Begging for Alms

Watching Meet the Press this Sunday and I am presented with a feel good Citigroup ad directed at opinion makers. It's a desperate tug at the heart strings from a wounded corporation seeking more government favor. There are pieces of Citigroup that can stand on their own and there others that just suck the life blood out of those that have any left. Bernanke and Geither have studied the Japanese economic morass of the last twenty five years, and one conclusion they seemed to have agreed upon was that Japan was too kind to their banks. It's time to rip Citigroup apart because in their present state they are a leech on the economy. When the next crisis comes we can depend on their need for further help and certainly not to be of help. And finally and most importantly it is important to show a hard edge where failure is allowed to over come what in crisis was determined to be a too big to fail bank, but now that the crisis is working towards resolution can be sold off in pieces in an FDIC manner. The country is over banked, especially investment Banks. At one point I believe finance represented 20% of GDP. I think no more than half that would be healthy for the economy. Let's start by chopping Citigroup apart.

Bull by the Horns

Early in the financial crisis I recall the economist Simon Johnson describing the FDIC as a very effective and economical tool to resolve the perilous state of the financial system. It caused me to consider Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC, and her actions in a different light from what up to then was a predisposition to less regulation. FED Chairman Alan Greenspan's tenure was a disaster in spite of his Ayn Rand libertarian philosophical predilection because he forgot that free markets do not work as described by Adam Smith in a system spiraling toward concentration of economic power. The mix of government intervention and laissez faire economics is particularly noxious, and Alan presided over a witches brew that as a Libertarian I will not forgive.

Sheila Bair has a clear view how government guarantee's require private equity be completely at risk when reckless management puts a company in a difficult position. She understands how those who play prudently expect to prevail when others fail and how it is resented it does not happen because special favors are called. It appears from her book, Bull by the Horns, that Tim Geithner is Mr. Moral Hazard and that his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury has been a huge drag on the Obama administration. The AIG bonus debacle in the spring of the term, the laughable disrespect given by Wall Street Banker's that summer and the general public outrage over bailouts for fat cats over the years was the genesis of the Tea Party on the right and Occupy Wall Street on the left. That Obama was re-elected has more to do great electioneering than developing a mandate.

As a Libertarian I resent that neither side understood that the mandate from the beginning is to be a Teddy Roosevelt style Trust Buster. Punish with ruin the reckless goliath's in finance for the havoc they reeked on our citizens. Obama could really set a proper course for his second term by nominating Sheila Bair as his new Secretary of the Treasury. While she is a regulator at heart she understand's how to protect the public purse and authority.  Secondly, now that the market is less stressed, will someone go out and rip Citigroup apart.  It has no right to exist as presently constructed and it would do a lot of good to set the possibility of failing even though it is big. 

My President is busy

Tom Friedman's editorial in today's New York Times regarding Israel clarifies how authoritarian it has become.  Because of a history of easy wins over less prepared opposition the extreme element asserts greater influence and transforms the country toward a garrison state.  America's thorough repudiation of the evangelical right this past election leaves Israel abandoned by a hawkish ally.  All  I can say is, "Thank God".

 My President is Busy

Republican Hand Wringing

I am delighted by how the authoritarian element of the electorate got so thoroughly trounced in this last election.  Until Republican's can learn to answer in the manner of Joe Biden in the Vice Presidential debate, that while holding strong religious beliefs that they are not willing to impose them on others, the GOP is doomed.  There may be hope of a turn on this point by the Evangelical Right's recognition that they failed, but not for lack of effort.

“Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Ky., said in an interview. “It’s not that our message — we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong — didn’t get out. It did get out.

“It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed,” he said. “An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.”

Christian Right Failed to Sway Voters on the issues

I disagree with the Reverend Mohler that it is the moral landscape that has changed.  I believe it is our core value separating Church and State that is rejecting religious positions that have no business being a part of government.  If this is the land whose first proclamation of independence includes the pursuit of happiness as a right, then how can we tolerate a religious movement that dictates what that happiness should be?  People voluntarily congregating into a community church is a expression of the pursuit of happiness for some and if it is a community of gay and lesbians, whose business is it but their own?

Gary Johnson for President

It's not a wasted vote.  A vote for Obama is a vote for more Government and Romney is a vote for less liberty.  I don't think either of the two major parties are ever gong to get it right until more of us stop wasting our votes on the lesser of two evils.

January 13, 2011 Extraordinary Financial Assistance Provided to Citigroup, Inc.

Thank you Gretchen Morgenson for finding this gem of a report from SIG TARP on her
"Citi’s Torch Has Passed. Now Find a Knife." editorial. It is apparent that some in Government understand NTBTF well.  I believe that Tim Geithner did his boss a dis-service by saving Citi from dismemberment and or bankruptcy and thereby not making it the example to have deflected the Tea Party and the 99 percent protestors.  The low rates that the FED has implemented has given Citibank the breathing room to rebuild its book at the expense of saver's in society and are part of the economic malaise that could cost Obama his re-election.

The gist of the report is in its opening written below.

Unless and until institutions like Citigroup can be left to suffer the full consequences of their own folly, the prospect of more bailouts will potentially fuel more bad behavior with potentially disastrous results. Notwithstanding the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, which does give FDIC new resolution authority for financial companies deemed systemically significant, the market still gives the largest financial institutions an advantage over their smaller counterparts by enabling them to raise funds more cheaply, and enjoy enhanced credit ratings based on the assumption that the Government remains as a backstop. And because of the prospect of another Government bailout, executives at such institutions might be motivated to take greater risks than they otherwise would. 

The Dodd-Frank Act was intended in part to address the problem of institutions that are “too big to fail.” Whether it will successfully address the moral hazard effects of TARP remains to be seen, and there is much important work left to be done. As Secretary Geithner told SIG TARP, while the Dodd-Frank Act gives the Government “better tools,” and reduced the risk of failures, “[i]n the future we may have to do exceptional things again” if the shock to the financial system is sufficiently large. Secretary Geithner’s candor about the prospect of having to “do exceptional things again” in such an unknowable future crisis is commendable. At the same time, it underscores a TARP legacy, the moral hazard associated with the continued existence of institutions that remain “too big to fail.” It also serves as a reminder that the ultimate cost of bailing out Citigroup and the other “too big to fail” institutions will remain unknown until the next financial crisis occurs. 

The full report is available at the pdf link Extraordinary Fiancial Assistance

I prefer a one handed Economist

I believe it was Harry Truman who mentioned he preferred one handed economist versus the "on the one hand and on the other hand" version which he found useless.  Today's DealBook in the New York Times "Weighing the Dodd-Frank Restrictions Against the Power of Big Banks" by Steven Davidoff is an opinion piece that Harry would have despised because it had no opinion.

On the other hand St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard is very clear.

Fed's Bullard-Banks should be smaller to manage failure

The most startling part of it was how big Goldman Sachs' asset base was.  I can't believe they would allow so much deadwood in their portfolio.  The old time partners are turning over and squirming in their graves.