The SEC Killed Wall Street On April 28, 2004

RealClear Markets ^ | February 18, 2009 | Vanessa Drucker

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

You have to ensure your own welfare by being more skeptical, not trusting that someone else will look out for you.

Remove all regulation on the financial markets, and watch how far the indexes go down.

If you don't think the game is fair, take your ball and go elsewhere.

I took my money out of the stock markets 4 years ago.

[Dan Cooper]

You got your beloved "free markets" in credit default swaps. Are you happy about the outcome or are you still blaming government and not the Wall Street players who made billions

CDS are an interesting example. Billions of dollars in bets for trillions that in reality the house (AIG etc.) couldn't cover. Should the government cover those bets for the gamblers who placed them? Hell no! Let them burn as an example to others. I wrote back in October that CDS should only be honored when the holder owns the securities that were insured, all other only get their premiums back. That would have unwound the furball with the right amount of pain in the right places.

The free market idea isn't and should be "beloved", it is as flawed as human nature is. But the only alternative is despotism and slavery in whatever name it currently goes by. If you give your freedom over to someone else because they promise to keep you safe, paraphrasing Ben Franklin, you're f****d.

[Dan Cooper]

You are hallucinating. Yes markets are self correcting but you just might not like it when depressions, bread lines, communal violence, racial riots and wars are part of that self correcting

One problem with the bailout is that is sends the message that there is a power that will make all your hurts whole. And its name is government bailout. We've seen the most ridiculous applications for money, but it makes sense that if the big players can get a reprieve, why not everyone else? The anger will be very great when not everyone qualifies for that kind of handout and the squabbling over who got a bigger piece of pie starts.

We are probably going to get everything you mention above, but would it have been worse if the big players had been left to fail? At least then the suffering would have been distributed fairly. I think that would count for a lot. People can pull through hard times and they have many times before. Fear of the hard times to come shouldn't drive us to give up on our best ideals.

[dfwgator]

What we need is a separation between business and state. The two are so intermingled together, laissez-faire has basically become, let the market rule for those firms that have paid enough into Washington.

[Dan Cooper]

What we need is a separation between business and state. The two are so intermingled together, laissez-faire has basically become, let the market rule for those firms that have paid enough into Washington.

We are stampeding into socialism so I don't see that happening here soon. Capital will end up flowing to a more free place, if it comes into existence.

[dennisw]

Thanks.... will say more

[griswold3]

mark