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So here’s what Mr. Benmosche did in an interview with The Wall Street Journal: He compared the uproar over bonuses to lynchings in the Deep South — the real kind, involving murder — and declared that the bonus backlash was “just as bad and just as wrong.”
You may find it incredible that anyone would, even for an instant, consider this comparison appropriate. But there have actually been a series of stories like this. In 2010, for example, there was a comparable outburst from Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman of the Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest private-equity firms. Speaking about proposals to close the carried-interest loophole — which allows executives at firms like Blackstone to pay only 15 percent taxes on much of their income — Mr. Schwarzman declared, “It’s a war; it’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”
And you know that such publicly reported statements don’t come out of nowhere. Stuff like this is surely what the Masters of the Universe say to each other all the time, to nods of agreement and approval. It’s just that sometimes they forget that they’re not supposed to say such things where the rabble might learn about it.
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I no longer bother reading Krugman.
Back when I did, I knew I then had to locate a hardcore right-winger to balance out his pieces, then I had to locate the writers I trust a little more, and on and on. So I ended up having to find four or five sources on the same freakin' topic, because I knew ol' Krugman is just another partisan ideologue who inflates information that supports his political agenda and avoids/minimizes/distorts that which does not. Holy crap.
Too bad all these intellecually dishonest partisan ideologues get so much attention.
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I no longer bother reading Krugman.
Back when I did, I knew I then had to locate a hardcore right-winger to balance out his pieces, then I had to locate the writers I trust a little more, and on and on. So I ended up having to find four or five sources on the same freakin' topic, because I knew ol' Krugman is just another partisan ideologue who inflates information that supports his political agenda and avoids/minimizes/distorts that which does not. Holy crap.
Too bad all these intellecually dishonest partisan ideologues get so much attention.
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I would say if Krugman inspired you to read up to five sources on a topic, he was pretty darned good at inspiring thought, then.
but to the point, he makes a solid point about these folks on Wall Street.
Five years into this, they don't think they did anything wrong.
Partly thats because regulators, responding to accounting scandals at the companies, placed temporary restraints on both Fannie and Freddie that curtailed their lending just as housing prices were really taking off. Also, they didnt do any subprime lending, because they cant: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesnt meet the requirement, imposed by law, that Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income.
The agency neglected to examine whether borrowers could make the payments on the loans that Freddie and Fannie classified as affordable. From 2004 to 2006, the two purchased $434 billion in securities backed by subprime loans, creating a market for more such lending. Subprime loans are targeted toward borrowers with poor credit, and they generally carry higher interest rates than conventional loans.
Today, 3 million to 4 million families are expected to lose their homes to foreclosure because they cannot afford their high-interest subprime loans. Lower-income and minority home buyers -- those who were supposed to benefit from HUD's actions -- are falling into default at a rate at least three times that of other borrowers.
Krugman predicted the collapse of 2008 years before it happened.
Bonuses in the private sector are nobody's business except the stockholders or the corporation. They are often part of the guaranteed salary package. People should be outraged when taxpayer funds are used to offer bonuses to government employees especially a criminal enterprise like the IRS.
Krugman predicted the collapse of 2008 years before it happened.
He did? Link?
I think you're wrong. I don't recall him ever saying that (though maybe my memory is faulty).
He did go on Meet the Press 10 years ago and say the Fed should inflate the housing market, if not create a housing bubble.
OK after browsing through his archives circa 2005, I must retract my earlier criticism of Paul Krugman. For sure, Krugman did identify the housing bubble before many other analysts (including me), and so hes not bluffing when he says nowadays that he called it. Also, people who comment at his site should be a little more nuanced instead of saying things like, None of you Keynesian wizards saw this coming, so why should we listen to you now? Only Peter Schiff and the Austrians predicted the crash.
Will Krugman or JoeB have a problem with Lois Lerner's golden parachute? ....
FTR Joe thinks Wall Street CEOs should be swinging from ropes, so maybe the analogy isn't as far fetched as it might seem.
