The pot's calling the kettle black: The New York Times runs a Reuters story this afternoon about Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. posting an $8.4 billion writedown on the advertising-challenged Wall Street Journal and other properties.
The Times, as we know, is in even worse shape and has even reached out to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Nevertheless, the snooty paper of record neglected to mention its own troubles — while it saw fit to mention the woes of other media corpses:
News Corporation is the latest media conglomerate to report gloomy financial results as advertisers slash their budgets in the weak economy.
This week, Time Warner posted a $16 billion quarterly net loss because of a write-down, and the Walt Disney Company posted a sharply lower-than-expected profit in part because of poor TV ad and DVD sales.
The bad news for the Wall Street Journal — the best piece of Murdoch property other than The Simpsons — is that it's apparently dragging down the whole thing.
Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about the Times's own troubles, read this story from Murdoch's Post:
I told you last month that newspapers needed a bailout. But George W. Bush, whose presence on the scene provided mucho grist for the mill, has fled to Texas, and all he left us was this lousy meltdown.
After only part of this morning's House hearing starring Harry Markopolos, there's little doubt that Bernie Madoff's true identity is Dr. Evil.
What else can one think when House members wondered aloud whether there are "mini-Madoffs" or "medium-size Madoffs" lurking in the Wall Street wastelands.
Markopolos answered in the affirmative and said he plans to "deliver a mini-Madoff to the SEC tomorrow," adding, "Hopefully they listen to me this time."
The House Financial Services Committee members agreed that this time the SEC will probably listen to Markopolos. There's no hint, however, of who Markopolos is talking about.
But speaking of Dr. Evil, Markopolos also pointed out (as I and some others have) that Wall Street's fraudsters couldn't pull off their schemes without Mayor Mike Bloomberg's proprietary sophisticated hardware/software machines.
There's no other way, many say, to conjure up the increasingly sophisticated financial instruments that ruined Wall Street and will no doubt ruin it again during the next bubble.
Bloomberg is supposedly the biggest philanthropist in America; he got the money from the sale of his machines on Wall Street.
Which leads to the question: How could Mayor Bloomberg not have known the various nefarious uses to which his machines could be put? Of course he knows.
Which leads to this: Wall Street's meltdown happened on his watch, and it was created by his pals — his customers — at the Street's big banks. So why didn't he stop it or at least see the signs of an impending disaster?
If not him, who? If not then, why not?
And now he wants another mayoral term to keep our streets supposedly safe when the only street he knows — Wall Street — has become the most dangerous stretch of pavement in the country?
Just wondering.
Markopolos didn't make that point, but he did say that the SEC operates at a tremendous disadvantage in trying to understand the complex schemes of the Street's white-shoed gangsters by not having nearly enough Bloomberg terminals. Give the SEC more Bloomberg terminals, he told the House panel, because the fraudsters and scamsters have them.
Wild-eyed Harry also has a beef with the press: He contended that a Wall Street Journal reporter (whom he didn't name) was very interested three years ago and was willing to fly to Boston to meet with Markopolos but that the reporter's editors were scared off by Madoff's power and reputation and nixed it. (For more on that, see Gary Weiss's post on Seeking Alpha.)
Treated with extreme deference, Markopolos is surely one of the most brash witnesses to testify on Capitol Hill in quite a while. And well-prepared — browse his lengthy (but entertaining) written testimony if you can't wait for the sound bites later today.
Of course, he can back it up, having warned a decade before Madoff confessed to his sons that Bernie was a fraudster.
At least, Markopolos can back it up for now. His hubris, his zealotry, his sense of certainty — they make you wonder whether Markopolos, like Madoff's scheme, is too good to be true.
Anyway, Markopolos's halo — or is it his intense eyes? — cast an eerie glow for now on the scene of perhaps capitalism's all-time worst disaster.
