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Allan Meltzer, a former economic adviser to President Reagan, and an expert on monetary policy at Carnegie Mellon School of Business says that "this is scare tactics to try to do something that is in the private but not the public interest, its terrible." Vincent Reinhart a former Fed economist says Paulson has lost credibility, people don't believe him anymore. And Elmendorf of the Brookings institution says that taxpayers should get more out of this deal with ownership stakes in the companies that use government money. Others like Bruce Bartlett, a former White House economist under president Reagan say the problem is nobody knows what the hell is going on and there are some naive assumptions about how this would function. Martin Bailly, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton says for financial institutions to take the funds Treasury has to pay a premium because otherwise they would have sold already. While Bernanke told the Banking Committe that the government would pay more than the distressed prices to get broad participation which is a goal of Treasury and the Fed, neither he nor Paulson could reassure the committee about how taxpayers would be protected. Most of the economists surveyed here by the NYT are skeptical about a Wall Streeter from Goldman Sachs credibility on this as they see him paying financial institutions a premium price. The sore point in all this for the taxpayers and the public would be that the Bush administration has done nothing to help homeowners with foreclosures that are also at the root of the problem when you look beyond the immediate clogging up of the financial system and present a threat via declining home prices. And Paulson now offers a plan that also is very hazy about protecting taxpayers with equity ownership or some other protections, and has nothing to assuage the public's outrage about ceo compensation in the midst of distress. Not just the Banking Committee but experts from all sides of the political spectrum are raising concerns stressing one or other of these points, and find the lack of details in the Paulson Bernanke plan a sign of a hastily put together plan with little research even considering the lack of time, and the lack of any details a strain on people's intelligence for a proposal of such magnitude....

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According to information from Goldman Sachs investment gains including stocks contributed 23% of overall profit at listed nonfinancial companies in 1st quarter 2007, up from 13% in prior quarter. An example is China Yangste Power Company, a utility company. Its board secretary is quoted here that 30% of the company's investments are made to make quick profits. These speculative profits create a virtuous circle where higher investment profits increase overall profits at listed companies and lead to investor perception to increase prices even higher. This increases the risk in the market and was last seen when companies like Intel saw higher prices during the tech bubble in the USA and becomes dangerous downward spiral when the process goes in reverse and the companies show losseson their investments driving the market much lower than otherwise. A government survey quoted here shows that profits in 2007 as of May end are running 42% above 2006. How much of this is a result of profits on stock investments? ...

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With fewer banks and securities houses remaining, the remaining banks like Chase and securties houses like Goldaman and Morgan Stanley are using the spreads between the price of buying and selling bonds- and the easy access to government money and FDIC guanrantees for their bonds- to make large profits. In effect the Fed is pouring money into the system to help financial institutions recover and in the process is making it possible for firms like Morgan and Goldman that were on the verge of collapsing to be able to make large profits through cheap money from the Fed. The resulting large bonuses are likely to upset a public and taxpayers who shoulder the dual burdens of a bailout of large banks, which is not making credit easier for small and medium businesses that form the backbone for employment. The smaller banks that support these businesses are failing and being closed by the FDIC. THe result- increasing joblessness and shrinking consumer demand. This is outlined by Ms. Lee in her op-ed article- The Banking System is Broken, WSJ, October 16, 2009. See this link. Meantime banks like Citigroup and Bank of America continue to see losses, so that even these profits are happening in only some parts of Wall Street....

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Comey sends another letter to Congressional committees on Nov. 6, just 2 days before the election, saying that "based on our review we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton." Just 9 days prior to the election Comey had written to Congress that the FBI was looking into emails found on the computer of Mr Weiner, estranged husband of Clinton aide Abedin. By doing this Comey had inserted himself and the FBI into the election in a way that was not proper said leaders of both parties. The heavy criticism continued with Vice presidential candidate Kaine, president Obama and Secretary Clinton, seeing this as a blatant political move by Comey, who is a Republican. It is likely to remain a subject of criticism long after the election, say experts.

