“Amid the financial chaos and economic uncertainty that has rocked world markets, I can see one silver lining,” wrote Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International. “This crisis has forced the United States to confront the bad habits it developed over the past few decades. If we can kick those habits, today’s pain will translate into gains in the long run.”
The biggest bad habit, according to Zakaria, is how much our personal and governmental budgets are paid for with borrowed money. “If there is a lesson to be taken from this crisis, it’s an old rule: There is no free lunch.”
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10 Comments
Who me? Naw, I don’t have any bad habits. The politicians are the ones in our pockets.
US banking regulation ‘outdated’
By Rob Young
Business Daily, BBC World Service
The banking regulators in the United States are fit for the 19th century and need a “dramatic overhaul”, according to the man who used to run one of them.
Harvey Pitt was the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for two years until 2003.
He oversaw Wall Street when it was rocked by the terrorist attacks on New York in September 2001.
“We’ve got a 21st century financial services marketplace and a 19th century regulatory model,” Mr Pitt says.
The SEC in particular has been heavily criticised after the collapse of several Wall Street banks this year.
‘Glitches’
The Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain has said that, were he president, he would fire the SEC’s current chairman Christopher Cox.
Harvey Pitt says Mr Cox is doing a “remarkable job” dealing with “unprecedented” problems. But he insists there must be a “dramatic overhaul” of the regulatory structure.
“I think we need much more capability in the hands of government to act decisively and smoothly when glitches in our markets occur to ensure there’s transparency, to ensure our regulators have real risk management capacity to spot trends and problems before they become crises,” he told BBC Business Daily.
Mr Pitt now runs his own global business consulting firm, Kalorama Partners, in Washington DC.
The former boss of the SEC says he does not mind if the organisation he used to head is scrapped and its powers transferred to a super-regulator, along the lines of the Financial Services Authority in the UK.
“I think we need either an over-arching regulatory body that combines all of the important functions now, or closer and better co-ordination between them.”
Earlier this year, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the government needs to change the regulatory system.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7666091.stm
The first step is to admit we have a Republican philosophy problem.
The second step is to fire all of them.
Wow! I’m shocked. I tell you I’m shocked.
Like duh! What have conservatives been telling you!
THERE IS NO MONEY TREE!
Not for Obama and certainly NOT for McCain.
THERE IS NO FREE MONEY!@!!!!
A nation cannot continue to live on debt.
You must either:
INCREASE REVENUE A SUFFICIENT AMOUNT TO:
1. Pay all spending
2. Pay all service interest on the national debt
DECREASE SPENDING A SUFFICIENT AMOUNT TO:
1. Equal Revenue
2. Plus amount of service payment on national debt
Individual Americans:
1. Stop spending more than you have revenue
2. Pay off your debt (avg CC is over $7,000)
3. Live within your means
4. Don’t expect someone ELSE to pay (unless there is a revenue stream to support that).
Financial Institutions:
1. Go back to not issuing CC’s to everyone
2. Credit is based upon the best credit report
3. Home Loans with 10% minimum down and based upon credit worthiness
In short, for all of us:
You gotta EARN it.
It may also serve to wake folks up to the fact that the things of this world, including money, leaders, and systems, cannot be relied on.
So, a word of friendly advice. Don’t put your hope there. Because you will inevitably be let down.
Market reversal in progress, not much bang for a trillion dollars anymore.
I wonder what interest rate the gubermint will have to slap on the bonds they sell to finance this mess.
“More and more people own their homes in America today. Two-thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet we have a problem here in America because few than half of the Hispanics and half the African Americans own the home. That’s a home ownership gap. It’s a — it’s a gap that we’ve got to work together to close for the good of our country, for the sake of a more hopeful future. We’ve got to work to knock down the barriers that have created a home ownership gap.
I set an ambitious goal. It’s one that I believe we can achieve. It’s a clear goal, that by the end of this decade we’ll increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families . . .
Home ownership is also an important part of our economic vitality. If — when we meet this project, this goal, according to our Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, we will have added an additional $256 billion to the economy by encouraging 5.5 million new home owners in America; the activity — the economic activity stimulated with the additional purchasers, the additional buyers, the additional demand will be upwards of $256 billion. And that’s important because it will help people find work.”
– George W. Bush, U.S. President, October 15, 2002 1:55 P.M.
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Very obvious this thread has no value for the liberals posting on the weblog.
Only six posts! Libs could truly care LESS about the national debt or public spending.
As long as they have a Palin thread they are estatic!
RoaCH
What is there to say? Democrats have taken the lead during this crisis and are busy cleaning up the mess that 12 years of Republicans have left. McCain and the Republicans are crawling every which way but are not providing any solutions, just negativity and eratic outbursts.
I’m 100 % confident that my party will fix this boondoggle created by the Republicans (as they have in the past).
mxyzptlk,
“I’m 100 % confident that my party will fix this boondoggle created by the Republicans (as they have in the past).”
I really don’t know; we are now spent so utterly deep in this hole, we’re about to bust through into China, and China will claim us as its colony (and has the necessary paper to prove it). The ‘publicans may have actually sold our country down the river this time.