““smart people dont do different” is the rallying cry of technocrats. see the research done at Uni of Utrecht on this area.”

not sure what you’re referencing here, but I’ll check it out.

And I just want to be on record stating that I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT agree that capitalism should function through failure/bk, that’s how you get rid of the garbage, AND IT IS ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE that that has not happened to a lot of these banks.

If the contracts must be honored to avoid financial meltdown, then the equity and bondholders should have been wiped out and the FDIC and govt. come in with their powers to stabilize the system.

I just don’t think BB had the power to do it alone. Which brings up the rats nest of conflicted vipers such as Paulson doing what they were doing. Let BSC, MER, and LEH go down, but save GS and MS.

I have a theory that MS was allowed to survive because if GS was the only one that remained that would look TOO FISHY even for that idiot.

But back to the point, yes, those in charge of this mess did not suffer nearly enough, and that is very unfortunate. The whole point of capitalism is the possibility of failure. And that was prevented in large part with a lot of these banks.

all organisations create yes men systems. in normal circumstances this is not a problem as bankruptcy/failure breaks up the system and new organisations take over.

BUT this time it was different. the bail out took away that option.

“smart people dont do different” is the rallying cry of technocrats. see the research done at Uni of Utrecht on this area.

one of the biggest failures for which BB must go into history is preventing creation and development of new businesses. the impact of which will be felt for at least a decade.

Which underscores why confidence is so important and the idea that the governments will backstop the majors is important.

But, I think your skepticism is well-deserved and BB has yet to make the grade.

What happens in the next couple of years is key.

But he is getting absolutely no f’ing support from key governmental posts. He is expected to do everything and be responsible for everything.

We shall see my friend, we shall see. His past performance does not engender much hope, but I’m not willing to burn him at the stake yet. He’s playing the hand that was dealt, and it ain’t a very good one, I can tell you that. And with the Prez and Congress dumping more buckets of gas on the fire all the time, I cannot hold him even primarily responsible for the shite-storm we are in right now.

To that end the FED is doing an excellent job, in fact it’s amazing how little resistance/revolt there has been to the destruction of the country just to enrich maybe tens of thousands of lead bankers.

It would be foolish to think Bernanke and all the others at the Fed are somehow incompetent or don’t know what they are doing. They have been extremely skillful implementing the banks’ agenda while keeping opposition at bay….

Even if he couldn’t have stopped the train from going off the tracks I believe he has now only prolonged its wreck. It’s hard to argue that what he is doing is working. And I have long argued that we were never going into a depression anyway so how much he did to alleviate the crisis is debatable to begin with….

I tend to side with Rob on this one. I sympathize with your point TPC, but being a “yes” man in good times is almost what everyone would do.

Kind of a Milgram’s obedience experiment.

Volker’s interest rate hikes were in direct response to crazy inflation.

BB voted with Greenspan, that’s a mark on his record. And the Lehman decision was ridiculous – how Paulson is not being criminally investigated or drug in front of many committees is beyond me.

But I think his book has yet to be written. It does not help him that this crazy f’ing government is destroying the balance sheet, more and more buckets of shite they pile on this mess. That is not making his job any easier.

The real authority has to be handed down from the Executive and enforcement branches of the govt., Treasury, SEC, etc.

It’s hard to throw BB under the bus when the entire system remains broken and DOING NOTHING!!!! At least BB is thinking creative.

One of the key problems with the Fed is the dual mandate for both price stability and full employment. The Fed should be soley responsible price stability and should focus not only on consumer and producer prices but also on asset prices. If they truly focused on achieving price stability and let private industry and the Federal, State and local goverments focus on achieving full employment, we would be much better off.

I am not at all a fan of current monetary policy, but one thing that must be said in Bernanke’s defense is that he was charged with cleaning up Greenspan’s bubbles mess. That would have been a thankless job for anyone. Bernanke also has been quite “successful” in coordinating monetary easing with other central banks. It would have been an even bigger disaster if the US had simply gone off completely on its own.

After a long period of higher than normal asset price inflation I see deflation as necessary. (Bernanke sees it as a spiral into the Great Depression). I also see no issue why deflation which reverses 2005, 2006 and 2007 consumer price increases should be seen as a problem for society. Sure it will reduce inflated corporate profits, but what is wrong with corporate profits returning to historical norms. No one is willing to accept any sacrifices anymore.