Ray Lopez

How Bailouts Are Messing with Capitalism

For you enemies of capitalism: "too big to fail" is a GOVERNMENT INVENTION. Who do you think invented Fannie and Freddie? It was not the free market.

Current Popular Argument Against AIG Bonuses Takes the Wrong Viewpoint

Richard Bookstaber? The hedge fund manager? Talking his book, his agenda?

No, we're not going to take it anymore, as taxpayers. You folks are not adding value anymore. You're fired.

Is AIG a Buy Following the Government Bailout?

What is key is how the AIG assets are liquidated--are they sold all at once in a fire sale, which is bad for longs, or, is it done more leisurely, over the next two years, when the current buyer's strike should settle down?

Lehman Is Just the Thin Edge of the Wedge

Nice article. Governments always try and price floors in and seek guarantees--the farm subsidies come to mind, as does posting guards around the Pakistan stock exchange building to prevent the masses from rioting to get their money back, as does last weeks Russian finance minister's announcement that the Russian government will try and mandate the Russian stock market from falling--what is the difference between a Moscow and a DC bureaucrat?--not much. So what else is new? Let the market mark to market, and clean out the dead wood in the forest. Burn baby burn! Just pray we don't get more government regulation afterwards, as most people have been conditioned to believe the government controls the economy and can legislate prosperity.