Group items tagged

provided a stunning $1.2 trillion to large global financial institutions

The money has been repaid

sketchy collateral

surprisingly sketchy collatera

Royal Bank of Scotland received $84.5 billion, and Dexia, a Belgian lender, borrowed $58.5 billion from the Fed at its peak

provided this much assistance to the biggest institutions for so long, and then to have done in effect nothing for the homeowner, nothing for credit card relief.”

financial regulators are captured by the companies they oversee,

espouses the principle that all men and women are equal under the law,” Mr. Kane said. “During the housing bubble and the economic meltdown that the bursting bubble brought about, the interests of domestic and foreign financial institutions were much better represented than the interests of society as a whole.”

THIS inequity must be eliminated

regulators who have a duty to protect taxpayers should require these institutions to provide them with true and comprehensive reports about their financial positions and the potential risks they involve.

The banks really feel entitled to hide their deteriorating positions until they require life support.

Mr. Todd also questioned the Fed’s decision to accept stock as collateral backing a loan to a bank. “If you make a loan in an emergency secured by equities, how is that different in substance from the Fed walking into the New York Stock Exchange and buying across the board tomorrow?”

if we do nothing to protect taxpayers from the symbiotic relationship between the industry and their federal minders, we are in for many more episodes like the one we are still digging out of.

EVALUATING bailout programs like the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the facilities extended by the Fed against “the senseless standard of doing nothing at all,” Mr. Kane testified, government officials tell taxpayers that these actions were “necessary to save us from worldwide depression and made money for the taxpayer.” Both contentions are false, he said.

“Thanks to the vastly subsidized terms these programs offered, most institutions were eventually able to repay the formal obligations they incurred.” But taxpayers were inadequately compensated for the help they provided,

Government officials rewarded imprudent institutions with stupefying amounts of free money

Jobs for low-skilled workers in manufacturing

lost to international competition

The path to recovery now lies

in upgraded skills, increased exports and public investments in infrastructure and low-carbon energy.

US and Europe have veered

consumption-oriented stimulus packages and austerity without a vision for investment.

good social policy does not mean running big deficits.

globalisation has not only hit the unskilled hard but has also proved a bonanza for the global super-rich

able to convince their home governments to cut tax rates on profits and high incomes

expand investments in human and infrastructure capital

First

cut wasteful spending, for instance in misguided military engagements

Second

Third

balance budgets in the medium term, in no small part through tax increases on high personal incomes and international corporate profits that are shielded by loopholes and overseas tax havens

projects will not add to net financial liabilities if they are repaid through future revenues.

Export-led growth is the other under-explored channel of recovery

through better skills and technologie

through better financial policies.

last missing piece for any recovery

clarity of purpose from the political class

Europe’s fate has been decided by German state elections and small Finnish parties

US has similarly devolved into a mélange of sector, class, and regional interests.

Obama is the incredibly shrinking leader

There is no growth strategy, only the hope that scared and debt-burdened consumers will return to buying houses they don’t need and can’t afford. Sadly, these global economic currents will continue to claim jobs and drain capital until there is a revival of bold, concerted leadership. In the meantime, the markets will gyrate in pangs of uncertainty.