Open Thread

Legion- granted the free market system is how we work. The corporate model is out of control and cares not a whit for the country other than how it can serve and protect corporate interests. And it isn’t a level playing field- the “free market” system is no longer a Horatio Alger story- its all about buying influence and pedaling power. When the Koch brothers or George Soros can control politics, when it’s more important to bail out banks but not the unemployed- there are serious problems.

And a further issue- if you don’t believe our system of government should not be more important than states or markets, then you are forgetting just how much we are bound together as a nation. We stand together or we fall separately.That includes corporations who want to be treated as individuals but don’t care about being citizens.

Re TARP, it was absolutely necessary to prevent the collapse of the global financial system. The reasons for this debacle we can discuss till we pass out. (Yes, lots of very convoluted, risky, highly, insanely leveraged systemically dangerous things going on – masters of the universe having NO CLUE about risk). But be honest, the game was rigged for the banks to make money. Borrow money from the FED at nothing, buy US Treasury securities for interest. The banks are now much more restricted in what they can do in terms of trading and so the leveraged, big money trading is moving to hedge funds and other merchant banking entities.

One of my friends went through a convoluted decision tree
on where to go for his last job. He has propeller head skills, not a trader and wondered if he should go to the FED or go to an erstwhile investment bank (there ARE no more investment banks) and try to get a decent bonus.
He went to the bank because he really needs the money. That is another story. No he is not a greedy pig.

He got a dinky little bonus this year, largely payable in bank stock. The game is changing people.

True, but the % of the total asset management industry represented by them is quite small.
BGI (Barclays) is by far the largest by assets, but that was part of the old Barclays before they bought Lehman, and was never part of Barclays Capital. I guess JPM, DWS, MS, and Goldman would be large to medium asset managers, but they are smaller than independents like Fidelity, Capital etc.
The asset management businesses mostly have / had very arms length relationships with the parent bank.

Oh brother – I just read what you guys wrote about me (dibs/cgar) – I mean seriously – strip clubs? eee gads – how gauche!
Lech is not a young man nor are any of us really. Sorry I don’t spend my 30’s being totally “wasted” I kinda went through that phase in my 20’s – had a blast and then moved on…….sorry if I bore you…………….

“We are not a Socialist/Communist society where
the government is largely charged with redistributing wealth.”***

***except tarp