California Democrat Brad Sherman noted that Markopolos isn't just some "wild-eyed populist." Sherman was half-right. Markopolos is definitely wild-eyed — he has the look and tone of a zealot — but he's also the staunchest defender of capitalism one could imagine, and that includes Ayn Rand.
And imaginative, too. Markopolos raised the intriguing notion that retired Wall Street bigwigs, people with little or no hair, as he put it, should be hired by the SEC to replace the young whippersnappers who now infest the agency's lower ranks.
Markopolos reasons that veterans won't have to do it for the money, because they've already made theirs and that they would be foxes able to sniff out the rotten eggs in the henhouse.
This probably won't happen, unless these Wall Street veterans are suddenly imbued with that sense of civic responsibility that Barack Obama mentioned in his inaugural address.
In "Taliban resurgence pushes troops to change tack,"Al Jazeera's Josh Rushing joins U.S. troops on the frontline in Afghanistan. Watch this and then ask yourself: Why isn't this as freely available on your cable as CNN or Fox News? And yes, you've heard Rushing's name; he's the former Marine flack during the Iraq invasion who was featured in the documentary Control Room and then defied the Pentagon by talking about his experiences with Al Jazeera. Now he works for Al Jazeera.
Unlike Wall Street's short-sellers, I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but capitalism is not dead, despite the moaning and groaning from Davos to D.C.
The International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economy will come to "a virtual halt." No, not yet and not for everybody. For evidence, see "What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses" in the Times:
Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.
That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller.
While the payouts paled next to the riches of recent years, Wall Street workers still took home about as much as they did in 2004, when the Dow Jones industrial average was flying above 10,000, on its way to a record high.
On the other hand, you can say that capitalism is in trouble, judging by the surprisingly cynical, lively tone of Ben White's above story.
Yes, the fact that the bonuses sharply fell indicates trouble on Wall Street. But the main thing it indicates is that the bonuses in past years have been staggeringly unconscionable and are now falling back to being merely unconscionable.
In any case, Barack Obama, the nation's first Kenyan-Kansan president, has already used his bully pulpit to preach social responsibility and rail against greed. Looks as if he might have to summon these Wall Street gangsters to the basketball court and posterize them. You know, add them to his In-Your-Facebook.
And you can just ignore the caterwauling by Capitol Hill's Republicans about Obama's stimulus plan. Even the Wall Street Journalreports that corporate types look favorably on Obama's package.
For those of us accident victims bleeding after being run over on Wall Street or gasping for breath at the foot of Capitol Hill, that stimulus package can't come too soon. The depression is finally hitting home: I almost dropped my laptop when I heard that profits earned by my Sony baby daddy dropped by 95 percent. Poor little laptop overheats as it is.
If yours still works (and if you're reading this, it is), click on these items...
Astroland Park's popular Rocket won't be blasting out of Coney Island after all. City officials confirmed yesterday that the park's longtime operator, the Albert family, has donated...
Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval for an $819 billion economic plan as Democrats sought to temper their own differences.
It takes a special kind of thief to get Morgy this mad. Manhattan's gentlemanly district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, yesterday needed a pair of profanities to describe a big-shot...
The seven defendants in the deadly assault on Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, are accused of assaulting or attempting to assault a total of eight other Latino men.
The wealthy Upper West Side woman charged with bilking $80 million from Fortune 500 firms is complaining that she can't live without her Rolex, Warhol and MontBlancs...
George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's special Middle East troubleshooter, was chairman of a law firm that was paid about $8 million representing Dubai's ruler in connection with a child-trafficking lawsuit.
The impact of the $819 billion economic stimulus package will be felt within weeks once the final version becomes law, but estimating its effectiveness is far more complex.
...the bank suddenly began pulling its millions out of [funds that invested with Madoff] in early autumn, months before Mr. Madoff was arrested, according to accounts from Europe and New York that were subsequently confirmed by the bank. The bank did not notify investors of its move, and several of them are furious that it protected itself but left them holding notes that the bank itself now says are probably worthless.
