun doesn't revolve around the Earth? LOOK AT IT." This is the intellectual level of your "argument."
As for freedom being the default mode in a free society, it's a tautology. Would you also like me to prove that "wetness" is the default mode in a glass of (liquid) water?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"At a minimum, you should at least be able to take a stab at defining an area in need of more regulation, but you don't even do that."
Of course I did - I mentioned the Derivatives market by name. And if you know even a tiny bit about it, you'll agree with me that this is a dangerous area, in need of further regulation.
I find your lack of an argument to be boring an unconvincing. You haven't shown that any of my initial assertions were untrue - you haven't even quibbled with them. Instead, you've ignored actually discussing them, in favor of simply repeating what you believe over and over. A waste of my and everyone else's time.
I can rest comfortably, however, in the fact that polling has shown that majorities of our society do in fact agree that the banking and investment sector DOES require regulation, and more so than we had at the time of the crisis. You represent a backwards, rump opinion, held by a misguided minority.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Of course I did - I mentioned the Derivatives market by name."
All you said was that "derivatives" were "flying around." You never said how this was a problem (as that's been happening for hundreds of years), nor how further regulation could alleviate the problem. You also appear to think there aren't already tons of regulations concerning them. If you don't, you sure didn't mention any.
So, what further regulations need to enacted in the derivatives market? It's not enough just to say they're "flying around." Maybe it scares you, but that doesn't mean it's actually a problem. It just means it scares you.
"I find your lack of an argument to be boring an unconvincing."
I didn't make an argument or an assertion -- you did. You said there needs to be more regulation. All I did was ask you to show it. I never said there didn't need to be. But I don't accept that there needs to be without it being shown -- and nor should anyone with any intellectual rigor. You haven't shown it.
So again, if you want to show that there needs to be more regulation, you have to show that current regulations are insufficient and what further problems need to be addressed, and how. You've never gotten anywhere near that, at all. All you've said is "profit motive leads to bad things," and that's it.
So, "rest comfortably" in your appeal to a majority, but don't kid yourself -- that proves nothing. It's one of the most transparent and common fallacies there is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFish, tell us what you think a "derivative" is, why you think aviating derivatives are uniquely "dangerous," and what kind of regulation you think would be effective to reduce the danger.
Too many liberals treat Regulation! as a kind of magic talisman: If we only had More Regulation, our problems would be solved. Well, *what* regulations? You could write regulations to the effect that a stockbroker must eat a jelly donut prior to each transaction, but what would that accomplish?
(Actually, come to think of it, it might cut down on the market volatility involved with high-frequency trading, but the advantage might be offset by the fact that all the brokers would be sugar-comatose by early afternoon; China could burn to the ground and it wouldn't budge the markets.)
The point is that the burden is on you -- the proponent of further regulation -- to make the case that a specific regulatory change would make things better, and not bring costs that outweighed the advantages. I see liberals howling about reinstating Glass-Steagall -- as if that had anything to do with the crash, or that reinstating it would accomplish anything of significance.
Modern liberalism, as exemplified by the buy-in to the Occupy nonsense by all but its most thoughtful adherents, is nothing but a howl. An understandable howl, perhaps -- things are indeed bad -- but just as there were worse things than Weimar Germany's hyperinflation, there's good reason to believe that making policy based on mere uninformed resentment will not make things better.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Businesses will act in whatever fashion they can do so in order to maximize profits as much as possible - regardless of any damage this does to entities outside of their business."
Why limit that to "businesses"? Why not say "people"?
If you don't want to do that, what makes businesspeople so different from other people, that you should presume them uniquely and universally corrupt?
Businesspeople are people. Some of them are more honest than not, and others are more not than honest. Jon Corzine is a crook not because he's a businessman, but because he's a crook. And as you can see, no amount of regulation is ever going to deter all the crooks. What he evidently did was already as illegal as [the infernal regions]. What makes you think that more regulation for crooks to ignore will deter crooks?
Though come to think of it, this is what you'd expect from a mentality that thinks a person willing to commit murder will be deterred by laws forbidding him to carry a gun.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Why limit that to "businesses"? Why not say "people"?"
Why indeed? This why we have REGULATIONS that govern the behaviors people are allowed to engage in.
"What he evidently did was already as illegal as [the infernal regions]. "
What Corzine did was in a grey area. It's not technically illegal (though it certainly was unethical, immoral and stupid). See the several articles here at NRO discussing this very topic.
"Though come to think of it, this is what you'd expect from a mentality that thinks a person willing to commit murder will be deterred by laws forbidding him to carry a gun."
You can win any argument in which you preemptively put words in your opponents' mouth. Not very impressive, however.
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