Friday, December 14, 2018

Bill Black — Trump Models His War on Bank Regulators on Bill Clinton and W’s Disastrous Wars

Tom Frank aptly characterized the Bush appointees that completed the destruction of effective financial regulation as “The Wrecking Crew.” It is important, however, to understand that Bush largely adopted and intensified Clinton’s war against effective regulation. Clinton and Bush led the unremitting bipartisan assault on regulation for 16 years. That produced the criminogenic environment that produced the three largest financial fraud epidemics in history that hyper-inflated the real estate bubble and drove the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). President Trump has renewed the Clinton/Bush war on regulation and he has appointed banking regulatory leaders that have consciously modeled their assault on regulation on Bush and Clinton’s ‘Wrecking Crews.’
New Economic Perspectives
Trump Models His War on Bank Regulators on Bill Clinton and W’s Disastrous Wars
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

25 comments:

Noah Way said...

Why not? It’s worked out so very well far.

Andrew Anderson said...

Trump’s wrecking crew is using the Clinton and Bush playbook to restore fully crony capitalism. Bill Black

Government privileges* for private credit creation mean that banks extend the public's credit but for private gain.

How is that not crony capitalism? With the banks themselves and the rich, the most so-called "credit worthy", the cronies?

*e.g. government provided deposit insurance instead of allowing everyone to have accounts at the Central Bank itself.

Bob Roddis said...

A new eBook by New York Times bestselling author Tom Woods
"Deregulation caused the 2008 crisis!"

We've all heard it.

It's dead wrong. Preposterously wrong.

It's all the Left has.

Don't let them get away with it. And it's free!

https://www.regulationmyths.com/

Konrad said...

If deregulation did not cause the 2008 crisis, what did?

________________________________________________________
(Fill in idiot response above.)

Noah Way said...

Roddis - are you related to FRANKO? Genetics would explain a lot.

Bob Roddis said...

Konrad said...
If deregulation did not cause the 2008 crisis, what did?

Thank you for proving the point I've been making for a decade: No non-Austrian has the slighest familiarity with or understanding of Austrian School concepts or analysis.

Query: How can you reject an explanation (THE definitive explanation and for which Hayek won the Nobel Prize) that you have never even heard?

My essay contest for MMTers is still open for submissions.

https://tinyurl.com/ybrzy9o9

Andrew Anderson said...

No non-Austrian has the slighest familiarity with or understanding of Austrian School concepts or analysis. BR

Would that apply to ex-Austrians who've realized the Austrians are just pushing an older looting scheme? Theft by deflation?

Bob Roddis said...

Would that apply to ex-Austrians

Find me one. Just one. One with a thorough understanding of economic calculation and prices as information and mis-information.

Andrew Anderson said...

Looters are looters, Bob, though the looting be by inflation or deflation.

No doubt Austrians prize other things (e.g. needlessly expensive fiat) above ethical principles but that's their sin (idolatry) - same as with the Progressives they criticize.

Bob Roddis said...

Andrew Anderson said: No doubt Austrians prize other things (e.g. needlessly expensive fiat) above ethical principles but that's their sin (idolatry) - same as with the Progressives they criticize.

I'll take that as:

1. No, you can't identify a single non-Austrian who understands basic Austrian concepts.

2. #1 includes you.

S400 said...

“Hayek won the Nobel Prize”
Ha! He didn’t win any Nobel Prize. He won the political driven Swedish Riksbanks prize who is looting on the real Nobel Prize.
It’s a prize for looters by looters and is as empty and fake as the Austrian schools mumbo jumbo

Noah Way said...

Ayn Rand acolyte Roddis cites a die-hard libertarian author as "proof" that deregulation was not the cause of the 2007-8 collapse.

Meanwhile, here in reality, massive repeated bank deregulation through both the Clinton and Bush presidencies laid paved the way for rampant speculation - starting with real estate, which caused the housing bubble. Banks divested themselves of real estate liability with no-income verification mortgages and sub-prime loans, repackaging the toxic assets with the assistance of unregulated rating agencies. Profits from these thefts were sunk into completely unregulated derivatives and shadow banking.

Nah, deregulation had nothing to do with it. At least for the 75 years before the deregulation.

Noah Way said...

LOL - Roddis is a vulture lawyer running a bankruptcy firm. The Great Recession was good for him!

Kaivey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kaivey said...

They didn't deregulate enough, Noah. That's the problem.

Kaivey said...

