Charlie Rose - Joseph Stiglitz

[dominictemple]

He makes several good points all of which are true and very much needed, but they won't be carried out. The US political system has, because of the way elections are funded, become completely dependant upon the companies that fund their election campaigns.

Check out Lawrence Lessig's talks on campaign finance reform, you can't expect politicians to attack banks and corporations and then turn around and ask for money to fund their campaigns.

[rawelch69]

I got my major from UNC in economics but I prayed everyday to be as brilliant as Joseph Stiglitz....who else agrees he is the smartest and best economist out there? He not only is he intelligent, but also super nice. Paul Krugman is kind of a jerk sometimes. I've met him in person.

[ItzMeea0]

wtf lets just nationalize everything

[hypeisdead]

First of all, there's nothing "too big" to fail. In fact, the larger and more complex an institution or any "organism" is, the more in roads for potentially debilitating infection there are.

The root of this entire "crisis" is in folks' inability to accept the reality of their financial situation, their inability to cope with that reality, their inability to live within their means, and the lending bankers' inability to say 'no'. And there's an abyss of immaturity and laziness causing it all.

[dilbertgeg]

95% of the debt-credit crisis has nothing to do with "folks" taking out mortgages

no more than $150 oil last year was because demand suddenly tripled or supply suddenly slashed by 2/3

Oil Contracts were bid up 27 times on average before retail.

Groups of Mortgages with fraudulent AAA ratings were re-packaged and used as collateral by investors to borrow more, to buy more mortgage packages, then massive leveraged short selling

the blackjack table is rigged, folks

[hypeisdead]

You're misinformed.

Who called in the loans? Did they know what they were doing by doing so? Did it have anything to do with China and the control of its currency's "value"?

[dilbertgeg]

Loans?

Ben Stein pointed out in 08 that only a portion of the so-called Subprimes had defaulted, and the total was onlly 1/4 Trillion.

The bailout is around $12 Trillion, with TARP and Fed combined. Why?

Mortgage SECURITIES and other Derivatives were bid up with cheap borrowed money. When inflating and flipping housing maxed out derivatives began to collapse. No buyers. Short selling.

Uncle Sam picked up the tab.

Could not inflate Derivs indefinitely on Debt, w no tangible base.

[hypeisdead]

I agree. Mostly.

Go back to the very beginning of it. The very beginning, What do you see? Who's involved?

And what would you suggest have happened? No bailout whatsoever? Those bailed out had become the cancer in the system... but to have removed the cancer would have killed the body.

[dilbertgeg]

hypeisdead: Go back to the very beginning of it. The very beginning, Who's involved?

--

I don't know what you mean by "very beginning"? Repeal of Glass-Stegal? Hogtying the SEC and CFTC? Bushs "Ownership Society"? Carter's CRA? FDR creating Fannie? Fannie Privatized by Nixon? Rothschilds? Jewish lenders mentioned in Magna Carta? Moneylenders in Jerusalem?

(Ppl have lots of weird ideas.)

Michael Hudson said govt had a choice to save *EITHER* Wall Street *OR* the Economy. Govt picked WS.

[hypeisdead]

Is WS by definition divorced from the economy itself? Sounds odd don't you think that a choice must be made between the seeds or the fruit of the apple?

Those institutions' global reach has become completely vampiric in nature and must be downsized. The "economy" is the sum total, though, & that sum total relies far more on larger numbers, not smaller ones, in order to aspirate.

All Fear starts with inner greed & lack of respect for others. How removed are we really from those early days?

[dilbertgeg]

How removed are we really from those early days?

---

It's definitely a trend, and ruling class trends don't change direction. They FIRED Stiglitz for asking the wrong questions.

Some Marxists critiqued that even Lenin didn't forsee that the Financial Capitalists would actually devour and destroy industrial capitalism.

[hypeisdead]

Maybe he wanted to be fired. Who knows.

We like to look at ourselves as removed from societies like Rome et al but we are not.

The individual, almost by definition, will always eventually conquer. Because it is the individual that possesses the potential to harbor the power, knowledge AND anonymity to plant & cultivate revolutionary ideas.

Financial capitalism seems to have less overall managerial fatigue, therefore more long term overall potential. We mostly see only what we want to see, no?

[dilbertgeg]

hypeisdead,

Considering that Finance Capitalism trades on "vapor" value, and survives only by infinitely and exponentially expanding credit and artificially inflating "assets", and NEEDS govt bailouts, Fed bailouts, and rigged markets, like we need air and water, it looks like TOTAL "managerial fatigue".

Not quite total. They can still get the Treasury and Fed to create more money and credit for a while. The public is still mystified.

"see what we want to see"? Pass.

[hypeisdead]

Simply... it takes less "stuff" to actively participate in Fin Cap than Ind Cap. And I was only stating why its medium term appeal/"success" occurred, not why it's not as good a system.

Or is it because the two were attempted to be mixed that caused the problem? Do you feel they could co-exist? Or do you feel the idea of Fin Cap by def is unsustainable? Do you feel survival must exclusively be through expansion/inflation of EXISTING credit/assets?

[hypeisdead]

Value is subjective. There'd have to be invasively widespread material+craft evaluations before value could remotely approach objectivity.

Pass how? Maybe "want" is not quite accurate enough for what I am trying to express. Maybe "we mostly see only what we are capable of understanding" is better. And I was inferring that maybe Lenin didn't want to/was unable to see the possibility that Financial Cap could/would do what it did.

[jchien]

Banking should be treated as a public utility that has to be regulated. When this crisis is over, the surviving American banks are going to be even larger than before. Institutions that are too big to fail shouldn't be allowed to put themselves in those risky situations in the first place, not to mention how unjust it is for bankers to make obscene profits from bets and we the taxpayers assume the risks and suffer the consequences.

[jchien]

Stiglitz has the right idea. Krugman has the right idea. Taleb has the right idea. But Obama doesn't seem to be listening to them. I hope Obama would live up to his rhetoric of change.

[control1029]

Prepare to be disappointed.

Despite having a nearly filabuster proof senate, dominance in the lower house, and massive popular support the Democrats shreik they don't have the power to make "real" change. That's because they don't want to. They are paid, bought, and sold by the same vermin who own the GOP traitors.

No one in power voluntarilly hands over power to the people; that's what revolutions are for.

[TheMandelbrotSet]

First!

[creten69]

your so fast...second