Posted on 04/08/2010 4:33:04 PM PDT by Kartographer
In The End of Wall Street, noted author and financial journalist Roger Lowenstein argues the crisis of 2008 marked more than just the end of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual and a host of other firms.
"This was the collapse of an ethos that prevailed for a generation," Lowenstein says. "The idea that markets always have it right, that bankers knew when to set their own limits, that we didn't need government in Wall Street at all...that painful recessions were a thing of the past because the Fed had it all figured out -- that Wall Street I think we've seen the end of. "
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
The crash did not change us forever it was our ill advised response that changed it forever and is still changing it yet today.
How can anyone think they are seriously addressing “the financial crash” without raising the matter of $500B being withdrawn from the markets within a few hours, on 9/18/08?
This is like discussing the US’ entry into WWII without mentioning Pearl Harbor.
Where did the $ go?
This kind of tripe is rediculous. Lowenstein is trying to get people to believe that capitalism is "broke" and that we need government to intervene.
Those that follow Lowenstein's thoughts will also follow an Obama takeover of our free market.
Free markets ebb and flow through busts and booms; command economies are consistently stable, stagnant and unproductive. Keynes just preached incremental subjugation.
This sounds like conventional leftist thinking spinning the recent events.
Government guaranteeing the loans/losses is what sets these things into motion. It is easy to be careless with other peoples money. No sane person would do what these people did with their own money. There should have been no government guarantees and no government bail out. Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the others...
To blame all this on a lack of regulation is wrong.
There was plenty of regulation, regulation created by fools in congress.
I’m not sure where it went, but my theory is that it has been gradually pumped back into the market to make it seem like the DJI is doing fairly well. It’s all artificial at this point, imo.
We’ve changed forever until the same old thing is repeated again.
I’ve been likening this to 9-11 especially since summer-fall 2008, when it figured so intricately into the direction of the Presidential campaign,——and what’s coming in NOvemeber, and onwards to 2012 , will be qualitatively different from every process of the Loss and Gain of Political Power at least in my lifetime. THIS time, it won’t be ‘satisfied’ by a pipsqueak little document like the Contract with America, and a short-lived gloating over the big accomplishment of the ‘94 midterm. SOmething FAR bigger is in the offing this time.Maybe I should read the rest of this guy’s piece.
Anyone with half a brain could see home prices were ridiculous.
WHOAA! From the look of the other responses, it looks like the only thing I would agree with Loewenstein on is the title-—sounds like he probably doesn’t get it the way I , and most of us, get it. I really do have to read the piece.
It’s traceable all right- but no one has undertaken to probe or investigate the TRUE events that occurred that day that led to the financial crisis (it was the September Surprise, obviously).
Similarly, i just saw a post where someone was questioning why no investigative reporter has the will or ambition or the initiative to find out the truth about the long form BC.
We (the country) have been hijacked, and no one is endeavoring to get to the bottom of it!
* Only the government may print money.
* The government decides how much money will be in circulation.
* The government determines the price of money, i.e., the base interest rates. Should we describe our economy as a “free market”? Or should we say that the government has rather King-Kong-like powers over money?A government owns the US monetary system. It has a compulsory monopoly. And around the world, virtually all of the money systems are government owned.
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Bull carp
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Mr. Task’s article, I am referring to.
To date we have no definitive answer as to where the money went. Who initiated the drain of billions of dollars in a very short time.
This episode was worse than the Long Term Capital fiasco because in that case we knew what happened. We still don’t know who began this run on our economy.
It was akin to the October surprise and it accomplished it’s goal. It got this lying traitorous maoist into the White House.
Free market is also runned by people who are disciplined and has some degree of ethics. Creating an investment vehicles that are designed to eventually blow up and leave someone holding the bag is not exactly smart economics nor good for the nation. If a serious investigation was ever conducted on the mortgage business, how Moody rated high risk securities as AAA, and knowingly selling collapsing products as low risk investments to unsuspecting investors need to be looked at. What we potentially have on Wall Street was not free markets but white collar crime. The sad part is the argument over capitalism is just BS, while the government is tied up over this issue, the ones who made tons of money on the crime are laughing all the way to the bank while the statue of limitation clock is running. Some say this is too big to investigate. The choke point is Moody and how they rated the mortgage backed securities AAA, and the second point is every mortgage that is a liar loan can be subject to scrutiny. Either the borrower goes to jail, or the mortgage originator goes to jail. Each guy you catch, you flip him for info and he will turn in the guy up his chain who told him to do the fraud.
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