Bernie Madoff is whining to anyone who'll listen that he's being held captive in his palatial penthouse and unable to traipse around the Big Apple as he did before being busted for running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, a source familiar with the scam artist told the Post.
"I'm a prisoner in my own house!" Madoff fumed. "I can't go anywhere! I'm stuck here all day!"...
In recent days, The Post has learned, private contractors have been moving at the request of federal authorities to install wiretaps on Madoff's apartment phones and computers.
"If he surfs the Web or makes a call, it's going to be tracked," a source said.
Your own private Idaho.
When you can no longer afford even a night out in Boise, Idaho, your country's in deep financial trouble.
In a clever immorality tale about 21st century capitalism, the Wall Street Journal tells us this morning that people in the Intermountain West are having to give up meet and potatoes. Like many other families throughout the country, the average-American Capp and Muir families have had to stop spending and start saving.
No more nights out in downtown Boise. The Capps now have to stick close to their suburban home. But — the bad news keeps piling up — they've had to sacrifice cable TV! And they have teenagers in the house! (Memo to the parents: If you can't afford to put meat on the table, at least serve your kids Robot Chicken.)
Don't feel sorry for these hinterland families. The fact that they're desperately trying to save their money, instead of going into more debt, spells doom for the rest of us. By trying to extricate themselves from their own mess, they're just making it worse for all of us...and for themselves. Screwy, huh? Here's the explanation, per Evans's story:
As layoffs and store closures grip Boise, these two local families hope their newfound frugality will see them through the economic downturn. But this same thriftiness, embraced by families across the U.S., is also a major reason the downturn may not soon end. Americans, fresh off a decadeslong buying spree, are finally saving more and spending less — just as the economy needs their dollars the most.
Usually, frugality is good for individuals and for the economy. Savings serve as a reservoir of capital that can be used to finance investment, which helps raise a nation's standard of living. But in a recession, increased saving -- or its flip side, decreased spending -- can exacerbate the economy's woes. It's what economists call the "paradox of thrift."
It's more like a "Cash-22." I mean, you finally start acting responsibly, saving money instead of piling up even more outrageous credit-card debt and purchasing gizmos and gewgaws that relentless advertising has brainwashed you into lusting after, and that's bad for you, your family, and the country? More from Evans:
U.S. household debt, which has been growing steadily since the Federal Reserve began tracking it in 1952, declined for the first time in the third quarter of 2008. In the same quarter, U.S. consumer spending growth declined for the first time in 17 years.
That has resulted in a rise in the personal saving rate, which the government calculates as the difference between earnings and expenditures. In recent years, as Americans spent more than they earned, the personal saving rate dipped below zero. Economists now expect the rate to rebound to 3% to 5%, or even higher, in 2009, among the sharpest reversals since World War II.
The truth is that our economy demands that you continue acting like suckers by trying to live beyond your means. And when you stop being a sucker — like when you're laid off and you don't have a choice because you have to start saving your money to pay your bills and plan for the hard times — then you're blamed for not being a good citizen.
Oh well, Wall Street's worse-than-usual greed may have caused this problem, but we New Yorkers can be part of the solution. Bailouts of Wall Street haven't worked, so why not try to rescue some other downtowns?
Road trip to Boise!
Now that you know that the real goniffs are yourselves instead of people like Bernie Madoff, you're free to click on the following news items...
As European diplomats sought a cease-fire, Israeli troops poured into Gaza City, expelling residents and shooting militants. Meanwhile, Israeli troops suffered casualties from so-called "friendly fire."
New Yorkers who consume five or more drinks in one sitting face increased risk of HIV and other STDs, according to a new study from the city Department of Health.
Though never charged with a crime, Muhammad Saad Iqbal spent six years in American custody, during which he says he was secretly taken to Egypt and tortured.
