“Over the past few years, initiatives to solve the too-big-to-fail problem have come thick and fast. At root, each has aimed to strengthen the structure of the world’s biggest banks. That is the good news. Claims that they have solved the too-big-to-fail problem appear to me, however, premature, probably over-optimistic. Worse, they risk sending a false sense of crisis comfort. That is the bad news. To see why such a cautious conclusion is warranted, we begin by tracking the structural evolution of the financial system over the past few decades. We then consider the three most prominent policy initiatives aimed at tackling too-big-to-fail – systemic surcharges, resolution regimes and structural reform. In the final section we consider what supplementary policy options might be necessary to ensure banking is right-sized.”
Monthly Archives: October 2012
What can evolutionary biology tell us about financial regulation? Andrew Haldane on TBTF banking…
Filed under Economics & Finance
Debating the future of global capitalism: Robert Wade, Michael Cox and Martin Jacques
Filed under Economics & Finance, The Crisis
Neva and Walt on Romney and the “unsinkable resiliency of the neoconservative movement”
Why is Romney surrounding himself with the same group of people who played key roles in the Afghanistan/ Iraq / “War on Terror” policy train wrecks…?
Steve Niva at MERIP:
“In Egypt, popular sentiment runs high against those dubbed fuloul (leftovers or dregs), the epithet for politicians and former officials associated with the immense corruption and despotism of the Mubarak regime. Anti-fuloul sentiment ultimately doomed Mubarak’s final prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, to defeat in the presidential runoff against the Muslim Brothers’ candidate Muhammad Mursi. And public anger has fueled initiatives like Imsak Fuloul (Catch the Remnants), which, among other things, calls for the implementation of a law that would exclude former regime members from politics for ten years.
Contrast this ardor for accountability with the United States, where a “forgive and forget” attitude regarding fuloul seems to prevail, if the lack of indignation at the composition of the emerging Romney-Ryan foreign policy team is anything to go by.
The Romney-Ryan team is a virtual who’s who of the very same neoconservative ideologues who were responsible for many of the worst excesses of the Bush-Cheney administration, including two ruinous wars and occupations that destabilized the Middle East and helped bankrupt the United States; a counterproductive “war on terror” that embraced shameful policies of torture and undermined international law; and fervent support for Israel’s colonization of Palestinian lands and destructive wars in Lebanon and Gaza. Of Romney’s 24 special advisers on foreign policy, 17 served under Bush and Cheney. Many were original associates of the neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC), wellspring of many Bush-Cheney policies, prompting Colin Powell to complain that Romney’s foreign policy team members “are quite far to the right.”
Steve Walt adds some colour…
“…the unsinkable resiliency of the neoconservative movement remains impressive. Indeed, there is a certain genius to neoconservatism, which one must grant a certain grudging respect. Unlike their liberal interventionist counterparts, who are always looking for consensus and eager to compromise, the neocons are both remarkably uncompromising and notoriously unrepentant. They don’t look back, if only because staring at their record of consistent failure would be depressing. So they always look forward, confident that their fellow citizens won’t remember the past and can be bamboozled into heeding their advice once again.
The success of neoconservatism can be traced to three key strategems. The first and most obvious element is their relentless championing of America as the model for the entire world, from which our duty to export democracy supposedly follows. Never mind that neocons aren’t very consistent in applying that principle (e.g., you don’t hear many of them talking about using American power to advance the democratic rights of Palestinians), and they routinely forget that their favorite tool — military force — is usually a very bad way to spread democracy. But their brand of jingoistic rhetoric resonates with America’s deep political traditions and helps them portray their critics as insufficiently devoted to America’s liberal/Wilsonian ideals.”
Filed under Middle East
How do our brains create a sense of self? Antonio Damasio provides a glimpse…
Filed under Neuroscience, Psychology
Lawrence Wilkerson on evolving US-Iran relations – reminiscent of the march to war with Iraq…
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Filed under Middle East
Richard Davidson & Matthieu Ricard on neuroplasticity, compassion and cultivating positive human qualities
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Filed under Neuroscience, Psychology
Sunday Reads…
a tale of landmines and landscapes…
http://www.guernicamag.com/art/mining-fear-in-idyllic-landscapes/
find someone who has looked at more sh*% than this guy and i’ll [fill in the blank]
http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/
Political Economy
A perspective on the financial crisis – Rajiv Sethi reviews Sheila Bair’s Bull by the Horns… “The crisis offers us an opportunity to think about the flaws in our economic and political system and how some of these might be fixed. It also suggests interesting directions in which economic theorizing could be advanced. The book helps with both efforts, and it would be a pity if these substantive contributions were drowned out in a debate over conversations and personalities.”
http://rajivsethi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/of-bulls-and-bair.html
Time to update the textbook? “In part because of the advent of all this unconventional monetary policy, foreign-exchange markets have been changing the way they think and operate. In economic textbooks currency movements counter the differences in nominal interest rates between countries so that investors get the same returns on similarly safe assets whatever the currency. But experience over the past 30 years has shown that this is not reliably the case.”
http://www.economist.com/node/21564210
Pace George Osborne, Mariana Mazzucato makes a well argued case for an active, “public” role in promoting innovation & long-term economic growth… Equally important in highlighting the limitations of more simplistic arguments for stimulus…
Middle East
A primer on the international dimensions of the Syrian uprising/civil war…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/16/syria-battle-regional-control
Fuelling the fire in Bahrain… “The punishment of peaceful activists is making [the] opposition more radical. Some activists share jokes about the police, tweeting photos of broken-down doors and battered bodies with hashtags such as #bahrainstylereforms. Others swap recipes for Molotov cocktails, as protests evolve from peaceful calls for human rights and a proper parliament to angrier demands for the police to be bashed back, the closure of the American naval base and the end of the monarchy.”
http://www.economist.com/node/21564604?frsc=dg%7Ca
Palestine, apartheid and the Jewish National Fund (JNF)… “It is not a public body that works for the benefit of all its citizens of the state. The loyalty of the JNF is given to the Jewish people and only to them is the JNF obligated. The JNF, as the owner of JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality to all citizens of the state.” (quoted from statement by the…. wait for it… JNF)
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012108871435279.html
A response to CNN’s magnificent “was the Arab Spring really worth it” header….
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/7365/was-the-arab-spring-really-worth-it_the-fascinatin
Filed under Sunday Reads...
Aftermath of a Crisis
“Shortly after the beginning of the financial crisis of 2008 sociologist Manuel Castells gathered a small group of international topintellectuals to ponder the crisis. While the crisis expanded, Castells named his group ‘The Aftermath Network’, a reference to the new world which according to him will emerge from the ashes of the crisis.”
Filed under The Crisis
observingrealities 