the financial crisis, part XXIX

[jrtom]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print

Another opportunity to get royally pissed off and despairing relating to what's been going on with the current financial crisis, its antecedents, and various bailout-related program activities.

*sigh*

Honestly, I don't know if there's anything that I can actually do about this, other than to attempt to light a fire under my senators to at least go add some damned oversight and regulation to the banking business.

Seriously, this whole situation just seems surreal.

Comments

[fenicedautun.livejournal.com]

That article made me squirm. Some of what he said was right on, he obviously had somebody explaining this stuff to him who knew what was going on. But it's very slanted, and completely ignored some other facets of the problem. For example, he keeps pointing at Paulson, but shouldn't he also be pointing at the Bush White House who failed to oversee the OTS? My take on the article is if you understand that the guy has a beef against people in the financial industry (not just Paulson/Liddy/etc but everybody) and is trying to get you angry with them, thus slanting much of the article to do so, then you can pull the useful stuff out of it.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Matt Taibbi's journalism is like that in general, regardless of what (or who) he's writing about. Very visceral, very emotional.

I agree that there's plenty of blame to go around. (And I find it interesting that he didn't even mention Chris Dodd, either...although I've heard conflicting stories about what his role vis-a-vis the bonuses has been, he can't have been uninvolved in this whole thing.) My guess is that he's no longer targeting Bush per se because he's done that bit already and at this point there's no point...and there's definitely a sense that Bush himself wasn't very involved in how all of that was handled, anyway.

What do you see as being the most useful things in this article, and the most misleading parts? You probably have more direct knowledge of this whole situation than anyone else I know personally; I hate to go pester you with lots of questions, but now I'm tempted. :)

[fenicedautun.livejournal.com]

The AIG description is probably accurate as far as it goes. And while the description of the oversight issues is accurate, I would love to have seen a more in-depth (maybe one more paragraph) about the problems with how to regulate multi-national financial entities that operate in multiple businesses. It's not just AIG, this is a chronic problem and the one that the governments are most focused on, partly because this is the one they can do the most good with.

I would wish that he went more into the ratings agencies, and the agent problem therein. (Ratings agencies are paid by the issuers of the security, not by the buyers. They therefore have an incentive to rate securities higher than perhaps warranted.)

I found the pointing of fingers at the Goldman boys a bit disingenuous (and the labelling of the MOrgan crew). Yes, Goldman is just as much to blame, and yes, most of the people handling this crisis worked at Goldman. But where are they supposed to come from? They have to have banking and i-banking experience, and Goldman is known to have had the best hiring practices (valuing the best and the brightest). And would it be better if some came from MOrgan? The author points fingers without suggesting alternatives.

I know there was something else, but my head is too stuffed up. And don't worry about e-mailing me with questions, all I have is time these days...