Putin in Charge
Russia recently held an election. I don’t know if it was any more honest than the elections that are held in the US. I’ve heard that if Jimmy Carter watched our elections, they would not meet international standards. Whether honest, or not doesn’t much matter. Putin, who seems to want to be president for life, is back in the saddle again.
One of his first acts was to decide to send his puppet and predecessor to the G8 summit, which was moved from Chicago to Camp David in order to make Putin feel more comfortable. The Obama administration claims the substitution is not a snub. The Putin administration claims that he is just too busy setting up his government after his election.
What I found interesting in the Homework link to this story is: “Since Monday, activists have been staging flash mobs across Moscow: suddenly assembling in public places, camping and staying there for the night.” That can’t be comforting for Putin. Western technology is helping ordinary citizens protest his government.
Homework:
Putin Cancels Meeting
JPMorgan Chase Blew $2-billion
For some reason I haven’t written much lately about the financial industry. Having spent a lifetime working in the industry, I just got so sick of it that I’ve been ignoring it. It is hard to ignore when the bank that holds my mortgage suddenly loses $2-billion, after spending buckets full of money lobbying for less regulation. At least in this case, it is the shareholders, not the depositors or the taxpayers who are left holding the empty bag.
One of the positions I’ve long held is that the U.S. should use anti-trust laws to break up the industry. There should be no such thing as “too big to fail.” For a party that claims to love competition, it is amusing to watch the GOP turn themselves into pretzels defending the “job creators” who keep hemorrhaging money because there is nobody insuring that they engage in safe and sound business practices. The telephone industry didn’t disappear when AT&T was broken up, neither will the finance industry. We need to stop pandering to the greedy SOBs and start breaking up the industry into components that can be easily managed and regulated. The unintended consequence of smaller financial institutions will be MORE competition.
Homework
New York Times Story About Risky Trading
Russia recently held an election. I don’t know if it was any more honest than the elections that are held in the US. I’ve heard that if Jimmy Carter watched our elections, they would not meet international standards. Whether honest, or not doesn’t much matter. Putin, who seems to want to be president for life, is back in the saddle again.
One of his first acts was to decide to send his puppet and predecessor to the G8 summit, which was moved from Chicago to Camp David in order to make Putin feel more comfortable. The Obama administration claims the substitution is not a snub. The Putin administration claims that he is just too busy setting up his government after his election.
What I found interesting in the Homework link to this story is: “Since Monday, activists have been staging flash mobs across Moscow: suddenly assembling in public places, camping and staying there for the night.” That can’t be comforting for Putin. Western technology is helping ordinary citizens protest his government.
Homework:
Putin Cancels Meeting
JPMorgan Chase Blew $2-billion
For some reason I haven’t written much lately about the financial industry. Having spent a lifetime working in the industry, I just got so sick of it that I’ve been ignoring it. It is hard to ignore when the bank that holds my mortgage suddenly loses $2-billion, after spending buckets full of money lobbying for less regulation. At least in this case, it is the shareholders, not the depositors or the taxpayers who are left holding the empty bag.
One of the positions I’ve long held is that the U.S. should use anti-trust laws to break up the industry. There should be no such thing as “too big to fail.” For a party that claims to love competition, it is amusing to watch the GOP turn themselves into pretzels defending the “job creators” who keep hemorrhaging money because there is nobody insuring that they engage in safe and sound business practices. The telephone industry didn’t disappear when AT&T was broken up, neither will the finance industry. We need to stop pandering to the greedy SOBs and start breaking up the industry into components that can be easily managed and regulated. The unintended consequence of smaller financial institutions will be MORE competition.
Homework
New York Times Story About Risky Trading
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