A JetBlue passenger who was forced to cover up a T-shirt that read, "We will not be silent" in Arabic and English before boarding a cross-country flight won a $240,000 settlement from...
Patrick Littaye, 69, [co-founder of Access International Advisors,] invested all of his own money with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC last year, enticed by the firm's positive returns as other hedge funds slumped. His error was compounded because he borrowed money to increase the return on his investment, leaving him with $4 million in personal debts, Littaye said in telephone interviews from Jan. 2 through Jan. 4. He declined to specify the amount he had lost.
"I'm going to sell everything I have and start over," Littaye said from Brussels, adding that he planned to subsist on his French social security payments. "For Access, we'll go to our investors over the next couple of weeks and we'll see what they think of us."
Littaye's partner, Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, chose a different course. The 65-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer of Access was found dead Dec. 23 at his office in New York. Villehuchet killed himself after it became clear he wouldn't be able to recover the funds he and his clients invested with Madoff...
The sons of Bernard Madoff, who is accused of orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme, told prosecutors last week that their father violated a court-ordered asset freeze by mailing them jewelry, watches and other items, his lawyer said.
In a further sign of the sheer enormity of Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme, on Monday a count-appointed trustee announced it had mailed claim forms to 8,000 former customers--an irate army of investors that is still only a fraction of the total number who may have been defrauded.
Comparing the coverage by the Times and Wall Street Journal.
Click above for a roundup of the best Blago jokes.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will name former Illinois AG Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat.
Read the mid-afternoon versions of that breaking story in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and it's no contest.
The news is that Blago is naming some Foghorn Leghorn guy to the Senate. You gotta hand it to Gov.-not-for-long Blagojevich; he's cleverly playing the race card by replacing a black senator with another black senator. That should blunt some critics. Maybe.
The race angle is for another story. What's relevant here is the WSJ's third graf:
The choice is likely to face intense scrutiny because the governor faces federal corruption charges. The governor appears to be thumbing his nose at critics who have said the process allowing him to choose Mr. Obama's replacement should be circumvented.
Mr. Blagojevich, who faces federal corruption charges including allegations that he tried to sell Mr. Obama's former senate seat for a high-paying job or money, had not been expected to try to fill the seat. As recently as ten days ago, his lawyer, Edward Genson, said he would not attempt to make an appointment, since Senate leaders had indicated they would not accept anyone whom the beleaguered Mr. Blagojevich had appointed.
The snooty Times thumbs its nose at phrases like "thumbing his nose." The Journal consistently beats the Times at analyzing the facts and giving us the gist in colloquial — or at least lively — English that pols and other crooks use when privately figuring out ways to screw the public.
The WSJ is the best daily in the city, obviously for business news, but also for political news. That's because you don't have to read very far into its stories to get the real skinny. After all, its audience is largely those people who skirt the line between being crooks or just barely legal (according to their own lawyers) sharks.
But even if you're not a shark or otherwise scheming just to make money from money, the Journal's still a great read. Sound, detailed, lucid reporting, with plenty of human-interest angles and vivid descriptions, even of callow business people. The paper's a cheap subscription and has a well-tuned website. Besides, it offers a good way for Americans who can't afford million-dollar apartments to try to understand the nefarious activities of those who can.
Considering that the country is falling into a major depression, you commoners (who, after all, will feel the brunt of it) would be better off reading the Journal than the Times. At least you'll get a more accurate and readable measurement of how far you'll fall.
Both papers, incidentally, are likely to still be publishing a year from now. The same can't be said of other papers.
Even before Detroit's Big Three CEOs get their bailout billions from recession-plagued taxpayers, their P.R. people must be breaking out the champagne.
Their ploy of having the execs drive fuel-efficient cars to D.C., instead of corporate jets, worked like a charm. The press this morning was plastered with pictures of these drivers, like GM's Rick Wagoner hopping out of his Volt upon arrival at Capitol Hill.
