The consolidation of political power during the "Bailout Era

edited March 2009 in The Economy
Interesting article from Rolling Stone about the continuing consolidation of political power by former wall street bankers during our current "Bailout Era".

The Big Takeover: The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

It will be interesting to see how closely Geitner's bank cleanup plan to be announced tomorrow follows the actions taken during previous "waves" of the bailout.

My inclination is also lies along the lines of "why are these the guys architecting the recovery - aren't they the ones that got us into this mess to begin with?". Nassim Nicholas Taleb & Nouriel Roubini also agree ( about 9:20 in the video).

Lanny

Comments

  • "People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations."

    Bingo...we have a winner!!! Bankster elites meeting in secret for years plotting every move of their multi-decade power grab.

    Get used to the word folks.....CONSPIRACY.

    You have all been trained to cringe when you hear the word.

    You have all been taught to say only...."Bah, Bah, Bah".

    Guess who is behind your "training"..... :twisted:
  • Get used to the word folks.....CONSPIRACY.

    You have all been trained to cringe when you hear the word.

    You have all been taught to say only...."Bah, Bah, Bah".

    Guess who is behind your "training"..... :twisted:

    You?

    Look, it's not worth arguing that the "Financial Master's of the Universe" have systematically dismantled our economy. But there's a huge logic leap between the idea that they just weren't as competent as everyone seemed to think to the idea that they planned on destroying their companies to gain power somehow. It simply doesn't fit the facts as we know them.
  • As a good friend and client told me once, "you see Charles, we're not interested in making money. We're interested in making more money".

    I have a hard time believing that these guys were in it for political gain as much as they were in it to have giant corporations and giant bonuses. Collapsing the economy really doesn't play well into that money making strategy.

    Considering that now the government is getting ready to dictate how much money they make, this seems to be backfiring on them.
  • Considering that now the government is getting ready to dictate how much money they make, this seems to be backfiring on them.

    Or it's proof that those in the banking industry aren't all-seeing all-knowing puppet masters. :)
  • The execs getting the millions in bonuses are still just the hired help. They are hired and fired by the board, which is where the real money is. Those people can weather depressions just fine and are now looking for buying opportunities. The CFO of Bank of America just issued a press release to tell Congress to back off with the bailouts so BoA and others can pick off the weaker firms. Disgusting, especially considering it is in the interest of taxpayers to reduce the consolidation so there are fewer firms that are too big to fail.
  • jon wrote:
    The execs getting the millions in bonuses are still just the hired help. They are hired and fired by the board, which is where the real money is. Those people can weather depressions just fine and are now looking for buying opportunities. The CFO of Bank of America just issued a press release to tell Congress to back off with the bailouts so BoA and others can pick off the weaker firms. Disgusting, especially considering it is in the interest of taxpayers to reduce the consolidation so there are fewer firms that are too big to fail.

    That's not quite how it usually works. Most of these boards are rather inbreed affairs. The board members of corporation X are all CEOs of different corporations, and the CEO of X servers on several of those other boards as well. Basically, these organizations are set up to make sure the same people keep making boat loads of money regardless of what they do. Well, almost regardless. Having your bank or insurance company shut down is not really what they had in mind.

    Secret number two is that many of these people are not actually that wealthy, by which I mean they often actually need these bloated salaries because they've set up such high recurring costs for themselves that taking a cool $15M and riding off into the sunset is "not enough" for them. In five years, you'll see so regular and perhaps even sympathetic articles about some of these CEOs who weren't really riding high on the hog (by comparison to others) and at their peak only made a few million a year, and how now they are penniless.

    Finally, Skank of America is in no position right now to buy anything. Let's see if they are even open for business in five years. Also, I wonder if the regulators might be overly cautious about allowing it right now due to the problems already caused by corporations which are too big to fail. Frankly, I think we might see legislation prohibiting such size, and a forced break up of the largest dozen or so banks in the next couple years anyways.
  • Frankly, I think we might see legislation prohibiting such size, and a forced break up of the largest dozen or so banks in the next couple years anyways.

    I totally agree. I think we'll see some revisitation of 100 year old anti-trust laws to keep companies from getting too big to fail. It's the next logical step.

    They're already putting this kind of legislation in the way of giving the Fed an FDIC type law for taking down non-bank corporations. Pretty much they're doing this for AIG, because they're going to have to take AIG down and sell off their profitable divisions. Then hopefully give the finger to investors taking CDS payouts.
  • Then hopefully give the finger to investors taking CDS payouts.

    I don't really understand why this isn't an easy sell. Right now, we're pumping cash into AIG so these other institutions don't fail. Why not take down AIG, and then we can directly subsidize any institutions really worth saving and let fail those not worth saving. It doesn't actually solve any problems, but it does break one extremely difficult problem into perhaps hundreds of problems that are each 1/100th as difficult.
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