The Fed is getting destroyed...massive bond losses
- Thread starter Maverick74
- Start date
Sorry dude, just trying to keep you on topic. When you ramble about stuff that is off topic, yeah I'm going to say something. Don't get offended, this thread is for grownups.
What are you smoking dude?????
Mav is on the best people here and spends tremendous amount of time helping others. You just joined the forum and have a nerve calling him a jerk. This does not paint you in a good light for sure. Keep it up and people will stop paying attention to your posts.
+1
Thanks for turning up that article. It is still another window into the later Greenspan years. He only very recently acknowledged his errors. One has to give him credit for coming around, at least partially, in the end, though it was too late. In the 1960s, not many of Greenspan's stature could foresee that the Gold standard would become absolutely untenable, or would state so publicly.
It is particularly striking that Greenspan, whom we think of as a "modern day" economist could have been so myopic in his views, so wedded to classical economic theory. This latter affliction did not serve him well in the end!
Keynes of course, long before, had foreseen the trouble with gold. But Keynes could not prevail at Bretton Woods. Britain was too weak at the end of the War and had to give way to Harry White, who wanted to, quite understandably, solidify so far as possible any U.S. advantage.
Greenspan acted as though one could ignore human failing, and get away with it. Which is doubly strange, given Greenspan, as an economist, was a fine model of human imperfection. He seems to have thought that economies should operate as they do on the page of a textbook.
Keynes, by contrast, had less use for theory, was keenly aware of human frailty, and recognized the difficulties to come from it. He wanted above all, to be practical.
Quote from ElCubano:
+1 He offers so much in the way of knowledge that I often overlook the jerk part...
Don't overlook anything. The jerk part is the spice that gives my content some taste. Savor it!
Will history rhyme when China takes over the Bretton Woods reins? Will the US be too weak, will a spy lead everything again? Stay tuned on the next exciting edition of the soap opera that is world monetary leadership today .......
Yes, SNB is a little special in that it does mark-to-market, in a fashion.
As to the SNB shares trading on the exchange, I am curious, have you ever traded them? Do you know how that works?
Everything you have said above doesn't refute my original point, which I think has been stated by other people as well.
One gets the idea that they don't like each other very much. At the 2005 Jackson Hole conference, which had as its theme the Greenspan Era, Rajan gave an unwelcome paper. As Greenspan was stepping down, quite naturally, most of the papers were highly complimentary.
There was one notable exception. Rajan's paper. While not directly taking Greenspan to task, it could not be interpreted as anything but an indirect attack on Greenspan's stewardship of the U.S. Banking Industry. Greenspan was, after all, the chief regulator, but one that ironically did not believe in regulation.
Rajan took up one after the other sources of risk that the deregulated U.S. banks were choosing to expose themselves to. He particularly addressed the complex risks being taken by the nation's largest banks. Rajan pointed out the perverse incentive system in banking, the risks of holding securitized loans of questionable quality, products of their own invention, on their own books. He pointed out the dangers of risk amplification attendant to credit default swaps. He pointed out how profits were causing the risks to be overlooked, and he specifically pointed out how disastrous defaults in the securitized loans that banks held on their books could become. He warned that "The interbank market could freeze up, and one could well have a full-blown financial crisis." That's exactly what happened. His paper was entitled "Has Financial Development made the World Riskier."
Needless to say, Rajan's paper put a temporary damper on Jackson Hole merriment that year. In Rajan's own words, he rained on their parade -- their parade of compliments aimed at Greenspan. Why would the bankers not be very happy with Greenspan? He let them do whatever they wanted! The bankers reacted defensively to Rajan's message. Too bad, they should have taken it very seriously.