Good Show at the Wrong Time
I watch MSNBC. I guess that makes me a consumer of the liberal and progressive media. Anyway, there is a show that they have bounced around seeking a good time slot, the Dylan Ratigan Show. It is a bare knuckles hour of questions, interruptions, and struggle to get good, clear information. Dylan is respectful, but forceful and is the best at helping make sense of the financial crisis that I’ve found on TV. He recommends the article below as a baseline for the reform of the financial system. Click the title to read the entire article.
The best financial reform? Let the bankers fail
by James Grant | The Washington Post | April 23, 2010
The trouble with Wall Street isn’t that too many bankers get rich in the booms. The trouble, rather, is that too few get poor — really, suitably poor — in the busts. To the titans of finance go the upside. To we, the people, nowadays, goes the downside. How much better it would be if the bankers took the losses just as they do the profits.
Happily, there’s a ready-made and time-tested solution. Let the senior financiers keep their salaries and bonuses, and let them do with their banks what they will. If, however, their bank fails, let the bankers themselves fail. Let the value of their houses, cars, yachts, paintings, etc. be assigned to the firm’s creditors.