Revolting. Their wobbly steering of their companies has been unsafe at any speed, and they should have been pulled over before they even left Detroit.
Yes, the stories about their testimony reflected lawmakers' skepticism. But at least the P.R. pictures of execs driving low-cost vehicles (at right, Wagoner) was potentially worth millions in future hawking of such cars. And it will stand as part of the permanent record for future historians about how the Big Three were committed to new and innovative vehicles.
For now, there will be a bailout, no matter how skeptical Congress is. And it's important to remember that lawmakers play for their audiences, and their brutal words directed at the automakers mean little.
If Congress — anybody — knew exactly how to pull us out of the deepening depression, the Big Three would have less of a chance of getting bailouts. But nobody knows yet what will work, and of course the failure of these huge companies is seen as disastrous right now.
Despite what the Wall Street Journal points out this morning in a smart piece ("Detroit Bailout Hits a Bumpy Road"), Congress will no doubt grant the Big Three CEOs their Christmas wish of cash instead of sweaters.
Their only problem is that, amid the infernal combustion of the economy, no one really wants to take responsibility for initiating the bailout of the Big Three. They all have their eyes on the next elections, which no doubt will take place during a severe recession, and bailing out executives won't look good on the resumes. As the WSJ points out:
Despite a series of mea culpas from the companies' chief executives Thursday, there remained little momentum behind providing government relief. That's despite a general consensus among leaders in Congress and the Bush White House that a helping hand of some sort should be offered.
The calls for action have been hampered by a post-election power vacuum. The White House has kept an arm's length from the legislative wrangling, while the economic team of President-elect Barack Obama has stepped back from direct involvement in a car-industry bailout. Absent strong presidential leadership, the debate over a rescue plan has steered into a legislative thicket.
Ah, the Journal is so good. Its reporters Greg Hitt and Matthew Dolan accurately call this "providing government relief" instead of Rick Wagoner's euphemism of "federal assistance." This is a direct plea for corporate welfare. This exasperating situation gives welfare a bad name.
Maybe Obama will have some spare change, even though his new administration looks suspiciously like a lineup of the usual suspects.
12:16 p.m. Road Trip?: Alan Mulally, Ford's chief executive, assures the panel that the company is "focused." And after a long drive to Washington to testify, he offers to return the committee's hospitality. "We invite you to visit us in Dearborn and kick the tires," he says.
A man who calls himself "Long Island's Favorite Magician" has been accused of secretly taping women and girls as they undressed - his second arrest in four months.
Six of the people killed during last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, died in Nariman House, the local headquarters of the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch. What was a group of Orthodox Jews doing in India?
In the final countdown to the presidential election, many Americans may actually hit zero, thanks to predicted failures of new voting machinery and rules.
This just leaves the curtain of the voting booth open for the machinations of GOP operative Hans von Spakovsky and his ilk.
Not only anti-Democratic but also anti-democratic, Von Spakovsky used to be on the Federal Election Commission, but he kept pissing in the voter pool and was finally forced out.
That doesn't mean he's not actively practicing voter fraud while railing against it. See Rolling Stone's new piece by Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, "Block the Vote."
And don't forget fixer Karl Rove, who's now larval in the Fox News cocoon. Tell me he's not about to weave some webs to trap voters.
Even without those two goniffs, big problems loom for the quadrennial attempt at democracy. It's so scary that even the British are on the side of the colonists. They're running around our countryside with warnings of none if by land, zero if by sea. Today's Guardian (U.K.) plays it up big, in "Ballot debacle predicted for November 4":
A "perfect storm" could be building for US election day on November 4 because of a combination of sky-high voter interest, new ballot machines and a shortage of poll staff, the independent Pew group warned yesterday.
The Washington-based group set out a long series of problems still facing the US despite reforms aimed at avoiding a repeat of the 2000 and 2004 debacles.
