Grizzly Times, Yet Some Hope on Horizon

Grizzly Bears roam the financial landscape: Doug Noland and Michael Shedlock here (or here) are ever-bearish, but so is Barry Ritholtz (Forbes video link). The "D" word is uttered ever-more-frequently. Yet I find myself thinking that just beyond this likely deep recession we are at the leading edge of a reformation: re-forming financial institutions—private and government—and bringing US and other banking "kicking and screaming" into the 21st Century.

In this I share hopes with Brad DeLong, Paul McCulley, Robert Shiller, and George Soros (or better still watch Soros: via the Financial Times in extended post). No one who is awake believes we will escape our current moment without at minimum a deep, prolonged recession. But some observers, like those just mentioned are less cynical than are they who believe that we are predestined to once-again repeat the tragedies of the recent past and earlier times—in particular to continue to reward speculative excess.

As per reform, Thursday's Senate Oversight hearings on the Bear Stearns mess (C-Span video link)) is almost 5 hrs. long, but worth watching to better understand where Ben Bernanke (Fed), Timothy Geithner ( NY Fed), Christopher Cox (SEC), and Robert Steel (Treasury) stand regarding hoped-for reregulation. (I recommend first panel: 3 hr. 40 min.)

It is by no means certain that we will indeed reregulate our system to once-again disallow the worst excesses of extended bouts of irrational exuberance and the irrational pessimism that must follow. But we might. We must! I've hoped for reforms too often in the past and been disappointed, but signs of hope are on the horizon at a time when moderates are beginning to take the reins of power in the US Congress away from borrow-and-spend neoCons on the far right and traditional tax-and-spend Democrats on the far left.

Let's not be eager to blame the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the SEC for this mess. NeoCons and "free market fundamentalism" are better targets for blame. And let's not forget that there was good reason for bringing the Federal Reserve system into being long ago—to curb the excesses of "boom and bust" cycles. The system worked reasonably well after the late 20s, early 30s debacle to disallow Hyman Minsky’s PONZI FINANCE moments. That is, it worked well until the so-called "Republican Revolution" dismantled regulatory functions of government here in the US.

I'm not naïve enough to believe that we could have weathered the storms brought about by recent financial and technological innovations without some pain, but the real tragedy I see is that "we the people" of the USA haven't yet figured out that we need good government to accompany good markets—and that neither can work effectively in isolation or without continued vigilance and oversight from citizens and the press (now fortified with internet commentary).

Government agencies and institutions must begin to wake up to realities that W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, and many newer management writers have helped the best of our private-sector entities understand—that innovation and quality reform must be institutionalized into the fabric of agencies and institutions, to be ongoing and ever-vigilant of changes in external environment that must be incorporated into internal corporate and government cultures. Let's hope wider government reform begins with the Fed, the SEC, and the Treasury.

(via Barry Ritholtz: The Big Picture):

FT: George Soros on Credit Crunch, Bear Stearns, China, Commodities & Obama

… George Soros, of Soros Fund Management, has just launched a new book " New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means", which will arouse considerable interest. Coinciding with the launch, Chrystia Freeland, US managing editor of Financial Times, conducted a three-part video interview with Soros on a variety of highly topical issues.

Part 1 Soros talks about the credit crunch and the recession, and says the Fed was right to rescue Bear Stearns.

click for video

After you launch part 1, Look to the right of the video for parts 2 and 3 on FT's site.

In Part 2 Soros discusses the incipient commodities bubble, and believes there will be a need for a new Basel accord on banking supervision. He also discusses China and believes that the US housing market problems are just building up.

In Part 3 Soros talks about the US dollar, US leadership in the world and his support for Barack Obama, who he feels is the candidate who will create the most change for America's future.

Source: Financial Times, April 4, 2008.

Comments

[garyalan]

"Let's not be eager to blame the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the SEC for this mess. NeoCons and "free market fundamentalism" are better targets for blame. And let's not forget that there was good reason for bringing the Federal Reserve system into being long ago—to curb the excesses of "boom and bust" cycles."

The FED and FDR are predominately to blame for the mess that we are in. Had money been tied to gold as is required in the Constitution, we would not be suffering from the almost total collapse (>96% decline) in the purchasing power of our dollar. The boom and bust cycles you were referring to were due to wild cat fractional reserve banking. The true fix to this mess would be to eliminate entirely fractional reserve lending in banking and printing of the currency without commodity backing. You can't loan or print money you don't have. How complex is this? I'm no rocket scientist, but it seems to be to be very simple.