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Economy
Former Fed Chair Volcker Blasts World Bankers; Soros Urges Ban on CDS
2009-12-10
One of the most senior figures in the financial world surprised a conference of high-level bankers yesterday when he criticised them for failing to grasp the magnitude of the financial crisis and belittled their suggested reforms.
Volcker is merely being used as a figurehead by the Obama administration. Now & then articles like this quote him, but I can't see anything he has advocated or stood for being pushed by O. The MSM continues to support propping up the housing bubble & gives no coverage to the underlying problems that caused the bubble.
As bankers demanded that new regulation should not stifle massive bonuses underwritten by government bailouts going directly into their pockets, the common welfare be damned innovation, a clearly irritated Mr Volcker said that the biggest innovation in the industry over the past 20 years had been ATM's. He went on to attack the rise of complex products such as credit default swaps (CDS). George Soros argued that CDS should be banned.
As they once were. The Feds nullified all state laws to the contrary a few years before the credit bubble expanded & then collapsed. At least I assume those quoted are no longer important...
Soros likened the widely traded securities to buying life insurance and then giving someone a license to shoot the insured person.
Right after life insurance policies were first marketed, they were abused by policyholder/beneficiaries who then murdered the named insured to collect their ree-ward. Laws were then passed requiring named insureds to give their permission for policies to be issued on their lives. Times are definitely changing when Volcker and Soros are on the same side of an issue, or when Ron Paul's proposal to audit the Fed gets support from both sides of the political spectrum. I still hope something useful will be done before the US financial system collapses under the weight of stupidity & greed.
An interesting article. An interesting collection of people who used to be important in the business do not like how their successors have been handling things.
Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418

#4  Helped, maybe.

What really did it was regulators lowering reserves and thus creating a massive amount of credit in their currencies.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2009-12-10 19:08  

#3  Credit default swaps are evil. The people that allowed them to happen are either evil or dunderheads trolling for votes. CDs were based in part on subprime loans. These were mixed with other investments. As the result no one knows the value of anything with these investments. They helped take the world economy down.
Posted by: JohnQC   2009-12-10 11:23  

#2   The CEO of GE said yesterday: “Rewards became perverted. The richest people made the most mistakes with the least accountability.”
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2009-12-10 08:51  

#1  How about outlawing leveraging, esp the 200-500X leverage in currency speculation? Wipe yourself out all you want but don't take another 100 unsuspecting people down with you.
Posted by: ed   2009-12-10 07:04  

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