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WSJ's Reilly says the U.S. Federal Reserve's effort to make stress tests unpredictable and keep the banks guessing is how it is supposed to be done for tests to be effective. This prevents banks from gaming the tests. The Fed has other interests to protect- the nation's financial system and taxpayers. Only by designing the tests correctly can the Fed ensure that it is doing its job of safeguarding the U.S. financial system.

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The Economist asks whether the government can have the resolve to take strong action where necessary with the banks. The feeling is that the government was too close to the banks during the boom, and banks like Goldman have so much influence in the government and many bankers work inside the government, making it difficult to separate the public interest from the interest of the banks. This makes it more difficult to take necessary action when it comes to the banks.

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More revelations such as Pandora papers may not do much because the inertia is institiutionalized and the political system is available for hire, says Prof. Prem Sikka of the University of Sheffield, UK. He says armies of accountants, lawyers and financial experts support this system, the regulatory system in the UK is ineffective, and too many MP's are on the payroll of corporations, says Prof. Sikka in The Guardian. It is the sheer size of the problem that is staggering and could be an indication of how it reduces upward mobility in society, leads to financial crises, and defunds infrastructure, defunds healthcare and housing in US, Europe, Britain and India. The size of illegal money and tax evasion money in the world today is according to this article in The Guardian simply astonishing- $3.6 trillion. 

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This article by Horowitz in the NYT shows some of the criticism leveled against the Clintons and how they were out of touch with the white working class voters who have drifted to Mr. Trump.  It may be overdone in that not all white working class voters have drifted to Trump, and a Gallup survey has shown Trump supporters to be some white working class but also many from other groups in society, and many older less educated voters.  Trade Unions have played a large role in this election, and workers in manufacturing have voted Democratic in midwestern states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. Horowitz also ignores some points in this campaign such as when Bill Clinton was adept at openly stating that he agreed with people who said Obamacare had increased premiums, and that some of the Obamacare program needed to be fixed. This took some of the criticism of Republicans on Obamacare and turned this around. He also showed a better understanding at times of the plight of working class people just from his habit of listening and thinking about how this affects ordinary people, a skill he has even to this day. A 2014 NBC/WSJ poll showed Bill Clinton with a 56 percent favorability rating, which is higher than president Obama, and exceeded only by Michelle Obama at 64 percent. ...

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Siome things that emerge from this report are that Thain spent some $1.2 million in redecorating his office after Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch. This was after the near demise of Merrill from taking excessive risks. Sources also say Thain asked for a $30 million to $40 million bonus which was not approved. A few days before the Merrill deal was finally concluded on January 1, under stressful circumstances because of Merrill's huge impending losses, Thain issued bonuses of millions of dollars to Merrill executives. See the links to Merrill for the pattern of giving bonuses worth 100 times the salary to Merrill executives under a former CEO of Merrill Lynch in 2006 and 2007.

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Blackberry maker Research In Motion's will introduce new products to prevent further erosion of market share. Five new smartphones will be introduced, including an all touch screen phone to compete with the iPhone. Smartphones using its new QNX software will not be available till 2012. Meanwhile Apple is bringing out a new version of the iPhone and new smartphone are being released by competitors. RIM's share of global smartphones is down to 12.9% for the 1st quarter of 2011, compared to 19.7% the prior year. In the N. American market RIM's market share for smartphones is down to 16.5%, a big decline from 41.3% in the first quarter of 2010. Missed deadlines for new products are a major problem for RIM in the fast paced environment for new technologies and software with new competitors from related fields.

