Bill Herbert

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Are We Really Nearing a Bottom?

Good God, man, get a grip.

The Fed is Running Out of Options

It seems to me that we need a sweeping change in our "banking" system, including all new top management, by executive order.

The whole corrupt system that has developed over the last 30 years has to be scrapped - we are truly at the "startover" phase where we need to get rid of all the Paulsons and Princes and Caynes and Fulds, and put the true banking system back into place.

Get rid of derivatives, securitizations, mortgage scams, usury, multi-million dollar bonuses that encourage and reward fraud, and get back to basics - lending money in an orderly fashion to creditworthy businesses and consumers.

And I would suggest firing most of the MBA types who actually know very little about business, and have been seriously mis-educated by most of our 'top' business schools to believe that the incredibly contrived derivative-based financial system they have created was a good idea.

Obviously, it has led to extreme distortions in the economy, a lot of crime, and a financial collapse.

The Shallowest Generation

iAccountant siad - "In my opinion it will take a total collapse of the system to bring the type of change that you are referring to. Is this the beginning?"

I believe it may be. We are seeing the joints coming apart, the beams sagging and about to crack under the weight of massive debt and enormous corruption. Paulson is just trying to steal a few billion more for his beloved financial organized crime rings, before he retires to a life of wealth and luxury, under very heavy security.

Many hail Ron Paul as some sort of visionary, but I would argue differently. He espouses "Free markets" but made all of his money as a doctor. As anyone who bothers to examine the facts knows, doctors bill enormous fees to patients (and Medicare/Medicaid) in a system that in no way resembles a "free market."

Rather, it is a rigged market that controls the number of available doctors, and legislates their financial advantage, to an extraordinary degree. The A.M.A. is the most powerful and mercenary union in this nation's history, and is sucking the country dry.

I would never vote for Ron Paul on purely moral grounds - he was part of the problem, in my opinion. If you are a wealthy doctor (one of the limited number allowed to be 'licensed' that is) then it is easy to throw stones and criticize others for debt. These jokers live in a fantasy world, just like the IB types shuffling paper around and committing fraud for million-dollar bonuses. Their sense of true economics is deeply distorted by their own self-manipulated and outsized pay package.

Corporate Fraud + Government Intervention = Bailout Nation

I agree 100% with this commentary. To suggest that the banks had no role in their own demise is totally laughable. Any responsible banker or economist should have known long before the "meltdown" that extremely serious problems were occurring, like phony appraisals, bogus 'insurance' on mortgages, ludicrous lending and documentation standards, and an atmosphere of fraud and tolerance for bending/breaking rules on all levels.

People were making a lot of money and had no regard for the consequences. And I agree, it's people like Phil Gramm who are more to blame than anyone. I've always considered him to be a joke and a menace to sound financial principles and responsible conduct of our financial markets.

Two cases in point - Gramm led the charge to allow massive fraud and market-rigging behavior in the commodities markets - the result was Enron and significant corruption and volatility that exists to this day. The second example is as described above - the whole "deregulation" effort that destroyed Glass-Steagal and brought in a bunch of crooks and racketeers to run our biggest banks and brokerage houses.

The result of that is insanely huge compensation for criminals and a complete breakdown of responsible conduct, and now the U.S. taxpayers and foreign investors will be hit for several trillions to pay for it, so that a bunch of corrupt jokers like Phil's friends and campaign contributors can enjoy mansions and fleets of expensive luxury cars. What a travesty.