An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
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Thursday, March 1, 2012
Fox News: Sec. Geithner in Legal Jeopardy?
Fox News report on possible legal problems for Treasury Secretary Geithner related his activities while at the FRBNY. Shep and The Judge break it down. H/T Mario.
The U.K. and the rest of Europe occasionally do things better than the U.S. If a senior private sector bank executive was made finance minister in the U.K., there’d be riots.
“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law even places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim, when he defends himself, as a criminal…But often the masses are plundered and do not even know it.”
Well who did they think the counter parties would be, the first bank of omaha? There is no surprise that big New York and European banks were counter parties in the swaps. It is one of the primary products they produce.
This witch hunt is the equivalent of suggesting regulators failed to watch BP's gulf operations so that they could help Proctor and Gamble sell Dawn detergent. It defies the imagination even if the Chief of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management was from Proctor and Gamble.
US Bankruptcy courts were woefully unprepared and staffed to expeditiously liquidate AIG and others to prevent calamity. So they did it this way. Gloss over the panic in the world at the time: As if the market panic, investment bank runs, and money market collapses were no big deal.
Get real and lose the politically motivated faux indignation, folks.
True. And the law is the law. If someone falsified a document or intentionally misled congress... they knew there could be consequences. Maybe its time to resign and move to a warm Caribbean island.
“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law even places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim, when he defends himself, as a criminal…But often the masses are plundered and do not even know it.”
This is the general state of affairs according to Ravi Batra, since there are four mindsets into which a society divides — warrior, intellectual, acquisitor and laborer.
The laborer mindset is the only one not suitable for wielding power, so it never comes to power by itself. Rule alternates among the other three according to a historical pattern that Batra describes.
In the various kinds of rule laborers, who make up the great majority of the population, get exploited to a varying degree.
I'd take it one step further, the laws are created to sanction plunder.
Thanks for the ref. to Law of Social cycle. Helpful framework, a different angle to understand progress and events as they unfold and people in general. Neat ideas.
http://www.limericksecon.com/2012/02/in-words-of-bastiat.html
ReplyDeleteThe U.K. and the rest of Europe occasionally do things better than the U.S. If a senior private sector bank executive was made finance minister in the U.K., there’d be riots.
ReplyDeleteMore from Frédéric Bastiat:
ReplyDelete“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law even places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim, when he defends himself, as a criminal…But often the masses are plundered and do not even know it.”
Well who did they think the counter parties would be, the first bank of omaha? There is no surprise that big New York and European banks were counter parties in the swaps. It is one of the primary products they produce.
ReplyDeleteThis witch hunt is the equivalent of suggesting regulators failed to watch BP's gulf operations so that they could help Proctor and Gamble sell Dawn detergent. It defies the imagination even if the Chief of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management was from Proctor and Gamble.
US Bankruptcy courts were woefully unprepared and staffed to expeditiously liquidate AIG and others to prevent calamity. So they did it this way. Gloss over the panic in the world at the time: As if the market panic, investment bank runs, and money market collapses were no big deal.
Get real and lose the politically motivated faux indignation, folks.
TB,
ReplyDeleteI dont think Nancy Pelosi's knowledge was/is as good as yours in this situation..... she could probably claim she was misled and this would be true.
Resp,
True. And the law is the law. If someone falsified a document or intentionally misled congress... they knew there could be consequences. Maybe its time to resign and move to a warm Caribbean island.
ReplyDelete“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law even places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim, when he defends himself, as a criminal…But often the masses are plundered and do not even know it.”
ReplyDeleteThis is the general state of affairs according to Ravi Batra, since there are four mindsets into which a society divides — warrior, intellectual, acquisitor and laborer.
The laborer mindset is the only one not suitable for wielding power, so it never comes to power by itself. Rule alternates among the other three according to a historical pattern that Batra describes.
In the various kinds of rule laborers, who make up the great majority of the population, get exploited to a varying degree.
I'd take it one step further, the laws are created to sanction plunder.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ref. to Law of Social cycle. Helpful framework, a different angle to understand progress and events as they unfold and people in general. Neat ideas.
test comment
ReplyDelete