Q: What's wrong with the balance sheet of Wall Street banks?

A: On the left, nothing is right; on the right, nothing is left.

Great post.
http://geekswithblogs.net/cyoung/articles/125848.aspx

I like consistency and unity. However, LINQ to XML is not. Recently, I accidentally crossed “LINQ to XSD” technology. It is what I like. This technology seems to be quiet for some time. However, it may revive in a different incarnation.

Reduce Object/XML Impedance Mismatch with LINQ to XSD

http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/reduce-objectxml-impedance-mismatch.html

http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/more-linq-to-xsd-rumblings.html

 

typical LINQ for XML query that returns the total value of Item elements in in a purchaseOrder document:

(from item in purchaseOrder.Elements("Item") select (double)item.Element("Price") * (int)item.Element("Quantity")).Sum();

 

Ugly, eh? Here's the strongly typed LINQ to XSD version of the preceding query:

(from item in purchaseOrder.Item select item.Price * item.Quantity ).Sum();

Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention

http://www.barackobama.com/2004/07/27/keynote_address_at_the_2004_de.php

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awQkJNVsgKM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UDKXKGZ3PY

 

Lincoln is also one of my favorite leaders. His famous phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” represents the essence of democracy.

Transcript: 'This is your victory,' says Obama

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.transcript/index.html

 

http://xieguozhong.blog.sohu.com/103434007.html

Andy thinks that de-regulation is the culprit. Those measures that were setup after Great Depression were dismantled during the past ten years. He suggested restoring necessary safeguards.

1. Fed policy

Issue: dismantling of the regulations, belief in self-regulate (Alan Greenspan, Phil Graham, 10 most wanted?)

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/17/most.wanted.culprits/

 

Solution: Regulation

 

2. Wall Street greed

Issue: Investment banks depended on fee businesses like taking companies public, advising on merger & acquisition deal, and providing research to institutional investors in exchange for commissions from buying and selling securities in secondary markets. After the tech burst in 2000, these businesses shrank. Their rallying cry afterwards was 'taking risk', i.e., buying risky assets for appreciation. The so-called proprietary trading income gradually rose to dominate their 'earnings'.

 

Solution: Regulation

 

3. Americans deficit-spending style

Issue:  American workers wanted to sustain their living standard through borrowing, as the globalization kept their wage down. To keep going the fiction that American workers would enjoy ever rising living standard, there was political tolerance for deregulations that would make borrowing easier, i.e., with less equity or collaterals. The political expediency made it easy for the Wall Street to push for tearing down the regulatory infrastructure erected during the Great Depression to control moral hazard inherent in the financial system. The Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial banking from investment banking was taken down to pave the way for the merger of the Travelers Group and Citibank. That kicked off the wave of commercial banks pushing into investment banking. Lacking investment banking credibility, their ticket for their entrance into the business was to leverage their balance sheet-a euphemism for extending cheap loans to their clients in exchange for their investment banking business.

 

Solution: Accept the fact that globalization will lower American workers' wages.

 

Conclusion: A global financial regulator is an extreme solution. However, the global community is not ready to embrace a global super regulator. Most countries are not ready to give up so much sovereignty yet. The acceptable changes are probably (1) to agree on some global standards for financial regulation and supervision, (2) to set up a global body, possibly through combining IMF and BIS, to coordinate national regulators and provide early warning signals on excessive risks that financial institutions are taking in cross-border activities.

   

Who promoted deficit-spending style?

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/17/most.wanted.culprits/