Regulate, Don't Split Up Huge Banks

Steve Rattner is entitled to his opinion, but as an investor TBTF banks are losers.  The money required to lobby Congress and regulators is a waste as are compliance costs.  And for what?  The right to loose really big money with a prop trading desk?
Rattner's editorial is a plea to keep the legal staff supporting the banking system's regulatory structure pampered and well compensated.  If, as a the title of this blog states, a banker realizes that he puts the very existence of his company at risk then Adam Smith's invisible hand will self regulate the bank without need of a privileged class of expert advisors and a meddling government.      

Sandy Weill changes his mind

Some would say you could have blown me over with a feather when I saw Sandy on Squawk Box suggesting investment banks be separated from commercial ones. But I am not surprised.  Consolidating in the 90's made sense when the bigger the bank the cheaper it's funding.  Now that funding is cheap everywhere and opportunities few TBTF is a hinderance.  Bank trading desks have cheated their corporate and government clientel for so long that most CFO's hang up or don't let the call through  when a Wall Street "Boiler Room" tries to call. The only clients left for these trading desks are other banks and hedge funds.  As I keep repeating, these desks are just playing with themselves and create no economic good.

Investment bank's that advise clients should go back to being the "White Shoe" partnerships of old.  The trading desks should be peeled off onto Hedge Funds where they will diminish. Commercial banking should be boring again.  The Investment Bank may advise a P& G, for example, to hedge with a certain product from another firm;  but a Banker's Trust milking customers with their prop trading desk is so over.

Why I write

Barton Bigg's obituary stated that he wrote to clarify his thoughts.  I agree it's a good method.  For example why I can't vote for Mitt Romney comes down to the following logic: The economy is stagnant because of uncertainty.  To me Romney represents more uncertainty than Obama.  It appears to me that Republicans are unable to clearly state what they stand for.  They need a catharsis that defines them or they become as irrelevant as they are in California and thereby setting the ground for another party.  As a Libertarian I won't compromise to perpetuate the current pathetic choice.
What is the basis of my current antipathy for Romney and the GOP?  I believe that the instinct to  regulate morals clouds free market economic thought.  I am an Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations, devotee who believes that the "invisible 'hand" described by Smith as guiding individual players acting in their own best interest reach the best result.  I believe this to be true of morals as well for economic activity. The GOP's current anti gay marriage, drug taking as a criminal activity and general anti immigrant  stance are indicator's of  a disbelief in Smith's "invisible hand" as a guiding principle in any activity.
Church and volunteer organizations are a result of the "Invisible Hand."  These voluntary organizations make better promoters of morality than any law or government organization.  It's the basis of my libertarian thought.  Until the Republican Party is purely a promoter of free market economic activity in a federal sense and defers morality issues to individuals, communities, including local religious organizations and finally local government  in what might be called an anti federal sense, then and only then will I have any respect for the GOP.

Comeback Kid

It took "The Economist," a foreign publication, to point out that the U. S. Economy is turning around  in a healthy direction. The primary goal is to "do no harm." No more stimulus please.  No jobs bill, as if a piece of legislation called a jobs bill would produce jobs.  Legislators can not and do not create jobs, so please don't try.

It's clear that the greatest hinderance to our economy is uncertainty.  Both sides of the aisle are equally guilty.  I resent President Obama's stewardship because it lacked the courage to take up the Simpson Bowles commission's recommendations as its mandate.  I resent Republican's bath mouthing the economy almost with glee. If this Presidential Election is based purely on attacks, then I don't see any relief in uncertainty.  A pox on both houses!

LIBOR - SMIBOR

This LIBOR Scandal is another case of Banks playing with themselves.  LIBOR is the basis of most of the World's finical contracts from the mundane to the arcane but the primary question society has to ask is what good do these players and contracts provide?  From what I see they just eat our cake.

To Save the Euro, Leave It

I found Ken Griffin & Anil Kashyap's  editorial of today in the New York Times to be an elegant solution to the Euro mess.  Germany should re-instate the Mark and leave the Euro much like the British pound is out yet Britain itself is a part of the Eurozone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/opinion/to-save-the-euro-germany-must-leave-it.html

What comes around goes around

I am reading Henry Adams History of the United States, the Administration of Thomas Jefferson.  It is as if the North and South Poles are switched around since the Revolutionary war.  The way I read the Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, I see a force for federal control in finance, commerce and defense.  In Republican South and Democrat North of the era, I see the anti-federalist, those for states rights and local governance.  In my youth I thought highly of the Federalist and now less so.  On the other hand I thought Andrew Jackson was a crazy man in dismantling the Bank of the United States and now I think he was brilliant in doing so.  The tide has turned so that Democrats descended from Thomas Jefferson act like Federalists. For example Obama care is a Federalist over reach of States Rights. On the other hand modern Republicans who appear more ideologically in tune today with Hamilton's Federalism argue States Rights.