Just askin', policy being the window on the soul.

If you believe in souls.

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

... worked for Hillary, and she completely feminized him, like she will every male in the nation. Did you ever consider that?

Of course not. K-K-Klanton members like you only care about racial purity, not about our purity of essence.

Remember "moral hazard"? I wholeheartedly agree with your recent post, Lambert, that both candidates leave much to be desired in addressing the moral hazard of bailing out Bear Sterns and similar situations. In fact, my response to you was the silver lining that the bailout at least legitimizes and opens the door to sweeping regulation of the poorly regulated investment banks and related entities. Back to this in a sec.

Here, we have Obama addressing the moral hazard of bailing out private lenders. Reckless lenders are forced to absorb some losses as are reckless speculators. Special considerations are put forth for victims of predatory practices. While not as pressing or satisfying as punishing incompetent CEOs, it shouldn't be glossed over as inadequate. I don't consider HRC's "modern version of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation" bad. But Obama's policy isn't trivial and it doesn't ignore the moral hazards.

Re: regulation. So nice of Krugman to offer the slightest tip of the hat to Obama: "I was pleased that Mr. Obama came out strongly for broader financial regulation...", considering his last column:

Now, I don’t expect presidential campaigns to have all the answers to our current crisis — even financial experts are scrambling to keep up with events. But I do think we’re entitled to more answers, and in particular a clearer commitment to financial reform, than we’re getting so far.
::
...she, like Mr. Obama, has been disappointingly quiet about the key issue: the need to reform our out-of-control financial system.
::
Both Democrats, by contrast, are running more or less populist campaigns. But at least so far, neither Democrat has made a clear commitment to financial reform.

Is that simply an omission? Or is it an ominous omen? Recent history offers reason to worry.

In retrospect, it’s clear that the Clinton administration went along too easily with moves to deregulate the financial industry. And it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that big contributions from Wall Street helped grease the rails.

Maybe "key issue" is a moving target? Because Obama made some comprehensive regulatory proposals in NY yesterday.

First, if you can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision. Secretary Paulson admitted this in his remarks yesterday. The Federal Reserve should have basic supervisory authority over any institution to which it may make credit available as a lender of last resort. When the Fed steps in, it is providing lenders an insurance policy underwritten by the American taxpayer. In return, taxpayers have every right to expect that these institutions are not taking excessive risks. The nature of regulation should depend on the degree and extent of the Fed's exposure. But at the very least, these new regulations should include liquidity and capital requirements.

Second, there needs to be general reform of the requirements to which all regulated financial institutions are subjected. Capital requirements should be strengthened, particularly for complex financial instruments like some of the mortgage securities that led to our current crisis. We must develop and rigorously manage liquidity risk. We must investigate rating agencies and potential conflicts of interest with the people they are rating. And transparency requirements must demand full disclosure by financial institutions to shareholders and counterparties.

As we reform our regulatory system at home, we must work with international arrangements like the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Stability Forum to address the same problems abroad. The goal must be ensuring that financial institutions around the world are subject to similar rules of the road -- both to make the system stable and to keep our financial institutions competitive.

Third, we need to streamline a framework of overlapping and competing regulatory agencies. Reshuffling bureaucracies should not be an end in itself. But the large, complex institutions that dominate the financial landscape do not fit into categories created decades ago. Different institutions compete in multiple markets -- our regulatory system should not pretend otherwise. A streamlined system will provide better oversight, and be less costly for regulated institutions.

Fourth, we need to regulate institutions for what they do, not what they are. Over the last few years, commercial banks and thrift institutions were subject to guidelines on subprime mortgages that did not apply to mortgage brokers and companies. It makes no sense for the Fed to tighten mortgage guidelines for banks when two-thirds of subprime mortgages don't originate from banks. This regulatory framework has failed to protect homeowners, and it is now clear that it made no sense for our financial system. When it comes to protecting the American people, it should make no difference what kind of institution they are dealing with.

