Archive for April, 2009

William Black and Stiglitz see no joy in our futures

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

What can you say? Things aren’t looking good.

Recently, in Barrons we have this interview with William Black:

Barron’s: Just how serious is this credit crisis? What is at stake here for the American taxpayer?

Black: Mopping up the savings-and-loan crisis cost $150 billion; this current crisis will probably cost a multiple of that. The scale of fraud is immense. This whole bank scandal makes Teapot Dome [of the 1920s] look like some kid’s doll set. Unless the current administration changes course pretty drastically, the scandal will destroy Barack Obama’s presidency. The Bush administration was even worse. But they are out of town. This will destroy Obama’s administration, both economically and in terms of integrity.

Yep, that’s about that. Or we can read to a recent winner of the (fake) nobel prize in economics (created because, as you hopefully have figured out by now, economics doesn’t merit a prize for anything), Joseph Stiglitz, Stiglitz Says Ties to Wall Street Doom Bank Rescue :

“All the ingredients they have so far are weak, and there are several missing ingredients,” Stiglitz said in an interview yesterday. The people who designed the plans are “either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent.”

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, isn’t large enough to recapitalize the banking system, and the administration hasn’t been direct in addressing that shortfall, he said. Stiglitz said there are conflicts of interest at the White House because some of Obama’s advisers have close ties to Wall Street.

A bit more of this interview under the fold.
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