Fitchian reflections on today’s news
This is my introduction for Ruthie Gilmore, who gave the third Robert Fitch memorial lecture at LaGuardia Community College in Queens on May 6, 2014. Many thanks to Karen Miller and her colleagues at LaGuardia for organizing the series. It’s always refreshing to visit LaGuardia College, where the buildings are named after letters. I went to a college where the buildings are named after slavers, financiers, and reactionary politicians. I’m very glad to be introducing the Third Robert Fitch Memorial Lecture. When I gave the first two years ago, I was worried… Read More
Leveraged speculators will save us!
And not just any band of leveraged speculators: handpicked members of the private equity elite operating with cheap government credit, and insured against losses! Others have criticized the Geithner bank rescue plan’s economic aspects in detail; no need to repeat all that here. I’ll just say that it strikes me as a very bad idea to set the thing up so that the government takes the lion’s share of any losses and the private investors, the lion’s share of any gains (if any). And it strikes me as fantastic that the dominant… Read More
Rant on the TARP overhaul
Tomorrow will bring the unveiling of the Obama administration’s overhaul of the Henry “Hank” Paulson bank bailout, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). [Apply for funds here.] From the leaks emerging, it looks like a significant portion of the scheme will amount to this: the government will lend money to hedge funds and the like at subsidized rates to buy toxic assets from banks – and the gov will guarantee the investors against losses. Evidently, the administration thinks the toxic assets are being underpriced by the markets. If they’re right, the buyers will make… Read More
LBO News from Doug Henwood 
Posted on April 5, 2010 by Doug Henwood
Radio commentary, April 1, 2010
March employment First, a few words on the U.S. employment report for March, released on Friday morning. While the headline job gain of 162,000 looked pretty decent, especially after the huge declines of 2008 and early 2009, 30% of the gain came from temporary workers hired to conduct the Census, and another 25% came from temp firms in the private sector. So more than half the gain was in jobs designed not to last. There were a few bright spots. Manufacturing added 17,000 workers, its third consecutive monthly gain—a sterling performance for… Read More