Egmont says that the Austrian School is nonsense, that good enough for me!

Noah Way said...

“They didn’t deregulate enough”

The libertarian mantra.

Konrad said...

I asked Roddis, “If deregulation did not cause the 2008 crisis, what did?”

Roddis called me an idiot for asking, and he refused to supply an answer, since he didn't have one.

You have heard of the “Darwin Awards” for people whose death-by-stupidity contributes to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool.

I nominate Roddis for this year’s Dunning–Kruger Award, because Roddis, unlike Franko, actually believes his nonsense.

Bob Roddis said...

“They didn’t deregulate enough”

The libertarian mantra.


Hmmm. Our mah-velous modern funny money emissions system is a government looting program. What exactly does it mean to "regulate" it? Where in libertarian theory is a theory of "regulation" of government programs, especially one that is clearly unconstitutional, illegal, immoral and whose very existence is the cause of the problems?

Some people are good at B.S. and sidestepping. But you guys sure aren't.

Bob Roddis said...

“If deregulation did not cause the 2008 crisis, what did?”

Funny money loans created out of nothing bid up the price of housing to an unsustainable level which induced the building of housing that was unsustainable. Prices of existing housing were also artificially bid up with money from funny money loans. The values for mortgage purposes were the artificially bid-up bubble prices which are always unsustainable in the long run. At some point, those prices will collapse because there will be no one around with $500,000 of real goods and services in hand to exchange for a formerly $96,000 property now valued at $500,000. The borrower defaults and there is no one around to buy the property for the amount of the mortgage loan balance. It's called the boom/bust cycle. Prices collapse. The cure is to end fiat money and fiat money loans.

Noah Way said...

ALL loans are funny money, created out of nothing.

That didn't matter until deregulation turned banks into casinos.

The cure is to end fiat money and fiat money loans.

Looks like somebody doesn't understand what fiat money is.

Calgacus said...

Bob Roddis: The cure is to end fiat money and fiat money loans.

This is just saying "The cure is to end money and loans". And that's like saying suicide will solve all your problems. Or that all your financial problems will be solved if only 2 + 2 equaled 5. Because there isn't any other kind of money or loans than fiat money or fiat money loans. There is no other way to create money than "out of nothing." Artificial just means man-made. Of course everything in monetary economics is artificial and man-made. Money is artificial and man-made.

Austrians are just maniacal interventionists who want a government program to "artificially" inflate an entirely artificial gold bubble, because they have fooled themselves into thinking, in face of an enormous amount of evidence accumulated over millennia that gold is "natural money". No - fiat money - considered as a type of credit is the "natural" and ancient thing. The question is always how will governments spend their fiat money and how will they tax it or respectively, more generally, what will they buy, what will they sell. There is no reason whatsoever for this destructive (destabilizing, inflationary) obsession with the golden calf.

Konrad said...

Congratulations to Roddis for his Dunning-Kruger nomination. The competition this year was fierce.

“Funny money loans created out of nothing bid up the price of housing to an unsustainable level which induced the building of housing that was unsustainable. Prices of existing housing were also artificially bid up with money from funny money loans.”

Agreed. By the way, what in your opinion is the difference between “funny money” and “real money”?

It's called the boom/bust cycle. Prices collapse.”

Yes, but deregulation inflated the balloon faster than ever. Liars’ loans, NINJA loans, fraudulent derivatives, the packaging of worthless mortgages into securities that were fraudulently rated by Moodys etc, the use of CDOs to cover bets based on frauds, the use of investment bank funds to juice the game – it was all made possible by successive waves of deregulation (aka decriminalization).

“The cure is to end fiat money and fiat money loans.”

All money throughout human history has been fiat money, including the ledgers that Babylonians used before there were any notes or coins. I would be interested to hear about proposed alternatives.

As for fiat money loans, they need not necessarily be oppressive. Nazi Germany offered Germans a house at a 4% flat rate. One quarter of the mortgage was erased for each child a family had. If a family had four kids, they got a house for free.

Mortgages can provide useful incentives provided lenders don’t abuse them, and provided they are not deregulated.

Kaivey said...


Blogger Noah Way said...

'“They didn’t deregulate enough”

The libertarian mantra.?'

That's what I meant.

Andrew Anderson said...

The cure is to end fiat money Bob Roddis

All money accepted by government is fiat.

and fiat money loans. ibid

Needlessly expensive fiat makes the population more dependent on bank credit. Or would you ban fractional reserves too?