Preventing The Next Meltdown
August 5, 2009Resolving a crisis is good. Preventing one is better. As financial markets start to get back on track, it is time to begin thinking about what we can do to forestall similar crises in the future. We may not need more regulation of the global financial system, but we certainly need smarter regulation. The government must be able to determine where excessive financial risks are accumulating and limit them before …
Activist-In-Chief
July 23, 2009President Obama is hitting the airwaves daily in pursuit of a health care reform that he refuses to define but which he insists we must have. He is behaving like the community activist he used to be, while the situation requires him to be a leader. There is a big difference. Last night it was a prime-time news conference. Today it will be a tour of the Cleveland Clinic (closed …
Lou Doesn’t Stand With Speculators, Either
July 21, 2009Louis B. Gerstner Jr., who was one of the best business managers of his era, has tracked down the people responsible for running so many companies into the ground. There’s just one problem: Gerstner’s scapegoats don’t actually run anything. In a recent interview, Gerstner pointed the finger at speculators and other short-term investors. This presumably includes on occasion The Carlyle Group, a leading private equity firm of which Gerstner was …
Not Much Stimulation
July 7, 2009The Obama administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package was supposed to keep the U.S. unemployment rate from soaring toward 10 percent this year. It failed. Its predecessor, the $168 billion stimulus bill passed last year under President George W. Bush, was meant to keep the country out of recession in the first place. Not only did that package likewise fail, it was dead on arrival. Once all the data were …
Back To Basics In Banking
June 29, 2009President Obama’s overhaul of the financial regulatory system promises to add a new flavor to consumer financial products: “plain vanilla.” A requirement that banks and other lenders offer a basic mortgage plan with simple and straightforward terms is part of the administration’s sweeping plan to reform government oversight of financial services in the wake of last year’s credit crisis. One of the plan’s cornerstones is the creation of a new …
Hard Times For Hezbollah
June 25, 2009Hezbollah has had a rotten month. It started with the generally positive reception generated by U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo. Obama quoted the Koran and promised an evenhanded U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, into which Lebanon-based Hezbollah has injected itself. A few days after Obama’s speech, Hezbollah was drubbed in the Lebanese parliamentary elections, which it had been expected to win. This left a generally pro-Western coalition …
Why Public And Private Health Insurance Cannot Coexist
June 24, 2009President Obama does not buy the argument that a government-run health insurance program would drive private insurers out of the business. He ought to think about Medicare. Since Medicare was enacted in 1965 to insure elderly Americans, comprehensive private insurance for that segment of the population has disappeared. There are plans that cover items that Medicare does not, and there are private insurers that are paid by the government to …
Gays Get Choosier About Their Friends
June 19, 2009Bill Clinton reached out to America’s homosexual community. Then, as president, he refused to let gays in uniform come out of the closet, and he signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA) that denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages and supports states that ignore such marriages, too. Barack Obama has reached out to gays as well. But in five months as president he has not lifted a finger to rescind …
Hurling Day And Health Care Reform
June 15, 200961,000,003 B.C. Thursday Tribe Elder: Today I, your eldest elder, am…(pause) Tribe Member: (whispering) You’re 72. Tribe Elder: …72 years old. I have lived long, and witnessed many wonders. But now, I am old, I am slow, and I get up 16 times in the middle of the night. I can no longer keep up with the herd. I straggle behind, attracting predators, endangering my brethren, and making us late …
Barack Obama: The Lee Iacocca of His Generation
June 3, 2009Remember when all a president had to do was lead the entire free world? The job has gotten tougher. Meet Barack Obama, the Lee Iacocca of his generation. Iacocca led Chrysler back from the abyss three decades ago. President Obama is about to become the principal shareholder of both Chrysler and General Motors, courtesy of the bankruptcy courts and about $100 billion of federal financial muscle. Two icons of corporate …
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