Exactly! Let’s treat them the way congress treats the USPS, and demand they fund their own pensions or in this case their own liquidity for the next 75 years IN ADVANCE, and then they can prove their economic worthiness…up front!
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My observation is that the real problem we have had in this country for twenty years now is that the people running trading desks and taking risk positions–and above all their bosses–are certain that their ant’s eye-view of microeconomics makes them, and them alone, the world’s only true authorities on macroeconomics when, in fact, they are clueless about macroeconomics to the point of delusion.
And, by the most amazing coincidence, all of their delusions have the benefit of reinforcing that what they do is good and right, that they are the smartest people who exist, that they deserve everything they get, that what they do, no matter how utterly, obviously, disastrously horrible, is beneficial and essential to the economy, and that everyone who disagrees with them is just an ignorant peon who doesn’t know how things really work.
These are the economic fucking geniuses certain, absolutely certain, that the Fed will just have to raise rates soon because the inflation they’ve been predicting is right around the corner for seven years now is right around the corner. These are the people who convinced themselves that aggregating mortgages into collateralized debt obligations were great and that being allowed to take out credit default swaps on risk tranches they had no interest in totally didn’t create perverse incentives to set them up to fail. Or, if it did, hey, that’s just the invisible hand of the market doing its ol’ magic.
These are the people who keep telling us that the problem isn’t a lack of demand because they’ve been appropriating an ever greater share of the nation’s wealth for doing nothing while the wages of the 99% have declined in real terms for a decade and a half, leaving them nothing to spend after the necessities and interest are covered. Demand? Please. What a silly, antiquated concept.
These are the people who say, no, the real problem is that President Obama and Liz Warren keep saying mean things about our nation’s top one tenth of a percent and about financial institutions that make money trading increasingly bizarre derivative securities with each other that long ago passed the ability of any human to understand, and that causes the Magic Confidence Fairies to haz a sad and hide away, depriving the world of the benefit of their Magic Confidence Fairy Dust.
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Bullshit, and off-topic.
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The banksters hate Warren because she does understnd how the system works, and she has an added talent: she can break it done in simple terms that makes it understandable to the very people that banksters want kept mystified.
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So by your logic, only someone who has been a murderer is qualified to enforce the law against murder? Only a bank robber can enforce the law against bank robbery?
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That is because most Corporatists and Republicans don’t understand how the economy works. It is basically a closed system, which means that the money that travels up to the rich has to travel back down to the poor. Unfortunately, the rich cannot buy enough to keep the system going and since banks often do not lend to people who are poor, the government has to step in and bring the money back down.
The rich, by their nature, have a tendency to spend laterally- they invest in other rich people’s stuff, they buy really expensive stuff (but in small amounts), and so forth. The poor, by their nature, spend far more.
Think of it as a pair of shoes. A poor person buys a pair of shoes which are pretty good for about a year. They don’t cost much- say $20. A rich person buys a pair of shoes that costs $150, but are really well made. They last, say, ten years. In the same time the poor person has spent $200 of shoes and they’re still not very good shoes.
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From my perspective as a disgusted, disillusioned, disenchanted middle-aged man who nevertheless has most of his retirement savings invested in the stock market:
Warren’s is the most right (correct) of all the voices that get heard regarding this issue. However, her stance is not a comfortable one for many Democrats, many of whom–including Mrs. Clinton–are deep into the big banks.
It should be clear to anyone with an ounce of integrity that our democracy is being choked to death by people like Dimon. Warren sees this. Despite the real dangers she poses for many Democrats, I’m glad she’s there, and I hope against hope that her ideas will gain meaningful traction.
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“You know, there is a lot of talk lately about how Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. There is a lot of talk coming from CitiGroup about how Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect,” Warren said in that speech. “So let me say this to anyone listening at Citi —I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. It should have broken you into pieces.”
Damn, that’s hardcore. It is a pretty rare thing to here Senators talk to big business that way.
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i’m just curious, how are we to distinguish between the “free market crap of bush and cruz” and the free market crap of manziel?
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"Another topic in which our people rightfully take a deep interest may be here briefly considered. I refer to the existence of trusts and other huge aggregations of capital the object of which is to secure the monopoly of some particular branch of trade, industry, or commerce and to stifle wholesome competition. When these are defended, it is usually on the ground that though they increase profits they also reduce prices, and thus may benefit the public. It must be remembered, however, that a reduction of prices to the people is not one of the real objects of these organizations, nor is their tendency necessarily in that direction. If it occurs in a particular case it is only because it accords with the purposes or interests of those managing the scheme.
Such occasional results fall far short of compensating the palpable evils charged to the account of trusts and monopolies. Their tendency is to crush out individual independence and to hinder or prevent the free use of human faculties and the full development of human character. Through them the farmer, the artisan, and the small trader is in danger of dislodgment from the proud position of being his own master, watchful of all that touches his country’s prosperity, in which he has an individual lot, and interested in all that affects the advantages of business of which he is a factor, to be relegated to the level of a mere appurtenance to a great machine, with little free will, with no duty but that of passive obedience, and with little hope or opportunity of rising in the scale of responsible and helpful citizenship.
To the instinctive belief that such is the inevitable trend of trusts and monopolies is due the widespread and deep-seated popular aversion in which they are held and the not unreasonable insistence that, whatever may be their incidental economic advantages, their general effect upon personal character, prospects, and usefulness can not be otherwise than injurious."
President Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland: Fourth Annual Message (second term)
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i am not persuaded that we should indulge whatever percentage of dems who are economically stupid. i think it would be better if you all read some paul krugman instead.
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Taking Dimon at his word, let’s have some fun with modus ponens…
Dimon, et al, “fully understand” the banking system.
What Dimon et al. were doing caused the banking system to collapse horribly.
Ergo, Dimon et al. fully understood that what they were doing would horribly collapse the banking system.
Anyone got DOJ’s number?
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I didn’t realize Senators could only speak of things they have experience with. So many of the chicken-hawk GOPers have never been to war and yet they are more than willing to send others to war. I assume by your logic, no member of the Senate gets a say and/or a vote in things they have no experience in…right?
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Am I the only one that has a problem with TPM turning this into a sexism thing?
“Mansplaining is a portmanteau of the words man and explaining, defined as ‘to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.’” (From wikipedia, but where else do you find a definition of mansplaining?)
Why is this “mansplaining”? If Elizabeth Warren were a man with the exact same views, why wouldn’t Dimon have said the exact same thing?
I don’t see why this needed to be framed as sexist if there is no evidence for it.
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Like religion and politics (e.g., Libertarianism), there’s a lot of magical thinking goin’ on in commerce.
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I was with you until the last paragraph. I can’t think of a single individual let alone a guiding voice in what passes for the Republican party today that believes anything supported by Senators Sanders and Warren.
Because he would understand, implicitly, that there would less likelihood of the public to believe such an accusation about a man who is a Senator.
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Jamie? Is that you?
Or just one of your minions?
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Oh look, a ‘Reagan Democrat’. Better known as a Republican in sheep’s clothing.
I’m sure you believe that business should be unfettered by laws & regulations and that corporate taxes should be extremely low (or non-existent), right?
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