Apr. 17th, 2009
I just realized that those troubled banks are going to fail and the taxpayer will foot the bill.
Here's what I suspect is going to happen:
Here's what I suspect is going to happen:
- responding to public outrage about how the taxpayers' funds are spent, the administration is putting on salary caps
- the best talent will leave the troubled banks with the salary caps and go to other banks
- the money will follow the talent
- the TARP banks, husks of their former selves, will either limp along as quasi-government entities or be quietly sold off to the banks that aren't helped out by the government
Kinda-sorta related to that is an observation in the Wall Street Journal about populism in the U.S.
America has an enormous middle class that is heavily invested in the financial system and is hardly about to organize for its overthrow.
"What both the 1890s and 1930s had in common was an intense class anger, a stark division of the nation into 'bosses' and 'workers,'" said Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. "I don't think this perspective applies to our present crisis."
People who have lost half the value of their 401(k) plans, in other words, want to regain it by having the economy rebound, not by seizing the assets of ExxonMobil Corp. People who have lost a home want to rebuild their credit and buy another one, not liberate the property of the wealthy.
--Naftali Bendavid, They Don't Make Populism in the U.S. Like They Used To
I think Bendavid is right.
My picture in the paper....
Apr. 17th, 2009 10:23 pmNot so that you could really tell unless you were looking for me, but in "Photo 1 of 2" I'm to the camera's right of the guy in the vibrant orange shirt.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/43158867.html
It was a pretty interesting conference, on creating a Philadelphia encyclopedia.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/43158867.html
It was a pretty interesting conference, on creating a Philadelphia encyclopedia.