Professor James Barth was an appointee of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush as chief economist of the Office of Thrift Supervision and previously the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. He is now the Lowder Eminent Scholar in Finance at Auburn University and a Senior Fellow at the Milken Institute. In this interview, Cenk and Dr. Barth discuss how shortcomings of financial regulators contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, and what to expect in the future given the current state of affairs. Dr. Barth also offers a unique prescription rooted in the ideas of James Madison. Find out more about James Barth here: www.business.auburn.edu and about the Milken Institute at their home page: www.milkeninstitute.org
Follow us @ twitter.com twitter.com A US lawmaker is reportedly planning to introduce the “Sound Dollar Act” early next month. This is legislation that would move the federal reserve from its dual mandate of maintaining price stability (which is anathema to the dollar debasement that it creates through its massive money printing operations) and keeping unemployment low (which it has failed to do…curious…) to just promoting price stability. Hmmm…what would that mean for the Fed’s unofficial mandate of trashing the dollar? And Turkey, the fastest growing economy after China, is being penalized in the credit markets for failing to promote consumer savings, according to bloomberg. What? You mean savings matter!! That’s amazing…ummm not to us it isn’t. You can’t have economic growth without savings, because you can’t have investment without capital. Capital comes form savings, and growth comes from investment, but its shocking how many people think money “grows on tress.” Can you blame them, when we have a serial money printer at the Federal Reserve, pushing us all into serfdom and neo-feudalism with a policy of perpetual bailouts and zero percent interest rates? Oligarchy here we come! Finally, with central bank policies of the fed and ECB amounting to –trash for cash — as economist David McWilliams puts it with his “Punk Economics: Lesson 2,” turning “water into wine.” These perpetual bailouts are nothing other than an institutional form of wealth transfer. They …
In a world of Too Big To Fail giants, Florida-based firm sees opportunity as a Wall Street alternative. RJF Acquires Morgan Keegan: onforb.es More Paul Reilly: onforb.es Exile On Wall Street: blogs.forbes.com
President Obama calls for new restrictions on the size and scope of financial institutions to rein in excessive risk-taking and protect taxpayers. The proposed legislation is called the Volcker Rule in recognition of the efforts of former Federal Reserve Chairman and current Presidents Economic Recovery Advisory Board Chairman Paul Volcker. January 21, 2010.
