Wall Street CEOs: The Mea Culpa That Wasn't
Robyn Blumner

 

Wall Street CEOs: We made mistakes ...
(c) Walt Handelsman

Here is the testimony I would have liked to have heard from the CEOs of Wall Street's largest banks -- institutions whose irresponsibility and greed nearly brought down the economy:

We at ChaseMorGoldSachs of America apologize for our inexcusable behavior. We broke the financial system, and most of us wouldn't be around today if the American taxpayer had not come to its rescue. In recognition of this, we will not be granting bonuses this year as we reconsider a compensation system that encourages too much risk. Instead, the bonus money will go to boost net capital buffers to reduce leverage and help stabilize the overall banking system.

By chasing personal fortunes we lost sight of values such as honest dealing and social responsibility. The havoc we caused has left this nation with millions unemployed. The only way to fix that is through job creation, and to that end we encourage additional taxes on our industry through a transactional tax on every financial trade, with the hope that some of that money will be used for additional government stimulus. Any bonuses given out in the industry should be taxed heavily, too. Otherwise, the system that perpetuates outsized risk will rise again.

You've heard some of us suggest that things got out of control in part because regulators failed to rein in our destructive practices. But we know it was our own powerful lobbyist corps that pushed to dismantle key regulations that, had they remained in place, would have prevented our recklessness.

We also donated huge sums to politicians to enlist them in keeping regulators from doing their jobs -- as we are still doing, by the way. The elected people in this town need to realize that just as our excessive pay practices will not fundamentally change voluntarily, neither will our approach to government regulation.

No matter what we say publicly, we are working behind the scenes on behalf of our own interests to make as much money as we can. You need to stop taking our calls.

We know that the carving up and selling of debt is not a beneficial exercise for the American economy. It doesn't produce anything tangible, and it sucks up capital that could be spread to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. And if creative financing paydays weren't so big, all the smart business people and mathematicians who gravitate to Wall Street would be applying their talents elsewhere. We'd be a different and better country if that were true.

The mortgage-backed securities that we created were also largely responsible for the housing bubble. Had lenders not been able to unload their subprime mortgages through us, there wouldn't have been very many such loans made, and no institution would have tolerated liar loans, where a borrower's income isn't checked. By only lending to qualified borrowers, banks would have contained the "froth" of the housing market.

We knew this of course. We say now, "Who would have thought that housing prices would fall 40 percent?" But we knew housing was hugely overvalued and people were taking out mortgages they couldn't afford. Some of us even bet that a big adjustment would come by shorting the very mortgage-backed securities we had created. We exploited our insider knowledge about the garbage loans we were packaging for our own gains to the detriment of our customers -- a structural broker-dealer conflict of interest that needs reform.

The profits made us crazy. Who cared if the underlying debt would ever be repaid? We sold it to unsuspecting investors, and our monster bonuses came regardless of the solidity of the investment. That is why we twisted the arms of the credit-rating agencies to anoint our financial products with AAA ratings. If one wouldn't accede, we'd just shop it to the next one or tweak the tranches until that gold star was won. Hey, the credit-rating agencies were anxious to make it work. They only got paid when they did our bidding. Another backward incentive that needs to change.

We at ChaseMorGoldSachs of America recognize the harm we caused this country. But our bulging pockets mean that our industry won't stop greedily self-dealing until we're made to. So please, make us stop.

Let Us All Now Bail Out the States
Ross Mackenzie

Most states must balance their budgets by constitutional stipulation -- a concept also viewed with a federal sneer. In the depression year of 2009, the feds bailed out the states to the tune of $87 billion. In the current fiscal year, state budget shortfalls are expected to total about $180 billion, with a like amount (or more) anticipated for fiscal 2011.

Detroit - Who's Your Tiger
Mitch Albom

In the last 18 months, the auto industry has become something bigger than just the buying and selling of cars. It has become an ideological ground zero, a tug of war with many hands on the rope, labor, manufacturing, nationalism, elitism, environmentalism, jobs, the survival of a shrinking but vital American city: Detroit

Politics Behind Hugo Chavez's Currency Devaluation
Andres Oppenheimer

A lot has been written in recent days about the economic impact of drastic devaluation of the Venezuelan currency announced by Venezuela's authoritarian-populist President Hugo Chávez. But the measure's political impact may be just as important, if not more.

 

 

 

Wall Street CEOs: The Mea Culpa That Wasn't | Robyn Blumner

 

(c) 2010 Robyn Blumner