nedfreed(347 - days ago)Page: Triage
There's an inherent conflict between letting companies fail and the notion of being ready for the second "technology" wave. As technology becomes increasingly complex, we are increasingly dependent on accumulated institutional knowledge.
The car companies are a good example of this. They may be whales, but the institutional knowledge needed to build cars is immense, as many of the California electric car startups are now finding out.
And rebuilding institutional knowledge costs us in the one currency we really can't print more of: Time.
I worry that a triage policy based solely on, say, current and immediately pending product viability will end up throwing out a lot of babies with the bathwater.
OTOH, the present corporate masters of most companies have already demonstrated that all they care about is the preservation of the corporate ruling class. They don't give a crap about anything else, and so cannot be relied upon to act to preserve the parts of their companies that are actually important.
Perhaps the solution lies in finding the proper terms and conditions for any sort of bailout.
kurtosis(362 - days ago)Page: Other Voices to Read Watch Listen To
Moderator can delete my above two comments and this one, made a mistake posting them there.
kurtosis(362 - days ago)Page: Other Voices to Read Watch Listen To
The plans:
http://www.denninger.net/letters/genesis.pdf
http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/luigi.zingales/research/PSpapers/plan_b.pdf
http://www.tavakolistructuredfinance.com/TSF8.html
http://www.tavakolistructuredfinance.com/BNN5.html
kurtosis(362 - days ago)Page: Other Voices to Read Watch Listen To
There are several good plans that address the underlying problems of the financial crisis, rather than throw money at the symptoms as Paulson and Bernanke are doing. The Genesis Plan, Luis Zingales of Chicago GSB Plan B, and Janet Tavakoli of Tavakoli Structured Finance to name the ones I'm most familiar with.
We concerned citizens really need to consolidate these into a united front, and use them as a framework for re-educating Congress on how to correctly address this financial crisis. So far it has been more a case study in the blind leading the blind.
kurtosis(362 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
There's probably a character limit that's not being displayed anywhere. The comment I wanted to post here, I posted at Dr. Enriquez's poptech page:
http://hub.poptech.org/groups/29/messages/66
In a nutshell, several good plans for solving our financial and economic problems have been floated, and we all should be working to consolidate them where possible and present a unified front to Congress and the President to get them to change course on their response to the crisis.
kurtosis(362 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
Same here, I just submitted a comment and it disappeared too. ???
wgordon1(372 - days ago)Page: Causes of the Crisis
Here is the best analysis I have seen of the causes of the crisis from Simon Johnson of MIT Sloan School:
http://baselinescenario.com/2008/11/10/baseline-scenario-111008/
louis.poptech(374 - days ago)Page: Debt
a fourth comment
louis.poptech(374 - days ago)Page: Debt
comment 3
louis.poptech(374 - days ago)Page: Debt
comment 2
louis.poptech(374 - days ago)Page: Debt
test from normal account
tomhagan(374 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
tomhagan(374 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
I just attempted another comment here--and on clicking Submit, it disappeared. Strange. Trying again. (Iwas trying to report that a second attempt at 2nd Commandment also disappeared.)
tomhagan(374 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
Still seems broken. I just attempted to post a comment to the Second Commandmen t ("Restructure Debt"). On clicking Submit, it disappeared from the edit box, failed to appear where it should under Comments.
What gives?
rbourke(381 - days ago)Page: Entitlements
I'm not quite sure where to include this comment. Along with the entitlements are the commitments that the government has made. These will increase the debt load. The Pension Benefit Guarenty (sp?) Corporation recentlyt announced that their assests are only exceeded by liabilities by 14 billion. Yet, there a many companies that will be required to contribute more cash to the pensions they have (2006 act requirement). Many companies are going bankrupt or are in dire straights. There will be many more pension benefits picked up by the PBGC. Additionally, more and more of government budgets are allocated to funding pensions rather than current operations.
The FDIC will be on the hook for the depositor accounts of those banks not bought.
