dan collier

“We should not be rolled by a Wall Street exec who is masquerading as the Secretary of the Treasury.”

Congressman Peter DeFazio, on the floor of the House of Representatives.

The Swedish bank crisis of the early 90s has been getting a lot of attention lately. Here is a good New York Times article from the other day and an older Time blog post about the Swedish bailout.

politics posted by: dan  @  24 Sep 2008 14:36 | Comments (0)

The Wall Street Journal has a blurb that I think is the most interesting, and foreboding, story I’ve read in days.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) suggested Wednesday he was concerned that the Fed and Treasury were intervening in markets without restraint.

While noting that he considers Mr. Bernanke a “responsible and thoughtful person,” Mr. Frank related a conversation held Tuesday in which he says Mr. Bernanke said “I have $800 billion” when Mr. Frank asked him if he had $85 billion available to help AIG. (The figure refers to the size of the Fed’s balance sheet, its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities, plus its growing holdings of loans the Fed has made to financial firms and securities it has taken from Wall Street in exchange for more-desirable Treasury securities.)

A Fed spokesman had no comment on Mr. Frank’s account of the conversation.

“No one in a democracy, unelected, should have $800 billion to spend as he sees fit,” said Mr. Frank. “That’s not the way to run a democracy.”

politics posted by: dan  @  20 Sep 2008 18:31 | Comments (0)

I’ve often heard it said that the richest 1% of the world controls NN% of the global capital, with figures ranging from 50% to 90%. A new study by United Nations University study provides real numbers for that claim:

You’re in the top 10% if you have $61,000 in capital. I’m still reading the full study but so far my main criticism is that by defining “wealth” as assets minus debts the study underestimates effects of established wealth. While I’m probably in the top 10% of the population based on assets, I have access to borrowed capital that allows my household to live closer to the top 1%. But my assets minus debts results in a net negative wealth and I’d be counted in the bottom 50% of the global population. Likewise debt for an Ivy League student is far different than debt for an immigrant laborer. In a sense, some types of debt and access to debt is deferred capital to which the majority of the global population does not have access.

The Press Release and Study Abstract
The Full Study: The World Distribution of Household Wealth

development & links posted by: dan  @  06 Dec 2006 14:14 | Comments (0)