Posted May 31, 2011....On Moneytalk, Bob Brinker has repeatedly touted Andrew Ross Sorkin's book "Too Big to Fail"
as the definitive book about the 2008 financial meltdown. Bob Brinker highly recommends the book. Firstly, let's see what Brinker thinks is still too big to fail. For example, he thinks there are several banks that are too big to fail:
February 20, 2011, Brinker said: "I still think there are a few banks that currently are in the too big to fail category.....This is just an opinion, it could be right, it could be wrong. I think that Citigroup, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo. I think those four banks would be in the category....of too big to fail."
Brinker thinks that California's government is totally dysfunctional, but isn't sure if it is too big to fail. However if it is, the Fed would have to bail it out.
November 21, 2011, Caller Tom from Carson City told Brinker he was concerned that the Federal Government might have to bail-out California. Brinker agreed with Tom and said that if the state should become insolvent, there were two possibilities -- either the Fed would offer aid or it would not. It all boils down to this: Is California too big to fail?
Brinker said: "I don't think there is any financial stability at all in the State of California. I think that the state of California is as dysfunctional as you can possibly get.....And when I look at the results of this last election in California, I don't see any reason to change my view that California is fiscally unstable......They cannot continue to do what they have been doing without becoming insolvent."
Brinker sees many reasons why the US Treasury is too big to fail:
May 22, 2011, Brinker said: "I will say this, if the United States defaults on its debt, I can't give you any reason why anybody in the world should lend a penny to the United States Treasury.....If they actually do that, I can't give you any reason why anybody should invest in a US Treasury......Personally, I don't see how they can go into default because they're constantly going into the market and borrowing more money. If they go into default, they will access to additional borrowing. How are they going to fund a trillion dollar a year, plus, deficit, if they can't go into the market and sell debt. How would they do that? How could they possibly face the risk that they would be unable to sell Treasury debt because they were in default.....I don't see that as a realistic outcome."
Brinker used the May 22nd Andrew Ross Sorkin Moneytalk interview as an opportunity to ask: "Is the United States Treasury too big to fail?"
Sorkin replied: "Arguably it is. And the question is who, who, who can rescue us? The only people who can rescue us is the Fed which is the lender of last resort at this point. But will they really have enough firepower? And that is what we don't know. If a really big institution, when I say big, I'm talking a JP Morgan or a Citigroup, whatever, got in trouble, are we in a position to save them and what would really happen?The Andrew Ross Sorkin book "Too Big to Fail"
Part of the legislation that was passed around financial reform was this idea that a resolution authority, the idea that you could finally have the authority to take over one of these institutions. And it will be our last line of defense. The question is, will it really work, and there's no way to practice. We won't know until we do it, and I think that has a lot of people very anxious."
debuted as a movie on HBO on Monday, May 23rd. I have watched the movie, and along with Brinker, highly recommend it. The actors were well-chosen look-alikes to play the roles of Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and all the others. Here's a great video that's gives you a taste of the movie and the actors -- and the book author is in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVV6dzDOgQ0
Dixiegeezer sent this great picture. (April Fool's Day?) LOL!
6 comments:
Tom Lydon writes that actively managed ETFs have a few obstacles to overcome before they really catch on:
"Investor interest in actively managed exchange traded funds (ETFs) is on the rise as evidenced by assets under management and the number of providers getting in on the game. Although actively managed ETFs are representative of only about 5% of total assets in U.S. listed ETFs, this means that the room for growth is impressive.
According to MarketScope Advisor, there are a total of 33 actively managed ETFs trading, with about $4.4 billion in total assets under management.
(Snip)
As of May 2011, equity-focused actively managed ETFs have yet to gain much traction in the markets......"
Why Actively Managed ETFs Haven't Taken Off Yet
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Wow, hard to believe but yesterday marked the third year "Of the summer of recovery". - LOL!!!!
I guess the DOW marked the anniversary by declining 279 or so points. Wow Barack is awesome. A recovery like this can only be attributed to a pie-in-sky worthless Ivy league jerk-off who has never actually held a real job a day in his life.
tfb
I watched the movie Too Big To Fail. I thought it was very good. The movie went into great detail on all of the actions that were taken by the Fed, treasury and many private corporations to save troubled financial institutions. Brinker has been critical of Bernanke and Paulson for not saving Lehman Brothers. I encourage people to see this move so that they can conclude who was responsible for this bankruptcy. It would be nice if Brinker had Andrew Ross Sorkin as his third hour guest this Sunday to discuss the movie.
Jeffchristie,
I agree with you that it was a very good movie. And there is a lot to be learned from it.
It's a bit difficult to follow who the various characters are the first time you see it. I may watch it more than once.
But in the meantime, I am also enjoying the book very much. I downloaded the Kindle version on my smartphone.
I had a lot of respect for Hank Paulson after watching the movie. But not sure what to think about Tim Geithner. What is your opinion of him?
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Honey
I thought Paulson and Bernanke were portrayed as highly competent professionals in the movie. Because of the problems with his taxes, I had serious doubts about Geithner's competence. None of those doubts were confirmed by this movie. He came off as a hard worker who came up with some important solutions. Chris Cox who was the chairman of the SEC looked like a real dunce. I had always thought he was ineffective and the movie confirmed my opinion.
About what happened to silver, by Corey Rosenbloom:
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Lessons from Silver’s Rise and Fall
Silver’s euphoric rise and violent fall took many by surprise, prompting this look at technical indicators that can be used to identify when a market really is becoming unstable and is likely to crash.
Many investors were initially taken sharply by surprise by the stellar run-up in silver prices, and then perhaps even more so by the dramatic collapse in prices after the period of euphoria and instability.
But how do you define “instability” and “euphoria” objectively?
Read more and see graphs at Moneyshow
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