Fifth, we must remain vigilant and crack down on trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation. Reports have circulated in recent days that some traders may have intentionally spread rumors that Bear Stearns was in financial distress while making market bets against the company. The SEC should investigate and punish this kind of market manipulation, and report its conclusions to Congress.

Sixth, we need a process that identifies systemic risks to the financial system. Too often, we deal with threats to the financial system that weren't anticipated by regulators. That's why we should create a financial market oversight commission, which would meet regularly and provide advice to the president, Congress and regulators on the state of our financial markets and the risks that face them. These expert views could help anticipate risks before they erupt into a crisis.

Regulating the financial sector: the ball's in your court, Sen. Clinton.

Krugman has an amazing ability to be at once super concise (800 words is it?) and brilliantly precise.

But we also need to be thinking about coming up with those one-liners that the right is always winning kudos for having done: smaller government, let markets work, the ownership society.

My liberal take: Ownership Society - a society in which everything is for sale, including you, including your mortgage, including your pension.

And as for conservative free market economics, how about this: Privitizing profit, socializing risk.

Look, Barack Obama's name isn't Barry. That was once a nickname, but he no longer uses it. His name is Barack. He's a Democrat. He's running for the presidential nomination of his party. There is something unnecessarily demeaning about refusing to call him what he choses to call himself.

For me, it undercuts your own often excellent challenges to and questions about his candidacy and those who support it.

Could we maybe agree not to go there?

I might be a bit sensitive about this because it wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I decided to use my middle name, which neither friends nor many family members even knew, to be my first name, and to this day, when I have to call older members of my extended family, my stuttering attempts to identify myself make me sound like someone who doesn't know my own name.

he wants to nudge private lenders into restructuring mortgages rather than having the government simply step in and get the job done.

Depends on what is meant by nudge, if Obama is ready to tell private lenders that in exchange for writing down loans, lowering monthly payments, letting people keep their houses, the entire management team including the board of directors resigning, President Obama will refrain from criminal prosecution, then I am all for it. It concentrates the moral hazard upon those who most need to feel it, the management who got us into it.

Do it depends upon what is meant by nudge.

Clinton on the other hand not only wants to bring Greenspan in, she want to bring in Robert Rubin. Considering that Citibank is one of the most notorious predatory lenders, this is like bringing in the fox to decide what is to be done about all the missing chickens. Clinton really doesn't get that the wise old men on Washington are the cause of all of our problems.

Some days I prefer Mr. Hopey Unity Pony, some days I prefer Princess AIPAC. Mostly I wish Gore had run.

I don't know anything about economics. But I have to think that the biggest nudge to the banking and investment industry would be something like Ford's answer to New York in 1975. Drop dead.

They didn't actually let New York drop dead. But, as was predicted in the Village Voice, we got less police, less garbage collection, closed hospitals, firehouses, worse schools and on and on. A city of 7 million people while the then government handed out 12 billion to the likes of Penn Central and the Franklin national bank.

I don't believe for a moment that any real reform or regulation will come about as a result of the "current" crisis. Did the S & L crisis bring about real reform? or Enron and Worldcom? They are still talking about how to help out the people in danger of losing their houses who number, I heard recently, at about 250,000.

It took how many days for the Fed to step in and offer our tax money after Bear Stearns turned on a dime and said we're broke? I'd feel better if the Fed also announced that if I go to Las Vegas and lose money at the tables, they'll step in and help me out.

Someone pointed out on another thread, the three names she suggested each represent all the remaining candidates.

And if she was trying to draw some attention, those people have name recognition, not as much as say Clinton or Tiger Woods, and as sad as it is, people do believe in "serious grown up" theory, b/c most of them don't read blogs, and don't realize how this idea has no honesty to it whatsoever. Clinton is trying to get not only our support, but the typical voter, who pays attention, will recognize the name Rubin and Greenspan, but doesn't quite understand(b/c the media doesn't tell them) that they are the ones who screwed everything up.

"Freedom of marriage."

Thanks!