Extracted from the report (PDF) at Pew's electionline.org, here's a lengthy passage — lengthy because it's important:
[Voters] will encounter an election system that, while significantly changed since 2000, is in many respects no less settled after nearly eight years of debate and change.
Many of the old machines, laws and procedures that were blamed for the problems in 2000 are gone. But new machines, laws and procedures have themselves raised questions that continue to fuel controversy and concern as November approaches. Yet the biggest challenge in 2008 may not be changes to the system but the potentially record number of voters prepared to use it.
For nearly eight years, policymakers, election officials, and advocates have upgraded the plumbing of the nation’s election system — replacing some sections while patching and
plugging others — all in the hope of keeping Americans and their votes flowing smoothly.
In two weeks, however, voters will crank the pressure sky high.
An open seat for the White House, fueled by deep partisan, geographic, race and class divisions on issues at home and abroad, is about to result in a likely record number of voters turning out to vote on (and increasingly before) Election Day.
The question is no longer exclusively "will the system work?" Rather, it is "can the system handle the load?"
Nevertheless, vote early and vote often. And all you college grads out there: You might as well go to the polls because the job of democracy may be the only one available. From this morning's Wall Street Journal:
College seniors may have more trouble landing a job next spring than recent graduates, as employers trim their hiring outlooks in response to the slowing economy and financial-sector turmoil.
Employers plan to hire just 1.3% more graduates in 2009 than they hired this year, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
That's the weakest outlook in six years and reflects a sharp recent downturn. Just two months ago, a survey by the same group projected a 6.1% increase in hiring.
Wi-Fi it. Go ahead and order another triple-shot frappucino, go back to your table, and see if anything clicks . . .
Still no word on whether Equatorial Guinea's dictator, Teodoro Obiang, is alive or dead.
Last week, it seemed that one of the world's most notorious despots — also a valued customer of the Bush-connected Riggs Bank in D.C. — was finally dead.
But that story was based on the word of the dictator's aides. And some of Obiang's aides have been known to torture prisoners with stinging ants, so, you know, not everybody on his staff might be trustworthy.
The president himself has still not surfaced.
Unlike on Wall Street, where millions of dead presidents have surfaced — stuffed into the pockets of the bankers who sparked the financial meltdown.
Today's Wall Street Journalpoints out that Merrill Lynch's "head of strategy," Peter Kraus, is leaving after less than two months on the job with a "buyout bonanza" of at least $10 million — and maybe $25 million — in his pocket.
When melting-down Merrill was swallowed up by Bank of America, thousands of Merrill workers were sure to be fired. But a clause in Kraus's contract kicked in. The WSJ story notes:
He isn't affected by a provision in the government's rescue plan that curbs executive compensation, a person familiar with the situation said. Those restrictions cover the CEO, chief financial officer and three other highest-paid executives of the firm.
Many other Wall Street execs have buyout clauses that kick in when control of the companies they work for changes hands. So Kraus won't be the only one walking away with all those dead presidents.
We can only hope that Kraus is not going into "public service." Not that he wouldn't make out like a bandit if he chose to.
When Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson quit in 2006 to become Treasury Secretary, he had to rid himself of his Goldman stock. After negotiating with his own company on a settlement, he walked away with a cool $110 million for his shares and options — don't think for one second that Paulson had spent much to obtain those shares; like other Wall Street execs, he got most of them just handed to him.
That deal gave him the experience he needed to figure out how to curb executive compensation during the bailout.
But after you take a look at the photo of Cardinal Egan heartily laughing with John McCain and Barack Obama and you read the New York Times tiresome recap (like everyone else's) of the jokes, browse SNAP's library of stories about abused altar boys and shuttered churches in poor areas. Or go straight to a reprint of a 2003 Times story, "Cardinal Egan Spurns Members of Review Board Studying Abuse."
That one's a real knee-slapper.
