On April 3, 2009 William K. Black appeared on "Bill Moyers Journal" onPBSand
provided some disturbing commentary on the current banking crisis.In
the interview withBill Moyers,Black asserted that our current banking crisis is essentially a bigPonzi scheme, that the "liar loans" and other financial tricks were essentially illegal
frauds, and that the triple-A ratings given to these loans was part of a criminal cover up. He said that the "Prompt Corrective Action Law" passed after theSavings and Loan crisismandated
that ailing banks should be put intoreceivership. Black also stated that trying to
hide how bad the situation is will simply prolong the problem, as happened in Japan'slost decade. Black stated thatTimothy Geithneris
engaged in a cover-up, and that the administration does not want people to understand what went wrong or how bad the banking
situation is today. (See 29 minute video below...well worth the time).
Learning from and Responding to Financial Crisis, Part I
LECTURE DESCRIPTION
Professor Summers, former U. S. Treasury Secretary and former President of Harvard University,
in this the first of two lectures in honor of former Yale Professor and Council of Economic Advisors chairman Arthur Okun,
offers thoughts on the role of monetary policy in economic fluctuations, past and present. In the "Okun period," ending about
when Okun died in 1980, the monetary authorities were very much involved in actually creating economic contractions. Inflation
would repeatedly get out of control, the Fed would hit the brakes, and the economy would slow. But, that is not the story
of the economic cycles of the last two decades. Recent economic cycles appear to be connected with factors endogenous to the
financial system, such as bubbles or cycles of complacency among lending institutions. Summers argues that to understand the
financial markets and the economy, we must consider models of multiple equilibria, such as bank run models, where a change
in confidence may shift the economy drastically without any change in fundamentals.
Learning from and Responding to Financial Crisis, Part II
LECTURE DESCRIPTION
In the second of his two lectures in honor of Arthur Okun, Professor Summers points
out that real interest rates have been very low in the current subprime crisis. This indicates that the shock to the economy
was more a financial breakdown shock than a disinflation shock. But financial breakdown shocks are not necessarily very harmful
to the economy, so long as financial intermediation capital is not destroyed. In a financial crisis like the present one,
financial firms are likely to take the step of decreasing their leverage, often by contracting loans, which creates its own
risks for the economy. Regulators should place pressure on financial institutions to raise their capital and should intervene
in near foreclosure situations, but should not attempt to support housing prices.
"We are in the 15th month of a recession," said Nouriel Roubini, a professor at New York University's
Stern School of Business, told CNBC in a live interview. "Growth is going to be close to zero and
unemployment rate well above 10 percent into next year."
Roubini said he sees "no hope for the recession ending in 2009 and will more than likely last
into 2010."
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be carried out with full transparency and accountability
-- and Recovery.gov is the centerpiece of that effort. In a short video, President Obama describes the site and talks about
how you'll be able to track the Recovery Act's progress every step of the way.
Former
GAO Comptroller General: It's Time to Recognize Economic Reality
Former Comptroller General David Walker. Source:
The AICPA
Since stepping down from his post as U.S. comptroller general at the Government Accountability
Office in March, David Walker, CPA, has devoted himself to campaigning for fiscal responsibility and sounding the alarm about
the ballooning federal debt. In a new video interview with the Journal of Accountancy, hear Walker discuss the national debt, the financial crisis,
the challenges facing President-elect Barack Obama and the role CPAs can play in increasing financial literacy. (Click on
photo to see video)
"I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in
a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility,"
David
Walker, former Comptroller General of the US
Whenever you find you
are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect
--- Mark Twain
We have never observed
a great civilization with a population as old as the United States will have in the twenty-first century; we have never observed
a great civilization that is as secular as we are apparently going to become; and we have had only half a century of experience
with advanced welfare states...Charles Murray
Kella
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