For actually stating a reason to support Hillary over Barak without relying on demonizing his supporters.

More, please.

She's the most comfortable talking about it, including healthcare policy, of all remaining candidates and she seems to understand it better among the remaining candidates. While my dog could beat McCain in a debate on economic policy, Hillary - much more than Barack - will destroy him. For all the talk of how Clinton will debate him on Iraq, something I think is actually quite easy since she's not a crazy warmonger, it's likely that by November, the economy is going to be as big - if not bigger - issue to most Americans simply because it affects daily in very personal ways more Americans than the war. And on the economy, Clinton has better, more detailed proposals than any candidate remaining in the race. I don't care who she invites to some summit, what she's actually proposing to do is more important, IMO.

If debates were decisive we would be at the end of Gore's second term.

Iraq will be the number one issue, esp. as Americans have worked out the connection between the Iraq war and their economic ills, and worked out the connection all by themselves.

If Sadr really is preparing to cut us to pieces, as Gilliard predicted, than Obama would be the stronger candidate.

Or he would if not for his 48 state strategy.

I read that and said ew, as well.

But I think the reason she called on him here was that she knows he's supportive of the policies she wants to push (which again are significantly more interventionist than Barry Obama's).

So another way to think of this is that Obama is to the right of Greenspan, when it comes to the housing crisis.

Obama v. Krugman

Robert Kuttner is no Obama slappy and has credible progressive credentials. Please read the article, as it gives a nice analysis of Obama's economic speech and responds directly to Mr. Krugman.

On Obama:

I wish I had written the speech. It is this kind of leadership and truth-telling that is the predicate for the shift in public opinion required to produce legislative change. A radical, appropriately nuanced, and deeply public-minded description of what has occurred, the speech was Roosevelt quality: the president as teacher-in-chief. Those who felt that Obama was capable of real growth that will transcend the campaign's early and somewhat feeble domestic policy proposals should feel vindicated.

On Clinton:

The Clinton camp's rejoinder -- that Hillary is proposing to do more for the victims of the housing bust -- is totally unpersuasive. All along, she has treated the housing mess as its own self-contained scandal, rather than connecting it to the larger set of financial bubbles of which it is a part. The Frank-Dodd bill, which Obama is co-sponsoring, is a realistic remedy for purely the housing part of the crisis. If you read Clinton's March 24 speech on the housing crisis and how to fix it -- supposedly more robust than Obama's remedy -- she offers the same Frank-Dodd bill. She does not locate the mortgage crisis in the deeper financial one. And her idea of turning, for wise men, to Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan -- more than anyone the people who gave us this crisis -- is appalling.

On Krugman:

But Krugman, ordinarily an ornament of fair-minded progressive economics commentary, writes almost as if he has become part of the Clinton campaign. His latest characterization of Obama's proposals in commenting on the New York speech -- "cautious and relatively orthodox" -- was preposterous.

Submitted by RedSox04 on Fri, 2008-03-28 15:54.

I read that and said ew, as well.

But I think the reason she called on him here was that she knows he’s supportive of the policies she wants to push (which again are significantly more interventionist than Barry Obama’s).

What is the exact differentiating intervention that the trust busting candidate of Sandy Weil and Robert Rubin has proposed?

Yep.

I guess columns like this are why Barry’s acolytes in the OFB started the rumor that his son works for Hillary—even though Krugman doesn’t have a son. Typical.

Stuck pig squeals, and all that.

So let's hear an explanation of exactly what it is in Hillary's endorsement of the Dodd bill that differentiates her from Dodd co-sponsor Obama? Where is the substance we keep hearing about?

You break it, you tax cut it?

Those tax cuts are an unfunded mandate that will be passed down to states and municipalities yet again.

This would have to address revenue shortfalls elsewhere, but trying to pair it with them as a starting point is carrying the water a bit too far for the GOP.

What do you want, a tax cut or a roof overhead that is yours?

Who exactly sold us tax cuts as the answer to every problem of recent?

They're primarily for a small percentage of Americans. No big deal.