bernie bicoy

The Proposal to Limit Commodity Positions Will Hurt Free Markets and Economic Growth

Really? Then how do you explain the fact that non end users of commodities like oil were prohibited from engaging in speculation up until 2000, when the market was 'deregulated' allowing spec trades by non end users, at the specific instigation of Enron?

Are you saying that the market didn't work so well prior to that? Or are you saying ''this is such a neat way for speculators to make money wouldn't be a shame to limit it for something as silly as the public good?"

Alternative Bailout Plan: Good and Bad Ideas

If the immediate problem is that money for loans is not available due to mortgage portfolio losses...mostly by investment banks...why not go straight to the heart of the problme for 'Main Street'.

Do not depend on 'trickle down' economics opening up credit lines. Instead go to the solvent commercial banks and make the 'bail out / rescue' money available to those banks at the fed discount window at an attractive rate. Say 1%.

The solvent banks then could make a 4-5% profit on the money, while simultaneousl.y bailing out Main Street.

Anyone who owns mortgage backed securities can repackage them into good and bad packages, resell the good, and write off the bad. In short practice the same kind of clawback economics all of the rest of us have to when we make a horrendous mistake.

Bernie Bicoy

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Has it occured to anyone there is a much simpler way out of this mess than bailing out ''Investment Banks'' (brokerage firms) that created the mess with $700 billion?

If, as Paulson and Bernanke assert, if they aren't bailed out money will not be available to make consumer and business loans, then why not make the $700 billion available for traditional banks (i.e. FDIC banks that existed BEFORE Wall Street ''Investment Banks'' were created by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act).

According to the FDIC chairman traditional banks are in fairly good shape. If so, then make the $700 billion available as 'emergency loan funds' at, say, half of the fed discount window rate so the banks can make the loans that Paulson and Bernanke are worried will collpase the economic level of activity.

The traditional banks could also, if they want, cherry pick the Investment Banks mortgage portfolios, and buy them at a price determined by the banks, and not by the government or the Investment Banks, both of which are likely to be way too high.

Then let the Wall Street probably-should-have-s... ''Investment Banks'' deal with the mortgage securities no one wants, and deal with the FBI.

Bernie Bicoy

Is "Regulation of Hedge Funds" a Contradictory Term?

As the history of continuing financial scandals prove, ''SRO's'' or Self Regulatory Organizations where market participanats under intense pressure to make money - often by fair means or foul - govern themselves....is a lot like foxes being put in charge of the henhouse.

Is "Regulation of Hedge Funds" a Contradictory Term?

As the history of continuing financial scandals prove, ''SRO's'' or Self Regulatory Organizations where market participanats under intense pressure to make money - often by fair means or foul - govern themselves....is a lot like foxes being put in charge of the henhouse.