The Fed, cities and other government organizations are announcing the costs to maintain the infrastructure is outpacing the funds collected. (Examples include NYC sewer and water system, US Interstate system bridges - Minn).
rbourke(381 - days ago)Page: Missing Commandments
While transparency is a must. Market speak and spin doctors can still distort the message. An example, of transparency is AIG's 6/30/08 10Q. A financial statement disclosure for credit default swaps indicated that the Monte Carlo method was used in conjuction with the BET simiulator to value the swaps. While it is transparent this disclosure certainly was not picked on by investors. To me this says they gambled on the value.
micahsifry(389 - days ago)Page: High Level Critical Responses
superslim(389 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
also working on the commandments themselves. some are very clear and specific others are more general and vague (restructure debt). I think that they should all provide clear specifics so that people know what they are backing. thoughts?
superslim(389 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
I have been working with Juan on condensing his presentaiton to the key points. attached is the latest version below. will clean up the layout and graphs once we get the story down. would love any input from the community on this version. anything important missing? is there a better way to flow the story?
tomhagan(390 - days ago)Page: Causes of the Crisis
But suppose the real cause is more fundamental than mortgage flipping or a lack of proper regulation and oversight. Suppose our fractional reserve banking system is inherently unsustainable, doomed eventually to collape in a credit crunch just like we are experiencing.
There are those who think so, and who have some compelling arguments for their case. I am not sure I agree with them yet, but I find their analysis fascinating, and it transcends that offered by Juan in his excellent talk.
Juan correctly points out that the current bailout schemes can't work, and may do more harm than good. But perhaps his austerity prescription is also doomed, unless we chuck fractional reserve banking for full reserve banking.
At least that's what the full reserve banking advocates say, and they offer up a surprisingly pain-free solution for our national debt---which sounds too good to be true. But I have not yet found out why.
For more on this, see.
http://whatsnotso.blogs.com/whatsnotso/2008/10/will-the-financial-crisis-change-the-game.html
kathryna(390 - days ago)Page: High Level Critical Responses
This discussion would be more useful if the distinct roles of Congress and the President were incorporated. When the wrangling is finished, the Congress levies the taxes, and sets the budget. The President can veto or not, but cannot change either one.
kathryna(390 - days ago)Page: Causes of the Crisis
This goes especially to Fannie Mae, who packaged most of the loans for initial sale
poptech(390 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
thanks for the comment, tom. the entire wiki is editable, so changes people make might affect links, etc. i've reset those links.
there isn't any moderation, so any changes you make should appear. try posting again to see if they save. the wiki-wide permissions were set differently than on the individual pages, so i just changed that.
tomhagan(390 - days ago)Page: Juan Enriquez at Pop!Tech 2008
This wiki seems broken in a couple of ways.
When I click to open the Causes of the Crisis page, the Definitions of Terms page opens instead.
When I click to open the Improving the Evidence... page, a message pops up saying I am not authorized to create a new page.
Also, I just posted an entry to the High Level Critical Responses Page, without first preserving a copy. I hope the reason it is not showing up is because it is undergoing moderation; would be nice to know who is doing the moderation and how long it is expected to take.
kingofbanff(391 - days ago)Page: Triage
Triage needs to happen at both the corporate level and the consumer level.
I can't get too upset at a person who bought a house for personal use in 2006 and is now underwater.
The following people should get no help.
1) Anybody who bought a house as an investment.
2) Anybody who refinanced their house and took money out (as opposed to just lowering the rate)
The gov't should give no bailout money to these people.
kingofbanff(391 - days ago)Page: Causes of the Crisis
Reasons to be concerned with the causes are two fold: punish those responsible and prevent a recurrence of the crisis.
An easy answer is easy credit but that ignores many of the players. Easy credit in a vacuum can't cause a crisis.
Anybody person who bought a home with the sole intention of flipping it and no reasonable expectation of being able to rent it and cover all costs is to blame.
Anybody who lied on a mortgage application is to blame.
Any banker who knowingly lent money to someone he suspected was getting in over his head is to blame.
Any investment banker who suspected that the quality of loans he was repackaging was not AAA is to blame.