At least Obama and McCain were funnier than John Kerry was at the 2004 dinner. Actually, Kerry didn't even get a chance to display his humorless personality because Egan didn't invite the candidates. That was because of the Catholic Kerry's stance on abortion.
And in 1996, the candidates weren't invited because Cardinal O'Connor was pissed off at Bill Clinton over abortion.
Good thing 2001 wasn't a presidential election year, Wall Street being bombed and all.
This year, Wall Street's bombing itself, and more (but slower) deaths can only result from the resulting depression into which we're sinking.
As Wall Street's potholes widen into sinkholes, is it too late to replace Henry Paulson with Sheila Bair?
Bair, a Bush appointee who chairs the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., has blasted the government for bailing out institutions instead of Americans in danger of losing their homes.
Although she doesn't say so, she's in effect emphasizing social welfare over corporate welfare, saying in a Wall Street Journal interview:
"Why there's been such a political focus on making sure we're not unduly helping borrowers but then we're providing all this massive assistance at the institutional level, I don't understand it. It's been a frustration for me."
Especially when Wall Street's going down the drain, and John McCain's desperate response is to summon Joe the Plumber for a hasty fix to protect the GOP candidate's plot, instead of calling in a coordinated crew to dig out the nasty roots of a problem that dooms other homes than his.
Ms. Bair, who was nominated by the White House and confirmed by the Senate in 2006, has frequently said government and industry efforts to prevent foreclosures aren't effective enough. She has long defended her focus on consumer protection as an important role for the FDIC, which is charged with protecting bank deposits.
Her comments Wednesday came amid growing tensions with key figures in resolving the financial crisis, notably Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, according to people familiar with the matter. . . .
"I support all the measures; I've been a part of all the measures that have been taken," she said. "But we're attacking it at the institution level as opposed to the borrower level, and it's the borrowers defaulting. That is what's causing the distress at the institution level. So why not tackle the borrower problem?"
Like me, Bair spent years in progressive Lawrence, Kansas; both her undergrad and law degrees are from KU. So it's not surprising that Bair has a social conscience, no matter what her party affiliation is.
Hank Paulson may not be the most powerful financial person in the country right now. That honor goes to Sheila Bair, the chairman of the FDIC.
In recent weeks, Ms. Bair has held the banking system together, coordinating smooth takeovers of distressed banks in deals run and controlled by her agency. I wouldn't exactly say she's flying under the radar screen since these bank takeovers are front-page news. But without holding the center-stage attention that Paulson has, she has seamlessly closed and reopened IndyMac, Washington Mutual, and Wachovia.
Over in London, the Economistnotes that Bair — who is practically invisible to the general public — was recently ranked by Forbes as the world's second-most-powerful woman (behind Germany's Angela Merkel) and adds:
Ms Bair is leading the government's response to the financial crisis and using the FDIC's powers to help reshape the banking industry. And she has won plaudits for her actions so far from bankers, investors and fellow regulators. . . . All this will prove testing. But so far Ms Bair has had a good crisis.
If only she were as powerful as Paulson in setting the overall bailout policy. Anyway, it appears as if a rift — a good rift — is widening between her and the Paulson approach of throwing money at reckless bankers.
Others ('Daily Flog: . . . Kucinich irrelevant but his bailout plan isn't,' Press Clips, October 1) have also suggested that trying to prop up mortgages — which, after all, prop up the ailing mortgage securities issued on Wall Street — would ease the Wall Street crisis more than directly bailing out bankers.
But Paulson's a banker, so what do you expect?
While we try to remain standing in Manhattan's fault zone . . .
Big surprise that the rate's still higher than it is in many other industrialized countries. Where's the Times been? See this Press Clips item, 'Whitewashing the bad econ news' (August 26, 2008), for details.
The pot's calling the kettle black: The New York Times runs a Reuters story this afternoon about Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. posting an $8.4 billion writedown on the advertising-challenged Wall Street Journal and other properties.
Write Comment
Email to Friend