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Sara Ehrman describes the time when Hillary Clinton worked in Washington D.C. as a 26 year old lawyer working on the Watergate committee, and Bill Clinton was teaching law in Arkansas. In August 1974 Hillary was living for about 1 year with Mrs. Ehrman, a friend who was a congressional aide at the time. She is 97 today, and recalls that time when she tried to discourage Hillary from going to Arkansas to join her boyfriend. Ehrman felt not much would come out of Bill Clinton, though she thought him to be handsome, and later worked in his presidential campaign and Hillary's presidential campaign. Ehrman was 55 then, and describes Hillary Clinton as a bit sloppy in her habits, such as not making her bed and having a lot of stuff strewn about her room, but really intelligent and very hardworking. At the time both lived together. Ehrman describes a daily routine of seeing Hillary go to work with coffee in the morning and come back exhausted late at night, having yogurt and going to bed, day after day.  The two met for the first time in 1972 when Ehrman was co-director of issues and research in the McGovern campaign in Texas, and Hillary was helping with voter registration. This report describes in detail the road trip to Arkansas that the two made together, when Mrs. Ehrman drove Hillary to Arkansas in her old Buick. They stopped at small towns  in the 1200 mile journey, and this journey ends with Mrs Ehrman crying that she could not get Hillary to change her mind about Bill Clinton and Arkansas. About what she thought was a bright woman throwing her life away in the deep South of the seventies. Hillary she remembers insisted she loved Bill Clinton, and having passed the Arkansas Bar exam had firmly decided on settling in Arkansas. ...

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A 2004 rule made under SEC Chairman Donaldson and requested by the investment banks one of which Goldman Sachs was headed by Paulson changed the whole playing field and created the dangerous situation of huge leveraging that has led to the collapse of some of these banks. Older regulations limited the amount of debt that these investment banks could take on. With the new rule billions of dollars held in reserve as a cushion against losses could now be used by these banks to invest in mortgage securities and credit derivatives, a form of insurance for bond holders. Others on the SEC who supported it included Goldschmid, an authority on securites law at Columbia who asked relevant questions but relied on the assurance of Annette Nazareth, head of market regulation that under the new rules the investment banks would also be restricted by the commission from risky activity, that under the new rule the SEC would be able to look into the books of the parent companies and subsidiaries of the investment banks. But no detailed and strict oversight methods were laid out, and instead these banks were allowed to go out on their own without any restrictions. The riskiness of investments would be measured by the computer models and brains not of the SEC but of the investment banks themselves. And these banks went on a leveraging binge with 33 to 1 for Bear Stearns which collapsed in 2008. One lone dissenter was a person who wrote the computer models to determine the riskiness of investments which were used by the banks, was at the University of Chicago, and was a risk management expert. He cautioned in a letter that these computer models had failed in the 1997 LTCM collapse and could not be relied on as environments change. At the SEC oversight was handled by 7 people and this was to oversee some $4 trillion in assets, hopelessly understaffed, and most of them believing that the investment banks would self police themselves as they were ideologically believers in deregulation. So no inspections were done for an year and half upto August 2008 even when there were clear signals of trouble according to an Inspector General's report. This group had no director since March 2007. Soon after the rule Donaldson the SEC chairman left and a Congressman from a conservative district in California became Chairman, Christopher Cox. He favored deregulation and may not have even been aware that the 2004 rule had created a new and dangerous environment, so he followed his instincts and even dismantled a risk management unit Donaldson had established. Which is why McCain has called for his firing....

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The Trader Monthly embodied a certain Wall Street trader culture that was unlike anything that the national values we as anation have valued and handed down for generations. It was not only about extravagant outrageously large earnings and flamboyant spending but a sense that these people were a special breed of winners. A $300,000 turntable was not the only thing that characterized this culture. In 2006 Trader Monthly took into its hall of Fame a Chicago mercantile Trader and described him admiringly as " aconqueror, physically imposing, and at times, verbally abusive. Clad in his signature white jacket, he would crush anyone who dared to cross him or tried to pick his pocket." And the justification for all this was that traders delivered. Except that many of these gamblers and overaggressive complex people who had somehow lost the Christian ethic of their forefathers, had helped messed up the delicate gears that work the capitalist economy in positive ways, and caused a massive misallocation of capital that would bring grief for years to come through high unemployment, closing small businesses, and dislocations of the nation's economy. ...